Author's archive
Schism 0
Using the contrast between reactions to a kneeling Colin Kaepernick and a kneeling Tim Tebow as a starting point, Michael Frost explores what he suggests is an increasing division with Christianity.
Of course, there has never been a monolithic Christianity, not even during Medieval times. Early on the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox Churches split, largely over political and cultural issues; for a short time, there were even two Popes, one in Rome and one in Avignon which was overtly political.
American Protestantism has long been a hodge-podge with a relatively staid main stream, but with fringes richly populated with con artists, fakers, and cultists. (“Place your hands on your television and prey pray with me.”)
Despite this checkered history, Frost discerns two primary and competing themes becoming dominant, at least in American Protestantism. I’m not sure that I buy his conclusions in toto, but I do think his piece is worth reading, as a growing number of religionists seem again to seek terrestrial political power and influence.
Here’s a bit:
One is reading the Epistles of Paul. The other is reading the Minor Prophets.
One is listening to Eric Metaxas and Franklin Graham. The other is listening to William Barber and John Perkins.
One is rallying at the March for Life. The other is getting arrested at Moral Monday protests.
It’s All about the Benjamins 0
Bob Molinaro, sportswriter extraordinaire, checks a fact:
Facebook Frolics, Mining the Depths Dept. 0
Will Bunch critiques the minecraft:
Follow the link for thoughtful and considered discussion of what happens when forces of deception and disruption prey on ersatz patriotism.
“Let No Good Deed Go Unpunished” 0
The Des Moines Register’s Rehka Basu reports on what she calls “the new self-righteousness.” (Hint: It’s all self and no righteousness.)
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
A polite society is a clean society.
(snip)
Investigators believe the girl’s father was downstairs cleaning a gun when it was negligently discharged and struck the girl in an upstairs bedroom.
Aside:
I doubt seriously that the gun “negligently discharged” itself.
Furrfu.
“Nonsense Debt” 0
Josh Marshall looks at the developing war within the Republican Party between the absurd and the absolutely crazy, witness the recent Alabama primary victory of Judge Roy Moore.
Marshall suggests that Republicans have done it to themselves. (Unfortunately, they are poised to do it to the rest of us, also.)
Here’s a crucial bit; follow the link for the rest (emphasis added).
This is the crux of the issue. Last spring I said the Trump phenomenon was a product of what I termed ‘nonsense debt‘. Republicans had spent years pumping their voters up on increasingly extreme and nonsensical claims and promises. This worked very well for winning elections. But it had also built up a debt that eventually had to be repaid. Concretely, they were making claims and promises that were either factually ridiculous, politically unviable or unacceptable to a broad swath of the voting public. Eventually, you get elected and need to produce. By definition that’s never really possible: both because the claims and promises are nonsensical and unviable but also because a politics based on reclamation, revenge, and impulse is almost impossible to satisfy through normal legislative politics.
Image via Job’s Anger.
Puerto Rico, the Plundering 0
Warning: Language.
(Video embed fixed. I had assistance from the cat while I prepared the initial post. She’s a nice cat, but she knows nothing about HTML5.)
Twits on Twitter, Do the Math Dept. 0
An Oxford University study reports that the use of Twitter to spread lies was immense. A snippet:
Nationwide, an average of 25 percent of election-related tweets contained material from established news organizations, the researchers at the Oxford Internet Institute wrote. However, they said, “a worryingly large proportion” of tweets about the election – as much as 57 percent in West Virginia – came from junk news sources, as well as Russia’s state-owned television network and the transparency group WikiLeaks, which published unverified stories.
In the election’s three decisive states, the researchers found that fake and junk news constituted 40 percent of the sampled election-related tweets that went to Pennsylvanians, 34 percent to Michigan voters and 30 percent to those in Wisconsin. In other swing states, the figure reached 42 percent in Missouri, 41 percent in Florida, 40 percent in North Carolina, 38 percent in Colorado and 35 percent in Ohio.
The Snaring Economy, Gypsy Cabs with an App Dept. 0
Owen Davis reports that Uber has achieved another milestone.
It has gotten itself sued for stock fraud, even thought it has not yet issued any stock. An excerpt:
If Uber had recently gone public in a massively overhyped IPO, only to shed double-digits as the true depths of its mediocrity came to light, a lawsuit would not be unusual. Just ask Blue Apron. But it’s rare for a startup to face investor suits in any situation short of complete and utter fabrication on the part of the founders. It basically signals that the highly illiquid startup stake you’ve got – and for which you’d like good money – is worthless.
Read the whole thing. It will give you a lyft.
Clown Car 0
Headline of the day:
Russian Burger King wants to ban ‘It’ because Pennywise looks like Ronald McDonald
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Expose the children to politeness.
(snip)
Haddad says they were wounded by a gun that was kept in the Dearborn home, but there are “questions about who pulled the trigger.” The circumstances are under investigation.
(Link fixed.)
QOTD 0
Edmund Crispin:
. . . the faults we most dislike in others are generally those we unwittingly display in ourselves.
Crispin, Edmund, Frequent Hearses (New York: Penguin, 1982), p. 33