A Thinking Reed

  • Earthbound and down

    Also from the Atlantic–a primer on Battlestar Galactica (may contain spoilers for the uninitiated). The anecdote about Dirk Benedict, who played the original series’ “Starbuck” (and “Face” on the A-Team!), being outraged that the character was re-imagined as a woman is pretty funny. I’m really looking forward to the new season starting this Friday (or…

  • Fixing the imperial presidency?

    Here’s an interesting piece in the new Atlantic arguing that the Founders messed up in designing the presidency and offering some suggestions for fixing it. Despite the author’s suggestion that the abuses of the last 8 years might get the public interested in this, I’m skeptical, not least because it wouldn’t serve a particular institutional…

  • God is love: a workable theology

    A few days ago bls at The Topmost Apple posted a critique of this First Things article by Philip Turner on the “unworkable theology” of the Episcopal Church. In Turner’s view, liberal, mainline Protestantism prizes “inclusion” above all else and thus has reduced God to “love, pure and simple.” In response, bls pointed out that,…

  • Adventures in brown liquor

    I’d been hearing for a while that rye whisky was making something of a comeback. It seems that it was the preferred whisky of pre-Prohibition America and in fact many classic cocktails (e.g. the Manhattan, my fave) were originally made with rye. Happily, we’re not far from this place, so I went this weekend and…

  • Return of a blogger

    I’m happy to see that Andy of Sinning Boldly has returned to blogging after a lengthy hiatus. Right now is looks like his focus is a little more on the devotional/spiritual side of things. Welcome back, Andy!

  • One world?

    I recently read Peter Singer’s One World: The Ethics of Globalization, which was originally delivered as a series of lectures in 2000. I had a longish post in the hopper about national loyalties and obligations to strangers, but it didn’t really go anywhere so I junked it. Suffice it to say, I don’t always agree…

  • Just war at the JLE

    Always a timely topic (unfortunately): the Journal of Lutheran Ethics has a review symposium of Gary Simpson’s War, Peace & God: Rethinking the Just War Tradition.

  • “A wholly American and appropriate indulgence”

    “An Ode to Bourbon” ‘Nuff said.

  • Friday metal – Dio, “Rainbow in the Dark”

    Is Ronnie James Dio the worst dresser in metal? Well, he’d have some pretty stiff competition (see, e.g., the entire sub-genre of “viking metal”), but I think he’d be a strong contender. Doesn’t stop him from rocking, though. (If anything, it might help.)

  • Cooking with ATR

    Jennifer’s post here makes me think that this sort of thing might actually be interesting or useful to some folks. One of the most common questions I get as a vegetarian is “What do you eat?” I chalk this up to a couple of things. One is that, for many people, the standard American meal,…