“I come out of this … subculture …” Yep. And because of that, I’m looking forward to Blue Like Jazz, based on the book by Donald Miller and directed by Steve Taylor. Steve Taylor being the manic scarecrow figure hollering the song in the first video above. I’ve not seen his earlier feature film, but I’ve enjoyed several of the music videos he’s directed over the years, such as “Kiss Me,” “Smug” and “Since I Gave Up Hope I Feel... Read more

Frank Balsinger is not impressed with the exegetical skills of science-rejecting Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Inhofe. The senator cites the book of Genesis to suggest that it would be impossible for humans to alter the climate. Balsinger doesn’t claim to be an expert in biblical interpretation but he still easily demolishes Inhofe’s reading of the Bible and his weird attempt to apply that interpretation to climate science. I’m just going to focus on the fact that Sen. Inhofe was born... Read more

“There is no way to measure the loss for the families of the victims, no way to understand the harm done to peace process in the country and no way to calculate the additional deaths of Americans, Afghans and others from across the world this will likely cause. There is no way to know the full cost of war.” “The possession of nuclear weapons [is] a grave sin and … the proliferation of such weapons is senseless, destructive and dangerous.”... Read more

An election year always brings a fresh crop of books earnestly warning against the perils of partisanship. The solution to this “problem,” these books usually suggest, is a kind of bland nonpartisan attitude — the Golden Meh. This is a popular pose among pundits and op-ed columnists, one that seems to arise from an intense desire not to be disliked. The prescription of such pundits always seems to be that we mustn’t take our politics too seriously. If we take... Read more

“Thinking critically is not the same thing as thinking cynically,” Dianna E. Anderson writes in a post on “On Kony 2012 and Thinking Critically.” That’s an important distinction, although I suspect “thinking cynically” is actually an oxymoron. That’s why cynicism can be so tempting — it exempts us from the hard work of having to think and pretends to free us from responsibility. The surprising popularity of the Kony 2012 video launched by the American advocacy group Invisible Children is... Read more

After gazillionaire Santorum-supporter Foster Friess inadvertently discouraged women from voting for his pet candidate by saying that an “aspirin between the knees” was all the health care women need, he eventually offered a half-hearted apology. This comment from Friess’ pseudo-apology is revealing: My wife constantly tells me I need new material — she understood the joke but didn’t like it anyway — so I will keep that old one in the past where it belongs. Friess’ wife “didn’t like it”... Read more

“Dear 1962, This is The Future speaking. You spent a lot of time thinking about me lately. I’m touched. Let me tell you what’s happened …” “I told myself, ‘If you can only get to the stove and pick up one of the iron skillets, you might be able to knock him in the head and grab the gun.'” “Who puts a pit full of tigers in the softball diamond?” “Are people really so unfamiliar with Calvinism that they don’t... Read more