A Thinking Reed

  • Friday links

    –Augustinian and Pelagian software. –A John Polkinghorne lecture on science and religion. –Batman as plutocrat. –Korn and Limp Bizkit: the soundtrack to nihilism. –Martha Nussbaum on John Stuart Mill: between Bentham and Aristotle. –The disconnect between the science and economics of climate change. –Peter Berger, who describes himself as a political conservative and a theological…

  • Friday Metal: All Shall Perish, “Awaken the Dreamers”

  • On not being the elder brother

    Jeremy has an excellent post about how he has come to hold an affirming stance on the morality of same-sex relationships. He manages the feat of clearly and directly stating what he believes, while at the same time being irenic and charitable toward those he disagrees with. His conclusion: I believe we are seeing the…

  • This is what socialism looks like

    Taxes too high? Actually, as a share of the nation’s economy, Uncle Sam’s take this year will be the lowest since 1950, when the Korean War was just getting under way. And for the third straight year, American families and businesses will pay less in federal taxes than they did under former President George W.…

  • Beneficiaries of farm subsidies fret about big government

    I didn’t watch much of the Super Bowl, but I did catch this (rather poorly-produced, IMO) ad against the menace of new “food taxes” on things like soda and other sugary drinks. The ad doesn’t specify which taxes it’s arguing against, but supposing that someone is proposing such taxes, I’d like to make a counter-proposal.…

  • Taking atheism seriously

    Most of the responses I’ve seen by Christians to the “new atheism,” whether in print or online, have come in one of two forms: combative defensiveness or smug complacency. The first is exhibited by those (usually self-appointed) defenders of the faith who take to the ramparts to refute the atheists arguments with their own knock-down…

  • Friday links

    –Do extraterrestrials have original sin? –Brandon on Sam Harris’s argument for a science of morality –How to build a progressive tea party –Fox News thinks there’s only one English translation of the Bible –This critique of Mad Men from the New York Review of Books scores some points –A video (in two parts) featuring the…

  • Small is beautiful?

    Matt Yglesias asks a fair question of Mark Bittman’s food manifesto, specifically his proposal that we shift subsidies away from big agribusiness and toward “small” farmers: It seems to me that what we want from our farms is farms that are as efficient as possible in their use of resources like land, labor, water, etc.…

  • Friday Metal: Decrepit Birth, “Polarity”

    Shredtastic!

  • Bittman’s agenda

    Speaking of food politics, Mark Bittman has retired his long-running “Minimalist” cooking column in the New York Times dining section and is moving over to the opinion pages, as well as writing for the Times Magazine. In addition to teaching people how to cook for themselves, Bittman has criticized the standard American diet and even…