- The Great Divide.
- The Perfect Job.
- St. Francis and the OWS folks.
- Jack Chick’s new gig.
- Right Populist Mummery.
- Seven Days in Utopia.
- Good news?
- Blogging forecast.
Steve Jobs, RIP
Joseph Bottum quotes Shikha Dalmia:
The great political divide right now is not between eggheads and blockheads, as Maureen Dowd puts it, or intellectualism and stupidity, as other self-serving liberal pundits sneer. It is between two types of activism: an irresponsible, pseudo-intellectual one and a retrograde, folksy one.
Bottum continues, though, to tell the rest of the story.
Someone needs to invent a job that involves reading sci-fi, eating biscuits, listening to prog rock and pretending I’m the only person in the world with feelings.
Because I’m really good at that.
(Silouan Thompson quoting Please Don’t Squeeze the Shaman)
Is there no comparison too fatuous for the Religious Left?
One of the quotes attributed to [St.] Francis [of Assisi] is a simple and poignant critique of our world, just as it was to his: “The more stuff we have the more clubs we need to protect it.” It does make you wonder if he’d be on Wall Street protesting today.
Okay, now I’ve vented. If you want something more methodical, take a look here.
Is Jack Chick writing sensitivity training for the EEOC now?
HT Catholicvote.org, to whom I apologize for my government’s stupidity, and Rod Dreher, who thinks CatholicVote.org overreacted – a little.
The first step in getting better populists is to distinguish between the politicians whose “populism” consists of folksy mummery and those interested in breaking up concentrations of wealth and power.
Daniel Larison, quoted by Rod Dreher. Larison’s buildup to that quote:
In what sense is Perry a populist? If there is one phrase that characterizes his tenure as governor, it is probably crony capitalism. Perry’s cozy relationships with corporations and donors are things that populists loathe. If Republican leaders have been “too forgiving of crony capitalism and Wall Street-Washington coziness,” what would be accomplished by a Perry victory except to reinforce all of the party’s worst habits? If right-wing populists see collusion between corporations and government as a major problem, Perry and those like him see it as something desirable and useful. Perry’s purpose in the race has always been to divert anti-establishment discontent in a manageable, acceptable direction where it will do nothing to force the party to make any significant changes …
Dreher:
It is simply a fact that on the Right today, there is no constituency for breaking up concentrations of wealth and power, except government wealth and government power.
And that, friends, is part of the reason I’ve repudiated the GOP and am very ambivalent about the term “conservative,” which has been hijacked by the “retrograde, folksy” likes of Perrry.
Rod Dreher just hit sore spot after sore spot yesterday. Consult my Tweets, upper right.
Woohoo! Another Robert Duvall flick! Wildly implausible plot, it appears, but Duvall may just make it work.
Things are not looking good for the gubb’mint in the Hosanna-Tabor case. I regret that I didn’t know what the law blogs were talking about until coverage this evening of today’s oral arguments in the Supreme Court. The case is a big deal for religious freedom, and the government appeared to be getting the worst, and most incredulous questions, from more than just conservative Justices.
Get Religion isn’t necessarily the best place for legal wonkery. For that, check here and here and here.
Blogging’s likely to be light tomorrow due to travel.
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Bon appetit!
(To save time on preparing this blog, which some days consumes way too much time, I’ve asked some guy named @RogerWmBennett to Tweet a lot of links about which I have little or nothing to add. Check the “Latest Tweets” in the upper right pane or follow him on Twitter.)
Tipsy Teetotaler ن 