Category: Culture

Tasty Tidbits 9/29/11

  1. We’re homeless. What a relief!
  2. What, Mead worry?
  3. The only good (newsworthy) Christian is a bad Christian.
  4. J.K. Rowlings breadth and depth.
  5. WKB, RIP

1

Writing one of the best personal “localist” essays I’ve ever read, Rod Dreher recounts how he was at his sister Ruthie’s long wake back home in Louisiana when he and his wife got an epiphany: Continue reading “Tasty Tidbits 9/29/11” →

Tasty Tidbits 9/28/11

  1. Ayn Rand on the multiplication of criminal laws.
  2. What is a “progressive”?
  3. Where are the progressives (whatever they are)?
  4. Another impending execution. Yawn!
  5. 2 kinds of “peak oil.”
  6. Andrew Sullivan’s lazy slander.
  7. School as “a place apart.”
  8. Some God the gift to gie us …
  9. Why write?

Continue reading “Tasty Tidbits 9/28/11” →

Adam & ho anthropos

NPR’s Talk of the Nation Thursday had a 30-minute segment on “Christians Divided Over Science of Human Origins. Apart from a few callers and e-mailers, the discussion was basically between Daniel Harlow of Calvin College and Albert Mohler, President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

I will not even try to sort out their debate overall, but Mohler said something I believe to be demonstrably false. Continue reading “Adam & ho anthropos” →

Just politics

My tidbits for the day were getting too numerous, so I took political stuff over here. It was a very political day, it seems.

  1. Gloves off!
  2. Iron fist.
  3. The Fleshpots of Reagan.
  4. Paean to Palin
  5. Ron Paul is winning.
  6. Perry’s Crony Capitalism.

1

Whoa! Susan B. Anthony List takes the gloves off! It’s going to be a long 13-1/2 months.

This style ad is not my cup of tea, but although hyperbolic, it’s essentially true.

2

I commented yesterday on President Obama losing the Catholic vote and the Jewish vote (though he was working like crazy at the U.N. today to regain the latter).

Catholic Archbishop Dolan, speaking on behalf of the Bishops’ Conference, today asked the administration to “’push the reset button’ on their multipronged efforts to undermine marriage and treat Catholics who believe in marriage as bigots.”

“…it is particularly upsetting, Mr. President, when your Administration, through the various court documents, pronouncements and policies identified in the attached analysis, attributes to those who support DOMA a motivation rooted in prejudice and bias.  It is especially wrong and unfair to equate opposition to redefining marriage with either intentional or willfully ignorant racial discrimination, as your Administration insists on doing.”

Just so.  No hyperbole, but there’s an iron fist in that velvet glove. No wonder Obama’s in trouble with conservative religious folks. “They only call it culture wars when we fight back.”

The Archbishop’s full letter is here.

3

But opposition to the current administration’s positions on social issues does not mean I’m “Pining for the Fleshpots of Reagan,” as Jason Peters reminds us of a few derelictions of the Grand Old Partiers.

4

I should have commented on it at the time, but I didn’t quite believe my eyes: the New York Times publishing some friendly words toward Sarah Palin, because she (briefly? Time will tell) broke with GOP talking points and committed Truth. (HT Patrick Deneen)

5

Dana Milbank at the Washington Post explains how Ron Paul is winning exactly what he intended to win: control of the terms of debate. Disregard the snarky adjectives and it’s worth a read.

6

Mark Thiesen and Jennifer Rubin spar at the Washington Post about whether Texans for Public Justice cronyism charges against Rick Perry are meritorious. Thiesen says no, essentially because they’ve been making the same charge against every Texas Republican who rises to national prominence.

I’m with Rubin, who thinks Perry needs to address the issue. It seems to me that as widepread as crony capitalism is (even Sarah Palin has noticed), Texans for Public Justice might be repeating the charge because it’s repeatedly true.

I’m fond of Texas, having lived there on assignment many years ago, but it’s a whole ‘Nuther Country. Not “deep South” but barely (or is it “quintessentially”?) American.

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Bon appetit!