Maher and Persecution
Bill Maher recently said: “I’d like to tip off law enforcement to an even larger child-abusing religious cult. Its leader also has a compound, and this guy not only operates outside the bounds of the law, but he used to be a Nazi and he wears funny hats.” Of course the Catholic church is protesting [...]
The Lord is My Shepherd
The fourth Sunday in Easter is traditionally Good Shepherd Sunday, with readings from Psalm 23 and John 10 especially prominent. Today I found a brief essay that Kenneth E. Bailey wrote on Psalm 23. Dr. Bailey is a voice crying in the wilderness of Christian Middle East studies. “Dr. Bailey spent 40 years (1955-1995) living [...]
The McCain Brand
A story today in the “Washington Post” reports that John McCain “has been steadily gaining in national polls against Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, and he holds a lead in many of the swing states that are likely to determine who wins the presidency.” How? McCain’s advisers attribute this seeming contradiction to what [...]
God Bless You, Mr. Vonnegut
On the anniversary of the death of Kurt Vonnegut Jr, a comparative essay full of allusions and homages. Writing as Remembering, or On Vonnegut, Hemingway and Camus: A Duty Dance with Death In Howard’s End, E.M. Forster wrote that ”Death destroys a man, but it’s the idea of death that saves him.” Death is usually [...]
A Letter To My Representatives On Oil Prices
Dear Senators Burr and Dole and Representative Jones, Last week I listened on C-SPAN to the testimony of oil executives from the big five oil companies. As a father of five who is forced to drive a large van, this issue is of great concern to me. I recognize that there are things that I [...]
Grace to Honor Gifts: A Prayer
Lord, I pray today that you give me the grace to honor the many gifts you have blessed me with, those of the physical realm like food, health, shelter and work, but most especially for the spiritual gifts you have granted me. I humbly pray that I will respond to them with gratitude, contentment, joy [...]
Reducing Families to Economics
I was just browsing the position papers at the National Youth Rights Association, where, under the topic of entertainment, they write: While we understand the need to warn viewers about the content of a show, movie or game, we feel that age-based ratings systems not only fail to do so properly, but deprive young people [...]