8 years ago: What’s $12 million?

Last updated on: July 21, 2013 at 8:16 pm By Fred Clark

I rounded $12.6 million down to $12 million. That decimal point I knocked off there represents $600,000, or roughly what the average American family will earn over the next 10 years. If your bank account were to suddenly swell by this amount — $600,000 — you would have a very difficult time convincing a judge that it was meaningless, a trivial sum that had no influence on your actions and that you had done nothing questionable to acquire. But Dick Cheney will never have to stand before a judge to account for that $0.6 million, or for the $12 million before the decimal point. Read more

NRA: The imminent Rapture is not imminent

Last updated on: July 26, 2013 at 7:43 pm By Fred Clark

These books are fictional, but they're meant to provide a fictionalized description of future events that will occur just as described -- a kind of historical fiction about the future. That means the standard for accuracy that it would be unfair to apply to 1984 or to Blade Runner must be applied to these books. By fudging on the precise year in which their story is set they don't allow us to state conclusively that their predictions have failed and that their prophecies have gone unfulfilled. But we can state conclusively that the imminent Rapture they continue to prophesy was not and is not and cannot be "imminent." Read more

7 things @ 11 o’clock (7.26)

Last updated on: July 25, 2013 at 7:39 pm By Fred Clark

A very happy anniversary. Two reflections on Jubilee, and one example of what it looks like. Disagreeable animadversions in North Carolina and Tennessee. Social conservatives still flunking out of sex education class. Nancy Pelosi drops the gavel on Weiner and Filner. "The Way Too Philosophical Pop Song." Richard Beck makes a useful distinction. Read more

Tune That Name: W-Z

Last updated on: July 25, 2013 at 4:10 pm By Fred Clark

It's the Friday music game -- I'll show you mine and you show me yours. This week we wrap up the failed experiment of Songs with Names in the Title -- including Walt, Wendell, William, Willie, Winona, Woody and Ziggy. Read more

3 years ago: To bigotry no sanction

Last updated on: July 21, 2013 at 8:14 pm By Fred Clark

Deprive any minority — whether a religious minority, an a-religious minority, a disenfranchised gender or ethnic group or race or sexual orientation — of the liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship and you will have diminished liberty, devaluing it into mere "toleration," the condescending and conditional "indulgence" of the privileged ruling class. Screw that. Read more

Like a horse and carriage …

Last updated on: July 25, 2013 at 7:59 pm By Fred Clark

A lovely number from the Troubadours of Divine Bliss, plus some Thursday night links, including: A portrait of a hero; the measure of human character; what forgiveness looks like; mass incarceration; perpetual incarceration without trial; why libertarians are not liberals; mischievous little white boys and criminal little black boys. Read more

Evangelical gatekeepers and conservative holiness

Last updated on: July 25, 2013 at 3:08 pm By Fred Clark

Evangelicals scrupulously police their left-wing boundary, but the right-wing boundary is unmonitored. Because there is no right-wing boundary. "Egalitarians" are permitted to remain in the tribe, but not if they get TOO egalitarian. But complementarians need not worry about getting too complementarian because "too complementarian" is not a category the tribe recognizes. Read more

7 things @ 11 o’clock (7.25)

Last updated on: July 24, 2013 at 7:17 pm By Fred Clark

Hey look, I've got a Facebook page for the blog. I never read Wuthering Heights, but I got an 'A' on the book report. Always punch up; never punch down. The Internet punctures another subcultural religious bubble. Tony Campolo on Exodus International finally taking his advice. How to steal $18,000 worth of stuff without getting punished. The solar system is really big. Read more

1 year ago: Anti-government, anti-democracy

Last updated on: July 21, 2013 at 8:12 pm By Fred Clark

Their scorn is not directed at our failure to more fully realize the noble ideal of “government of, by and for the people.” Their scorn is directed at the belief that this is a noble ideal or that it is worthy of realization. Quote that glorious phrase from Lincoln and they will roll their eyes and sputter because they think you’re a fool to believe that such a thing could ever be even partially true. Read more

Bryan Fischer is very brave when confronting imaginary monsters

Last updated on: July 24, 2013 at 4:52 pm By Fred Clark

"Fears might also grow out of children's struggles with their own angry feelings," Mister Rogers said. "They sometimes project those angry feelings onto some outside thing ... and then they fear that the very angry thing may just destroy them." And that, I think, explains all you need to know about religious right spokesman Bryan Fischer. Read more