A Thinking Reed

  • Re-thinking free trade

    You should check out this TNR piece by Chris Hayes, Washington editor of the Nation (and friend of this blog). Chris talked to a bunch of economists from across the political spectrum and noted a distinct sea change in attitudes toward free trade agreements (FTA). In essence: FTAs provide a measureable, though slight, increase in…

  • Veep blogging

    I don’t know that I have any unique perspective to add to the Biden-Palin debate. I think the c.w. is more or less correct that Palin avoided disaster–largely by sidestepping the questions and sticking to McCain campaign talking points (tax cuts! victory! maverick!). Probably not enough to turn the campaign around, but it may have…

  • John Stuart Mill – right about everything

    Mill believed in complete equality between the sexes, not just women’s colleges and, someday, female suffrage but absolute parity; he believed in equal process for all, the end of slavery, votes for the working classes, and the right to birth control (he was arrested at seventeen for helping poor people obtain contraception), and in the…

  • My only post on the financial crisis

    I hope you do not, dear reader, come here looking for informed commentary on economics and high finance. But, for what it’s worth, I’ve found Andrew Leonard’s column at Salon essential reading in recent days. It seems we have a plan, but with many of the details left to be revealed. Last night–again for what…

  • Anarchy, church, and utopia

    Marvin describes and interesting-sounding book comparing the situation of Christianity in contemporary Africa to the young Christian movement in the ancient world. One issue both face(d) is deciding which aspects or elements to preserve of the religious outlook that preceded Christianity. Christians in the ancient world divided between those, like Tertullian, who drew a bright…

  • Humane Society steps up its religion and animals program

    A report from the Boston Globe (via Episcopal Cafe). With a rising concern about things like fair trade and global warming within a lot of churches, will animal welfare start to make inroads? My sense is that this is still not on most churches’ radar screens. Perhaps out of a concern that focusing on animals…

  • Half-@$$ed debate blogging

    OK – I only watched the first hour; I turned it off when it became a competition about who could sound “tougher” on Iran. Things like this make me feel like a crazy Chomskyite left-winger. I have a hard time putting myself in the mindset of that mythical beast the undecided or “persuadable” voter, so…

  • Groaning of Creation: Index of posts

    Thought it might be helpful to have links to all my posts on Christopher Southgate’s book on animal theodicy, The Groaning of Creation, in one place. 1. Intro 2. The only way? 3. God so loved the world 4. There’s a wideness in God’s mercy 5. Heaven can wait 6. Priests of creation 7. The…

  • The Groaning of Creation 9: Concluding thoughts

    As a wrap-up to this series, I thought I’d offer some concluding thoughts on Christopher Southgate’s The Groaning of Creation. Just to briefly review: the problem of animal theodicy as Southgate sees it is that the evolutionary process seems to grind so many sentient creatures under its wheels and to doom so many species to…

  • HSUS for Obama-Biden

    Not that animal protection is likely to be high on the next President’s list of priorities, but, for what it’s worth, the Humane Society recently endorsed Obama-Biden. Interestingly, it seems this is the first time they’ve ever endorsed a presidential candidate (they routinely endorse congressional candidates), but were moved to this time in large part…