Let’s start with water. I personally am mostly made up of water, so it’s an important topic for me. One problem here in 2010 is that most of our drinking water in America comes to us through really, really old pipes and mains. America’s towns, cities, counties, states and federal government have been thinking about and worrying about fixing these for decades. But we haven’t done it yet. It’s the old accounting trick of deferred maintenance. Are the water mains... Read more
Tom Corbett, the Republican candidate for governor in Pennsylvania, explains his understanding of unemployment: During a campaign appearance in Elizabethtown, Lancaster County, Corbett told a reporter from Pennsylvania Public Radio that "the jobs are there," but he'd been told by business owners that, "one of the issues, and I hear it repeatedly – one of the individuals said, 'I can't get workers. People don't want to come back to work while they still have unemployment.''' Corbett told the radio outlet... Read more
Tribulation Force, pp. 251-257 Buck is of course on the telephone, talking to Marge Potter. Nominally, Marge Potter is Stanton Bailey's secretary, but her duties apparently also include tracking down leads and setting up interviews for Buck Williams. From what we read here, it seems like Marge deserves either a joint byline or at least a "contributed to" credit for everything Buck has ever written. She tells Buck she's got his interviews lined up with "your one-world religion guys" and... Read more
A segment on NPR yesterday had me going back to Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter From Birmingham Jail." What an astonishing and rich document that is. The epistle of Martin to the churches that are in Alabama is inspired and useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness. Which may explain why King's words these days are treated with the kind of disingenuous but-of-course lip service usually reserved for the Bible or the Constitution. Martin Luther... Read more
Cut it loose or let it drag you down … "Danger in the Halls," Bitter Bitter Weeks"Daniel," Elton John"Danny Says," The Ramones"Danny Says," Tom Waits"The Daring Eye," The Channel"Dark Blue," Jack's Mannequin"Dark Come Soon," Tegan & Sara"A Dark Love Song," Jeffrey Gaines"Dark Stranger," Kristy Kruger"Darkness on the Delta," Cassandra Wilson"Darkness on the Edge of Town," Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band As Jon Stewart said, it doesn't matter if you're the world's biggest loser. When you listen to Springsteen,... Read more
One of the more popular voluntary delusions of the IndigNation has to do with the "kitchen table" analogies comparing "your" household budget with the federal or state budget. These analogies are misleading and distorting in the semi-deliberate way of so much of what the IndigNation does — preferring self-congratulatory self-righteousness to accuracy or effectiveness or justice or efficiency or, well, pretty much anything. "Harrumph, harrumph," says the Indignant Politician. "You're better than them. When your household budget is out of... Read more
It's way too hot out for sustained thoughts, so here are a handful of unsustained ones … Russell Moore is dean of the School of Theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. For now, he is, anyway. Southern's president, Al Mohler, has a history of purging professors who stray from his conservative party line — particularly when their supposed trespasses are theologically sound and therefore immune to suppression under the pretense of defending doctrine. I doubt Mohler would... Read more
Tribulation Force, pp. 248-251 Even with mind-control and other supernatural powers, setting up a one-world government would seem to be an enormous logistical challenge. It would require, among many other things, a massive bureaucracy in every nation, province, city and town. Granted, in some countries where an authoritarian regime has already been in place, the pre-existing bureaucracy might serve this role with only relatively minor adjustments. In places like Burma or some provinces of China, it might be possible to... Read more
James Wolcott reads Ruy Teixeira on the demographics of American evangelicalism, noting this point in particular as it applies to the future electoral prospects of Sarah Palin: White evangelical Protestants overall are roughly stable as a proportion of the population. Set aside electoral politics. I'm more interested in what this fact says about white evangelical Protestants. Teixeira's statement is backed up by decades of research from Gallup, Barna, Christian Smith, Green/Guth/Kellstedt, etc. White evangelical Protestants have been stable as a... Read more
Student loan giant Sallie Mae has announced it's moving its headquarters to Delaware. This is very good news for all those Delawareans who, ever since they were kids, dreamed of one day working in collections. Sometimes dreams do come true. I can't begrudge anyone any job these days, so I suppose an expected 1,500 jobs over the next five years is good news for the area — even if those jobs don't appear sustainable or fulfilling or otherwise socially beneficial.... Read more
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