“The thing about old age is that you don’t get a chance to practice. This is the first time I’ve ever been old, and it just sort of crept up on me.” “Here, we are just people. … We are not ignored, tolerated or treated as ‘other.'” “I got one more letter from Olaf after the convention thanking me for our conversation and telling me I was a blight on humanity.” “If I didn’t have writing, I’d be running down... Read more
At Jesus Creed, Drew J. Strait provides an overview of a new(ish) study from Anathea Portier-Young, Apocalypse Against Empire: Theologies of Resistance in Early Judaism. This seems like a pretty dense book, aimed at a scholarly reader rather than the general public. But the subject matter relates to something we discuss quite a bit here, at least on Fridays — exploring what apocalyptic literature meant for the people who originally wrote and read it. What can we say about other... Read more
Ari Kohen: On religious tenets and bigotry Their argument rests on the presumption that religious people are morally serious and, as such, they reflect on the tenets of their faiths before coming to their conclusions about matters like same-sex marriage. That’s all well and good, if it’s true. But it doesn’t explain why we shouldn’t think of it as bigotry. That someone believes something to be true and arrives at his or her belief in a serious manner doesn’t exempt... Read more
The great character actor Kathryn Joosten passed away Friday at 72. Joosten popped up all over the place and I never saw her hit a wrong note or mail it in. She’s probably best-known for Desperate Housewives — for which she won two Emmys — and for playing Mrs. Landingham on The West Wing, in which she was terrific. But the two things she did that I most remember were a cheerfully filthy Funny Or Die sketch (“The Committee Ep.... Read more
Christian Piatt has posted his 16th collection of “Church Sign Epic Fails” (with links to the previous 15 installments). Reading through Christian’s series, and through the many similar signs regularly featured by Matthew Paul Turner [link fixed] (including the one pictured here), some patterns become clear. I find myself wanting to create taxonomies for various categories: the deliberately and successfully witty (rare); the grammatical error; the accidentally ambiguous statement; the failed cultural reference; the unintentional sexual entendre … That last... Read more
It has been 23 years and this still may be the bravest, coolest, most beautiful, crowningest crowning moment of awesome ever captured on film. This is probably the greatest movie of the 20th century. It might even be the greatest poem, the greatest speech and sermon. After 23 years, this is still astonishing: We humans are really something. We invent things like tanks and we create systems to ensure we’ll pay to build them by the thousands and tens of... Read more
“Avi Lipkin” has to be a poe. He’s got to be some kind of performance artist — an absurdist chameleon like Andy Kaufmann or Sacha Baron Cohen. Because no one could possibly really believe the things “Avi Lipkin” says. Even the most gullible rubes in right-wing AM Christian radio can’t really be buying what he’s selling. Except they seem to be. Here’s Lipkin speaking to Christian radio host Vic Eliason, explaining how Barack Hussein Carpathia began as a child to... Read more
Richard Beck is a huge William Stringfellow fan. Stringfellow is worthy of fandom, and I’m looking forward to Beck’s promised attempt to blog his way through all 14 of Stringfellow’s books in chronological order. But here’s where the fannish aspect kicks in: The twist — and if you are lover of books you’ll get this — is to read all of Stringfellow’s books in their first editions. I wanted to read Stringfellow’s books as they came out of the crate... Read more
“If dictionary people are so smart, how come they haven’t noticed?” “You’re not being insulted, you’re being honored!” “Louisiana is the starkest, most glaring example of how our prison policies have failed.” “Just let six of them go home … and with that $6 million we could meet our total annual operating budget for the 33 existing clinics and hospitals we have in Afghanistan.” YNATKC “Congress’ denial of federal benefits to same-sex couples lawfully married in Massachusetts has not been... Read more
I think there are (at least) two problems with my post yesterday about thrones — two problems arising from my mistakes. One of those problems requires some clarification, which I’ll try to provide here. And it requires an apology, which I will provide here. The other highlights what seems to be a deeper contradiction in my thinking, and that will take another post to sort out or, at least, to try to articulate more clearly.* Here I want to try... Read more
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