• New Virginia Rep. David Brat says education funding is not important because “Socrates trained Plato in on a rock and then Plato trained in Aristotle roughly speaking on a rock. So, huge funding is not necessary.” Thus, Calvinism.
• Politicians can get away with some lies, particularly when those lies bear false witness against the poor and the powerless who aren’t permitted to refute them. But politicians need to be more careful when lying about people who are in a position to respond.
Take for example Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, who injudiciously decided to tell a dangerously specific lie about Wisconsin’s Teacher of the Year from 2010. Turns out, as you might expect, that picking a fight with such a specific and formidable person wasn’t the brightest idea.
• “The choice to not have children is selfish,” Pope Francis said last week. He went on to criticize “depressed societies” that “don’t have children.”
Psst, Francis — you made the choice not to have children. And you belong to the Society of Jesus, which forbids having children. …
• Aargh. Now it’s Brandon Ambrosino at Vox bungling an otherwise interesting column — “Why are Christian movies so painfully bad?” — by confusing “sacred” with “sectarian.”
“A good deal of contemporary Christian art is predicated on the sacred/secular divide,” Ambrosino writes. Does he mean the sacred/profane divide? Or maybe the sacred/mundane divide? Or does he mean the sectarian/secular divide?
It appears he means the last one, but note how this turns “sacred” into a synonym for “sectarian.” That either elevates the sectarian or reduces the sacred. It allows one particular sectarian view to pretend it has a monopoly on “sacred” — to continue pretending that it, alone, defines and controls the meaning of sacredness. It allows one particular sectarian view to pretend that it is something other than one particular sectarian view. (Ambrosino is right, though, in that that pretense is, indeed, part of why Christian movies are so painfully bad.)
• “During this time the defendant was screaming at the victim that she better accept Jesus or she would not let up.”
• I really hate non-stories like this one: “Congressman Mixes Up Boko Haram and Boca Raton.” That headline is inaccurate — they guy wasn’t confused about the difference between the Nigerian terrorist group and the Florida city, he just scrambled his words a bit. That happens to everybody. It’s sometimes briefly amusing, but it’s never news.
This wasn’t a “gaffe.” Nor was it the sort of Palinesque malapropism that reveals someone is trying to bluff their way through a subject they know nothing about. It wasn’t even a Freudian slip. The guy simply meant to say one word and he said another similar-sounding word instead. Who cares? That tells us nothing about his knowledge, his judgment or his character.
• Here for your listening pleasure is a different Mark Heard song performed by a different man named Buddy.
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