The Tea Party just cost you $322. That’s the latest cost of their incoherent national tantrum — $100 billion in increased financing costs for which America gets nothing in return. That works out to $322 for every man, woman and child in the United States. So the Tea Party just cost you $322. They just cost my family $1,288. You don’t get anything in return for that $322, nor does my family get anything in return for that $1,288. It... Read more
In addition to our unexpected hospital adventure this week we’ve also been puppy-sitting for my brother-in-law’s 6-month-old poodle (energetic, mischievous, adorable). Whenever there’s a quiet moment around here it seems that means someone is probably eating something that isn’t food. My brother-and-law and his family are on vacation in Costa Rica. I was initially confused when told where they were going because, as an evangelical, I instinctively got fixated on the idea that this must be a mission trip, leading... Read more
it’s got nothing to do with you … “Up,” Ticklepenny Corner “Up Above My Head,” Maria Muldaur & Tracy Nelson “Up Against the Glass,” The Botticellis “Up All Night,” Green “Up Around the Bend,” Creedence Clearwater Revival “Up in This (Blood on the Banjo Remix),” Don McCloskey “Up the Hill Backwards,” David Bowie “Up the Spout,” Mateo Messina “Up to the Mountain (MLK Song),” Patty Griffin “Up Up and Away,” Kid CuDi “Uphill Battle,” Sarah McLachlan “Upside Down,” Jack Johnson... Read more
To get a good old-fashioned Thursday flame war warmed up, we could bring up one of the standard “controversial topics” — abortion, the existence/non-existence of God, libertarianism, Kirk/Picard, etc. Or we could really stoke the fire by linking to this: “10 Handy Rules for Tipping,” by the L.A. Weekly’s Jonathan Gold (via Off the Kuff). Here’s Gold’s first rule: Tip 20 percent. Every time. … the idea that a tip is optional, or variable, is a useful fiction, even when... Read more
That headline (originally about Dizzy Dean) was happily true again today for the slacktivixen. The Big Scary Possibilities her doctors were worried about have all now been ruled out, thank God, and the official word is that she just needs some time to recover from the past two days of really unpleasant testing and poking and peeking. Thank you, everyone, for your kind words, thoughts and prayers. Spending a few days in hospitals is a potent reminder of something I... Read more
The good news is that the family waiting room at HUP has free Internet access. The bad news is that I’m in the family waiting room at HUP. The very good doctors here say it’s probably nothing. The easy, uncomplicated tests let them rule out most of the Big Scary Possibilities and they say I’ll likely be able to take my wife home tomorrow with a clean bill of health. But that “probably” is enough of a worry that they... Read more
Last weekend, after months of pestering, I got my old Christian Service Brigade uniform shirt out of the attic. My wife never quite believed it was real, so finally I had to show it to her, struggling to remember what all of the various achievement patches I had earned were for. The slacktivixen finds the whole idea of Christian Service Brigade hilarious. “Fundamentalist Boy Scouts?” she says, laughing. “What — the Boy Scouts were too worldly?” Yep. For our church,... Read more
So I’m working on collecting some of the older posts here, bundling them into categories of sorts and cleaning them up a bit in the hopes of producing that book-like thing I mentioned earlier. And that entails writing short introductions for the various sections. The following is my first shot at the introduction for the section on young-earth creationism. – – – – – – – – – – – – The oldest book in our Bible contains a hymn... Read more
. Job seekers: Let us know where you are and what you’re looking for. Everybody: Skim through and see if you know something, or know someone, or know someone who knows someone, who might help out one of our job seekers. Read more
James 2:14-26 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill’, and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. But someone... Read more
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