Category: US

By micoots
22/08/2016 0

Are Christians the powerful or the marginalized?

In the course of a post on why so many evangelicals are supporting Donald Trump, S. D. Kelly tosses off an observation that explains much about the current controversies between Christians and secularists.
Secularists tend to see Christians as “the powerful”; that is, in postmodern parlance, those who are in a position of power and privilege who oppress “the marginalized,” those who lack power and privilege.
But Christians tend to see themselves as “the marginalized,” oppressed by the cultural e..

elvisposter2-1
By micoots
22/08/2016 0

A meditation on Elvis 

Elvis Presley died on August 16, 1977. In honor of that anniversary, Sarah Condon at Mockingbird posted a meditation that is both nostalgic and moving.
From Sarah Condon, On This, the Anniversary of the King’s Death | Mockingbird:
“You are either a Beatles person or an Elvis person,” was a phrase I remember hearing for the first time in high school. I was in that golden age of teenage years when music changes the way you see everything and so you are compelled to have very strong opinions about ..

By micoots
22/08/2016 0

Why the LA Times poll differs from the others

Most polls show Donald Trump losing big time, especially in the crucial battleground states. But the L.A. Times poll shows Trump ahead of Clinton by two points, a fact heralded by the Trump campaign. So why are that poll’s results so different?
Most polls ask people who they are going to vote for. The L.A. Times poll, designed by USC social scientists, is not so straightforward. It asks a pre-selected group, used for other research purposes, to rate on a scale from 0-100 their chances of voting ..

By micoots
19/08/2016 0

Swimmers go from honor to dishonor

Olympic gold medalist Ryan Lochte and three other members of the U.S. swim team lied about being held up at gunpoint in Rio de Janeiro. Two of the swimmers reportedly admitted the fabrication.
What malice. What a black eye for the American team, which is dominating the medal count. What a black eye for America, as the foreign stereotypes about arrogant, disrespectful, unprincipled Americans are seemingly confirmed.
From News from The Associated Press:
A Brazilian police official is telling The A..

By micoots
19/08/2016 0

Another staff shakeup for Trump and more Russian connections

For the second time since his nomination, Donald Trump has shaken up his campaign staff. He has brought in Steve Shannon, head of the pro-Trump website Breitbart News to be the CEO of his campaign.
This is presumably a rebuke of his campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who has been trying to get Trump to restrain himself and to act more presidential. Shannon, on the other hand, has been urging him to be his true outrageous self, which won him the Republican nomination.
Manafort, however, will remain..

By micoots
19/08/2016 0

Mexico’s one gun store

Mexico’s constitution guarantees the right of citizens to own firearms. But it also allows the government to regulate them. So there is only one gun store in the whole country, and should you go there, it is still almost impossible to buy a gun.
Mexico, of course, is plagued with gun violence on a colossal scale, since the criminal class is extremely well-armed.
From Nick Wagner, At Mexico’s lone gun store, even the boss discourages sales | Associated Press. The Seattle Times:
There’s just one p..

By micoots
18/08/2016 0

A comedy-thriller about the Reformation

You have GOT to read The Relic Master, a novel by Christopher Buckley (son of conservative icon William F. Buckley). It’s about a dealer in sacred relics (bones of the saints, artifacts from Bible stories, etc.) that, when venerated, were thought to provide time-off from purgatory. The story takes place in the time of Martin Luther. The cast of characters is a who’s-who of Reformation history. Buckley, a noted satirist, has written a novel that is funny, exciting, and true to history. His scathi..

By micoots
18/08/2016 0

Outcome-based vs. morality-based voting

A lot of us dislike both of the major party candidates. Quite a few of us also dislike the minor party and independent candidates. So we are agonizing over what to do come election day. Perhaps it would help to think through what factors should enter into the act of voting.
The usual approach is to consider which candidate, in your opinion, would be the best in office. Or, whleast bad. The focus is on the outcome or possible outcome of the election.
John Mark Reynolds proposes another approach. ..

By micoots
18/08/2016 0

New Zealand’s animal kill-off

New Zealand has almost no native mammals. Just bats. So when rats, possums, and stoats were introduced from the outside, lacking any natural enemies, they have wreaked havoc on New Zealand’s natural wildlife. So the prime minister has announced a plan to eradicate all said predators. Experts also want to wipe out feral cats, but that is proving more controversial, due to New Zealand’s cat lovers.
I wonder if animal rights activists will object. On the one hand, rats and possums are living things..

By micoots
17/08/2016 0

Saying God is transgender

The contours of a new liberal theology, one in accord with the new ideology of sex and gender, are starting to come together. (Liberal theologians have never found a new leftist ideology that they don’t like and won’t refashion theology around.) A rabbi has written an op-ed in the New York Times maintaining that God is transgender.
After the jump, read why he thinks so and read a response from a Bible scholar.
The argument hinges on confusing linguistic gender with natural gender, confusing a Be..