My micro.blog is experiencing technical difficulties, with more than a day’s worth backed up. (I can see them in one manner only, useless to others.) And today, I vowed yet again to forsake Facebook:
Okay, Facebook, what the heck is up?
For a few months, I’ve been puzzled by images that flash on the screen as I scroll down and then disappear. I’ve now concluded that it’s probably some attempt at subliminal advertising. Blechhhhhh!
Now, I get a new suggested friend, an attractive 50-something blond I’ve never heard of, who is NOT suggested because we have mutual friends, and whose profile is virtually blank except for a larger version of the head shot that confirms that, yes, she is indeed an attractive 50-something blond.
This is getting genuinely creepy. I suspect I shall become even scarcer around here. I’ve already posted about where you can find me on the Indie Web.
So I’m going to resort to my old aggregation, except I’ll be aggregating mostly me.
Urban Meyer at Ohio State “may have known of domestic-violence allegations against an assistant coach but continued to employ him on the Buckeyes’ staff,” so he’s in deep trouble. What’s this got to do with sports? Why, Title IX, of course. #Over-regulated.
Joseph M. Bessette notes that Pope Francis branded the death penalty “inadmissible”: “Unless the death penalty is intrinsically evil—and the pope has made no such claim—then its advisability is a matter for citizens and legitimate public authority.” Argues that it deters, too.
I’m not a big John Prine fan, but his “don’t forget to pack this” list is endearing.
The Nation Magazine Betrays a Poet — and Itself
I was the magazine’s poetry editor for 35 years. Never once did we apologize for publishing a poem.
By Grace Schulman
My party assigned at birth is Republican, but I now consider myself party-fluid.
A national organization I’ve reflexively supported for years, I notice, has scheduled seven fundraisers. Three keynoters unknown to me, three dubious celebrities, and one Dinesh D’Souza, who has sunk to trolling. Time to reconsider support.
One of my friends likes to joke that the only improvement to the 1983 Code of Canon Law is that it is no longer an excommunicable offense for a layman to deck a cleric. Perhaps this improvement was providentially ordained by God as an additional tool in the box for responding to crises such as these.
Michael P. Foley (H/T @ayjay)
[I expanded this one beyond 280 characters — a soft micro.blog limit beyond which things display differently.]
Toppling Qaddafi without building a new order may go down as the single dumbest action the NATO alliance ever took.
Thomas Friedman. “Dumb” as in “Hey! Watch this!” suicidal.
[If you haven’t been paying attention to the stresses in Europe — and I confess more than slight sympathy for Hungary and other nations who, in sloppy journalese, are becoming “nationalistic” in response — Friedman’s column is not a bad primer.]
We’ve ended up with a large number of “supposed evangelicals” who … think that because they watch Fox News, respect religion, and vote Republican, they must be evangelicals.
Kristin Du Mez, Evangelicalism is an Imagined Religious Community. “Conservatism” is likewise confused.
* * * * *
Ayjay’s Second Law: The least valuable Christian writers to read are those for whom the log is always in someone else’s eye.
Follow me on Micro.blog, too, where I blog tweet-like shorter items and … well, it’s evolving. Or, if you prefer, those micro.blog items also appear now at microblog.intellectualoid.com.
Tipsy Teetotaler ن 