A Thinking Reed

  • Friday Metal: Baroness, “A Horse Called Golgotha”

    Baroness’s Blue Record was at or near the top of pretty much every heavy metal critics’ “best of” list last year. And this is one of the album’s best songs:

  • Edwards on providence

    If God acts in a non-interventionist way as Denis Edwards suggests–acting through “secondary causes” and allowing natural processes and created beings their own proper autonomy–then what about events that theology has traditionally viewed as special divine actions that bypass the normal order of things? Let’s look at two cases: God’s providential ordering of all things…

  • The Sea World incident

    You may have heard the sad news of the Sea World trainer who was killed by the killer whale she was working with. Authorities were aptly referring to it as a “tragic accident,” but could these sorts of things be avoided by not keeping such creatures in captivity in the first place? Jim Henley provides…

  • Not very millenial

    I scored a measly 24 on this Pew Research “How Millenial Are You?” quiz (via Clint Schnekloth). Can’t say I’m too upset by that.

  • Needed: better political symbolism

    I’m all for an alternative to the “Tea Party” phenomenon that believes in “promot[ing] civility and inclusiveness in political discourse, engag[ing] the government not as an enemy but as the collective will of the people, [and] push[ing] leaders to enact the progressive change for which 52.9 percent of the country voted in 2008.” But “Coffee…

  • Why I don’t watch cable news

    Well, not the only reason. But this article on the frequency with which “independent analysts” on cable news double as lobbyists or PR flacks is pretty damning.

  • Denis Edwards’ theology of divine action

    In his new book How God Acts, Australian Catholic theologian Denis Edwards offers an account of divine action that is conscious of the picture of the world offered by modern science, but takes its lead both from the Christian revelation of God in Christ, the insights of Karl Rahner, and a modified Thomist metaphysics. The…

  • Carnival of the animals

    Jean Kazez is hosting a philosophy “blog-carnival” (i.e., a collection of posts) focusing on philosophy and animals. Lots of interesting-looking entries (most of which, alas, I haven’t had time to dig into).

  • Health care reform can still pass

    So argues Jonathan Chait. Seems persuasive to me, but what do I know?

  • Friday Metal: The Red Chord, “Demoralizer”

    Pretty freaky video: