A Thinking Reed

  • Contra the contrarians

    Bradford Plumer debunks the claims of some of the recent debunkers of conventional wisdom about battling climate change, but concedes that they have a point in that navigating a “green” lifestyle is in fact a tricky thing to do (e.g. eating local food is a good rule of thumb, but there are exceptions). However, he…

  • Bono fatigue

    I was reading this somewhat interesting piece on “emergent” Christians in Austin, TX and found myself pondering a deep mystery: why are all these post-evangelical, post-conservative, post-modern, post-whatever Christians so into U2? “For the emerging churches, (church is) not a place, it’s a people,” Gibbs said. “It’s not a weekly gathering; it’s a seven-day-a-week community.…

  • Lessons of Vietnam

    A few that the President left out of his speech, from Andrew Bacevich. Among others: Sometimes people can manage their own affairs. Does the U.S. need to attend to that mess? Perhaps not. Here the experience of Vietnam following the U.S. defeat is instructive. Once the Americans departed, the Vietnamese began getting their act together.…

  • “Our hearts are restless until they rest in You”: St. Augustine

    Today is St. Augustine’s feast day. He remains one of the most influential, as well as controversial, figures in the history of Christianity. Some blame him for all that’s wrong with “Western” Christianity: its alleged obsession with sin, legalism, hangups about sex, the frightful predestinarian picture of God, etc. Some of these charges are caricatures,…

  • ATR prescience watch

    Today: AG Alberto Gonzales resigns among pressure from Democrats and many in his own party. November 11, 2004: this blog (well, its predecessor actually) says Gonzales is a bad pick for AG. Nice to know it only took DC 2 and a half years to catch up.

  • Doubt and atheism aren’t the same thing

    Thomas has an excellent riposte to some of the truly insipid things being said about Mother Teresa in light of some recently publicized letters that make it clear that she (like many, many other saints) struggled with doubt and a feeling of God’s absence. Of course, this won’t be news to anyone who read Carol…

  • Jesus as sacrament

    It’s not uncommon for theologians to try and explain, or at least illuminate, the Real Presence of Christ in the Sacrament of Communion by making an analogy with the hypostatic union of the divine and human natures in the Person of Jesus. Whether or not this is a case of trying to explain the obscure…

  • From animal rights to cosmic democracy

    The second part of Clark’s essay on “Animals, Ecosystems, and the Liberal Ethic” wades into deeper and more interesting waters. Clark contends that it’s “better to abandon abstract argument, in favour of historical.” Ownership, he maintains, is a social concept and thus the idea that we can do whatever we want with what we “own”…

  • Friday metal – leather fetishism edition

    When it comes to classic British heavy metal, I’m more partial to your Black Sabbaths or Iron Maidens than Judas Priest. But this is a terrific song (and pretty awesome video): Judas Priest – “Painkiller” And, yes, that first solo is over a minute long!

  • Debating the bomb

    Apparently some people never get tired of arguing about whether the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were justified. Happily, though, there is a link there to G.E.M. Anscombe’s “Mr Truman’s Degree” in its entriety, which I don’t think I’ve been able to find on the web before now. I mean, look: in terms of…