I recently wrote a piece entitled “Three Red Herrings in the Gay Marriage Debate.” A colleague of mine named Star, the managing editor of Patheos’ Pagan Portal, responded in “Life, Liberty, and the Institution of Marriage?” I am a fan of Star’s. She’s a true believer. She’s not a pagan because she finds it fashionable, or because she thinks the pagan gods “represent virtues worth emulating” (but do not really exist). She not only believes that the gods of various... Read more
A recent post, “Is Homosexuality Voluntary?“, asked whether homosexual desires, or sexual desires more generally, can be shifted (or “cultivated”) over time. I received a letter from a good friend, whom I will call JH. After saying some nice complimentary things that needn’t be repeated here, JH wrote: …It seems to me that there are several categories of desire, each of which is caused by interactions of varying degrees of nature and nurture. I would argue that the causal mechanism... Read more
[Update: Yes, I realize this video may be fake. But it’s hilarious regardless, and the second video even more so.] I only recently began posting on weekends, with The Week in Lists on Saturdays and Sunday Funnies on, well, Sundays. I try to post selections, too, from pieces I’ve written elsewhere. So if you’ve never checked in to Philosophical Fragments on the weekends, please give it a try. I thought I’d give you a teaser of the Sunday Funnies this... Read more
Morning Palate Cleanser: 14-year-old Brendan MacFarlane, Scottish boy with pipes, sings Gospel and Country. Here he is wowing a guitar shop owner: (HT The Anchoress) In the News: In June, non-farm payrolls added a measly 18,000 jobs, far below what is needed (due to the number who enter into the workforce on any given month) even to maintain the present level of employment. So the unemployment figure ticked up to 9.2%. Worse, the report reveals that 44,000 fewer jobs were created... Read more
“Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground.” — Genesis 4:10 She was, when she died, almost precisely the same age as my daughter is today. Two years and ten months. Children at that age are miraculous creatures. They’re boundlessly energetic and inquisitive, wellsprings of laughter and affection, young enough to want nothing more than your attention and your approval and old enough to run into your arms and squeeze your neck and surprise you with their insights,... Read more
Update: Thanks to Hot Air and Instapundit for the links! Please subscribe or follow on Facebook or Twitter! When “Don’t question my patriotism!” became the imperative of choice for the stylish liberal in the run-up to the 2004 election, I was a doctoral student at Harvard. The very same faculty who spent half their time indicting the United States as the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism struck an indignant pose when they imagined their patriotism was under review. Whether they... Read more
I’ve been wondering when people would start talking about this possibility: President Obama is reportedly considering tapping New York governor Andrew Cuomo to take the place of Vice President Joe Biden in the upcoming 2012 presidential election, a move that could add a fresh face to the Obama administration. There are many reasons why this might make sense. Among them: Senator Biden was once considered, even by people who had met him before, a serious thinker on questions of international... Read more
1. The Year of the Beard: 2. NEWS YOU CAN USE. Our long national nightmare, enslaved to uncertainty regarding the authenticity of Kim Kardashian’s bloated behind, is now over. 3. The parody of children’s books, “Go the ___ to Sleep,” has received a great deal of attention. Yet this Parody of Good Night Moon is more worthy of the attention. 4. Paul Hunt is a sort of gymnastics clown. I remember watching him at the Olympic Trials in Salt Lake City... Read more
1. Ten Signs You’re a Snob. 2. Ten Things You Should Never, Ever Say 3. 140 Best Twitter Feeds 4. The 20 Best- and Worst-Paid College Majors 5. Top 10 Twitter Trends This Week 6. Top 15 Photographers on Instagram 7. The Pros and Cons of Google+, Google’s Answer to Facebook 8. Top 10 Donald Trump Failures 9. Top 10 Patriotic Movies (for July 4). 10. Top 100 Donors to Political Parties and Candidates, 1989-2009 (blue is money given to... Read more
I came to know David French through the extraordinary circle of friends who produce SixSeeds.org and SixSeeds.tv. When I first asked David — a high-powered, Harvard-trained litigator, who was then with the Alliance Defense Fund — whether he might be interested in writing a column for the Evangelical Portal, I fully expected he’d say he was too busy. To my astonishment, he said yes, and he wrote columns that attracted a great deal of traffic and attention. I’ve also come... Read more
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