This is a story about a police officer and protesters organizing in the Occupy movement. And it doesn’t involve pepper spray. Zaid Jilani of Think Progress reports, “Occupy Atlanta Encamps In Neighborhood To Save Police Officer’s Home From Foreclosure“: Last week, Tawanna Rorey’s husband, a police officer based in Gwinnett County, e-mailed Occupy Atlanta to explain that his home was going to be foreclosed on and his family was in danger of being evicted on Monday. So within a few... Read more
And also: “The End and the Beginning,” by Wislawa Szymborska Read more
Since we started our tour of old-school Jesus music last week with Larry Norman, it seems appropriate to follow up this week with his protege and sometime-collaborator Randy Stonehill. (Or, actually, maybe it’s incredibly inappropriate.) The first Stonehill album I ever got — 1982’s Equator — made me a fan, sending me back to pick up his older stuff, like Welcome to Paradise and The Sky Is Falling. Over time I came to think of Randy Stonehill’s musical career as... Read more
Let’s turn to Penn State’s student paper, The Daily Collegian, for a summary of the scandal unfolding at the school — “Penn State President Graham Spanier, Head Coach Joe Paterno ousted by Board of Trustees“: The Board of Trustees announced that Graham Spanier and Joe Paterno will no longer be employees of the Pennsylvania State University. … The announcement comes five days after a grand jury presentment was released describing alleged incidents of sexual abuse by former Penn State defensive... Read more
The “No True Scotsman” fallacy is a common way of exempting a group from any culpability for the bad actions of members of that group. More generally, the useful Wikipedia article linked to there describes it as: An ad hoc attempt to retain an unreasoned assertion. When faced with a counterexample to a universal claim, rather than denying the counterexample or rejecting the original universal claim, this fallacy modifies the subject of the assertion to exclude the specific case or... Read more
TEAM SATAN Susan Tyrell, Bound4Life: The kingdom of Satan is united, which is why, for this season, it’s successful. Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue: Obama supports infanticide in America, and forced abortion China. He is patently evil in his efforts to kill the innocent. Troy Newman, Operation Rescue: It’s an abortion facility and often times the abortionist takes every drop of money that he can get out of that to feed sometimes his drug addiction habit, his sexual abuse... Read more
For a less snarky, clearer, and more compelling discussion of the rights that correspond — necessarily — from the obligation to work, see John Paul II’s encyclical Laborem Exercens, or “On Human Labor.” Regular readers of this blog know that I’m a big fan of this encyclical, due mainly to the forceful logic of its secular argument. But I’ll also confess that I enjoy citing this sometimes because I like watching right-wing Catholics squirm. Here’s one pertinent part of John... Read more
Rights come with responsibilities, my conservative friends are always saying. And they’re right about that. And because they’re right about that, then they must also agree with me that responsibilities come with rights. If, for example, I am responsible for keeping the sidewalk in front of my house clear of snow in the winter, then I must also have the right to shovel that snow off of that sidewalk. It would make no sense to say that I was responsible... Read more
Tribulation Force, pp. 429-433 Rayford found it difficult to take in the incredible change in New Babylon since the first time he had visited following the treaty signing in Israel. He had to hand it to Carpathia and his sea of money. A lavish world capital had sprung up out of the ruins, and now it teemed with commerce, industry and transportation. I’m still not buying this. There’s no reason for the Antichrist to build a brand new city in... Read more
Hank Williams Jr. lost his job with ESPN recently after saying on a talk show that President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden are “the enemy” and comparing them to “Hitler.” Williams, sometimes known as “Bocephus,” had a long-time gig singing before the Monday night NFL game every week. That gig is now over because the sports network reasonably decided that allowing an inflammatory idiot to Godwin the pregame show wasn’t the best way to get a national TV... Read more
Select your answer to see how you score.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In