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Go, capitalism!
Nice article at Reason on the flourishing American beer market. Despite the sneering connotations often given to the phrase “American beer,” the article notes that “More styles of suds are now brewed in America than in any other place. Along with the light-tasting lagers that still dominate the market, the new offerings include porters, stouts,…
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Evolution, the Fall, and Original Sin
I enjoyed Keith Ward’s Pascal’s Fire so much (despite disagreement in places) that when I saw his Religion and Human Nature at a used bookseller for five bucks I snatched it up. RHN is part of Ward’s four-part “comparative theology” which also includes volumes on revelation, creation, and community. His methodology is to compare the…
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A day that will live in infamy
It’s not everyday that we get a bill that constitutes a massive executive power grab and effectively authorizes torture (or “torture-lite” if you insist). What a great day to be an American! Republicans like Denny Hastert and their media echo chamber keep accusing people who oppose this sort of thing as wanting to “give rights…
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"The Muslim Gandhi"
A friend of mine sent me this article from the New Yorker on the life and death of Mahmoud Muhammad Taha, a radical Islamic cleric in Sudan who was executed for opposition to the government. The twist is that Taha was a radical progressive, an exponent of a liberal reinterpretation of Islam. Taha’s direct influence…
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Links a poppin’
Marvin has a three part series on the Emergent Church, offers some critical questions, and wonders how a congregation like his, which is not located in a hip, urban enclave might make use of some “emergent” ideas. Brandon writes that Richard Dawkins’ reading of scripture makes fundamentalism look sophisticated and he also questions whether it’s…
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Unintended consequences
“Recent history shows us that there is no civil war so bad that it cannot be made worse – prolonged, intensified, made more bloody and intractable – by the intervention of Western liberals.” Daring to contradict such geopolitical experts as George Clooney, Brendan O’Neill offers a contrarian take on the campaign to “Save Darfur.” (Link…
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Further adventures in Anglo-Catholicism
This Sunday Abby and I went to our first “Solemn Mass” at the Church of the Advent. Until yesterday we’d been going to the earlier Sung Mass, which follows the Rite II Eucharist from the Book of Common Prayer pretty closely with just a couple of flourishes, such as the “Prayer of Humble Access.” In…
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Compromised
The gist of what I’ve been reading is the “compromise” between the White House and the “dissident” (ha!) Republican senators in regards to the treatment of terrorist suspects in light of the Geneva Convention standards on torture consists in essentially giving the President everything he wanted. Ari Berman at The Nation says that “Democrats chose…
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Another example of my lameness
I seem to have completely missed the whole “indie rock” or “indie music” boat. I don’t even know if the terms are supposed to refer to an actual genre of music or just to any band not signed to a major label. What are examples of “indie” groups? What do they sound like?
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Blogging lameness
I’m starting to realize that my heart isn’t really in the quickie link-plus-two-sentences-of-pithy-commentary posts these days. And I really can’t bring myself to work up an opinion on the “hot” topic of the moment (whatever that happens to be at any given time) simply for the sake of having one, hence the relative lack of…
