A Thinking Reed

  • "String conjecture"?

    Thomas at Without Authority, himself an honest-to-goodness scientist, points us to this article from Gregg Easterbrook about a new book arguing that string theory isn’t really science, but something more like metaphysical speculation. I’d be the last one to claim anything more than a layman’s knowledge of current physics (at best), but it has always…

  • Theocons or liberals?

    I’m reminded by this post from prolific Orthodox blogger Daniel Larison that there are those who not only don’t regard the First Things crowd as theocrats, but who actually regard them as fatally compromised and sold out to secular Enlightenment liberalism. In addition to traditionalists like Mr. Larison there are folks like Stanley Hauerwas who…

  • Chill out, liberals

    We’ve seen conservative critiques of the recent raft of books warning of an imminent theocracy, but it’s nice to see liberals trying to interject some sanity into the debate. Peter Steinfels and Paul Baumann (both political liberals affiliated with Commonweal magazine, I believe) throw cold water on some of the more alarmist books to come…

  • How (un)safe are we?

    I didn’t want to write anything about the 9/11 anniversary yesterday because a lot of what I read was simply an exercise in flogging the author’s politics. So, instead, I’m going to flog my politics today! Okay, not really, but I did think this article at the Cato Institute by political scientist John Mueller was…

  • The season of our bloggers’ discontent

    Maybe it’s an end of summer thing, but some of my favorite bloggers are calling it quits, or seriously considering doing so: Jack at Cantanima, Jennifer at Scandal of Particularity, and Caleb at Mode for Caleb. We can only admire them for their commitment to the more important things in life, while nevertheless hoping they…

  • Ah, West Philly…

    Neat article about University City – the collection of neighborhoods west of the University of Pennsylvania where we lived for about three years before coming to Boston a couple of months ago (Via A Conservative Blog for Peace). Old Victorian houses, broad streets with lots of trees, and a wonderful mix of students, young professionals,…

  • Gushee on Christian support for war

    Southern Baptist theologian David Gushee, who’s written some good stuff about torture, has now published an interesting article called “The Church as a Community of Peace” (via). He all but renounces his former support for just-war theory, asking whether “as a Christian moral thinker, it is my place to offer support for war”: Unlike some…

  • The lesser of two evils, I guess

    Surely one of the gravest dangers facing the Republic is made for TV movies that are insufficiently reverent toward the government, and Democratic administrations in particular. Remember: it’s nobody’s fault that 9/11 happened! Our public servants all did the best they possibly could and there’s no room at all for blame or recrimination! And the…

  • Huh?

    The Boston version of the Metro – the free paper familiar to commuters everywhere – had an article today on some Jewish protesters rallying against Israel’s actions in Lebanon. But what I found puzzling was this quote from Josh Block, spokesman for AIPAC: “These people should protest against a genuine threat like Iran’s former president,…

  • Comments

    Readers may have noticed that this blog is now running on Blogger’s new beta version. While it does have some nifty new features there also appear to be some issues with comments. Switching to beta requires using a Google account, and it seems that if you’re still on an old Blogger account you may have…