A big step toward a diplomatic solution for Syria's chemical weapons. Mumford & Sons get kicked out of strip club. Noah believed in anthropogenic climate change. Humans telling their stories to other humans. Wealth creators (i.e., workers) vs. Moochers (i.e., rent-seeking investors who cut pay as productivity rises). 25 Biblical Roles for Women. Elvis Costello and the Roots. Read more
I pay income taxes while nearly half of all American households are paid so little that they don’t owe any. That’s grounds for gratitude on my part, but not for offense. And absolutely not for anything like legitimate anger. It’s evidence of injustice, but not injustice against me or against Rick Warren or against Rick Perry or against anyone else so fortunate as to take in enough to owe a fair share. Read more
We could say more about this extravagantly awful scene in Nicolae. We could talk about how the whole business about "oars ... just like in the Bible" seems to be a long way to go for a belabored "Michael Row the Boat Ashore" pun, and how the Bible really doesn't say much of anything about "oars" anyway. We could goggle at the botched cliché of Buck standing in the bow, the wind whipping his hair like he was Leo and/or Kate in Titanic. But all of that pales in comparison to the overriding, overwhelming wrongness Gorenberg mocks in this passage and to what he says it reveals about the jarringly untrue and unreal "landscape of their imagination" the authors present here and throughout these books. Read more
It's Friday the 13th, and it could be a long night for Donald Trump, or Rush Limbaugh, or George Zimmerman. The news from Florida is very Floridian. The Washington Post says Jerry Jenkins' "I, Saul" is like "The Da Vinci Code," but without the fun parts. Religious liberty means firing good teachers. Rich folks seething with resentment that poor people can afford soda. Charles Koch hates democracy. Barton Gellman provides a refreshingly Greenwald-less overview of the Snowden leaks. Read more
Use of the word in this sense tells you that the speaker is almost certainly a persecuted hegemon — someone who simultaneously believes that America is a "Christian nation," founded on Christian principles and that Christians in America are a persecuted, um, majority. It suggests that the speaker distrusts public schools. That they’re inclined to oppose the separation of church and state. That they likely believe in young-earth creationism, probably even believing that Josh McDowell and/or Kirk Cameron has disproved evolution. They believe in moral absolutes — and have absolute confidence in their ability to know them absolutely. Read more
Mama McFly gets raptured. It's finally illegal to sell and trade white rhino horns. This revolution includes dancing. Weiner and Spitzer fail in their attempted political comebacks, but Aurora shooter James Holmes wins big in Colorado. A former religious-right attorney shares what he learned working for the American Family Association. Remembering a 9/11 saint. White evangelical theology -- in that order. Read more
One place where FDR's spirit — "nothing to fear but fear itself" — seems to live on is in New York City, home to ground zero itself. New Yorkers — those actually, personally, physically affected by the Sept. 11 attacks — haven't confused vigilance with fear, they've simply gotten back to the business of being New Yorkers. ("There are certain sections of New York, Major, that I wouldn't advise you to try to invade …") Read more
If you're an evangelical Christian and you find yourself arguing that "religious liberty" means that religious identity is immutable and unchangeable, and therefore that evangelism is unnecessary and impossible, then you need to rethink the trap you've set for yourself. Read more
Some good news from the home front. Iowa is arming the blind, because freedom. Batman and Captain America rescue a cat in West Virginia. Hawaii could pass marriage equality next month. Jeff Sharlet and "American Horror Story: The Cedars." And a belated celebration of Prudence Crandall. Read more
"Here Is New York," 1948: "All dwellers in cities must live with the stubborn fact of annihilation; in New York the fact is somewhat more concentrated because of the concentration of the city itself, and because, of all targets, New York has a certain clear priority. In the mind of whatever perverted dreamer who might loose the lightning, New York must hold a steady, irresistible charm." Read more
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