Nice news

Last updated on: July 6, 2009 at 1:50 am By Fred Clark

I started working at the paper in Delaware in 2001 and every year since then they've introduced legislation to include sexual orientation in the First State's antidiscrimination laws. Those bills never passed. "Discrimination against gays still legal in Del.," read the headline on the paper's Web site, year after year after year. That headline was celebrated, each time, by Christian conservative groups who were always ferociously opposed to the idea that gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered persons should enjoy the... Read more

The short straw

Last updated on: July 4, 2009 at 4:18 am By Fred Clark

SCENE: A secure, undisclosed location somewhere deep beneath Washington, D.C. Representatives from every conservative PR tank and farm team have gathered for an emergency meeting. Tony Perkins looks nervous, unsure if he should be glad he gets to go first. He reaches out and makes his choice. Grinning broadly, he holds up the long straw for the others to see and, chuckling to himself, makes his way to the back of the room. “It’s not fair,” says George Weigel of... Read more

TF: That Guy

Last updated on: June 22, 2012 at 12:11 pm By Fred Clark

Tribulation Force, pp. 59-60 It's the third Sunday after the End of the World and everyone's going to church: Rayford was glad he and Chloe had decided to go early to church. The place was jammed every week. … "Every week" here meaning that New Hope Village Church had been "jammed" the previous two Sundays. This is, again, kind of hard to explain. The Event whisked away every member of NHVC except for Bruce Barnes and Loretta. Now, despite the... Read more

Falling flat

Last updated on: May 3, 2014 at 7:07 pm By Fred Clark

“North and South?” the people of Lineland said to our hero. “That’s nonsense. There’s no such thing as North and South, only East and West.” Our hero is the main character in Edwin A. Abbot’s Flatland. He is a square — a literal square, a four-sided, geometric figure in the two-dimensional world of Abbot’s transcendently weird mathematical parable. And there I was, telling this story again because an honest question deserves the most honest answer we can give, particularly when the... Read more

Something in my eye

Last updated on: June 22, 2009 at 10:40 am By Fred Clark

We watched the last of these last week, leading to a discussion of, among other things, scenes or lines or moments that "get you every time." Not a bad topic for a Monday morning, so here are 10 of mine. Feel free to agree or scoff or offer your own in comments below. 1. "Son, if I'd only gotten to be a doctor for five minutes, now that would have been a tragedy." From a movie that's basically Terms of... Read more

TF: The second-biggest story

Last updated on: June 22, 2012 at 12:10 pm By Fred Clark

Tribulation Force, pp. 56-59 I confess that I still can't make any sense out of what Nicolae Carpathia is supposed to be trying to do in his dealings with Buck Williams. It doesn't help that I also can't figure out what Buck is trying to do in his dealings with Nicolae. The trouble comes from the fact that Buck isn't very, very dead at this point. Or at the very least in some secret dungeon at the United Nations* being... Read more

Tony Perkins' genital politics

Last updated on: June 22, 2012 at 12:10 pm By Fred Clark

So back on Wednesday the House of Representatives passed the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, approving funding for the State Department and the Peace Corps for another two years. The official summary for H.R. 2410 reads: To authorize appropriations for the Department of State and the Peace Corps for fiscal years 2010 and 2011, to modernize the Foreign Service, to authorize democratic, economic, and social development assistance for Pakistan, to authorize security assistance for Pakistan, and for other purposes. "Other purposes"... Read more

TF: Skip verse 10

Last updated on: June 22, 2012 at 12:08 pm By Fred Clark

Tribulation Force, pp. 53-55 Buck Williams spends a few more pages reviewing and admiring his miraculously complete Global Weekly cover story on the various theories circulating to explain the disappearance of every child on the planet, plus another few hundred million adults. In that one sentence I've already described the Event in more detail than Buck seems to have done in his article. He's not alone in this — in the world of Tribulation Force, no one stops to ask... Read more

Wanderlust-Warning Sign

Last updated on: June 11, 2009 at 9:18 pm By Fred Clark

Tell me what you want, what you really, really want … "Wanderlust," Bjork"Wanderlust," Delays"Wanderlust," R.E.M."Wannabe," Spice Girls"War," Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band"War Pigs," Cake"Warakurna," Midnight Oil"The Warbler," The Choir"Warning," Green Day"Warning Sign," Talking Heads Yes, the quote above is from the Spice Girls. But for a moment try to forget that's where that line is from and try not to think about that silly song. Is there a more important or more intimate question than this? It's not... Read more

Etymology

Last updated on: June 11, 2009 at 11:06 am By Fred Clark

Warren Clements of The Globe and Mail is the latest language columnist to discover the words slacktivist and slacktivism. The Globe and Mail is based in Toronto, so it's a bit of a shame that Clements misses the local angle: that word slacktivism was coined by a native son — by Dwight Ozard of London, Ontario, in fact. If you're searching for the origin of this word, Google tends to direct you to Paul McFedries delightful Word Spy site, and... Read more