{"id":15644,"date":"2013-06-08T06:33:23","date_gmt":"2013-06-08T10:33:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=15644"},"modified":"2013-06-01T19:35:24","modified_gmt":"2013-06-01T23:35:24","slug":"8-years-ago-nabobs-of-naba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2013\/06\/08\/8-years-ago-nabobs-of-naba\/","title":{"rendered":"8 years ago: Nabobs of NABA"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>June 8, 2005, on this blog: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2005\/06\/08\/nabobs-of-naba\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Nabobs of NABA<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Good God, is this what America is now reduced to? Do we really have to go all the way over to Stalin or Saddam to find an example of someone whose behavior is reassuringly worse than our own? How are we supposed to maintain a shred of pride in our nation or in ourselves as a people when the best we can say for ourselves is that we\u2019re Not As Bad As the worst people we can think of? Do we really need\u00a0<em>Stalin\u00a0<\/em>in the class to blow the curve so we can pass this course?<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ve become like Lot, the troglodytic drunk who, while screwing his own daughters, took comfort that at least he was Not As Bad As his old friends and neighbors back in Sodom.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Do we really have to go all the way over to Stalin or Saddam to find an example of someone whose behavior is reassuringly worse than our own? How are we supposed to maintain a shred of pride in our nation or in ourselves as a people when the best we can say for ourselves is that we&#8217;re Not As Bad As the worst people we can think of?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>8 years ago: Nabobs of NABA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Do we really have to go all the way over to Stalin or Saddam to find an example of someone whose behavior is reassuringly worse than our own? How are we supposed to maintain a shred of pride in our nation or in ourselves as a people when the best we can say for ourselves is that we&#039;re Not As Bad As the worst people we can think of?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2013\/06\/08\/8-years-ago-nabobs-of-naba\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"8 years ago: Nabobs of NABA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Do we really have to go all the way over to Stalin or Saddam to find an example of someone whose behavior is reassuringly worse than our own? How are we supposed to maintain a shred of pride in our nation or in ourselves as a people when the best we can say for ourselves is that we&#039;re Not As Bad As the worst people we can think of?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2013\/06\/08\/8-years-ago-nabobs-of-naba\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"slacktivist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-06-08T10:33:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-06-01T23:35:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2013\/06\/08\/8-years-ago-nabobs-of-naba\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2013\/06\/08\/8-years-ago-nabobs-of-naba\/\",\"name\":\"8 years ago: Nabobs of NABA\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2013-06-08T10:33:23+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-06-01T23:35:24+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47\"},\"description\":\"Do we really have to go all the way over to Stalin or Saddam to find an example of someone whose behavior is reassuringly worse than our own? 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"8 years ago: Nabobs of NABA","description":"Do we really have to go all the way over to Stalin or Saddam to find an example of someone whose behavior is reassuringly worse than our own? 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. 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