Spent my last ten dollars on blogwatching and beer;

My life was so much simpler when I was sober and queer…



[Trying out cool blockquotes, pointed out by Krubner. Please work, O Blockquotes!]

Camassia: Assuming authority–and abdicating it.

A lot of churches seem to make it their main job to assert their own harmlessness, advertising a “safe, accepting environment” and that sort of thing. As Dave points out, this can be taken to weird extremes, to the point where the church seems to stand for nothing else.

Yet underlying this is an odd, almost arrogant assumption of power.

more

Church of the Masses: Draw the line dividing art from sin…. (Intriguing post with fascinating comments. If I can think of anything useful to add, I will.)



“An Opening for Arab Democrats“:

More intriguingly, independent human rights groups and pro-democracy movements around the region are continuing to sprout, gather and issue manifestos — all in the name of supporting the intergovernmental discussions. An independent human rights group appeared in Syria this month; Saudi women organized a movement to demand the right to vote in upcoming municipal elections. On the same day that the Egyptian foreign minister belittled what is now called the Broader Middle East and North Africa Initiative (BMENA) in an interview with The Post, an unprecedented alliance of opposition

parties and citizens’ groups issued a platform in Cairo calling for the lifting of emergency laws, freedom of the press and direct, multi-candidate elections for president.

While there have been some arrests, most of the nascent democrats are surviving. Despite all the defiant rhetoric, Egyptian and Saudi police, it turns out, are hesitant to pummel people who say they are responding to the president of the United States.

Very good roundup. Via Hit & Run.

“Truth Stranger than ‘Strangelove’“: Also via Hit & Run.

What few people knew, at the time and since, was just how accurate this film was. Its premise, plotline, some of the dialogue, even its wildest characters eerily resembled the policies, debates and military leaders of the day. The audience had almost no way of detecting these similiarities: Nearly everything about the bomb was shrouded in secrecy back then.