A Thinking Reed

  • Friday metal – Red Eddie edition

    This is all kinds of awesome: Eddie the Head, the demoniacal mascot of the British heavy metal group Iron Maiden, has made his way into the debating chamber of a Spanish town hall. Eddie’s cadaverous face appears regularly at council meetings in the town of Villava, in Navarre, as part of a war of political…

  • “Spread the wealth”

    Daniel Larison: […] the idea that the message of Spread The Wealth would be a political loser at the present time is bizarre, which makes McCain’s insistence on identifying Obama as the “spread the wealth” candidate even more bizarre. I mean, does McCain want to get crushed in a landslide? Let’s think about this. There…

  • Powell to endorse?

    Just heard on NPR that Colin Powell will appear on Meet the Press this Sunday, likely for the purpose of endorsing Obama. Will this provide a big boost to Obama? My impression is that the Powell brand has been tarnished considerably in the wake of the Iraq fiasco. But maybe he’s still a widely respected…

  • Jesus in the grocery store

    From Christianity Today: The local grocery store is the space where we gather the fruit of the earth — all of which come from God’s gracious hand — and distribute them to the creatures made in God’s image. Take away all the sophisticated marketing labels and bold two-for-one signs, and you have a place where…

  • Oprah does factory farming

    Apparently Oprah dedicated an entire episode of her show to how animals are treated in factory farms (and has even experimented with a vegan diet). I’m no Oprah fan, but I imagine this is probably the most exposure that most of Oprah’s many, many viewers have ever gotten to this issue. Good on her.

  • Calling all Trekkies

    I’m more of a casual Star Trek fan than a hardcore Trekkie (sorry, Trekker), but this Entertainment Weekly article makes J.J. Abram’s (of Lost fame) upcoming reboot of the franchise sound somewhat promising. I thought this in particular was interesting: Abrams says he was also drawn to the project because he believed in — and…

  • The political theology of mainline Protestants?

    This article at Harper’s argues that the rejection of the McCain/Palin ticket by mainstream Protestants that Steve Waldman described is a matter of theological as much as political differences (via Andrew Sullivan): For the mainstream Protestant, Palin is engaging in what Reinhold Niebuhr calls “the idolatry of America.” As Niebuhr would have it, an American…

  • Final (thank you, Lord) debate

    I think Obama mopped the floor with Sen. McCain. But I would say that, wouldn’t I? (I’m wearing my Obama/Biden t-shirt as I write this, as it happens.) Obama’s answer on the Ayers/ACORN (OMG! ACORN is destroying the fabric of democracy!!!) stuff seemed pretty effective to me. And, while I remain a squish on what…

  • The new new new fusionism?

    I remember those days of–what?–three years ago when the “new fusionism” was supposed to be an alliance of pro-lifers and foreign policy hawks. And then there was “liberaltarianism.” Now it’s an alliance between “neo-Benedictines” and “libertarians.” The idea is that folks who want to live in Alasdair MacIntyre-style local communities heavy on religious identity and…

  • Mainliners breaking for Obama

    Interesting column by Beliefnet’s Steven Waldman. This may seem obvious, but it’s easy to forget–what with all the talk about the “liberal mainline”–that mainline Protestants in the pews are not necessarily all that liberal (Bush won the mainline vote in 2004). Indeed, according to Waldman, a little over four in 10 describe themselves as conservative,…