"Rayford runs into Hattie Durham. She's still 'drop dead gorgeous,' but in a hysterically crying, stark-raving panic kind of way. It seems that the most significant and interesting event of the entire story has already occurred and we, the readers, were left behind. Or at least left out. (L&J rarely miss an opportunity to replace action with exposition.)" Read more
Some Thursday night linkage, including: Glenn Beck is worried about the Black Problem; Ta-Nehisi Coates on Bill Cosby; the hidden curriculum of housekeeping wages; the ghosts of the Satanic panic; and G-L-O-R-I-A in excelsis at the Vatican. Read more
You have to read Proverbs with the other biblical "wisdom" books in mind. It's part of a set and without the commentary and correction provided by those adjoining books, it can be misleading. Read Proverbs in isolation from them and you can wind up with exactly the sort of hollow Bildadism that the book of Job mocks, the Psalms mourn, and Ecclesiastes demolishes. Read more
G.K. Chesterton was a brilliant man with a nimble wit. He had education, Jesus, and a sense of humor -- three things that it seems out to preclude crude prejudice and hate. Yet instead of allowing these things to rescue him, Chesterton turned his formidable intellect, religious fervor and wit to the service of an ugly and obsessive anti-Semitism. We need to learn from that, because the lies Chesterton told himself in service of the idea that the world had a "Jewish problem" are precisely the same lies that white America has been telling itself for centuries to maintain the idea that we have a black problem. Read more
Rayford Steele reminisces about how he first met and fell in love with his second wife, Amanda. But this three-page trip down memory lane doesn't actually tell us anything about Amanda as an individual and a human being. Instead, it's just a mini-lecture on the generic virtues of a generic Good Christian Wife. Such a woman, the authors tell us, should have a "quiet, gentle" spirit; should avoid being forward, being a flirt or a "jabberer;" and should cook and clean as a cheerful, willing servant. Read more
Tuesday morning odds and ends, including: The right is bidding to win pro-buffering voters; landing a robot on a comet is amazingly cool; Glenn Beck says Nicki Minaj isn't kosher; and the deliberate "entropy" of the Internet. Read more
Some Monday stuff, featuring an all-star lineup including: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Time Warner Cable), Martin Luther, Mycroft Holmes, confused complementarians, right-wing revolutionaries, 19th-century bloggers, Leif Garrett, Chachi and the Incredible Hulk. Read more
"This theatrical national claptrap of Thanksgiving ... has aided other causes in setting thousands of pulpits to preaching 'Christian politics' instead of humbly letting the carnal Kingdom alone and preaching singly Christ crucified." So said Virginia Gov. Henry A. Wise in 1856, preaching a "non-political" religion that was utterly and completely political. Read more
"Can I forget the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked, and the scant measure that is accursed? Can I tolerate wicked scales and a bag of dishonest weights? Your wealthy are full of violence. ..." Read more
State lotteries are exempt from truth-in-advertising laws. And this, I think, offers some promise for changing the politics of state lotteries. This is a way of taking them on without prompting a defensive response from either entrenched constituency -- the Losers or the Free-loaders. We don't attack the lotteries themselves, we attack their exemption from truth-in-advertising laws. Read more
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