A Thinking Reed

  • Come home, America

    I finished Andrew Bacevich’s Washington Rules last night, and it’s a worthy successor to his New American Imperialism and Limits of Power. Bacevich tells the story of how the “rules” that govern the U.S. foreign policy consensus–in brief, the imperative to maintain American military hegemony and capability for “power projection” at all costs–have been maintained…

  • Friday Metal: Animals as Leaders, “CAFO”

    I’m not really into instrumental rock, but I couldn’t resist this one simply for the band name and song title.

  • False equivalence

    Just for the record, Koran-burning and building Muslim community centers (or mosques) are not both unpleasant things we must “tolerate” for the sake of living in a free society. The former is an ugly, reactionary practice that, yes, must be tolerated, if people insist on doing it, for the sake of the First Amendment freedoms…

  • Dog bites man, John Milbank stirs up controversy

    John Milbank of “Radical Orthodoxy” fame always seems able to stir up controversy in the theo-blogosphere. The latest hullabaloo stems from an essay Milbank wrote for an Australian website that seems to endorse a romantic nostalgia for western colonialism (or as he puts it, “the lamentably premature collapse of the Western colonial empires”). That, and…

  • Holy faith and holy disbelief

    I stand in awe before the memory of the K’doshim [holy ones] who walked into the gas chambers with the Ani Ma’amin–I believe–on their lips. How dare I question, if they did not question? I believe because they believed. And I stand in awe before the K’doshim, before the memory of the untold suffering of…

  • Friday Metal: YouTube can’t handle Iron Maiden edition

    Their epic “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” – in two parts, because YouTube can’t handle all that metal in one video.

  • Bad arguments against vegetarianism, the continuing series

    The Atlantic‘s Ta-Nehisi Coates recently wrote two posts on why he’s “going vegetarian.” One thing that always seems to happen when someone discusses their decision to become vegetarian is that people take umbrage–as thought they’re being personally attacked. Some of TNC’s commenters fall into this category. One argument made there–and one that comes up with…

  • Social justice and Christianity are inseparable

    I’ve honestly not paid much attention to Glenn Beck–I’ve never even seen a clip of his show, and most of what I know about him comes from blogs and other media reports. This past weekend’s “Beckfest” on the Mall, though, significantly raised his profile. It’s even being suggested that he’s now the head of a…

  • History’s greatest monster strikes again

    Is there no end to his evil? Aijalon Mahli Gomes, the American held in North Korea since January, reunited with his family here Friday after flying in with former President Jimmy Carter. A day after Mr. Carter secured his release in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, Mr. Gomes stepped off a private plane at Logan…

  • Friday Metal: Irish folk edition

    The traditional Irish folk song “Whiskey in the Jar” as performed by… The Chieftans: The Dubliners: Thin Lizzy: and Metallica: