A Thinking Reed

  • Thought for the day

    Sorry for the light blogging – work is v. busy. So, in the absence of original content, here’s a quote from an essay by Stephen R.L. Clark called “The Rights of Wild Things,” found in the collection Animals and Their Moral Standing: Stoic theory offers us the ideal of the World State in which men…

  • Christopher Hitchens: bridge-builder

    Unfortunately the bridge he wants to build is one between militant atheists and rabid right-wing warmongers. From the sounds of this report from a recent atheist/agnostic/freethinker conference, most of them ain’t buyin’ what he’s sellin’, to their credit.

  • Yet another presidential candidate quiz

    This one comes via the Lutheran Zephyr. The quiz ranks your candidate preferences based on your agreement on 11 issues: Iraq, Stem-Cell Research, Abortion, Social Security, the Line-Item Veto, Immigration, Energy, Marriage, the Death Penalty, Taxes, and Health Care. Here are my rankings: Dennis Kucinich – 40 Ron Paul – 38 Mike Gravel – 30…

  • Friday metal – unapologetic nu-metal edition??

    If there’s any sub-genre of metal more disdained than hair metal it’s got to be late-90s “nu-metal” (also sometimes called – somewhat inaccurately – rap-metal). While generally quite terrible, there were some decent bands that came out of it. I have a soft spot for this band and actually own two of their albums (this…

  • Freedom by cluster bomb

    Michael Gerson scolds critics of “President Bush’s democracy agenda” (he doesn’t mean Bush’s commitment to transparency and accountability here at home, by the way) and manages to write an entire column without mentioning the means supported by proponents of the “democracy agenda,” namely maiming and killing large numbers of people in foreign countries. See here…

  • Holy immanentizing the eschaton, Batman!

    Did Barack Obama really say this? – “I am confident we can create a Kingdom right here on Earth.” Don’t go there, dude. (via Eunomia)

  • Out in Africa

    Philip Jenkins, who arguably knows as much about Christianity in the global south as any “Northerner,” has an article on the African churches’ controversies over homosexuality at the New Republic (may require subscription to read). Jenkins argues that it’s misleading to see the intensity of the conflict over this as merely an extension of debates…

  • Book review: Small Is Still Beautiful

    Joseph Pearce is a noted English Catholic writer who has written books on G. K. Chesterton, Oscar Wilde, J. R. R. Tolkien, and C. S. Lewis among others. In Small Is Still Beautiful: Economics as if Families Mattered, Pearce seeks to update the wisdom of E. F. Schumacher’s Small Is Beautiful for the 21st century.…

  • Markets in animal welfare

    Thanks to Jeremy for directing my attention to, among other things, this issue of the journal Law and Contemporary Problems (affiliated with Duke Law School) which focuses on animal law and policy. In particular, this article by Jeff Leslie and Cass Sunstein offers an in-depth argument for a “disclosure regime” that would label food products…

  • Christian metal – not just for Stryper fans anymore

    In case you thought ATR was the only place on the web where Christianity and heavy metal fandom intersect, the blog Metal Sucks offers a “guilty pleasure” playlist of Christian metal. I’m not crazy about any of it, though the As I Lay Dying song is ok. And yes -Stryper does make the cut.