Well, my daughter scored 720 on the math portion of the SAT. Not too shabby for a first try, and no practice. I wasn’t surprised at the score. She’s a bright girl and she’s on her way to being the valedictorian of her class. She comes from a family of academics and artists too, so she has plenty of moral support when it comes to the life of the mind. (I like to think her genes helped. Her older brothers... Read more
Last week I created a little dust up with this provocative post. I knew what would follow, when you question the universal efficacy of something many people hold as sacred you should expect a strong reaction. (Nevertheless, some of the commenters revealed that they are not careful readers.) The post was critical of the tendency we have to expect science to answer questions it is ill-equipped to answer, as for example, when people ask Stephen Hawking for his take on Brexit.... Read more
I’m not much of a martyr. I suffer from other complexes, I suppose, but the martyr complex isn’t one of them. There is a self-indulgent martyr complex that’s killing us today. You exaggerate your injuries in the hope of eliciting sympathy. Sympathy gives you leverage. Contemptible, I think. But I’ve seen it pulled off with great aplomb. But I don’t think I could ever do it. I lack the gifts. On the other hand, some of the original martyrs may... Read more
I assume you’ve endured, as I have, that self-congratulatory nostrum of the Authentic: “I’m spiritual but not religious”. Well, it got me thinking. That implies that there is the opposite somewhere out there, someone who is “religious but not spiritual”. Does such a creature even exist? They’re hard to find these days, but I can assure that they did exist once upon a time. There were once herds of them, rumbling over the great midwestern plains. But they’ve been hunted... Read more
I had thought of naming this post: Science and the Quotidian Mind, but I was pretty sure no one would read it. Call me a cheap sensationalist, but you must admit, I’ve got you. I’ve had a number of good friends over the years who have been scientists, some of them world-class in their respective fields of study. I’ve enjoyed their company, but I’ve also been disappointed with the woodenness of their thinking when it comes to the arts. My... Read more
The Great Homogenizator took a punch to the face yesterday. Whether other blows will follow or not is anyone’s guess. The Great Homogenizator is the most powerful giant of our time. He breathes the rarefied air of libertarian freedom and he is fed by a thousand currencies. He despises small things, he loathes real differences, but most of all, he hates fences. He destroyed my hometown. There was once a little town in western Pennsylvania. It had its faults, and... Read more
Watching Poverty, Inc. made me angry like I’ve not been in a long time. It’s a great documentary. I’ve been poor: American-style, food-stamp, housing-project, bad-school poor. I even survived all the things the helping professionals did to help me. But I’ve also been rich. And in between I’ve even worked with and along side poor people. And I know from my own experience that most of the stuff the beautiful people do for the poor is more about looking beautiful... Read more
It was the summer of 1990 or thereabouts. I was fresh out of seminary and ministering in the inner-city of Boston. I was a little savvier than most, I had grown up in a housing project and had spent time in a foster-home. I knew what people are capable of. Still, I was a bit green, and I wanted to do the right thing. That’s why I got suckered by the phone call. Her name was Monique and she said... Read more
When smart people get behind a bad idea you should wonder if you’re being scammed. That’s what I’m wondering about when it comes to the latest thing millennials have gotten excited about, something called, “The Sharing Economy”. (Sounds benign, doesn’t it? Who could be against sharing?) Here’s the gist of it: ownership, bad; use, good. Ownership is wasteful, and that’s bad for the environment, we’re told. But use is what we’re really after anyway. So why own a car when... Read more
You may not be familiar with the idiom, but an “ambulance chaser” is someone who profits from bad news. I dealt with a real ambulance chaser once. Although in this case it wasn’t an ambulance he followed, it was a fire truck. When I lived in Boston I was on the staff of a church largely made up of immigrants. We had a Haitian congregation among others (the church worshipped in 5 languages). The pastor of the Haitian congregation owned... Read more
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