"Third Way" people are mean. And they're proud of it. I'm speaking arithmetically, which is how these folks seem to approach the world. Take any two sides of a dispute, add them together and divide by two. That's the average, the mean, and that's your "Third Way." But it doesn't add up. Read more
James Baldwin: "For children do not like ghettos. It takes them nearly no time to discover exactly why they are there." Read more
Some Thursday morning links, including: porn-watching parishioners, a mystery in the margins, rude job-interview questions, humorless feminists telling too many jokes, a CCM star comes out, and the Chemtrails of Hercules. Read more
More than a century before Nyhan and Kahan began studying this phenomena, Frederick Douglass had already reached the same conclusion they arrived at. "On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light?" he asked -- meaning, in other words, that the problem isn't a lack of information. Therefore, Douglass concluded, "it is not light that is needed, but fire." Read more
Todd Starnes affirms racism and he unambiguously wants us to know and to acknowledge as much. He can write. We can read. The folks at the National Religious Broadcasters can read too. The question then becomes what role Starnes' racism played in the NRB's decision to honor him with their "prestigious" award. Read more
More reflections on the slaying of Michael Brown, from Greg Howard, Steve Thorngate, Kimberly Peeler-Ringer, Mychal Denzel Smith, and Bruce Springsteen. Read more
Wednesday morning stuff, including: Farewell to a terrific dame; how Robin Williams helped make "The Wire" possible; answering fools according to their folly; Douglas Lee Leguin is white and still alive; more evidence that copy editors are worth hiring. Read more
This is a military deployment. Yet there is no foreign army in Ferguson, Missouri -- no Taliban, no Republican Guard, no Fedayeen, no Viet Cong. The only people in Ferguson are the citizens of Ferguson -- American citizens in their American town. So this is a military deployment against civilians and non-combatants -- civilians and non-combatants from their own country. Read more
"But we are the dispossessed. We cannot count on the law to protect us. We cannot count on police not to shoot us down in cold blood. We cannot count on politics to be a productive outlet for our rage. We cannot count on prayer to soothe our raging, ragged souls." Read more
This is a 1991 song about American bombs falling on Iraq. The bombing did not stop with the end of the first Gulf War. It continued, steadily, for more than a decade, right on through to the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, starting a second war that continues to this day. I was 23 years old when this song was recorded. My country has been bombing Iraq for more than half my life, and I am no longer a young man. Read more
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