A Thinking Reed

  • Confession

    I really want to see National Treasure: Book of Secrets. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to convince anyone I know to go with me. Why do all my friends have to have such good taste in movies?

  • The menace of Rudy

    Speaking of executive power-grabbing, The American Conservative has put out a special anti-Rudy issue. Glenn Greenwald writes about Rudy’s authoritarian tendencies, while Michael Desch looks at his ultra-hawkish foreign policy.

  • Will a Democratic president remember the lessons of the last seven years?

    Jack Balkin is worried that, when it comes to executive power, ostensible Democratic critics may learn to love the imperial presidency if a Dem takes the White House in 2008. It’s worth recalling that conservatives used to complain about the imperial presidency, especially during a time of strong popular liberal presidents. And, more recently, Republicans…

  • Faith and factuality

    The question of the Virgin Birth is just one example of a broader issue in the life of faith: how much of what the Bible describes as historical fact must be accurate for faith to have solid foundations? There are two extreme positions that can, and have been, taken here. One insists on literal factuality…

  • A further argument for the Virgin Birth: the argument from beauty

    The Annunciation is one of the most beloved images in Western history, having given rise to some of its most enduring piety, art, and music:

  • Friday metal: Between the Buried and Me, “Alaska”

    In just under the wire (at least for me) as one of the best metal albums of 2007 is Colors by the band Between the Buried and Me. This was a Christmas present from Josh and his wife, and I’ve been listening to it pretty much nonstop since we got back from Indy. It’s heavily…

  • The Virgin Birth: does it matter?

    Via Graham, here’s an article in the (UK) Spectator that asked a variety of public figures whether or not they believe in the Virgin Birth. The answers range from the thoughtful, to the flippant, to the downright idiotic (someone named Colin Wilson declaims that “you’ll have some difficulty finding any educated person who believes in…

  • Catch-all blog update post

    Sorry about the dearth of posting: a confluence of extreme busyness, travel, and computer issues has put a cramp in my blogging style. Although one perk is that I’ve been forced to detach from the various teapot-sized tempests roilling the blogosphere, which is always a benefit of time away from the computer. We’re in Indiana…

  • Fly, Conchords, fly!

    A friend of ours sent us the first season DVD of the HBO show Flight of the Conchords about two guys in a band from New Zealand who move to New York with misadventures aplenty ensuing. It’s pretty hilarious: they frequently break into songs of various genres. As in these clips: “Most Beautiful Girl in…

  • God’s Own Party

    Harold Meyerson points out one of the problems with touting your party or candidacy as the “Christian” one: people will start to actually expect you to live up to the standards of Jesus. Here’s something C. S. Lewis had to say about the idea of a “Christian” political party: It is not reasonable to suppose…