Sustaining the kind of fantasy Linda Wall invites her readers to indulge in takes an enormous amount of imagination. It requires the collaborative effort of a community of fantasists who agree to cooperate by reinforcing one another's fantasies. And it requires a willingness to reinterpret every mundane detail of the world around you into something fraught with all the drama of the pageant you're creating in your head. Read more
The culture warrior faith of the religious right is sometimes criticized for being overly negative. That's a misconception. All the things it seems obsessively negative about are really of no consequence to them. Their message is actually overwhelmingly positive. It is a steady stream of hyperbolic, unwavering, unquestioning praise and celebration. All of it directed toward themselves and their own pious righteousness. Read more
"While my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by; then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back; but my face shall not be seen." Read more
Daniel Radosh, staff writer for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart: "Blogger Fred Clark has written one of the most effective (and hilarious) critiques of Left Behind, a page-by-page dissection of the first book that has taken him ... years. The level of detail gives Clark space to build a devastating case." Read more
Intersectionality is not just a nice idea, but a necessary one: We have to be intersectional because the bullies are. They always have been. Bullies and oppressors and Pharaohs have never allowed themselves to be held back by an either/or, zero-sum framework. But they've always been very good at exploiting that idea to pit their various victims against one another. Read more
The Second Coming is not supposed to be a revenge-fantasy sequel for fans disappointed with the first story. The faux-pious gasbaggery of apple-tossers. One of the Duggars reminds us that her One True God sleeps, dreaming, in the sunken city of R'lyeh. Live long and prosper. Read more
"I know what you're thinking: Millions of people worldwide have disappeared. Every child and infant on the planet is gone. Death and destruction litter the landscape. So how will the passengers on Rayford Steele's plane being able to collect their checked baggage?" Read more
There are two morals to this story. First, of course, is that the charging dock on a cellphone can get clogged with pocket lint. If yours starts to get a bit unreliable, shine a flashlight in there and poke around a bit -- gently -- with a toothpick or the end of a paper clip. That should take care of that for you. Read more
This isn't how our CEO will react to this happy news for Bob and for 700,000 more of our customers. Our CEO, like most CEOs, has lost the ability to think of our customers as people with jobs and budgets. So he won't be thinking, "Woohoo! 700,000 of our customers just got a raise!" He'll be thinking, "Ohnoes! Wage increases in the retail sector could lead to higher labor costs -- I must oppose this!" And he won't hesitate to try to screw over 700,000 -- or 7 million, or 70 million -- of our customers if that's what it takes to oppose the slightest possibility of the potential of the shadow of maybe a slight increase in labor costs. Read more
In the spirit of World Pistachio Day, I invite you to mark the occasion with my own clumsily transparent attempt at crass commercialism in support of something tasty and nutritious. What goes better with pistachios than your very own eBook copy of "The Anti-Christ Handbook"? Read more
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