A Thinking Reed

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

War & Peace

  • Political self ID – a Christian humanist?

    This is an exercise in bloggy narcissism (or is that a redundancy?) so feel free to skip this post. The other day a friend asked me to describe my political outlook and I couldn’t come up with a very satisfying answer. Having persued the blog he suggested religious conservative, but to me that sounds a Read more

  • Pacifism and just war in The Mission

    Last night I re-watched The Mission, one of my all-time favorite movies (with screenplay written by Robert Bolt, who also wrote the screenplay of one of my other all-time faves, A Man For All Seasons). Like A Man for All Seasons, The Mission is about conscience and the way we respond to injustice. The Mission Read more

  • Lessons of Vietnam

    A few that the President left out of his speech, from Andrew Bacevich. Among others: Sometimes people can manage their own affairs. Does the U.S. need to attend to that mess? Perhaps not. Here the experience of Vietnam following the U.S. defeat is instructive. Once the Americans departed, the Vietnamese began getting their act together. Read more

  • Debating the bomb

    Apparently some people never get tired of arguing about whether the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were justified. Happily, though, there is a link there to G.E.M. Anscombe’s “Mr Truman’s Degree” in its entriety, which I don’t think I’ve been able to find on the web before now. I mean, look: in terms of Read more

  • The “Progs for Paul” myth redux

    I’ve never bought into the “Progressives for Paul” myth – the idea that there was a burgeoning groundswell of support on the anti-war Left for maverick GOP congressman Ron Paul. Gaius links to this rather silly piece saying that Paul’s “support” on the Left may be shot now that he’s “revealed” his radical small-government views. Read more

  • NYT: Public doesn’t want to hear ideas for universal health care or getting out of Iraq

    A friend of mine sent a link to this excellent post at the American Prospect’s Beat the Press blog, tearing a NY Times op-ed for pronouncing, seemingly without evidence, that “minor” candidates like Rep. Dennis Kucinich should be barred from the presidential debates since no one cares what they have to say. On the contrary, Read more

  • The problem with air power

    Powerful piece by Tom Englehardt on the problems with relying on air power in war, something that has become more central to the US’s way of war over the last half-century or so. The problem, in essence, is that so-called collateral damage, the “unintentional” killing of large numbers of civilians, is such an inextricable part Read more

  • More troops=more war

    This is a few days old but still worth noting. Andrew Bacevich laments the bipartisan consensus among all the leading presidential candidates for expanding the size of the military. The problem, Bacevich says, is that “[a]ny politician who thinks that the chief lesson to be drawn from the last five years is that we need Read more

  • 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”? Read more

  • Niebuhr and the neocons

    Thanks to Michael Westmoreland-White for pointing out this interview with liberal theologian and social ethicist Gary Dorrien. Dorrien, who now holds the Reinhold Niebuhr chair in social ethics at Union Theological Seminary, points out that while Niebuhr held many different and incompatible political views over the course of his life, the current US policy in Read more