A Thinking Reed

"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed" – Blaise Pascal

Music

  • Friday links

    –The Australian broadcaster ABC’s Religion and Ethics site has a series of articles by Martha Nussbaum on democracy and education: parts 1, 2, and 3. –Coal is not cheap. –Vegan nutritionist Virginia Messina argues that healthy diets can include meat analogues. (A corrective of sorts to anti-processed-food extremism.) –At the great metal blog Invisible Oranges: Read more

  • Friday links

    –Augustinian and Pelagian software. –A John Polkinghorne lecture on science and religion. –Batman as plutocrat. –Korn and Limp Bizkit: the soundtrack to nihilism. –Martha Nussbaum on John Stuart Mill: between Bentham and Aristotle. –The disconnect between the science and economics of climate change. –Peter Berger, who describes himself as a political conservative and a theological Read more

  • Friday links

    – Many people have pointed to this omnibus post at Mother Jones that provides background, context, links, and ongoing updates on the situation in Egypt. – Marvin writes on understanding apostolic poverty. – At the blog Memoria Dei, a post discussing feminist theologian Mary Daly’s use of women’s experience as an analogue for the divine. Read more

  • “I was writing some songs that had fake Peter Buck riffs”

    I thought this was funny, from the AV Club’s interview with Decemberists frontman Colin Meloy: AVC: How did you meet Peter Buck [of R.E.M.] and decide to collaborate? CM: He’s kind of a Pacific Northwesterner these days. I think he splits his time between Seattle and Portland. He’s in The Minus 5 with Scott McCaughey, Read more

  • Friday Metal: Top 10 albums of 2010

    As always, based entirely on my own subjective criteria, quirks, and whims. In (rough) ordinal ranking: 1. Iron Maiden, The Final Frontier Watch the video for the title track here. 2. High on Fire, Snakes for the Divine 3. Ludicra, The Tenant 4. Soilwork, The Panic Broadcast 5. Enslaved, Axioma Ethica Odini 6. The Sword, Read more

  • Merry Christmas from the Ramones

    I was singing this in the shower this morning for some reason. When I was in high school I had a badly copied VHS tape of Ramones videos that I must’ve watched a hundred times, and this was on it. Read more

  • Some best metal of 2010 lists

    The year-end “best of” lists have already started to appear. Here are some lists of the best metal albums of 2010 from a few trusted sources: – The AV Club’s Leonard Pierce offers his picks here. – Phil Freeman has a top 40(!) (parts 1, 2, 3, and 4) list as well as an entertaining Read more

  • Mid-week links

    – 2010’s was the hottest June on record in Washington, D.C. (I believe it!) – Glenn Beck pulicizes liberation theology. – On the authority of the Bible. (And more.) – Is Amazon killing the publishing business? – Keith Ward argues that there are things science can’t explain. – The ideology of marriage. – I heartily Read more

  • Friday links

    – Jim Henley on the high road and the low road – The July issue of the Journal of Lutheran Ethics focuses on poverty and development – How easy would it be to fix Social Security? – The Twilight series: not just bad, but morally toxic – Who you callin’ a pescatarian? – Marvin writes Read more

  • Friday Metal: Everyone in Converse

    Here’s a clever video from the German metalcore band Heaven Shall Burn (a very metal name, that): Read more