These are not just numbers. 1; 2; 3; 4; 5; 6; 7; 8; 9; 10; 11; 12; 13; 14; 15; 16; 17; 18; 19; 20; 21; 22; 23; 24; 25; 26; 27; 28; 29; 30; 31; 32; 33; 34; 35; 36; 37; 38; 39; 40; 41; 42; 43; 44; 45; 46; 47; 48; 49; 50; 51; 52; 53; 54; 55; 56; 57; 58; 59; 60; 61; 62; 63; 64; 65; 66; 67; 68; 69; 70; 71; 72; 73; 74; 75;... Read more
In The New York Review of Books, columnist Nicholas D. Kristof looks at several recent titles on "The Wretched of the Earth." The book review aspect of this article is almost incidental. Kristof's main point here, to his credit, is something he often uses his New York Times column to remind us of: Most people are not like us; most people — billions of them — are desperately poor, surviving on $2 a day or less: … Today, as every... Read more
Josh Marshall links to this article on Sen. Clinton's health care proposals, summarizing the news this way: "Edwards campaign accuses Hillary of swiping his health care proposals." Apart from the specifics of this particular instance, I've always wondered why candidates in the primaries didn't do more of this kind of "swiping." For example, Matthew Yglesias suggests that there's a lot to like in Gov. Bill Richardson's energy proposals. If Richardson's campaign never makes it past Ultra-Super-Bionic-Tuesday (or whatever the new,... Read more
It seems whenever the question of slavery and the Bible comes up, everybody starts to get their fundie on. Even people usually far-removed from the fundamentalist and evangelical subcultures start using some of its more dubious tools — like the vivisection-by-concordance approach to Bible study. Yes, concordances are helpful, and this can be a fruitful approach, but only if studying the index is not seen as the equivalent of, or a substitute for, reading the book. In this case, actually,... Read more
Stumbled across a photocopy of the following from back when I worked in the archives of the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society. This is an account from the diary of Nathaniel Brown, a former Baptist missionary who returned home to serve as editor of “The American Baptist and Freeman,” an abolitionist newspaper. On New Year’s Eve, 1862, Brown and two other Baptist clergymen met with President Abraham Lincoln to present their “memorial,” or declaration, about the content and the intent... Read more
Left Behind, pp. 275-281 Rayford Steele is talking to Hattie Durham (on the phone, of course). Hattie is the flight attendant Rayford was flirting with and stringing along for years. He used to always make sure she was assigned to his flights, and they would always go out for dinner and drinks in whatever city they were staying over in. But Steele, who was married, made a point of never touching her. Rayford was proud of this, and the authors... Read more
Some words of wisdom could comfort us Think I'll leave that up to someone wiser … "Butterfly Nets," Bishop Allen "Black and White Town," Doves "She's All Heart," Daniel Amos "Here Comes Your Man," Pixies "Teen Angst," Cracker "Back of Your Head," Julie Miller "David," Nellie McKay "Sibylline Machine," The Channel "Fisherman's Blues," The Waterboys "Fooling and F'ing Around," Thrift Store All-Stars Read more
Tom said, "Back home some fellas come through with han'bills — orange ones. Says they need lots a people out here to work the crops." The young man laughed. "They say they's three hunderd thousan' folks here, an' I bet ever' dam' fam'ly seen them han'bills." "Yeah, but if they don' need folks, what'd they go to the trouble puttin' them things out for?" "Use your head, why don'cha?" "Yeah, but I wanta know." "Look," the young man said. "S'pose... Read more
Kevin Drum links to a sneering essay by Los Angeles Times film critic Richard Schickel, "Not everybody's a critic." Schickel gives the public two thumbs down, suggesting that the hoi polloi have not proven "their right to an opinion." It's a typical condescending rant of the sort one often encounters — a circular, question-begging dismissal of blogs and bloggers that begins and ends with the presumption that nothing worthwhile can come from the Nazareth of the blogosphere. Schickel proudly revels... Read more
Imagine this happens to you: Some big Manhattan publisher gives you a $100,000 advance to write the Great American Novel. Then you look at the fine print and you realize that your deal gives you $100,000 every year until you finish the book. You call to double check. "Does this mean I get $100,000/year forever?" you ask. "Not forever," the publisher says, "just until whenever you're finished writing." And once the book is completed, the publisher says, you will receive... Read more
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