The surprising speed of this vote has sunk my marriage equality office pool -- I'd picked Hawaii for No. 15, New Mexico at 16, and then Illinois. Since I'm clearly no good at guessing the order of these things, I won't speculate about which will come first, but Hawaii and New Mexico are poised to join Illinois before the end of this year, or perhaps before the end of this month. Read more
"The only consistency is shafting poor people." The new Wooster and Jeeves isn't. Southern Baptist seminary's hagiography of Al Mohler focuses on his courageous firing of women professors. David Barton says God has bad aim. "Thou shalt never join any competition with more than 665 contestants, sayeth the Voices in Thy Head." An extreme loser in a close election. Bible scholars compared to Hitler and Stephen J. Cannell. Read more
You can try to respond to such people, if you have the patience, but there’s nothing there to respond to. They offer nothing that can be engaged: No coherent argument; no apparent capacity for recognizing coherent argument; no sense of the ability to distinguish between sense and nonsense. Read more
"Moralism" isn't a list of social issues. Moralism is about drawing lines and assigning blame. It's about separating the "deserving" from the "undeserving." And, above all, it's about identifying the immoral Other who can be blamed for all the ills of society. Read more
I bookmark things. Things about Doctor Who, or Star Trek, or Star Wars, or Buffy, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, or comic books. Here are some of those things. Read more
Forget Fawkes -- it's Ida Tarbell Day. An expert on "ectodermal appendages." Women and girls are not the enemies of "religious liberty." Pious poseurs line up again to beat down the rights of the disabled. Partisan misinformation gives insurers a chance to rip people off. Clobber-texts slowly, inexorably, losing ground to conscience. Read more
In the course of meeting with so many women over the years, and because of the privacy and intimacy of the small groups of women, my grandmother met a fair number who were in abusive marriages. She didn't lecture them on "forgiveness" or on the "sanctity of marriage." She simply bundled these women into her Nash Rambler and drove them off to [an Anglican] retreat center. There the nuns could look out for them while she got her son the lawyer to file the restraining orders and divorce papers. Read more
"Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah, and said, 'Make ... cakes.' Abraham ran to the herd, and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to the servant, who hastened to prepare it.Then he took curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree while they ate." So cheeseburgers, basically. Delicious, but definitely not kosher. Read more
What we're circling around here is the ethical dimension of coolness. That's the reason this actually matters as something other than shallow fashion statements and bids for popularity. What Wickman is describing here as "effortlessness" and as the true coolness of not caring really has to do with integrity. "Cool" is, among other things, the name we give to those whose actions align with their own core beliefs and identities, without regard for the opinions of others. Read more
Dinotopia. "Stop saying 'homosexual lifestyle.'" Smart people saying smart things about Hell Houses. Run, Barton, run! According to a literal reading of Genesis, God did not create the sea. Today could be the last full day of Ken Cuccinelli's political career. Richard Pryor sings the blues. Read more
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