A Thinking Reed

  • What price meat?

    Ezra Klein on why “meat should not be cheap.” P.S. Which isn’t to say we shouldn’t be concerned about food prices, particularly for poorer folks. However, the system we currently have 1) subsidizes industrially produced meat while hiding costs (particularly environmental ones) and 2) makes healthier foods (whole grains, fruits, vegetables) more expensive than they…

  • Jeremy on Rev. Wright

    Jeremy has an interesting post putting some of Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s more controversial remarks in context–including theological context; something the mainstream media is particularly bad at. Which is not to say that those comments are above critique, but that our definition of “mainstream” political discourse is perhaps rather narrow.

  • Creation care and compassionate eating

    Calvin College philosopher Matt Halteman, whose work I’ve blogged about before, popped into comments to this post to alert us to a terrific booklet he wrote for the Humane Society’s program on animals and religion. Thanks, Matt!

  • (Good) Friday Metal – Protest the Hero, “Bloodmeat”

    Um, nothing particularly spiritual about this clip, it’s just darn good. And, besides, I’ve missed a few of these. Also, these guys are Canadian, so it’s nice to see our northern cousins producing music that isn’t Bryan Adams, Alanis Morrisette, or Gordon Lightfoot.

  • Thoughts for Good Friday

    “Christ’s death on the cross and his descent into Hell … reassure us that we can never wander so far astray as to be outside the humanity with which Christ has identified.” – William Placher “Jesus came to forgive sin unconditionally for God. Our sin, our unbelief, consists precisely in the fact that we cannot…

  • Conscience of a torturer

    I’ve really been enjoying the subscription to Mother Jones my in-laws got me for my birthday. They do exactly what you’d want a monthly magazine to do: run long, in-depth investigative articles that go beyond the surface coverage you tend to get in weeklies or dailies. I used to subcribe to half a dozen or…

  • The dismal prospects of anti-war conservatism

    Speaking of the prospects for anti-war conservatism, Michael Tomasky reviews (free registration required) Bill Kauffman’s upcoming Ain’t My America: The Long, Noble History of Antiwar Conservatism and Middle American Anti-Imperialism. Tomasky gives a largely sympathetic hearing to Kauffman’s history-cum-commendation of conservative isolationism and notes that “it wouldn’t be a bad thing to see the Republican…

  • Marty and Wright

    One noteworthy fact mentioned in this Nicholas Kristof column on the Obama/Jeremiah Wright brouhaha is that, apparently, noted religious historian and veritable dean of American mainline Lutheranism Martin Marty is a longtime associate of Wright’s: Many well-meaning Americans perceive Mr. Wright as fundamentally a hate-monger who preaches antagonism toward whites. But those who know his…

  • Why resurrection?

    Slate has a pretty decent article on why resurrection, rather than the immortality of the soul, is the key Christian belief about life after death. Though I do sometimes think these two notions are needlessly set in opposition. It seems to me that the insistence of bodily resurrection qualifies a too spiritualistic idea of human…

  • Bacevich on Obama

    Andrew Bacevich offers a cold-blooded argument for an Obama presidency. The key point is that electing Obama will serve as a repudiation of the Iraq war and, to a lesser extent, the imperial trajectory of which it’s a key part. This, Bacevich thinks, could set the stage for a revival of “genuine conservatism,” which he…