A Thinking Reed

  • Wanted: realists

    Ross Douthat makes a point not unlike the point I made here. Much as I enjoy Ron Paul’s red-meat isolationism, the chances that such a view will actuall carry the day are slim to none. With Romney, Guliani, and McCain all trying to out-hawk each other, it would be great if the realist-internationalist school of…

  • C. S. Lewis on Barthians

    I was reading selections last night from a volume of C.S. Lewis’ letters and came across an interesting (and rather amusing) one to his brother on February 18, 1940. Apparently Lewis had recently encountered a group of zealous students of this newfangled theologian Karl Barth: Did you fondly believe – I did – that where…

  • Confessions of a thirtysomething right-wing peacenik

    Marvin points to a blog post discussing a poll indicating that we thirtysomethings are the only age group still giving majority support to the Iraq war. Much speculation abounds in the comment thread about us children of the 80s having been brainwashed by the evil Reagan. Coming near the tail end of this cohort (I’m…

  • Against beer snobbery

    I largely agree with this. Also, not only are Bud and Miller union-made brews (as Matthew Yglesias points out), “macro” brews are often more likely to be vegetarian/vegan than many microbrews. Now, look: I enjoy microbrews, but for an everyday drinkin’ beer I’d just as soon crack open a Bud or a High Life as…

  • Mitchell’s 8 Ways

    I took the red-eye home last night from the meeting I was attending in SF and so took most of today off from work to catch up on sleep and stuff around the house. I also started reading a fascinating book called 8 Ways to Run the Country by Brian Patrick Mitchell. Mitchell, the Washington…

  • The moral impotence of science

    Although it’s dressed up in the pseudo-scientific language of evolutionary psychology, this defense of free trade and outsourcing elides the same issues as most such defenses. The question of trade policy isn’t just whether our society gets richer as a whole or on average, but also what the effects on particular people are and whether…

  • I left my heart in Boston, but the rest of me is in San Francisco

    I’m here in beautiful San Francisco for a company meeting, set up in a posh hotel on Nob Hill. You forget how great this place is when you’ve been away: perfect weather, beautiful architecture, terrific restaurants,… sigh. I flew in last night from Boston and boy are my arms tired! Ba-dum-bum! But seriously folks… I…

  • Notes on a theocentric ethic of creation, 3

    Heavenly Father, your Holy Spirit gives breath to all living things; renew us by this same Spirit, that we may learn to respect what you have given and care for what you have made, through Jesus Christ our Lord. – Andrew Linzey This prayer from Andrew Linzey nicely encapsulates the themes of a genuine Christian…

  • The Middle East: not that important?

    I don’t agree with everything in this Edward Luttwak article (particularly the stuff about the hopeless backwardness of Arab culture and the “perfectly understandable hostility of convinced Islamists towards the transgressive west”), but he makes some points that need making. Our political class is way over-invested in the idea that the Middle East is of…

  • Jesus Our Redeemer

    Gerald O’Collins, S.J. is an Australian Jesuit who’s taught at Gregorian University in Rome since the 70s. I greatly enjoyed his book on the Trinity (and blogged a bit about it here), so was pleased to discover that early this year he published Jesus Our Redeemer: A Christian Approach to Salvation in which O’Collins offers…