I was in the mood to try something new the other day, and the guy at my local liquor store recommended this to me. It’s quite good. Brewed in Michigan, it’s got a nice hoppy flavor, but sweet and complex. Too many American microbrews these days seem to be trying to out-hop each other.
Month: April 2008
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Meta-blog
I’m still trying to figure out how to work regular blogging into my new, less flexible, schedule, as you may have noticed from the erratic posting. I’ve been shooting for posting a series of shorter posts once or twice during the week with maybe a longer essay on the weekends. I still haven’t quite figured out how to make that gel, but the situation has had the unintended effect of getting me to realize that I’m not really much interested in trying to keep up with the blog-world on a daily basis anymore. No doubt partly due to the election season, there’s just more commentary than any one person can possibly digest. So why would I want to contribute to the intellectual flotsam? Hopefully, then, the new schedule will make it easier for me to pull back and blog about bigger picture type stuff – not the latest campaign gaffe or outrage du jour. (There’ll still be heavy metal videos, though!)
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Farm bill folly
I caught part of this Bill Moyers interview with Bread for the World‘s president Rev. David Beckman. Rev. Beckman talked a lot about the farm bill currently wending its way through Congress and how its distorted system of subsidies rewards big landowners and hurts poor people, both here and abroad. Worth watching if you’re interested.
Here’s another good piece on the farm bill.
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Meat in a vat
It’s funny, from the standpoint of animal suffering I ought to be all for this, but something about it still gives me the heebie jeebies. I’ll have to think a bit more about why that is.
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Needed: alternatives to animal testing
The Post reports that a panel set up by the federal government to explore alternatives to animal testing has been woefully slow in approving alternative methods, even though the EU has approved something like 34 of them. Animal advocates, scientists, and even industry are impatient with the lack of progress, which they attribute, in part, to the fact that U.S. law doesn’t require finding alternatives to animal testing as EU law does.
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Twin Peaks is awesome
This wasn’t on my radar at all when it first aired (I guess my being 15 at the time may have had something to do with it), but we’ve been watching season 1 on DVD and it’s amazing. The way Lynch effortlessly crosses the boundaries between supernatural thriller, soap operatic melodrama, murder mystery, and even comedy is something to behold.
Given its premature cancellation, I’ve got a feeling we’re setting ourselves up for disappointment (Carnivale, anyone?), but it’ll be good while it lasts.
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Ronald McDonald: agent of the homosexual agenda
The most surprising thing to me about this story was that there even is a gay and lesbian Chamber of Commerce. Who knew?
p.s. It’s never clear to me what the causal mechanism is supposed to be by which all those monogamous (and petite bourgeoisie in this case!) gays destroy the “traditional family” (est. circa 1950).
p.p.s. Though I usually have little reason to go to McDonald’s, I did buy coffee there today! Just doing my part to destroy our civilization of liberty, independence, creativity, and humanity under God.
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The holiness people
Jeremy has a fascinating post (a re-post from his first blog, actually) about growing up in the Pentecostal Holiness Church and eventually converting to Lutheranism.
As someone who was raised in a household that could best be described as moderately observant sometimes-Presbyterian, the kind of all-encompassing religious subculture that Jeremy describes is pretty hard for me to imagine.
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Poetry and liturgy
I’m with Christopher on this.
A Thinking Reed 