Although I have been sort-of following the news of the shooting of the teenager Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman in Florida (who can avoid it?), I have not written anything about it so far. Part of the reason is that there does not seem to be much point in adding my voice to a case that so dominates the media and for which I have no information to contribute. [Read more…]
Rick Santorum seems to be determined to match Herman Cain in creating apocalyptic visions of what a second term for president Obama would look like that are close to self-parodies. [Read more…]
Earl Scruggs died yesterday.
I am not that knowledgeable about bluegrass music but love its sheer joyful sound. In this performance of Foggy Mountain Breakdown by Scruggs and friends (which was featured in the film Bonnie and Clyde), you get to see a range of virtuoso performances from a range of musicians, including Steve Martin and others whom I do not recognize. Anyone able to fill in the names of the others?
Beautiful.
If someone says to you “I am a Christian”, where do you think they are likely to fall on the political and social spectrum?
It used to be that people who called themselves Christians could not be that easily pinned down as to their social and political and moral attitudes because they could span a wide range of viewpoints, from extremely liberal to rigidly conservative. But in an article in The New Republic, Timothy Noah argues that things have changed, and that the label Christian has been increasingly co-opted by one narrow faction, and the media is going along with it. [Read more…]
Last Sunday, film director James Cameron became just the third person to go to the deepest part of the ocean, in the region known as Challenger Deep in the Marianas Trench. He did this in an updated version of the 1960 expedition to the same spot in the bathyscaphe Trieste. [Read more…]
In comments on my series of posts on insults, it was pointed out that my stance that insults are ‘mere words’ that should be shrugged off ignored a context in which they were more than that and could not be so easily dismissed, and that was when it was used as a bullying strategy. [Read more…]
Thanks to Rev. El Mundo, I learned that on Up with Chris Hayes on the day after the Reason Rally, the host talked about the impact of atheism on public life with a variety of people, some of whom had been speakers at the rally. Hayes also casually let it be known that he was an atheist too. I hope that this may encourage other prominent figures to also casually mention it. [Read more…]
The Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) is an Iranian dissident group that has been designated by the State Department as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) since 1997. It is one of the main groups that seek to foment war against Iran and hopes to be installed as the Iranian government in the event of an invasion that overthrows the current government. It has put on its generous payroll a large number of Washington insiders from both parties (of course) who are lobbying on its behalf. [Read more…]
Every Friday, many Muslims around the world will attend their mosques. The next day, Jews will follow suit into synagogues, and on Sunday many Christians will attend church. We know that some of the people in these houses of worship will be those trying to hold on to their belief in a god despite their increasing doubts. Some of them will be people who are fighting to prevent the voices of doubt entering their minds while for others that battle has already been lost and now the only thing that keeps them returning is because they do not know how to make a clean break without alienating their family and friends and perhaps the only real sense of community that they have known. But even they may not suspect that leader of the congregation is also one of them, a doubter or even an outright nonbeliever. [Read more…]