-
Mavericky!
Interesting spin offered by the WaPo on Sarah Palin’s reported $100,000 speaking fee for her Tea Party speech: By delivering a paid keynote address at a convention other politicians had avoided because of allegations of profiteering, Palin displayed one of the traits that has electrified her anti-establishment followers: a talent for persistently and defiantly flouting…
-
Causal impotence and reasons for vegetarianism
Scu at Critical Animal says: I think a lot of people spend time explaining why we shouldn’t (or should!) kill animals and/or treat them as property. But where are explanations on the justification for vegetarianism/veganism as a necessary component of opposition, besides arguments about economic boycott? If you define an economic boycott as something intended…
-
Whither amateur theo-blogging?
Readers may have noticed something of a drop-off in theology blogging in these parts recently. Partly, this is just because my interest in things waxes and wanes, and I’ve found that my attention has alighted on other subjects lately. I’ve also been considering the question of what niche the “amateur” theology blog is trying to…
-
Where else can you do a half a million things all at a quarter to three?
Well, not quite half a million things, but my sweetie and I took a whirlwind trip to NYC this weekend to vist friends and managed to pack a fair amount of stuff in. The Tim Burton exhibit at the MoMA is really cool. It’s fascinating to see his evolution from alienated kid to Disney hack…
-
McCarraher on Christianity and politics
Here’s a very interesting interview with lefty Catholic intellectual Eugene McCarraher (via). He has a lot to say about the Manhattan Declaration, Radical Orthodoxy (the line about the cult of Wendell Berry–ouch!), Herbert McCabe, and socialism.
-
Literalists, progresives, and Lost
I like this, from Newsweek: Lost‘s viewers fall into two categories, those who adhere to reason and those who follow their faith. The Lost literalists believe that the show is infallible, that it’s not only an engrossing, entertaining television show, it’s holy writ–divinely inspired, all-knowingly conceived, and absolutely inerrant. In other words, the show’s many,…
-
The rehabilitation of U.S. Grant
Interesting review of a new biography of Ulysses S. Grant from historian Sean Wilentz. At the time of his death, and for quite a while thereafter, President Grant was among the most revered men in the nation. But his reputation took a sharp turn downward, in part, according to Wilentz, because of the rising school…
-
The return of the sanctimonious carnivore
Via Jean Kazez, two (quite possibly bogus) trend stories about “vegetarians” jumping on the “happy” meat bandwagon: here and here. I’m with Jean in thinking that almost any step toward better treatment of animals is a good thing. If more people are buying humanely raised meat, then animals are suffering less, which is all to…
