Bloody Mary Candyman

Last updated on: January 23, 2007 at 9:51 am By Fred Clark

Longtime readers of this blog may have noticed that illiterately literal interpretations of the Bible are one of my pet peeves. Especially when these readings involve interpreting a passage without any regard for context. Especially when those promoting these clumsily crypto-literal interpretations maintain a proud and determined ignorance of how the passage in question has been interpreted by others, living and dead, for two thousand years. Especially when those promoting such readings seem to think that the word "God" refers... Read more

What is education for?

Last updated on: January 22, 2007 at 8:57 am By Fred Clark

The following is from E.F. Schumacher's quixotic classic, Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered. Specifically, from the essay, "The Problem of Unemployment in India." Posting this here so that I can link to it in the future. – – – – – – – – – – – – If there are millions of people who want to better themselves but do not know how to do it, who is going to show them? Consider the size of... Read more

The record, for the record

Last updated on: January 20, 2007 at 2:44 am By Fred Clark

Avedon Carol takes issue with: Jonathan Chait's dopey article in which he again babbles about how the people who were right about the war were right for the wrong reasons, and that's why we should still listen to all the people who were wrong (for, I guess, the right reasons). Chait imagines that those of us who opposed the invasion never gave the right reasons. This is an incredibly stupid thing to say, not least for the fact that he... Read more

L.B.: Boutros Boutros Carpathia 2

Last updated on: January 19, 2007 at 5:35 pm By Fred Clark

Left Behind, pp. 242-247 Nicolae Carpathescu, er, sorry, Carpathia, the new president of Romania and Antichrist-in-waiting, is about to speak at the United Nations. It's not clear why he's there, or why anyone should be particularly interested in what he might have to say. He isn't an expert in any particular field. He's had less than a week of experience as a national leader. Carpathia has been described as the "consummate politician," but in his short career so far we've... Read more

The new black

Last updated on: January 14, 2007 at 2:22 pm By Fred Clark

ITEM: CNN political analyst Jeff Greenfield compares Barack Obama with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad because both men have been known to wear a jacket without a tie. (Video here.) Greenfield is respected as a sophisticated, serious analyst (just ask him), so I figured I should try my hand at some Greenfield-style analysis: Here's a picture of the president and the first lady at a recent Washington event, sporting what we could call the classic Bush look. It's a look the... Read more

Sound familiar?

Last updated on: January 13, 2007 at 5:30 pm By Fred Clark

June, 2002: "Save your breath. The president has already made up his mind." — National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice on the planned invasion of Iraq July 23, 2002: "Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route. … The Defense Secretary said that the... Read more

Game Day

Last updated on: January 13, 2007 at 3:23 pm By Fred Clark

Here's New Orleans native and Philadelphia Daily News sports writer Bernard Fernandez on the subject of what's at stake in tonight's NFL playoff game between the Saints and the Eagles: I am here to chronicle Saturday's NFC divisional playoff matchup of the Eagles and New Orleans Saints, in the refurbished Superdome, but I know, better than do my colleagues who will join me, that this game is about so much more than which team takes another step toward Super Bowl... Read more

Those who can teach

Last updated on: January 13, 2007 at 1:33 pm By Fred Clark

Because the teaching anecdotes in the comments to the Left Behind post below deserve their own thread, a story. I landed an internship after college graduation, but it didn't start until August. So I spent May and June substitute teaching in the middle school of my alma mater. My mother, a 40-year veteran of the trenches of second grade, gave me a piece of wise advice. She told me what she always told new, young teachers: Don't smile until Christmas.... Read more

Lincolnesque

Last updated on: January 12, 2007 at 6:11 pm By Fred Clark

This bit from The Daily Show got me thinking about the way we measure presidential greatness. The top tier of great presidents is reserved for those who saved the union: Washington, Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt. Without the leadership each of those men provided in turn, we wouldn't still have a country. Part of what that means for other presidents, of course, is that if you happen to govern at a time in which the future of the republic is not immediately... Read more

Useful Web tool

Last updated on: January 12, 2007 at 4:02 pm By Fred Clark

After reading this and this (both via), I found myself fooling around with the interactive visited countries map and thinking this might be a useful tool for trying to keep track of all the countries our president wants to fight — with or without congressional/constitutional authority. Here's last year: And here's what seems to be the plans for this year (so far): Yeesh. (Update: Laura Rozen has more.) Read more