"Your left, your left, your left, right, left..."

Mark Shea has some thoughts on the use of the term "conservative" in matters of faith. As I have wondered on occasion myself, such usage begs the question as to what it is, exactly, that is being "conserved":

"[Orthodoxy] is not 'having a particular temperament,' or 'disliking change' or 'being thought fondly of by the Pope' or 'voting for Reagan' or 'distrusting big government' or any of the other shibboleths."

Meanwhile, Christopher Hitchens has some advice for his "friends on the right." (After that crap he wrote about Mother Teresa, and said out loud as a commentator on ABC News during her funeral, I cannot be counted as one of them.)