• Jonathan Merritt’s interview with Rachel Held Evans includes some interesting stuff, but I couldn’t get past the underlying assumption of this discussion: that “evangelical” and “Episcopalian” are exclusive and distinct categories. The wrongness of that assumption includes and produces a host of other wrong assumptions.
Makes me wish Justin Welby could’ve sat in on that interview. Or John Stott.
• Lara Bazelon looks at the repugnant, bizarre, Kafka-esque logic of Herrera v. Collins, the 1993 Supreme Court ruling that says overwhelming evidence of innocence is not sufficient to overturn a conviction or to stop an execution.
Most Americans don’t realize that’s what the courts have said. They assume that proof of innocence ought to mean something in our justice system. It doesn’t. If that proof comes after a conviction, it doesn’t matter. Unless there was some other technical or procedural flaw in the trial, the fact that the outcome is later proven to be wrong — to be unjust — is not sufficient to overturn that result, to release an innocent person or to prevent them from being executed.
That’s horrible and bewildering, but it’s what Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote and it remains the law of the land.
• The Senate Appropriations Committee is holding hearings on “protecting religious freedom abroad.” So who did the Republican senators invite to testify as an expert on this issue? This guy:
• Ohio crime sprees are baffling police there. First there came this report from Euclid, near Cleveland: “Police Can’t Crack Mysterious Case of More Than 100 Egging Attacks on Home.” The attacks started last March and have continued for more than a year. “The accuracy is phenomenal,” the homeowners says. Police have staked out the place, installed cameras, and offered a $1,000 reward for information, but they’ve got nothing. One officer was struck by an egg while interviewing the victim after an earlier egging.
But I’d rather be targeted by the Eggman of Euclid than deal with the criminal on the loose in Akron: “Police searching for someone who pooped on 19 parked cars.” The suspect was recently caught on surveillance video set up by a resident “after the seventh time that someone had pooped on her car while it was parked in her driveway.”
So Akron police have a (blurry) picture, as well as the suspect’s DNA, and a record of his dietary habits. That ought to be enough to catch the guy. Over in Euclid, meanwhile, I suspect the best approach would be to find out where the Eggman is getting his eggs. He’s buying (or raising) a lot of them. Find out where and they’ll catch the guy. Goo goo goo joob.
• Jayson Bradley discusses “3 Things We Should Stop Doing to the Old Testament.” It’s a good list with three good suggestions. Let me add a fourth: Stop thinking of the Old Testament as the “Old Testament.” That prevents us from being able to learn from thousands of years of Jewish understanding and engagement with these scriptures.
• They are coming for your birth control.
• Here’s the trailer for Season 5 of Game of Thrones. It starts April 12, so about three weeks from now it’ll be time to call the cable company and tweak your subscription just enough to get them to toss in the usual three-month free trial of HBO. Or just find a friend who has HBO. (But don’t just make a new friend because they have HBO. That would be a sleazy, Lannister-ish thing to do.)
• And here’s the trailer for Daredevil, which starts streaming on Netflix on April 10. Between these and the return of baseball, I may be really unproductive for a while next month.
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