Oh, yeah. Oooh, ahhh, that’s how it always starts. Then later there’s running and screaming. – Dr. Ian Malcolm Mary Shelley spent the summer of 1816 at the Villa Diodati near Lake Geneva, Switzerland with her husband, poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and their close friend Lord Byron “watching the rain come down, while they all told each other ghost stories.”
Read moreIn case you missed it, America’s newest official candidate for the presidency, Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, kicked off her campaign in her hometown of Waterloo, IA yesterday by confusing John Wayne with John Wayne Gacy. Honest mistake. Anybody could have made it. I mean, it’s still odd. I know first-hand how attuned Iowans can be to their own local histories.
Read moreWell, Tim Tebow’s new memoir is out, and it’s being joyously welcomed by those who think that sanctimonious 23 year-old jocks have something important to say about life. I got to hear some deep thoughts on the book and on the admirable life of young Tebow from the crew of The Stupid Show as I drove around yesterday afternoon, and
Read moreFirst, via Ann Ivins: Harold Camping’s Family Radio has completely redesigned its Web site with no mention of the Rapture. Hunh. I hopped over to have a look, because cynical me wondered if the redesign was sophisticated enough to suggest that they had been working on it since, you know, last week. But have a look. Nothing here that a
Read moreA few days ago, Phoenix Suns president Rick Welts revealed that he is gay. And the whole sporting world exploded yawned. Okay, that’s not precisely true. There has been a bit of comment and analysis. But so far, no controversy. No homophobic ranting, no athletes stepping up to say that Jesus doesn’t approve, none of that. This is a wonderful
Read moreAnd now, something completely different. One of the best things about my life as a child, a thing I looked forward to eagerly, was Sunday morning, before we went to church. Channel 12 had a show featuring gospel quartets and I’d always park in front of the TV and listen to those marvelous harmonies. Religiously, you might say. Even as
Read morePart two in a series. Forgive me for abstracting and oversimplifying a bit, but one might argue that American politics breaks along the following 10 lines: Social Conservatives Neocons Business Conservatives Traditional Conservatives (there’s probably a better term, but I’m thinking of old-line Western land and water rights types) Blue Dog Democrats New Democrats Progressives
Read moreI think we’d all love to live every phase of our lives in happy accord with high moral and ethical principles. We’d love it if we were never confronted by logical contradictions and cognitive dissonance, by cases where our walk was at odds with our talk. But the truth is that we live in a society that’s complex, at best,
Read moreBristol Palin, daughter of former Alaska governor and Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin, will address Washington University students on abstinence during next month’s Sex Week activities. The younger Palin, you’ll recall, became pregnant at age 18, creating a certain measure of campaign discomfort for her mother and GOP presidential hopeful John McCain. Only in America can a girl who knows
Read moreI’m not the first guy to raise this question and I won’t be the last, but what the heck, let’s talk about it. A lot of Americans think of themselves as “progressive christians” or “liberal christians,” and I count a good number of them among my friends and colleagues. Not long ago I was talking to one of these friends
Read more1638 was a busy year.
Read moreIn a recent discussion on one of my political lists Sara Robinson (easily one of the brightest folks in the blogosphere) made an important point about what often causes people to migrate from socially conservative perspectives to more progressive points of view. In describing her experiences with a particular activist group that helped people leaving fundamentalist religions (something that can
Read moreFédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the governing body of world soccer, today awarded the 2022 World Cup to Qatar. The move is regarded by most as an upset – the odds-on favorite to land the event was the United States, which hosted the most successful Copa in history in 1994. Also in the running were Australia and a combined
Read moreOne of my lists is currently engaged in a fairly dynamic discussion about “what is a progressive?” In thinking about the issue, I realized that it might help to ask the question a slightly different way: what would a progressive society look like? Maybe I can better understand what it means to be progressive in 2010 if I reverse-engineer the
Read moreIn September 11, 2001, al Qaeda terrorists hijacked four passenger jets. They flew three of them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The fourth was retaken by the passengers and crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. These things we know. Since then, much has transpired. For example: The US invaded Afghanistan, the nation that had harbored the terrorists
Read more
lullaby pit 