A Thinking Reed

  • Gender and God-talk

    Derek posted a couple of pieces on the language we use to talk about God, which sparked a good bit of commentary. (See here and here.) Partly, this ended up being about the propriety (or not) of using feminine symbols and pronouns to talk about God. The best discussion of this I’ve come across is…

  • Some numbers on immigration

    From the New Yorker: When the topic is illegal immigration, some of our political leaders reliably produce more heat than light. On April 28th, in a letter to President Obama, seventeen members of Congress, most of them from the Southwest, demanded immediate action to increase border security, noting that “violence in the vicinity of the…

  • The Right and guilt-by-association

    Saying that the Right has been employing McCarthyite tactics seems almost redundant at this point, since virtually the entire repertoire of the Right since the 2008 election seems to consist of guilt-by-association. Still, Robert Wright’s analysis of the ludicrous ginned up controversy over the proposed mosque to be built near the Ground Zero site in…

  • Inflamed, distracted fury

    Judge, then, to what pitches of inflamed, distracted fury the minds of his more desperate hunters were impelled, when amid the chips of chewed boats, and the sinking limbs of torn comrades, they swam out of the white curds of the whale’s direful wrath into the serene, exasperating sunlight, that smiled on, as if at…

  • Questioning growth in Asia

    I thought this article in the NYT was very interesting: not only are some Asian economists questioning whether their countries’ economies can continue to grow at a double-digit clip, they’re questioning whether growth should even be the ultimate object of economic policy. In considering this risk and the increasing evidence of the toll that rapid…

  • Friday Metal: Mastodon, “Blood and Thunder”

    The perfect soundtrack to my current Moby-Dick obsession. Split your lungs with blood and thunder When you see the white whale Break your backs and crack your oars men If you wish to prevail This ivory leg is what propels me Harpoons thrust in the sky Aim directly for his crooked brow And look him…

  • Debating conscientious carnivorism

    Mother Jones has a roundtable on whether vegetarianism is always better for the environment than omnivorous diets, featuring Jonathan Safran Foer, Joel Salatin, and Anna Lappé, among others. It seems possible that at least some meat-containing diets can be on an environmental par with, or even superior to, some vegetarian diets (particularly those containing lots…

  • Mid-week links

    – 2010’s was the hottest June on record in Washington, D.C. (I believe it!) – Glenn Beck pulicizes liberation theology. – On the authority of the Bible. (And more.) – Is Amazon killing the publishing business? – Keith Ward argues that there are things science can’t explain. – The ideology of marriage. – I heartily…

  • Summer reading list, updated

    Finished: Marcus Borg, The Heart of Christianity Jay McDaniel and Charles Pinches (ed.), Good News For Animals? Christian Approaches to Animal Well-Being Michael Ramsey, God, Christ and the World Started: Herman Melville, Moby-Dick Started but moved to the back burner: Bill McKibben, Eaarth John Haught, God After Darwin To start: Paul Krugman, The Conscience of…

  • Purpose and design

    …the question of whether there is a point or purpose to the universe is not answered simply be reference to evidence for or against a designer. Purpose is a much wider notion than design, and it can live much more comfortably with chance, disorder, and the abyss of cosmic time than can the all too…