I’m heading out of town to visit family and friends for the next week. Posting will be light but not necessarily non-existent.
And since I may not get to it next week, here’s a bonus Friday Metal:
Killswitch Engage – “The Arms of Sorrow”
Month: June 2007
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Animals in a war zone
Fascinating article by conservationist Lawrence Anthony about his efforts to protect zoo animals (and others) in Baghdad during the war.
It’s an interesting question for the ethics of war: has anyone ever considered animals as potential “collateral damage”?
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Progs for Paul?
The rather odd premise of this Reason article is that libertarian “constitutionalist” GOP candidate Ron Paul may have appeal to disaffected progressives.
Now, this may be true in the broad sense that progressives will likely find themselves agreeing with Paul on the war, the PATRIOT Act, the war on drugs, etc. but what is the upshot supposed to be here? That progressives are going to cross party lines en masse to vote for Paul in the GOP primary?
After all, it’s virtually a foregone conclusion that Paul won’t get the GOP nomination (especially when an astonishing 65% of Republicans still say that President Bush is doing a good job according to a recent poll). So there’s really no question of Paul appealing to progressives and liberals in the general election.
And besides, if progressives want to vote for a longshot candidate who shares their views on the war, they’ve got Dennis Kucinich with whom they’re likely to agree about much else. Ron Paul’s vision of an ultra stripped down nightwatchman state is likely to send big-government liberals running for the hills.
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Creatures of the Same God
I’m excited to see that Anglican theologian Andrew Linzey is publishing a new book by this name. It looks like it will build on his earlier work on animal theology and develop it in some new ways.
Unfortunately, I don’t see any indication that it will be available here in the US upon publication, and it appears to be a fairly pricey university press publication.
I reviewed Linzey’s Animal Theology here.
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Competition for thee but not for me
Grist has a discussion of the recent FTC objections to the proposed Whole Foods/Wild Oats merger and points out that the government has been curiously indifferent to what seems to be the more serious issue of big agribusiness consolidation and market concentration. Slate also ran a piece criticizing the government’s opposition to the Whole Foods/Wild Oats merger a few days ago.
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Eugene McCarraher on Hitchens
I wrote a while back that I’d like to see Christopher Hitchens debate a serious Christian thinker. We may have found our man.
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“May the Force be with you.” “And also with you!”
Last night I gave a presentation on “The Gospel According to Star Wars” under the auspices of our parish’s “Theology on Tap” series. This barmy idea was cooked up by me and our curate after a couple of beers at last summer’s parish picnic, but I think it went well all things considered. The people attending seemed to enjoy it and there was some good discussion afterwards.
You can see the text I used as the basis of my presentation here. Regular readers with good memories may recognize some of the ideas as having germinated in this post.
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Paris Hilton: scapegoat
I find myself in the rare position of agreeing with Christopher Hitchens on this.
So, what’s the deal here? Is it that we feel ashamed for paying so much attention to Hilton, et al. that we heap scorn and derision on her at the first opportunity in order to feel better about ourselves?
A Thinking Reed 