Briallen Hopper addresses this same fearful, noncommittal standing in the middle in a terrific essay at Killing the Buddha called “White People Problems.” Hopper’s first hook involves the recent Facebook-beloved advice column from Andrew W.K., which epitomizes the way that irresponsible timidity gets repackaged as a lofty, above-the-fray, “Third Way.” Read more
Unlike Kirk Cameron, the professional hucksters driving young-Earth creationism -- the Ken Hams and Al Mohlers of the world -- understand enough about evolution and common ancestry to recognize that the search for a croco-duck is nonsense. They offer a more sophisticated version of Cameron's "transitional forms" argument -- one that is less ignorant and far less honest. Read more
Some Wednesday morning linkery, including: It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas; more white-on-white violence; creationist research; hotel chain asks guests to give their workers a raise; the Antikythera Stargate; and fan-fiction as midrash. Read more
So, then, it's two-on-two. A fair fight. This escape across the border bit is, after all, a stock set-piece from action movies, and in a substantial percentage of those movies, the scene ends with the two guards tied up, wearing only their underwear, while the heroes escape wearing their uniforms. Read more
Some links for your Tuesday morning, including: Liberty Counsel no longer says America is just as bad as Nazi Germany; an old joke that's sadly still relevant; the most sanctimonious break-up letter of all time; and a single graph that explains my whole career in journalism. Read more
Jane Van Galen reads the style pages; Karen Armstrong on good theology; Drew G.I. Hart looks "Beyond the white privilege model;" Emily Bazelon won't call the police; and W.E.B. Du Bois is still right. Read more
Some Monday morning links, including: Babylonian exile infighting; healing a man blind from birth; Hercules vs. Groo; Charisma will never apologize; "Data Analytics and Amateur Gravedigging;" and academic respectability through football. Read more
Some stuff for your Sunday, including: I liked the old jet stream better; Pacifist Fred Armisen vs. Cranky White Geraldo; a 1730 children's catechism provides my new motto; plus dinosaurs, George Bailey, and a right-winger's right hook. Read more
"For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, 'Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.'" Read more
Rather suddenly -- in about a decade -- white evangelical politics, identity, piety and dogma were rewritten and recentered around the assertion that a wicked Other was murdering babies. Toward the end of that decade, a con-man comedian became one of the top-selling white evangelical recording artists by concocting grisly horror stories about wicked Others who murdered babies. Toward the end of that decade, a moral panic swept the country, driven by a fear of a shadowy conspiracy of, yes, wicked Others who murdered babies. Read more
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