Nicolae: The Rise of Antichrist, pp. 8-12 If you were ever a Cold War kid, then at some point you’ve thought about what you would do when they drop the Big One — when the big map from War Games lights up, the red phone starts blinking, and mushroom clouds start blooming on the horizon. If you had a particularly vivid — or particularly morbid — imagination, then you may have even concocted several elaborate scenarios for how you might... Read more
Jesus and his lawyer are coming back … “November Rain,” Guns and Roses “Novocaine for the Soul,” Eels “Novotel,” Adam Green “Now and Forever,” The Wild Swans “Now I’m Here,” Queen “Now. Now.” St. Vincent “Now or Never,” Billie Holiday “Now or Never Land,” Midnight Oil “Now That It’s Over,” Everclear “Now That We Found Love,” Heavy D & The Boyz feat. Aaron Hall “Now That You’re Gone,” R.E.M. “Now We’re Even,” Michael Penn “Now We’re Getting Somewhere,” Crowded House... Read more
The good news is that the Republican county committee for Luzerne County, in northeastern Pennsylvania, wants to kick out it’s white-supremacist member. The bad news, obviously, is that there’s a white supremacist now serving on the Republican committee for Luzerne County. Or, as Rebecca Schoenkopf put it, “Pennsylvania GOP Now Just Straight Up Electing Actual Curb-Jobbing Nazis.” That Wonkette headline accurately describes Steve Smith, who is co-founder of a racist skinhead group called Keystone State Skinheads, and member of several... Read more
I’m looking for input and feedback on a couple of blog-mechanics questions. 1. What to call the “tag” for homosexuality, QUILTBAG, Teh Gay, etc. I want to make better use of the “tag” function here to better organize the content of the blog and to make older posts more accessible. Tags need short labels, and short labels are rarely adequate. I’ve inconsistently used the tag “equality” for posts on marriage equality or same-sex marriage or LGBT civil rights more generally.... Read more
“Some might say you are a sexually aggressive, racist, homophobe, misogynistic, cowardly, illiterate, waste of human skin …” “Her duty as a theologian is to expand, not simply repeat.” “Few conservative seniors will support ‘Medicare for all’ if it includes those people who haven’t ‘earned’ it or paid for it.” “The privileged also feel that their privileges, however egregious they may seem to others, are a solemn, basic, God-given right. The sensitivity of the poor to injustice is a trivial... Read more
Mark Thoma: “The Growing Unemployed: A Case of Benign Neglect“ The high unemployment rate ought to be a national emergency. There are millions of people in need of jobs. The lost income as a result of the recession totals hundreds of billions of dollars annually, and the longer the problem persists, the more permanent the damage becomes. Why doesn’t the unemployment problem get more attention? Why have other worries such as inflation and debt reduction dominated the conversation instead? …... Read more
Forty of us are asked by the judge if we have ever served on a criminal jury before. I am not among the few who had done so, most of whom had previously served here in Chester County. Two had previously served in Philadelphia. And two had previously served in Harris County, Texas. An odd coincidence. The judge works his way through the questionnaire we had filled out. Those of us who had answered “Yes” to any of the questions... Read more
Charlie Pierce is one of my favorite bloggers. Unfortunately, I do most of my blog-reading these days through the Google Reader app on Kindle. Trying to read Charlie’s blog this way is occasionally difficult, occasionally merely slow and unpleasant, and quite often impossible. So it would be really cool if Esquire would fix that. Just sayin’. * * * * * * * * * I like what Tony Jones argues in his post “There Are No Thin Places.” But... Read more
“Rights for me, but not for thee” creates all sorts of problems. For example, if the rights are not for thee, then they aren’t actually rights, and so I can’t be confident in the rights for me either. “Rights for me, but not for thee” means that even my rights aren’t rights, merely privileges — and privileges are a whole lot more precarious than rights. Another problem with this view is that those who embrace it also tend to imagine... Read more
RJS at Jesus Creed reminds us that anyone who wants to know what the Bible says about creation can’t just stick with Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 (or with some half-baked attempt to harmonize Genesis 1 and Genesis 2). Citing William P. Brown’s book The Seven Pillars of Creation, RJS notes that there are many more creation passages in the Hebrew scriptures, including Job 38-41, Psalm 104, Proverbs 8:22-31, Ecclesiastes 1:2-11 and 12:1-7, and bits of Isaiah 40-55. That section... Read more
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