7 things for Sunday (9.22)

1. Happy September 22, “I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.” This year, the Ringbearers’ birthday is also the autumnal equinox — so a blessed holiday to all my Pagan friends.

2. Margaret Mary Vojtko was a teacher, a French professor at Duquesne University for 25 years. She died recently at the age of 83, in poverty. Daniel Kovalik and Abby Zimet both note, correctly, that Vojtko’s sad story highlights the need for unions to fight for better working conditions for adjunct professors, who tend to be overworked and underpaid despite their essential contribution to the money machine of higher education.

William Lindsey also notes that Duquesne is a Catholic institution. The next time you hear someone argue that government shouldn’t be providing a safety net because churches and charities are exclusively responsible to do so, remember Margaret Mary Vojtko.

3. Coulrophobes (you’re not wrong) should avoid this next link: Pennywise the Clown has been terrifying residents “with random appearances in the British town of Northampton.”

4. “Why Aren’t There B Batteries?” The answer depends on your ideological perspective. It could be that this is the result of industry and government working together to create standards for safety, efficiency and uniformity that improve life for consumers while providing a framework that allows innovation, technological progress and economic growth, just like industry and government are now doing with light bulbs. Or it could be that this is the result of a tyrannical government intrusion in the marketplace, trying to dictate what kind of batteries we can buy in preparation for the coming Islamo-socialist-atheist dictatorship, just like Obama started doing with light bulbs years before he was even elected president.

5. Here’s a fun conversation/argument-starter from Two Friars and a Fool: “3 texts we would ADD to the canon.” Nick suggests the Didache — an early Christian text it’s surprising isn’t already part of the New Testament. Doug bids for The Lord of the Rings, which I’d make fun of him for if today were not Bilbo’s birthday (I don’t want to think about what Ken Ham would make of Tom Bombadil). And Aric settles on George MacDonald’s sermon “Justice,” which I’m now going to have to read, since two of his other candidates — The Journal of John Woolman and Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter From a Birmingham Jail” — are already a part of the canon as far as I’m concerned.

6. Here’s a new video for the NALT Christians Project, the testimony of Linda and Rob Robertson of Seattle:

There’s no deadline for submitting your own video testimony, if you’re a Christian who does not believe being gay is a sin and you’re willing to stand up and say so.

7. I call shenanigans. (via)