The Things That Mark Sees

In divided Pakistan, not all are mourning Bhutto | Philadelphia Inquirer | 12/28/2007

2007-12-28T13:18:00.000-06:00

In divided Pakistan, not all are mourning Bhutto Philadelphia Inquirer 12/28/2007. Tristan Mabry provides a bit of context to help understand the ethnic and linguistic conflict that is Pakistan.

2006-06-29T15:39:00.001-05:00

If it ain't apparent, I rarely blog here. Most of the activity happens on my LJ and on FB.

2006-01-17T09:47:00.000-06:00

I saw Brokeback Mountain this past weekend. I've been reading the discussion thread about it over at Ship of Fools and posted my take on the film there.

Christianity Today has a review of the film that I think is very good for the most part. I quibble with very few of the details and they give it a 3 out of 4 stars which speaks of their integrity, as the subject matter of the film can't be very comfortable for them.

2005-11-21T13:29:00.000-06:00

I didn't know that Ray Ozzie had gone to work for Microsoft. Did they buy Groove? I've had my head in the sand. His latest blog entry about Really Simple Sharing takes me back to the halcyon days of X-Windows, Unix, SMTP, News and emerging, collaborative technologies. I hope he's having fun is M$-land.

2005-11-21T13:23:00.000-06:00

I've had blogdex squirreled away on my IE Links bar for a long time now ... It's how I keep up with the blogosphere and the high-interest memes that are flying about. It's not the most reliable site in the world but it shows interesting stuff when it is up.

2005-11-17T10:18:00.000-06:00

This is pretty rich coming from a leader who insists on maintaining the right to torture and holds people in detention centers where they have no rights. Does he not see what a hypocrit he comes off as? It's his administration which has ceded the moral high ground.

2005-11-17T10:15:00.000-06:00

Sony feels the heat from the blogosphere here. Their arrogance in not understanding how their software trespassed surreptitiously on people's computer systems and even caused their customers' systems to be exposed to other virii is astonishing.

2005-11-10T17:59:00.001-06:00

I should be blogging here more often as I read enough. I tend to write mostly on my live journal (<== see it? It's the top link over there on the left) though. I'll try to do better to post my observations about things here.

I find Malcontent, AmericaBlog, TowleRoad, AfterElton, Ex-Gay Watch, Queer Visions & Postive Liberty to be good, regular reads. I love BlogDex because it's a finger on the dynamic pulse of what's interesting in the moment throughout the blogosphere.

2005-07-15T13:44:00.000-05:00

Jeffrey Overstreet excerpts from "Bono in Conversation", the new book of interviews with U2's front man by Michka Assayas.

of which, one bit is:

Assayas: [...]Christ has his rank among the world’s great thinkers. But Son of God, isn’t that farfetched?

Bono: No, it’s not farfetched to me. Look, the secular response to the Christ story always goes like this: he was a great prophet, obviously a very interesting guy, had a lot to say along the lines of other great prophets, be they Elijah, Muhammad, Buddha, or Confucius. But actually Christ doesn’t allow you that. He doesn’t let you off that hook. Christ says, No. I’m not saying I’m a teacher, don’t call me teacher. I’m not saying I’m a prophet. I’m saying: “I’m the Messiah.” I’m saying: “I am God incarnate.” And people say: No, no, please, just be a prophet. A prophet we can take. You’re a bit eccentric. We’ve had John the Baptist eating locusts and wild honey, we can handle that. But don’t mention the “M” word! Because, you know, we’re gonna have to crucify you. And he goes: No, no, I know you’re expecting me to come back with an army and set you free from these creeps, but actually I am the Messiah. At this point, everyone starts staring at their shoes, and says: Oh, my God, he gonna keep saying this. So what you’re left with is either Christ was who He said He was—the Messiah—or a complete nutcase. I mean, we’re talking nutcase on the level of Charles Manson. This man was like some of the people we’ve been talking about earlier. This man was strapping himself to a bomb, and had King of the Jews” on his head, and was they were putting him up on the Cross, was going: OK, martyrdom, here we go. Bring on the pain! I can take it. I’m not joking here. The idea that the entire course of civilization for over half of the globe could have its fate changed and turned upside-down by a nutcase, for me that’s farfetched…

2005-07-11T10:55:00.000-05:00

Jim Johnson cites an op-ed piece written by John Danforth, US Ambassador to the UN, entitled Onward, Moderate Christian Soldiers. This bit stuck out for me:

In recent years, conservative Christians have presented themselves as representing the one authentic Christian perspective on politics. With due respect for our conservative friends, equally devout Christians come to very different conclusions.
...
Like conservative Christians, we attend church, read the Bible and say our prayers.

But for us, the only absolute standard of behavior is the commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves.

2005-06-28T14:01:00.000-05:00

In the NYT, Lucian Truscott writes about the impending loss of the core of the young Army officer corp due to placing them in situations where they can't fulfill the honor code they were programmed to believe in: "you pledged that you would not lie, cheat or steal, and that you would not tolerate those who did."

Truscott, himself a West Point graduate -- Class of '69, recounts how it failed then: "the honor code broke down before our eyes as staff and faculty jobs at West Point began filling with officers returning from Vietnam. Some had covered their uniforms with bogus medals and made their careers with lies - inflating body counts, ignoring drug abuse, turning a blind eye to racial discrimination, and worst of all, telling everyone above them in the chain of command that we were winning a war they knew we were losing. The lies became embedded in the curriculum of the academy, and finally in its moral DNA."

And now, it's happening all over again: "The problem the Army created in Vietnam has never really been solved. If you keep faith with soldiers and tell them the truth even when it threatens their beliefs, you run the risk of losing them. But if you peddle cleverly manipulated talking points to people who trust you not to lie, you won't merely lose them, you'll break their hearts."

2005-06-15T12:43:00.000-05:00

In a guest column in the NYT, Stacy Schiff opines:

"More than 60 percent of the American people don't trust the press. Why should they? They've been reading 'The Da Vinci Code' and marveling at its historical insights. I have nothing against a fine thriller, especially one that claims the highest of literary honors: it's a movie on the page. But 'The Da Vinci Code' is not a work of nonfiction. If one more person talks to me about Dan Brown's crackerjack research I'm shooting on sight.
The novel's success does point up something critical. We're happier to swallow a half-baked Renaissance religious conspiracy theory than to examine the historical fiction we're living (and dying for) today."

2004-10-08T11:39:00.000-05:00

The Economist reviews 3 books about politics and oil.

Peter O'Dell trashes (again) the assertion that we're running out of gas because he says the argument ignores technology and economics (as it did 30 years ago).

Michael Klare puts oil geopolitics in perspective by showing that the current American support for not-nice regimes where most of the current proven reserves happen to be is a bipartisan development over the years.

Lastly, the Rocky Mountain Institute puts out a collection of articles on Winning the Oil Endgame; ideas for getting around the decreasing supply of fossil fuels and still keep our economies from plunging down the toilet.

2004-09-02T06:25:00.000-05:00

Things that have my interest at the moment:

St. Lukes, Holloway. Pastored by Dave Tomlinson. I heard him speak at Greenbelt about being post-evangelical, formerly charismatic house-church leader.
http://www.saintlukeschurch.org.uk/whoweare.html

Evangelical Fellowship of Lesbian & Gay Christians. Until recently, I didn't know they existed here in the UK
http://www.eflgc.org.uk/believe.shtml
I knew about Evangelicals Concerned in the US.
http://www.ecinc.org/ and EC Western Region (they really ought to sort that bit of frippery) http://www.ecwr.org/

The Lesbian & Gay Christians Movement
http://www.lgcm.org.uk

And Courage Trust, an historically ex-gay ministry with a twist:
http://www.courage.org.uk/

And there's a growing segment of evangelicals, not all glbt, that are moving for more inclusiveness, acceptance and honoring of same-sex relationships
http://www.acceptingevangelicals.org/
http://www.inclusivechurch.net
http://www.rmnetwork.org/ (Troy Plummer, a former pastor of mine, is the director here)

2004-01-08T13:14:00.000-06:00

Susan Jacoby writes abou the necessity of and the political courage required to approach civil issues from a firmly secluristic position in this Op-Ed piece in the NYTimes: One Nation, Under Secularism (free but registration req'd).

She refutes the idea that the founders weren't secularly motivated and that abolition of slavery, civil rights for racial minorities and women's rights were successfully fought by organized religion.

"...Abraham Lincoln, whose spiritual beliefs were so elusive that both atheists and the devoutly religious have tried to claim him as their own, spoke eloquently on this point during his long period of deliberation before issuing the Emancipation Proclamation.

"I am approached with the most opposite opinions and advice, and that by religious men, who are equally certain that they represent the divine will," he told a group of ministers in September 1862. "I hope it will not be irreverent for me to say that if it is probable that God would reveal his will to others, on a point so connected with my duty, it might be supposed that he would reveal it directly to me. . . . These are not, however, the days of miracles. . . . I must study the plain, physical facts of the case, ascertain what is possible, and learn what appears to be wise and right."

Today, many voters, of many religious beliefs, might well be receptive to a candidate who forthrightly declares that his vision of social justice will be determined by the "plain, physical facts of the case" on humanity's green and fragile earth. But that would take an inspirational leader who glories in the nation's secular heritage and is not afraid to say so. ..."

I think this is the foundation of the case to be made for civil marriage equality for LGBT folk.

2003-08-08T16:28:00.000-05:00

Clifford Longley writes in the Guardian that in issuing the edict by the Vatican's Congregation of the Doctrine of faith, the RCC is picking a fight they can't win. He compares it to Christianity picking a fight with Darwinism in the latter century (and losing, miserably).

2003-08-08T10:26:00.000-05:00

Anna Quindlen pulls together some odd memes to make some points that I agree with in her column in Newsweek titled: Outside the Bright Lines.

She starts off by reviewing Jenny Boylan's book wherein the author recounts her experience as a MTF transgender (emphasis mine):

Tolerance is the rice pudding of modern behavior; it tastes sweeter than bigotry, but no one would confuse it with a parfait. What Boylan’s book represents is something deeper and more important than tolerance. The way in which people insisted on valuing her on the basis of who she was and not their confusion about what she had done represents the best of human behavior.
Doing that is hard. The old bright lines used to make things so simple. White was different from black. Male was different from female. Straight was better than gay. Gay was bad. So was sex, unless it had been sanctified by Alencon lace and a catering hall. Sanctified by God, some would say, or “natural moral law,” which is what the Vatican cited in its statement last week against gay marriage, the theological version of “because I said so.”
The God who suggested we love one another seemed strangely absent from all this. Look at the bright lines in the new movie “The Magdalene Sisters.” It’s a devastating drama based on the true story of unmarried Roman Catholic girls who got pregnant and were essentially imprisoned in Irish laundries called the Magdalene Asylums, sent there by their own parents for no crime other than sexuality. Who cares about compassion when you can have never-darken-my-doorstep certainty?

2003-08-04T11:03:00.000-05:00

Maureen Dowd scores some good points before she gets fluffy on us in her column in the New York Times titled: Butch, Butch Bush!:

"Last time I checked, we had separation of church and state, so I don't know why the president is talking about sin, or why he is implying that gays who want to make a permanent commitment in a world full of divorce and loneliness are sinners.

If we follow Mr. Bush's logic, shouldn't we have a one-strike-and-you're-out constitutional amendment: no marriage for gays, but no second marriage for straights who prove they're not up to it?"

I think she got the annoyance/insult sense of Bush's words just right. He thinks he's being magnanimous. He comes across as patronizing and insulting.

Of course, my friends say that his words weren't meant for us. They were meant as a sop to the political right-wing/conservative christian factions of the GOP. We'll see. If this amendment thing gets any traction, every queer in the country needs to be prepared to go to the barricades. I won't idly stand by while the equivalent of slave compromise gets written into the Constitution.

2003-07-29T10:23:00.000-05:00

More than any other issue, the never-say-die efforts of liberals to normalize homosexuality have galvanized grassroots support for the political campaigns of the evangelical renewal.

so say the authors of an article in Christianity Today Magazine: "The High-Octane Fuel of Gay Activism"

This is a difficult article for me to read because the authors couch the struggle in stark terms of "us vs. them", liberals vs. evangelicals. I consider myself an evangelical who has had to dig a bit more on the issue of sexual orientation. The authors posit that the "normalization" of homosexuality (which I consider "normal" already; same-gender attraction has existed in the human condition for all of recorded history and exists "naturally" in the non-human animal kingdom as well) is the fuel that is driving the vitality of the confessing movement. If this is true, it bothers me a bit that the thing that drives the various expressions of this movement is not so much the desire for a closer walk with God; to know Him better; to have His life manifest in our lives (and through us, in society) but rather to strive *against* a group of people, a minority, who are struggling for acceptance in society in general and for full participation in the life of the church in specific. And they thing that is being disagreed over is how and towards whom we express *love* and the implications of that expression in terms of building healthy, stable, long-term committed relationships and how we create and build our families. What a crazy issue for Christians to be divided over.

I think that this is no different than the church splits that occured in the mid 19th century over the issue of slavery. Some churches took the high moral ground and others used scripture to support theologies of owning slaves and the social and cultural context status quo.

2003-07-28T10:28:00.000-05:00

I read and hear mostly about the mounting body count independent of the context of *what* we're getting for it. This article in the Washington Post gets into some detail about how the troops are executing the ongoing war for the hearts and minds of the Iraqi's and tracking down the guys that are still trying to hold onto power.

2003-07-14T16:59:00.000-05:00

20 Lies About the War explains the stuff that was foisted on the "not very thinking" general public.

2003-06-25T09:25:00.000-05:00

Richard Goldstein writes in The Village Voice "The Queer Issue" about the popular conception of The Gay Predator and speaks to something that I think explains to a great extent why heterosexual men hate -- sometimes virulently so -- gay men. It has to do with almost instinctive fear of rape.

Because its victims must contend with fearsome threats to their sexual identity, male-on-male rape may be the most secret sex crime, though it's more common than meets the eye, especially if you include the epidemic of sexual assaults in prison. Few of the perps are homosexual; most would be quite willing to rape women if they could get their hands on them. Male rape, like all rape, is a crime of power, and its unconscious ambition is to enforce the sexual order. As gender traitors who already seem degraded, gay men are far more likely to be violated than to violate.

But in the straight imagination, a different image applies. Here, the terror of being raped (and the temptation that comes with it) is projected onto the homosexual, presumably lusting for straight-male tail. Every homo is imagined as a potential predator, and any display of gay aggression is likely to be seen, at least implicitly, in this light. Generations of us have been marked by the need to play the servile faggot in order to reassure straights that we pose no threat. We are taught from our first wet dream that it's dangerous even to imagine striking out against "real men," and the culture re-enforces this taboo by churning out endless images of what happens to queers who violate it."

That also explains why, at the first glimmers of sexual awakening at the onset of adolescence, those of us who realized with astonishment that we didn't share the same attractions as most of our same-gender peers instinctively knew the way to the closet. We sussed that something as innocent as commenting on another guy's attractive frame (which would have drawn no more than nodding assents if directed at a gal) would be viewed with hostility and likely result in a violent reaction.

2003-06-25T09:15:00.000-05:00

Richard Kaye writes in The Village Voice "The Queer Issue" (it's June, it's Pride, natch) how historians are hard at work "outing" historical figures. Among them, one of the more recent, interesting cases is that of President Abraham Lincoln.

Excerpt:

"The most contentious of recent outings involves Abraham Lincoln, who had a relationship with a 24-year-old merchant named Joshua Speed when the 28-year-old Lincoln was living as a bachelor in Springfield, Illinois. The rumor mill on the Lincoln-Speed case has been smoldering for years, beginning with Carl Sandburg's 1926 observation that their relationship held a "streak of lavender and spots soft as May violets." Scholars have long noted the intense bond between the two men, who lived together for four years and—once again, the controversy thrives on sleeping habits in cold climates—may have shared the same bed.

The intensity of Lincoln's feelings for Speed is evident in Lincoln's depression after the younger man sold his store to return to his native Kentucky, an event that may have persuaded Lincoln to break off his engagement with Mary Todd. ("I am now the most miserable man living," Lincoln wrote. "To remain as I am is impossible; I must die or be better.")

There are two books in the works about the Lincoln-Speed case, one co-authored by former Kinsey researcher C.A. Tripp, another by Larry Kramer, whose forthcoming The American People will draw on hitherto unseen writings by Speed, some of which reportedly were found in the floorboards of the building he shared with Lincoln. Kramer has been wary about revealing the contents, but he did read passages from it at a 1999 gay studies conference at the University of Wisconsin. A local paper reprinted some of Kramer's more titillating quotes: "He often kisses me when I tease him, often to shut me up. . . . He would grab me up by his long arms and hug and hug." Describing his friend as "Linc," Speed described the future 16th president as a man who could not get enough huggin' and kissin'.

2003-06-24T14:38:00.000-05:00

Warren St. John writes in the New York Times (though I read the article in The Chronicle) about a new marketing category: the metrosexual which describes men who are "just gay enough" or "flaming heterosexuals". In other words, they are fashion concious, buy hair care and skin products and are str8 as an arrow. This is where "Joe American" is going and, interestingly, he is being led there by gay men.

2003-06-23T16:46:00.000-05:00

Frank Rich writes in the New York Times about The Gay Kiss on the Tony's Award shoe that is just the tip of the iceberg of the increasing acceptance of things gay in America. Obviously, Broadway isn't representative of middle America (and, let's face it, gay men and show tunes are inseparable), but it's a harbinger of the way that the culture is going. Rich does a pretty good job surveying the cultural, political, legal and social landscape of things gay at the moment. A highly recommended read.

2003-06-18T11:09:00.000-05:00

Andrew Sullivan writes in the New Republic as to why the sex act most commonly associated with gay men, i.e. sodomy, is considered "wrong". He provides a useful capsule history of sodomy (historically, it isn't what you might think it is) and how proscriptions against it came to be encapsulated in law. He then goes on to explain how it relates to the recognition in law of marriage relationships and the import of the "Lawrence & Garner vs. Texas" case that went before the Supreme Court in March, the outcome of which will be announced Thursday, June 26 according to HRC and Lambda Legal.

2003-06-17T08:37:00.000-05:00

And this is printed in a newspaper *friendly* to the US and the current administration. What, one wonders, is the actual situation on the ground?

2003-06-16T14:27:00.000-05:00

Timothy Garton Ash writes in the New Statesman about The Real Europe and American Culture's hand in it. He refers to Elf, i.e., English as Lingua Franca (American English being the most part of it).

Excerpt:
"... what is the most influential think-piece written about Europe over the past year? The one by Robert Kagan, an American neoconservative, endlessly quoted in all European capitals. So it's not just that our fast food, films, fashion and language are American. Even our debates about Europe itself are American-led.

As a result, there are two characteristic figures in Europe today: the deeply Europeanised anti-European and the deeply Americanised anti-American. We have all met him, the pinstriped Tory Eurosceptic who has a house in Tuscany, is an expert on French wines and knows a great deal more about Wagner operas than Chancellor Gerhard Schroder does. (This last may, admittedly, not be saying a great deal.) We have all met her, the ageing German anti-American peace campaigner, whose inspirations are Woodstock, Joan Baez and not the German Martin Luther but the American Martin Luther King. Except that each in turn would protest: "I'm not anti-European, I'm just against the Brussels Eurocratic vision of a federal superstate", and "I'm not anti-American, I'm just against the inhuman, warlike policies of that Texan cowboy in the White House."

This distinction is sustainable - up to a point...."

2003-06-16T14:08:00.000-05:00

In the Guardian, Eric Hobsbawn comments on America's imperial delusion.

An Excerpt:
"...the US, like revolutionary France and revolutionary Russia, is a great power based on a universalist revolution - and therefore on the belief that the rest of the world should follow its example, or even that it should help liberate the rest of the world. Few things are more dangerous than empires pursuing their own interest in the belief that they are doing humanity a favour."

2003-05-29T13:37:00.000-05:00

Another reason to vote for the opposition party next election. The current party doesn't want to face economic facts. SOMEBODY needs to before we run the bloody country into bankruptcy.

2003-05-22T08:57:00.000-05:00

I wonder how soon we'll be able to buy tree-grown burgers at McDonalds. It would be the ultimate veggie burger.

2003-05-12T08:31:00.000-05:00

And so, with all the flakey reasons given for going into Iraq, the *strongest* reason (related to our national self-interest) was the issue of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a certifiable looney. Our vaunted intelligence resources must not be as good as we thought as, according to the Washington Post, Frustrated, U.S. Arms Team to Leave Iraq .

2003-05-08T17:16:00.000-05:00

Norah Vincent of the LA Times explains why conservatives are being disengenous in defending Bennett's gambling as a victimless act. The reason? Because that's a libertarian conception. Conservatives don't rationalize the goodness or badness of an act based on who it harms; they evaluate based on criteria rooted in religious precepts. Otherwise why would conservatives be opposed to decriminalizing sodomy between consenting adults?

2003-05-08T17:06:00.000-05:00

Some very interestingly developed arguments about how the GLBT community ought to be going about establishing civil rights in this book: "Love The Sin" reviewed by Michael Bronski in the Boston Phoenix.

Essentially, trying to establish civil rights via right to privacy and equal protection leaves us with the right to identity but not the right to public behavior. The authors' thesis is that a better approach is via right to practice religion since it's dual pronged strategy: right to *practice* who we are and broadening the scope of what constitutes "morally acceptable" as a theological basis for law. The fundies have too much influence. It's time for the rest of us Christians to have our say and be *listened* to.

2003-05-08T17:00:00.000-05:00

What's so amazing about this review on Cornerstone in Orlando is that the author is a gay man who has been openly hostile towards religion.

2003-05-08T09:46:00.000-05:00

This is a likely candidate technology for *finally* being able to have e-books, e-mags, e-newspapers because it's thin, lightweight, bendable and low on power usage: E Ink says it's close on e-book prototype.

2003-05-01T14:43:00.000-05:00

Dear God in heaven. Patriot Raid

2003-04-14T11:54:00.000-05:00

Norwegian students do a funny Prank. I thought it was cute. And the security guard *let* them. What a guy!

2003-04-14T11:40:00.000-05:00

As we find out things like this: Russia spied on Blair for Saddam and this: Recently Imported French Luxury Goods Found, are interesting. I have a feeling that Russia AND France didn't want us to go into Iraq because of the embarrassing things we would find. This stuff ought to be trumpeted everywhere.

2003-04-10T16:07:00.000-05:00

Another nail in the coffin of my registration as a Republican. These people are *driving* me to the Democratic party.

Republicans Want Terror Law Made Permanent

2003-04-09T11:28:00.000-05:00

We are not doing ourselves any favors in the Arab world when we don't take extra special care towards one of the primary media mouthpieces to that world as evidenced by this attack on Al Jazeera's facilities in Bagdad. Some things you don't shoot at except with a camera (meaning, every tank commander in the area should have been *briefed* that under no circumstances should that place have been targeted.

But there is strang cognitive dissonance on Al Jazeera's english coverage. The article linked above is *so* different in tone than the article that open proclaims that the Iraqi government has fallen and that American soldiers are being greeted in Bagdad by celebrating Iraqi's proffering babies and flowers.

2003-04-07T15:57:00.000-05:00

This article describing how a scientific study has shown that the Middle Ages were warmer than today brought to mind something that Wil McCarthy wrote quite some time ago. The evidence backs up McCarthy's assertions.

I guess it *does* take a rocket scientist...

2003-04-02T08:51:00.000-06:00

Thomas Friedman in a New York Times Op-Ed describes the nuances of reaction in the Arab world to the war in Iraq. I hope somebody with some stroke in the administration is reading him.

2003-02-12T09:35:00.000-06:00

Camille Paglia presents her view on the upcoming war in Irag in this interview in Salon. I'm not the superstitious type but a lot of people in the world are and her following observation caught my attention:

As we speak, I have a terrible sense of foreboding, because last weekend a stunning omen occurred in this country. Anyone who thinks symbolically had to be shocked by the explosion of the Columbia shuttle, disintegrating in the air and strewing its parts and human remains over Texas -- the president's home state! So many times in antiquity, the emperors of Persia or other proud empires went to the oracles to ask for advice about going to war. Roman generals summoned soothsayers to read the entrails before a battle. If there was ever a sign for a president and his administration to rethink what they're doing, this was it. I mean, no sooner had Bush announced that the war was "weeks, not months" away and gone off for a peaceful weekend at Camp David than this catastrophe occurred in the skies over Texas.

From the point of view of the Muslim streets, surely it looks like the hand of Allah has intervened, as with the attack on the World Trade Center. No one in the Western world would have believed that those mighty towers could fall within an hour and a half -- two of the proudest constructions in American history. And neither would anyone have predicted this eerie coincidence -- that the president's own state would become the burial ground for the Columbia mission.

Including one small town where the debris fell called Palestine, Texas.

Yes, exactly! What weird irony with an Israeli astronaut onboard who had bombed Iraq 20 years ago. To me this dreadful accident is a graphic illustration of the limitations of modern technology -- of the smallest detail that can go wrong and end up thwarting the most fail-safe plan. So I think that history will look back on this as a key moment. Kings throughout history have been shaken by signals like this from beyond: Think twice about what you're doing. If a Roman general tripped on the threshold before a battle, he'd call it off.

2003-02-06T10:27:00.000-06:00

The world weighs in on Powell's performance at the UN: did he make a convincing case? American papers say yes (mostly); other papers lean towards no.

The Independent has a lead article entitled "An impressive show; but Mr Powell failed to make the case for a war on Iraq".

Pravda takes a short but clearly skeptical view.

The Guardian sits on the fence, the author not convinced that we should go to war but not convinced that we shouldn't, either.

The New York Times says that Powell may not have produced the smoking gun "but ... left little question that Mr. Hussein had tried hard to conceal one."

Slate states baldly that Powell Delivered the Goods on Saddam.

The London Daily Telegraph sides with the American administration and chides the Europeans for not offering any viable alternative.

The Washington Post calls the evidence Irrefutable.

The Globe and Mail feels that Powell presented a strong case.

Arab News states that "most commentators who saw the speech remained unconvinced that there was need for a war against Iraq: and quotes Norman Solomon, co-author of the the book "Target Iraq" in support of that view.

2003-01-23T07:36:00.000-06:00

Jane Leeve's "Daphne Moon" on Frazier is one of my favorite characters and Jane is one of my favorite actresses. Her feigned northern England accent is a trip (she's originally from Sussex as is described in this article in The Telegraph. My very favorite phrase that she says:

"I don't know why ..."

2003-01-17T08:58:00.000-06:00

Another commentator, Cathy Young, weighs in on the decriminalization of sodomy in this article in Reason. She takes conservatives to task for being hypocritical in that :

"Conservatives have long said that they want to get the government off our backs. If that's a principled stance, they should certainly want to get it out of our beds."

2003-01-14T17:21:00.000-06:00

Anna Quindlen writes in Newsweek's "Last Word" about Getting Rid of the Sex Police. She presents a cogent argument as to why the state needs to get out of the bedroom based on privacy and equal protection provisions of the Constitution. Of course, some have written typically ignorant responses basing their tired arguments on religion. This kind of double standard annoys me: these people aren't openly advocating laws persecuting non-Christian practices of Bhuddists or Muslims ... why do they think that they can continue to enshrine in law their bigotry towards persons who experience same-gender attraction or who don't don't happen to align with their interpretation of scripture? I can understand proscribing murder; it is one of the ten commandments. But there is no proscription in the 10 commandments against same-gender physical intimacy. There IS a proscription for bearing false witness against one's neighbor. These guys need to stop lying about me and people like me.

2002-09-13T15:59:00.000-05:00

Philip Jenkins, a scholar of history and religion at Pennsylvania State University, believes that on the important religious issues the day the American public can't see the forest for the trees. In his article in the October Atlantic, "The Next Christianity," (and in his recent book, The Next Christendom), Jenkins argues that Americans are all but unaware of what is one of the most important shifts of the twentieth century—the explosive growth of Christianity in the Southern Hemisphere. Here is an Interview with him.

2002-09-10T10:06:00.000-05:00

Christopher Hitches of the Boston Globe provides a "View from the Patriotic Left" in FrontPage magazine. He makes a statement: "Within its own borders, the United States is already a potential microcosm of a secular, multinational democracy. We are the ones who have to decide whether such a system can long endure, at home or abroad. Rather than become nerve endings for nameless fear, we can each resolve to become more internationalist and to take a more forward role as citizens." That seems to me a healthy, constructive way forward.

2002-09-09T14:13:00.000-05:00

Martin Walker, UPI Chief International Correspondent, offers his view on the US relationship with Europe as regards events in the middle east: US Nice Guy says 'enough'. His is the first defense I've read of the current administration's approach that casts US motives in any kind of understandable light. I still don't understand the motive for going after Iraq (Walker treats it as a "handy litmus test" -- ugh), but Walker's view towards the regimes in power in Egypt and Saudi Arabia seems spot on. I just don't get how achieving "regime change" militarily in Iraq is going to "inspire" oppressed peoples in these other countries to make changes for the better.

2002-09-09T09:40:00.000-05:00

Noam Chomsky, professor of Linguistics at MIT, writes in the Guardian about the need to address the root causes of terrorism from the mid-east: Drain the swamp and there will be no more mosquitoes. He derides the administrations explanation that the radicalization taking place in the middle east is because these people "hate our freedoms". It's a pretty lame explanation and it's the first article I've read that cogently explains what is more likely and why taking action against Iraq will likely lead to more of the same. The Guardian is a left-ist, anti-monarchy newspaper and Chomsky is known to be left-leaning, but his arguments are worth a read even though some of the facts he presents -- for example: over a hundred thousand people have died in Iraq over the past decade due to sanctions the west have imposed -- are debatable.

2002-09-05T09:54:00.000-05:00

Thomas Friedman in the Editorial section of the New York Times (free registration required) offers a 9/11 Lesson Plan for teachers having trouble deciding what to tell students on the anniversary. Friedman touches on the conflict between Islamic culture and modernity (which I view as ironic given our increasingly rapid shift towards post-modernity) and that "evil people hate us for who we are, many good people dislike us for what we do. And if we want to win their respect we need to be the best, most consistent and most principled global citizens we can be."

I have a bit of trouble with his point that "we didn't start this". We are engaged in the world and for every action we take in our perceived national interest, there are going to be ramifications and reactions. Some of those are going to come back and haunt us, indirect as they may be. We have to understand that as the 800 # gorilla in the world, we're going to piss off certain people and as a bull in a china shop, some dishes are going to get broken.

2002-09-05T09:43:00.000-05:00

Jeffrey Zeldman, of "A List Apart" fame, describes why he thinks99.9% of Websites Are Obsolete, an excerpt from a book he wrote that's due to come out shortly. His argument has to do with slavish devotion to backward compatibility with browsers that makes no technical or business sense.

2002-08-22T10:42:00.000-05:00

Bill Barnes writes in Slate as to why we all should hold off for a bit in buying new gadgets. Unlike David Weinberger (of the Journal of Hyperlinked Organization fame who pretty much slams Bluetooth in favor of Wi-Fi, Bill opines that Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are complementary and that all the new gadgets that are coming out this next year (what I used to quaintly call: "peripherals") are going to be Bluetooth enabled and therefore wireless and therefore much nicer to use.

For my part, I'm holding out for a Mac desktop running OS-X with an iPod and the related (rumors say) iPhone which is an integrated Palm-like thing with a Cell phone and a SLR megapixel camera that can also serve as a webcam. Cool!

2002-08-22T10:35:00.000-05:00

Robert Shapiro (former undersecretary of commerce in the Clinton administration and a fellow of the Brookings Institution) writes about how Japan has fallen behind IT-wise over the last 10 years in an article in Slate entitled: "The IT Split - Why Japan's tech industry bombed while America's boomed.". More analysis about Japan's culturally informed structural rigidity.

2002-08-22T09:28:00.000-05:00

Whither Japan? Do you remember the books & articles of the 80's which expressed anxiety about the "emergent" Japan who was going to succeed by economic means what they failed to do by military means in WWII? And then, more recently, we see the inwardly focused, downward spiraling Japan, paralyzed by internal rigid structures and culture from meaningful reform? John Wilson provides his (contrarian) perspective in Christianity Today's Books & Culture Corner.

2002-08-21T15:47:00.000-05:00

The media (Christian and Secular) haven't seemed to take Contemporary Christian Music very seriously. Mark Allan Powell, a lutheran theologian has recently produced Encyclopedia of Contemporary Christian Music, a 1067 page collection of reviews, discographies, and critical summaries of artists—from household names to the obscure. Christianity Today interviews Mr. Powell here about his book, why he wrote it and what the reaction of his professional theologian friends is.

2002-08-20T15:41:00.000-05:00

If you look back at my 30-April entry, you'll see that I note an article by Richard Florida on "The Rise of the Creative Class" . Since then, he's written a book. I've bought it (used from Amazon ... gotta love that marketplace feature) and will write more about it after I read it.

2002-08-20T15:30:00.000-05:00

Ok, I'm not part of the blogo-scenti but this article in Newsweek by Steven Levy points out why that's not necessarily so important.

2002-08-20T15:29:00.000-05:00

Tina Rosenberg discusses what's wrong with Free-Trade Globalism and, even more constructively, offers a nine-point plan to fix it. Registration required.

2002-08-19T12:23:00.000-05:00

One of the articles cited in "A Primer on Postmodernism" by Stanley Grenz is available in the online version of the Atlantic magazine: Jihad vs. McWorld - 92.03

2002-08-19T12:22:00.000-05:00

I'm currently reading Stanley Grenz' A Primer on Postmodernism. Grenz is a professor of theology and ethics at Regent College, Vancouver, BC and so speaks from an evangelical christian perspective. The book is true to its purpose (it's a Primer) and so is not big (200 pages including citations and notes). I find his comprehensive treatment of the elements of postmodernism (literary, art, architectectural, social, cultural) accessible with a wealth of citations to pursue further.

2002-08-19T12:14:00.000-05:00

Charles Mann writes in the Atlantic about Homeland Insecurity, the idea that the government is actually doing a lot of wrong things in its lame attempts to make the country more secure. He profiles Bruce Schneier, a public crypto pioneer and advocate who now advocates more ductile security measures that don't fail badly (like what happens if somebody slips by the security checkpoint at Hartsfield or SeaTac). A great article about the state of security in our country, what's happened with Crypto and what we REALLY should be doing (hint: rely on people, not technology).

2002-08-16T14:34:00.000-05:00

David Weinberger, author of "ClueTrain Manifesto, posits an interesting thought provoker here. In 50 years, when our grandchildren look back on how we conducted our life and culture in the early 21st century, what will they be amused/horrified by?

My ideas:
American arrogance in global affairs (neo-imperialism)
Antagonism (civil/social/religious) towards non-hets
Failure to constructively engage the developing world
The inequities of capital punishment

2002-07-22T13:24:00.000-05:00

An article in a Saudi Arabian english publication posits and supports the theory as to why Bin Laden no longer exists.

2002-05-06T13:41:00.000-05:00

Dr. Dudley Woodberry, one of the west's foremost Islamic scholars, provides some
good background from an evangelical Christian perspective on the roots of the current situation in the middle east.

2002-04-30T13:18:00.000-05:00

Desmond Tutu expresses his perspective that I find verbalizes some of the feelings that I have about the situation in Palestine/Israel. In a comment piece in the Guardian (a liberal, republican -- i.e., anti-monarchy -- newspaper in the UK), he writes about Apartheid in the Holy Land.

2002-04-30T10:19:00.000-05:00

Richard Florida, a professor of regional economic development at Carnegie Mellon University and a columnist for Information Week, arrives at some surprising conclusions in his article: "The Rise of the Creative Class" . He started out researching why initiatives to improve the economic lot of Pittsburg had come to naught and discovered an interesting demographic trend and set of markers for determining the economic success of a city. He offers a "Creative Index" for cities. Tulsa, by the way, made the top 10 (barely) of medium sized metro areas (500K-1MM pop.) DesMoines (!?) is number 2 in small sized metro areas (250K-500K). Austin and SanDiego are numbers 2 and 3 in the large sized metro areas (1MM+). This is great food for thought.

2002-04-16T13:01:00.000-05:00

Suzy Hansen interviews Todd Gitlin on his views of Americans, the Media and Culture. I found this article in Salon via Cursor.Org which provides (at least) an alternative to the prevalent view of America as the unfairly aggrieved nation and Israel as acting always in justified self-defense. I don't think the real picture is so simple.

2002-04-11T16:29:00.000-05:00

Is Islam to Blame? "As president of the American Muslim Alliance, political scientist Agha Saeed has spent much of his time since September 11 trying to answer one pressing question: Why?" This is an excellent article in the East Bay Express discussing living as a Muslim in post 9/11 USA.

2002-04-09T08:16:00.000-05:00

A UK government agency charged with conserving and promoting British rural life: The Countryside Agency - Home page. In addition, the Rambler's Association provides lots of information about how to get out and about in the UK (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland).

2002-02-26T12:17:00.000-06:00

Oh, what a hoot! I recall reading Irani authors complaining about how western culture and media were imported into Iran and, implicitly, played a part in the reaction that led to the revolution. Now, I read in the New York Times Magazine an article entitled: The Satellite Subversives about how expat Iranian's, based in the Great Satan, are using the media to speak truth into their culture. Where's the Voice-of-America funding when ya need it?

2002-02-05T09:53:00.000-06:00

So sad. One of my favorite websites has gone under. I wonder where I'll find my commercial fixes now? Every once in awhile, I intone "... and the beaver is truly a noble animal..." which elicits some pretty strange reactions. I used to be able to direct folks to the Molson "I Am A Canadian" rant commercial which "explains it all". Drats, not anymore.

2002-01-31T11:02:00.000-06:00

Intel is sponsoring something called "The Philanthropic Peer-to-Peer Program which is similar to the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI@home) screen saver project.

The idea is that you download a screen saver which links your computer (just the spare processing power) into a network for the use of medical researchers working on today's thorniest problems like anthrax research, cancer research, alzheimer research and so on. So if you've got Internet access and DSL or Cable, you might want to check into it.

2002-01-31T10:40:00.000-06:00

I draw your attention to an excellent article by Philip Yancy in CT, Strengthening Our Weakest Link, pointing out some of the foibles of the evangelical ghetto. Yancy quotes Richard Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary and makes observations about the irony of some of folks that Wheaton College chooses to honor.

2001-12-14T15:59:00.000-06:00

Here's an excellent article discussing Islam and [western] Modernity. This touches on topics that were explored in a class I took last semester entitled Mass Communication and Society.

2001-11-06T17:40:00.000-06:00

I can't believe how incredibly crummy some people are. Last week, I went to review my personal website and discovered that somebody had broken into the server, deleted a number of websites (including my personal one) to free up diskspace and loaded a porn video onto it.

Scum.

2001-10-25T17:27:00.000-05:00

Just got back from a holiday in Estes Park where we stayed south of town. What a blessing! This is our fourth trip there since 1994 ('94, '96, '98, '01). I love the day hiking, the scenery, the elk and the paucity of tourists.

2001-06-19T09:24:00.000-05:00

I learned something about what happened in Lithuania ten years ago and 55 years ago after WWII at: Email from the Baltics. Certain people involved in the oppression in Lithuania are now in Chechnya on the other side. Marcus Warren speculates on what they learned.

2001-06-12T17:06:00.000-05:00

As to his higher nature, the farmer believed in God - that is he tried to do what God required of him, and thus was on the straight road to know him. He talked little about religion, and was no partisan. When he heard people advocating or opposing the claims of this or that party in church, he would turn away with a smile such as men yield to the talk of children. He had no time, he would say, to spend on such disputes: he had enough to do trying to practice what was beyond dispute.
-Geo. MacDonald "Salted with Fire"

2001-06-08T15:05:00.000-05:00

Now this is cool. Using John Brockman's methodology of taking a bunch of interesting, leading edge thinkers, stick them into a room together and see what happens. About The Reality Club is website supported by Brockman which does just that.

2001-06-06T16:59:00.000-05:00

An Edge interview with
Edge: GEORGE LAKOFF, somebody whose books I want to read. He is the author of Metaphors We Live By (with Mark Johnson), Women, Fire and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal About the Mind and others.

2001-06-06T16:48:00.000-05:00

A great article at Computerworld about how eBay User Interface design is managed and rolled out.

2001-05-29T08:32:00.000-05:00

A segment on NPR Morning Edition today highlighted the growing trend of Israeli's leaving the country as the violence spreads. Two families mentioned as examples moving to Canada and Australia.

This morning in the London Telegraph, there is more about the events in Oldham, Greater Manchester. There the cultural tension is between "native" Britons and "Asians" (in other words, Pakistanis, Bangladeshi's, others from the Indian sub-continent). A prominent Tory party member, John Townsend, has sounded the old familiar refrain of fear that Britain is being turned into a mongrel nation. What amuses me is that Britain IS a mongrel nation and has been for millenia. Recall the invasions of the Angles and the Saxons and the Normans and the internal fighting and intermingling with the Hibernians, Celts and Picts. Britain is now known as an Anglo-Saxon nation, ironically named after groups that had invaded in the past.

2001-04-13T07:15:00.000-05:00

Other Views

CultureBox on Slate (Judith Shulevitz) discusses Kevin McDonald, known in the field of Evolutionary Psychology, re: Anti-Semitism Evolutionary Psychology's Anti-Semite by Judith Shulevitz

Israel Shamir's view on Anti-Semitism: iviews.com

2001-04-13T07:11:00.000-05:00

A 3-part series in the Telegraph of London on "Being Jewish" today; On-going feelings of insecurity in the Jewish community; Concerns about Assimilation and Jew against Jew.

Part 1: 'Our history has taught us to be insecure, that no place is for ever'

Part 2: Assimilation: will it spell the end of the Jews?

Part3: 'Jew against Jew is a greater threat than anything from the Arab world'

2001-02-16T10:46:00.000-06:00

Today, I'm getting my mind wrapped. I delved into this blogging thing a year or so ago and kinda wondered what it was all about. Didn't get it then, so I'm trying harder now. Cheers all --