Ceci n'est pas une pipe (For some reason this photo, from Fred Comegys of The News Journal, made me think of Rene Magritte.) Read more
Ceci n'est pas une pipe (For some reason this photo, from Fred Comegys of The News Journal, made me think of Rene Magritte.) Read more
Anderson Cooper of CNN is reporting from Baghdad today on the Iraqi elections. These elections are a Good Thing. Depending on the outcome, and on the longer-term outcome, they may even prove to be a Very Good Thing. Cooper noted that the elections were made possible by the American-led invasion of Iraq. This is true. But Cooper went further. He also said that such elections "would not have been possible" without the American-led invasion. This is not true. Many countries... Read more
The previous post is, intentionally, not very charitable. Allow me to explain why. Andrew Natsios was massively, staggeringly wrong, about the cost of the Bush administration's adventure in Iraq. He was off by hundreds of billions of dollars. He proclaimed this foolishness on national television. And when Ted Koppel mercifully offered him the chance to qualify his statement, he not only refused to do so, but he seemed to chide Koppel for even considering that the invasion, destruction and rebuilding... Read more
News today that the Pentagon is preparing to request another $100 billion for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. I write "operations" in, because it's no longer clear exactly what this money is for. We used to read of these funds being for the "rebuilding" of "postwar" Iraq, but we've already blown through more than $200 billion for "rebuilding" and the rebuilding hasn't even started yet. Neither, of course, is Iraq "postwar." The war continues (the occupation being, essentially, a perpetual... Read more
The move toward more "family friendly" cable subscription options could spark a fight among the media archbishops of the religious right. I finally finished reading the December Washington Monthly this weekend, including Zachary Roth's proposal: "Viewer Discretion: Parents should be able to pay for Nickelodeon without having to pony up for MTV." I like the idea in theory. More options for consumers is good, and it would be nice not to have to pay for all those cable channels I... Read more
Here's a photo of my friend Dwight Ozard, who passed away last month. The picture, courtesy of Neil McGillivray, is from Dwight's days as a youth minister in London, Ontario. In his defense, I'd point out that this was in the '80s, and a rock-'n'-roll mullet was kind of hip for a youth minister at the time. Songwriter/columnist John Fischer wrote a nice remembrance of Dwight on Rick Warren's devotional Web site (following an earlier entry on Dwight's battle with... Read more
The hotel I stayed at in Washington, D.C., was hosting a convention of the National Association of Black State Legislators. It seemed like a good party, but with all those folks gathered there, I started to worry about what might be going on back home — "Yeah, Earl, they're gone for three days. It's just us. Time to convene that 'Special Session' we talked about …" * * * * * * * * * I provided the generic Sojonet... Read more
And it's the force of habit … Joan Osborne, "One of Us" Weezer, "Undone" The Delays, "Nearer Than Heaven" Hall & Oates, "You Make My Dreams Come True" TMBG, "Particle Man" Sonia Dada, "You Don't Treat Me No Good No More" Lightning Seeds, "Change" Peter Gabriel, "Come Talk to Me" Jon Bon Jovi, "How Long Has This Been Going On?" Elvis Costello, "Suit of Lights" Yeah, that's Bon Jovi singing Gershwin. And it's really good. "One of Us" (written by... Read more
So it's one of those busy weeks where I have to take a day off my main job in order to do stuff for my other job, meaning doing five days worth of work in four days and … You get the idea. Anyway, I'm off to our nation's capital with a pack of seminary students for nine meetings in two days with various Christian/religious political groups in D.C. Here's the itinerary, if you want to follow along at home:... Read more
Sunny 104.5's all-Christmas-music format disproves the Falwell/O'Reilly/John Birch "war on Christmas" theory. It also proves that the Clear Channel programming directors have limited, and awful, taste. In comments below, both Mnemosyne and Andrew mention the Pogues' "Fairytale of New York" as an all-time Christmas classic. But you won't hear that in Sunny's playlist. What you will hear are endless not-so-varied variations of a dozen or so chestnuts roasting on an open fire, with a heavy emphasis on the MOR cuts... Read more
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