Years before Jeff Foxworthy became a millionaire from his “you might be a redneck” schtick, my friend Dwight Ozard used to play the same game about evangelicals. As in: If you feel really, really guilty about not keeping up with your Daily Quiet Time … If you use the word “Lord” at least three times in every sentence when you pray … If you went to Bible College because seminaries can’t be trusted … If you... Read more
[NOTE: Much of this post is based on an Emily Litella-ish misreading, in which I fail to recognize satire as such. Please scroll down to the bottom and read the update/correction first. Thanks, sorry, etc.] Prof. Mark Elrod, of the Church of Christ-related Harding University, doesn’t believe that Fred Thompson is a Real True Christian. [Note: Not really, see update below.] He’s wagering $100 that no one can prove the lawyer/actor/senator/actor/candidate is more than a “lapsed member” of the conservative... Read more
The camera shows an empty subway platform. The shot frames the small platform perfectly, with both sides of the screen showing the entrance to the tunnels on either side. A sign on the far wall reads “To Brooklyn,” with an arrow pointing to the right. The scene at first is quiet, but then a rumbling begins, growing steadily louder. Suddenly a train bursts into view, moving from left to right. The sound is deafening as its lighted windows roll by... Read more
Prepare to be annoyed. Go here or here or here and move your mouse toward the upper right corner just as anyone naturally would to begin scrolling down the page. Suddenly, the page you were looking at disappears, replaced with “[Cumulus]* Real Time Weather” (as opposed to, I guess, weather with lots of flashbacks and nonlinear narrative). And there, in the center right of your screen, you will see what may be the least-welcome word to anyone surfing the Web:... Read more
I fully intend, when tagging these things, to get back to them later and post about them in detail. Sometimes that doesn’t happen: “The reason to have a theater.” “Mr. Darcy in the Fields of Bethlehem.” I forget what I was looking for on the Web when I stumbled across Abigail Nussbaum’s reconsideration of the Book of Ruth as a Jane Austen novel. (via) “Gay Christians Say the Darnedest Things!“ Bonhoeffer, Batman and Jack Bauer. In... Read more
I’ve added the IRD Info Project to the “Testify” links on the right. They offer a closer look at the Institute on Religion and Democracy, a Scaife-funded right-wing PR tank that poses as a voice of evangelical “renewal” in the mainline Protestant denominations. IRD has a long and ignoble history of dishonesty, all aimed at defunding the mission and ministry of any church group that doesn’t follow lockstep after their partisan political agenda. It is a group of bad people... Read more
Left Behind, pp. 298-301 This section doesn't quite work. If Tyndale Press had employed an editor for Left Behind (though, clearly, they did not), then that poor soul would have needed to convince LaHaye and Jenkins to do a bit of rewriting here. But as a reader I'm willing to cut them some slack for this passage for at least three reasons, which we'll deal with in turn. First, because this little interlude is somewhat nobly intentioned. It serves a... Read more
Rain clearing, breezy overnight "I Wanna Be Sedated," The Ramones "Pretend We're Dead," Cansei De Ser Sexy "Papa Danced on Olvera Street," Terry Taylor "Women and Men," They Might Be Giants "Supersex Samba," WNOC "Lonely Girls," Lucinda Williams "Your Sweet Voice," Matthew Sweet "Southern Anthem," Iron & Wine "Graceland," Paul Simon "Wise Up," Aimee Mann 20-percent chance of frogs … Read more
As a follow-up to the post below, I'm curious to know what readers are looking for from online newspapers — what you expect and what you wish you could expect. What do newspaper sites do that you like? What that you dislike? What would you like to see more/less of? What sort of things should the Big National Papers be doing that the Small Town Locals can't, and vice versa? What would you do if you ran the zoo? (For... Read more
If you are reading a newspaper article online then, in most cases, it will either be: A) an article that has been edited to fit the physical page and not the Web site you're looking at; or B) an article that has not been edited. Let's consider Category A first. The space constraints of the printed page do not exist online. It would seem, then, that stories that have been trimmed (or hacked) to fit into a cramped print news... Read more
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