1. Constitutional Law: The Five-Minute Crash Course
2. Richard John Neuhaus on Mormonism:
I believe that many Mormons are Christians as broadly defined by historic markers of Christian faith. That does not mean that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is Christian. It is indisputably derived from Christianity and variations on Christianity, but its distinctive and constituting doctrines are irreconcilable with even a very liberal construal of biblical Christianity. It is, as Rodney Stark and many others have argued, a new religion and, by the lights of historic Christianity, a false religion. It is true that there are Mormon scholars who are working mightily to reconcile the LDS with Christianity, and one wishes them well, but they have their work cut out for them.
It is not an unreasonable prejudice for people who, unlike Alan Wolfe et al., care about true religion to take their concern about Mormonism into account in considering the candidacy of Mr. Romney. The question is not whether, as president, Mr. Romney would take orders from Salt Lake City. I doubt whether many people think he would. The questions are: Would a Mormon as president of the United States give greater credibility and prestige to Mormonism? The answer is almost certainly yes. Would it therefore help advance the missionary goals of what many view as a false religion? The answer is almost certainly yes. Is it legitimate for those Americans to take these questions into account in voting for a presidential nominee or candidate? The answer is certainly yes.
Although I'm puzzled by that first sentence (I don't think Mormons are Christians at all) I am in general agreement with the rest of the quote.
4. The editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries have compiled a list of 100 Words Every High School Graduate Should Know. "The words we suggest," says senior editor Steven Kleinedler, "are not meant to be exhaustive but are a benchmark against which graduates and their parents can measure themselves. If you are able to use these words correctly, you are likely to have a superior command of the language."
5. Major rulings for the 2006-2007 Supreme Court term -- Of the 26 rulings: 9-0 (6), 8-1 (3), 7-2 (1) 7-1 (1), 5-4 (14), 5-3 (1) (HT: RedBlueChristian)
6. Like "Jesus Camp", but for atheists:
At the same time youngsters at Bible camps across the nation are reciting, "Now I lay me down to sleep; I pray the Lord my soul to keep," kids at Camp Quest are climbing into their bunks, confident there is no one out there to hear those prayers.
Proudly proclaiming the motto "Beyond Belief," Camp Quest bills itself as the nation's first sleep-away summer camp for atheists. Founded in 1996, it has inspired four similar camps across the nation for children whose parents are either opposed or indifferent to religion.
(HT: Christianity Today Blog)
7. Stephen Prothero in Newsweek asks: "True or False: The Major Religions Are Essentially Alike":
According to this multicultural form of wisdom, the world's religions are merely different paths up the same mountain. But are they? Religious people do agree that there is something wrong with this world. But they disagree as soon as they start to diagnose the problem, and diverge even more when it comes to prescriptions for the cure. Christians see sin as the human problem and salvation from sin as the religious goal. Buddhists see suffering (which, in this tradition, is not ennobling) as the problem and liberation from suffering (nirvana) as the goal. If practitioners of the world's religions are all climbing a mountain, then they are ascending very different peaks and using very different tools.
You would think that multiculturalists would warm to this fact. But instead they try to flatten out diversity by pretending that the differences between, say, Judaism and Taoism are more apparent than real. How fulsome is religious diversity if all the religions are essentially the same, and a little interfaith dialogue can talk it all away?
(HT: GetReligion)
8. From Richard Vitzthum's Materialism: An Afiirmative History and Definition:
Materialism should no longer wink at such nonsense but insist that the foundations of all human thought and feeling are grossly irrational.
(HT: dangerous idea)
9. BooksFree is like NetFlix for paperbacks and audiobooks. For a monthly rental fee, you can access their 79,000 book titles and 13,000 audiobooks. (The Optimized Life)
10. Matt Feeney has an excellent article in Slate that ponders the question, "If you like 300, are you gay?"
Now, 300 has earned more than $200 million in America alone, from an overwhelmingly male audience. What more plausibly accounts for this? That 20 million closet cases snuck off to see an illicit fantasy about bare-chested men in Hellenic Speedos, or that young men from the vast heartland of this very conservative, Christian, pro-military country flocked to see an unabashedly heroic tale of Occidental, republican military glory? To believe the latter, all you have to accept is that, in imagining the sort of heroic figures they themselves would like to be, straight men would project onto them not just excellence but physical beauty. Shouldn't a guy be able to do such a thing without being called gay?
I'd like to agree with Feeney's conclusion, but the fact is that there is a clear homoerotic subtext underlying 300. This is only natural since the Spartans engaged in homosexual pederasty. But there is also a non-sexual homoeroticism.
As Feeney notes about the movie Point Break, "The frisson of attraction that abides in the Johnny-Bodhi standoff is erotic, all right. But it isn't homosexual desire. It's narcissism, the delight of seeing one's rare magnificence in someone else."
One doesn’t have to be gay, of course, to appreciate such movies. But there is clearly a connection between pagan virtues (especially narcissism) and homosexuality. Many film critics pick up on this intuitively, even if they don't understand the variations of homoeroticism.
11. From an interview with psychologist Robert Epstein, author of "The Case Against Adolescence":
Teens in America are in touch with their peers on average 65 hours a week, compared to about four hours a week in preindustrial cultures. In this country, teens learn virtually everything they know from other teens, who are in turn highly influenced by certain aggressive industries. This makes no sense. Teens should be learning from the people they are about to become. When young people exit the education system and are dumped into the real world, which is not the world of Britney Spears, they have no idea what's going on and have to spend considerable time figuring it out.
(HT: 2Blowhards)
13. Giant microwave turns plastic back to oil:
A US company is taking plastics recycling to another level – turning them back into the oil they were made from, and gas.
All that is needed, claims Global Resource Corporation (GRC), is a finely tuned microwave and – hey presto! – a mix of materials that were made from oil can be reduced back to oil and combustible gas (and a few leftovers).
Key to GRC’s process is a machine that uses 1200 different frequencies within the microwave range, which act on specific hydrocarbon materials. As the material is zapped at the appropriate wavelength, part of the hydrocarbons that make up the plastic and rubber in the material are broken down into diesel oil and combustible gas.
Watch the video (HT: Cynical-C Blog)
14. 27 Features That Make Google Analytics Best of Breed
15. From the New York Times review of Andrew Keen's new book, “The Cult of the Amateur,”
Mr. Keen argues that “what the Web 2.0 revolution is really delivering is superficial observations of the world around us rather than deep analysis, shrill opinion rather than considered judgment.” In his view Web 2.0 is changing the cultural landscape and not for the better. By undermining mainstream media and intellectual property rights, he says, it is creating a world in which we will “live to see the bulk of our music coming from amateur garage bands, our movies and television from glorified YouTubes, and our news made up of hyperactive celebrity gossip, served up as mere dressing for advertising.” This is what happens, he suggests, “when ignorance meets egoism meets bad taste meets mob rule.”
16. Christa Taylor designs modest clothes for girls and women that avoid the "modesty by wearing burlap sacks" mentality"
At Christa Taylor we're pioneering a modest clothing revolution. Our team is committed to designing trendy and modest clothes that match your unique style. We are fashions for the empowered traditionalist; offering chic, feminine, and modern modest clothing options that are carefully selected to bring you premium quality and a totally modish [chic+modest=modish] flair that allows you to keep up with all the latest trends.
(HT: Tim Challies)
17. 13 Promises from a Father to his 6 Kids
18. What Church Was Like Before the Jesus People Took Over
… the unconverted hippie was not so much an unbeliever as a pre-believer. He was already living the essence of Christianity, man: It's all about, like, compassion and justice and stuff. All he needs is Jesus. As Shires puts it, hippie converts sought a "primitive Christianity . . . as lived out in the pages of Scripture . . . bare-boned, authentic, sharing." The meaning of these words is, of course, highly subjective. While some counterculture converts interpreted "authentic" and "primitive" Christian community to mean house churches, a majority integrated themselves into established local churches. Either way, the impulse was toward imitation of what people imagined might have been first-century Christian practice.
Not surprisingly, this imagined practice was light on bishops and heavy on extemporaneous prayer, direct interventions of the Holy Spirit, and beanbag chairs. Given a certain orientation toward an emotive, experiential, eschatological, not to say hallucinogenic flavor of Christianity, heavy on baptisms in the Spirit, speaking in tongues, and anticipating the imminent Rapture, the majority of those who did integrate into churches gravitated toward churches with a greater degree of innate ecclesial fluidity: Pentecostal, charismatic, and evangelical. But wherever they went in those heady days, they remade the Church in their image.
(HT: Boundless Line)
19. Trulia Hindsight has an animated map of the US which shows new home construction over a period of years "with an eye towards exposing patterns of expansion and development." (HT: Kottke.org)
20. Matthew Anderson on Ethical Modesty in the Face of New Challenges:
Remember Terri Schiavo?
Like Schiavo, Jesse Ramirez, a gulf war veteran who was comatose as a result of a car accident, was slated to have his feeding tubes removed. They were taken out for five days but then replaced when the Alliance Defense Fund, a pro-life organization in Arizona, sued.
On Tuesday, he “was found to have regained complete consciousness.”
This remarkable turnaround reminds us that perhaps the chief virtue of the ethical decision maker is modesty, a virtue that has more applications than clothing.
21. Air-Car Ready for Mass Production:
India’s Tata Motors plans to introduce the first mass produced car powered entirely from compressed air. The CityCat model has a range of 125 miles, and scoots around at up to 68 mph. Filling up is a breeze - either use a special air compressor at a gas station for about $2.00, or just plug it in for 4 hours at home.
(HT: Neatorama)
22. Nine Cool Things You Can Do With Wikipedia (HT: The Presurfer)
23. Sociologist Fabio Rojas wonders if Democrats passed up a golden opportunity during the Harriet Miers nomination:
The recent wave of Supreme Court decisions showed that the addition of Alito and Roberts produces a consistent 5-4 conservative majority. I don’t have an opinion on any case since I’m not a lawyer, but I do wonder if the Senate Democrats totally missed out with Harriet Miers. Think about it: you know a sitting GOP president will nominate a conservative of some kind, why not support the person who will most likely move in your direction? Instead of supporting Miers, Democrats allowed conservative Republicans to tank the Miers nomination, paving the way for two nominees who turned out to be much more conservative.
24. Why I cannot vote for Mitt Romney:
The white Chevy station wagon with the wood paneling was overstuffed with suitcases, supplies, and sons when Mitt Romney climbed behind the wheel to begin the annual 12-hour family trek from Boston to Ontario. … Before beginning the drive, Mitt Romney put Seamus, the family's hulking Irish setter, in a dog carrier and attached it to the station wagon's roof rack. He'd built a windshield for the carrier, to make the ride more comfortable for the dog. …
As the oldest son, Tagg Romney commandeered the way-back of the wagon, keeping his eyes fixed out the rear window, where he glimpsed the first sign of trouble. ''Dad!'' he yelled. ''Gross!'' A brown liquid was dripping down the back window, payback from an Irish setter who'd been riding on the roof in the wind for hours.
As the rest of the boys joined in the howls of disgust, Romney coolly pulled off the highway and into a service station. There, he borrowed a hose, washed down Seamus and the car, then hopped back onto the highway. It was a tiny preview of a trait he would grow famous for in business: emotion-free crisis management.
(HT: ProfessorBainbridge)
25. Another group that won't be voting for Romney: Dog Against Romney (HT: Blue State Republican)
26. The Failed States List 2007 The most failed state in the world according to the Index is Sudan. The second worse: Iraq.
The piece notes a relationship between stability and freedom of religion:
Freedom of worship may be a cornerstone of democracy, but it may also be a key indicator of stability. Vulnerable states display a greater degree of religious intolerance, according to scores calculated by the Hudson Institute's Center for Religious Freedom. Persecution of religious minorities in Bangladesh, Burma, Iran, and Uzbekistan has deprived millions of faithful of the freedom to follow their beliefs. But religious repression is often nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to muzzle the country's civil society.
(HT: PoliBlog)
27. How to solve a maze with Photoshop
28. Whites underestimate the costs of being black, study finds:
When white Americans were asked to imagine how much they would have to be paid to live the rest of their lives as a black person, most requested relatively low amounts, generally less than $10,000.
In contrast, study participants said they would have to be paid about $1 million to give up television for the rest of their lives.
The results suggest most white Americans don't truly comprehend the persisting racial disparities in our country, said Philip Mazzocco, co-author of the study and assistant professor of psychology at Ohio State University's Mansfield campus.
“The costs of being black in our society are very well documented,” Mazzocco said. “Blacks have significantly lower income and wealth, higher levels of poverty, and even shorter life spans, among many other disparities, compared to whites.”
For example, white households average about $150,000 more wealth than the typical black family. Overall, total wealth for white families is about five times greater than that of black families, a gap that has persisted for years.
“When whites say they would need $1 million to give up TV, but less than $10,000 to become black, that suggests they don't really understand the extent to which African Americans, as a group, are disadvantaged,” Mazzocco said.
29. 10 Strangest Weapons Throughout History (HT: The Presurfer)
30. A vital molecule for resistance to food allergy has been identified offering a potential target for therapy. There is currently no way to treat food allergy; sufferers must avoid certain foods and keep adrenaline at hand. Scientists led by Dr. Claudio Nicoletti at the Institute of Food Research in Norwich have found a molecule that is absent during allergic responses. He suggests that by delivering allergens with this molecule, allergic reactions could be controlled.
31. The smallest - and cutest - creatures you will ever see (HT: The Presurfer)
"The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race."
Chief Justice John Roberts in an opinion that invalidated programs in Seattle and metropolitan Louisville, Ky. that sought to maintain school-by-school diversity by limiting transfers on the basis of race or using race as a “tiebreaker” for admission to particular schools.
33. Engineering as Art: The Kinetic Sculptures of Theo Jansen
1
As a lawyer, I was annoyed with the Roberts quote. I think that trite aphorisms have no place in Supreme Court jurisprudence. Who does he think he's convincing?
And Joe, would you agree that maybe the best way to stop human killing is to stop killing humans? But it would be so *progressive* to join the rest of the world and outlaw capital punishment, wouldn't it?
posted on 07.02.2007 12:49 AM2
Marco, I'd say the best way to stop human MURDERS is by executing murderers.
I don't want to stop all killings. I just want to stop the killings of innocent people. There is a difference, you know.
posted on 07.02.2007 2:27 AM3
Marco,
We (as a society) really are all Progressives and are following the old Noble Savage doctrine. We think that a good economy and/or good social conditions will result in better persons. The liberal religious Noble Savage will end in better moral behavior. And the secular equivalent will result in a better overall society. Just remove the obstacles to the end and we'll reach the end. So whether one follows Schliermacher or Adam Smith, either way a better humanity is the result.
All this is entirely false.
Collin
http://evangelicalperspective.blogspot.com
4
Joe, I had about 20 tabs opened from these 33 things.
Good job.
posted on 07.02.2007 8:12 AM5
Regarding #1, some time ago, another writer compared Mormonism to ISLAM, in the sense that it was kind of descended from Christianity and derived from it, but with most of the major teachings being severely distorted.
posted on 07.02.2007 10:08 AM6
#2; share your frustration with the first line and agreement with the balance of the article. Have had to take a long look at this after my folks and brother joined the Mormon church. I don't know how theologically sound this is, but here are a couple of thoughts:
- If being a Christian is confessing Christ as Lord, they certainly claim to do that. Other than keeping an eye on the "fruits" in their life (Mormons have a huge leg up on many denominations in this respect, unfortunately), I'm leaving it up to Christ to know if this is authentic. For that matter, I'm trusting in Him alone that He will find my Bapti-Costal version of that confession equally authentic.
- Agree with the author that if the Mormon Church was a bullseye, the folks further around the edge of the board seem closer to traditional Christianity than the ones in leadership at the center. Hate to say it, but this same model seems to work well for a lot of mainline protestant and Catholic denominations as well.
posted on 07.02.2007 10:32 AM7
#2; share your frustration with the first line and agreement with the balance of the article. Have had to take a long look at this after my folks and brother joined the Mormon church. I don't know how theologically sound this is, but here are a couple of thoughts:
- If being a Christian is confessing Christ as Lord, they certainly claim to do that. Other than keeping an eye on the "fruits" in their life (Mormons have a huge leg up on many denominations in this respect, unfortunately), I'm leaving it up to Christ to know if this is authentic. For that matter, I'm trusting in Him alone that He will find my Bapti-Costal version of that confession equally authentic.
- Agree with the author that if the Mormon Church was a bullseye, the folks further around the edge of the board seem closer to traditional Christianity than the ones in leadership at the center. Hate to say it, but this same model seems to work well for a lot of mainline protestant and Catholic denominations as well.
Guess the point is this: Is it more profitable to be a Christian in a non-Christian denomination or to be an unregenerate pew warmer on the first row of a Bible-believing Baptist church?
posted on 07.02.2007 10:35 AM8
Neuhaus's comments are similar to what I was told by a friend who is a Catholic priest. My friend thinks that Mormons today, particularly the rank and file, are closer to orthodox Christianity than they were 50 years ago, and he thinks that the church leadership is toning down its heterodoxy to the point that in another 20 or 30 years, its positions may lie within the range that most protestants and catholics consider "Christian." Creeping orthodoxy?
posted on 07.02.2007 11:08 AM9
If you are going to judge Christianity by a set of actions I suppose that it will appear that Mormonism is creeping towards an idea of orthodoxy, but if you look at the central doctrines that define what one says of Christ... Mormonism is as far away and false as it ever was.
So what is *your* standard,fellow reader?
posted on 07.02.2007 11:15 AM10
The questions are: Would a Mormon as president of the United States give greater credibility and prestige to Mormonism? The answer is almost certainly yes. Would it therefore help advance the missionary goals of what many view as a false religion? The answer is almost certainly yes. Is it legitimate for those Americans to take these questions into account in voting for a presidential nominee or candidate? The answer is certainly yes.
The Constitution is quite clear, there are to be no religious tests for office. I see no reason why voters should treat elected office as a popularity vote on the candidate's religion.
The next question is what exactly is meant here by legitimate? If you mean that Mormonism isn't a cult or fringe religion then yea I could agree electing him President would serve to support that argument. But like it or not Mormonism is not a cult or a fringe religion. Maybe it was 150 years ago but it is no longer. You may still believe it to be false but if you believe in one true religion then you better get used to the fact that most people are going to have a false religion of one type or another. Likewise I think it would be legitimate to have qualms about voting for Tom Cruise because I think Scientology is still a cult...although it may yet grow into a respectable religion (still stupid I think but that's just my judgement)....
11
Tell Mitt how you feel at www.DogsAgainstRomney.blogspot.com
posted on 07.02.2007 11:50 AM12
Okay, let's have a show of hands... how many other lawyers out there think a truthful comment is trite and annoying?
posted on 07.02.2007 12:36 PM13
Materialism should no longer wink at such nonsense but insist that the foundations of all human thought and feeling are grossly irrational.
OK, I'll bite. If human thought is or can be rational AND human thought is created by matter then it follows that the universe is at least partially rational. Since there doesn't seem to be anything particularly special about the matter that makes up the human brain (it is not, for example, made up of atoms that exist only on earth in limited quantities but is made up of very common types of matter in our universe) it would appear that rationality is a huge part of the universe.
posted on 07.02.2007 12:40 PM14
"The Constitution is quite clear, there are to be no religious tests for office." Obviously this has been followed as Mitt is running but it has nothing to do with the topic of voting, only qualifications to run.
"But like it or not Mormonism is not a cult or a fringe religion." How do you define a cult and who made you arbitrator of what is and is not a cult? I think most Christians would define a cult by what it believes about Jesus (ie. That He is savior and His deity).
15
Mormons believe that Joseph Smith was called as a prophet to restore the true gospel of Jesus Christ that was lost during the apostasy. They invite all to pray about it.
posted on 07.02.2007 2:14 PM16
The Constitution is quite clear, there are to be no religious tests for office.
Which means that there are can be no religious requirements for holding office, like the President must be 35 years old and a US born citizen. You couldn't mandate that the President must also be a Baptist. This does not apply to voters who are free to vote for or against a candidate for elective office for any reason, serious or frivolous.
I see no reason why voters should treat elected office as a popularity vote on the candidate's religion.
That's nice, but there's no way you could enforce your sentiment on the rest of the electorate.
posted on 07.02.2007 2:25 PM17
Actually we don't even vote for President (electors do and in theory a state could select the electors without even doing a popular vote) but I think it's a good idea to keep to the spirit of the Constitution when voting and not make religious tests of our candidates. Again unless someone is running as an explicitly theocratic candidate voting for them is not an endorsement of their religion.
How do you define a cult and who made you arbitrator of what is and is not a cult? I think most Christians would define a cult by what it believes about Jesus (ie. That He is savior and His deity).
I believe officially a cult is just a group dedicated to a particular belief. It need not be outside a mainstream religion (for example Catholicism has 'the cult of Mary' and the word cult is not used with a negative connotation).
I used the word in the negative sense and by that I would mean a group dedicated to beliefs that are at odds with individual freedom. Mormonism was originally like this. If you ever watched HBO's Big Love, the character of 'the prophet' is a good depiction of old style Mormonism where the patriarch ruled with an iron hand using his ability to 'assign' men wives (or leave them single) was used to strong arm a community to his will.
Today, though, Mormonism is not like this. While their theology may be wrong I don't think you could seriously argue they are a cult in this sense of the word. Also in this sense of the word a cult has nothing to do with beliefs about Jesus. There are cults out there that will meet whatever check list you devise for standard orthodox Christian belief. What makes a cult, IMO, is a type of group that conflicts with individual liberty.
I think you would agree that all small spiritual oriented groups can be at risk for falling under the influence of a personality cult of a strong leader...just as large groups run the risk of becoming mundane and 'watered down' in an effort to accomodate everyone.
No one made me an arbitrator of what a cult is. I do think that Scientology has retained some of those cultish aspects about it...especially getting people to throw them large amounts of money in exchange for advancing to their 'secret levels' and going to what I think are extreme lengths to punish and silence dissidents. I admit I could be wrong, though.
posted on 07.02.2007 3:09 PM18
Boonton,
Now that's just plain silly. (If I read you correctly, that is.) That statement in the Constitution has nothing to do with the popular discussions, but with the legal requirements. To frame this discussion with that quote is quite a misuse of the Constitution. It is, like the First Amendment, a restriction on the government, and not on us at all.
Collin
http://evangelicalperspective.blogspot.com
19
That's nice, but there's no way you could enforce your sentiment on the rest of the electorate.
I didn't say I should force that sentiment on the rest of the electorate but
Richard John Neuhaus also has no way to force his sentiment that voting for Romney somehow endorses the Mormon religion on the electorate either....nor did he say he should.
And yes thank you for noting my sentiment is nice. Voters should not treat an election as a contest on whose religion is better. People can vote any way they want but if we are talking about how they should vote it is perfectly legitimate to point out that the spirit of the Constitution prohibits religious tests for office and there's no reason that spirit shouldn't be carried into the voting booths by voters.
posted on 07.02.2007 3:41 PM20
People can vote any way they want but if we are talking about how they should vote it is perfectly legitimate to point out that the spirit of the Constitution prohibits religious tests for office and there's no reason that spirit shouldn't be carried into the voting booths by voters.
And there's no reason it should either. The prohibition against religious tests is a prohibition against a religious qualification for office (i.e. to run for President, you must be Catholic); people are free to vote their conscience in elections. If they want to disregard a candidate's religions, there is nothing to prevent them from doing so; likewise if they want to consider only a candidate's religion.
posted on 07.02.2007 4:01 PM21
Neuhaus' words about Romney and Mormonism are especially ironic coming from a Catholic. Substitute "Kennedy" for "Romney" and "Catholic" for "Mormon" and the same piece could have been written in 1960 by an evangelical. Many Protestants in 1960 openly admitted that they didn't vote for Kennedy purely on the religion issue. Of course, back then, the majority of evangelicals didn't consider Catholics to be True Christians. Today, a Catholic can be admiringly quoted, on his religious opinions no less, at an "evangelical outpost."
Someone smarter than me defined a cult as "a religion with no political power." Conversely, a religion is "a cult with political power."
Does anyone really think that the election of Romney would lead to conversion gains by the Mormons? Can anyone show where electing a president of a certain faith helped that group gain adherents? Has the Methodist church been surging thanks to W.'s affiliation? Did Quakers gain because of Nixon or Southern Baptists because of Carter or Clinton? Did whatever religion Reagan (Disciples?) supposedly belong to gain members?
posted on 07.02.2007 4:10 PM22
As was pointed out, Mormonism is gaining new adherents by becoming more like other Christian denominations. So it becomes an interesting question of whether Mormonism is really gaining or is it other types of Christianity is gaining by causing Mormonism to adapt. No doubt mainstream Mormons would like to believe their religion is gaining because it's true. Also no doubt fundamentalist Mormon types believe it is gaining because it betrayed its roots and 'made a deal with the devil'.
posted on 07.02.2007 4:20 PM23
"But there is clearly a connection between pagan virtues (especially narcissism) and homosexuality. Many film critics pick up on this intuitively, even if they don't understand the variations of homoeroticism."
The connection is between narcissism and the male gender, much more than homosexuality. Once again, lesbians don't exist in this framework. And of course, the connection between what passes for Christianity these days and narcissism is even stronger.
24
Moiety?
I thought Shakespeare was the last guy to use this word effectively. Has it come back? I mean, I like the word, partially because of its (I thought) obscurity. But moiety is a word an HS grad should know, as opposed to, say, megalomania -- which didn't make the list?
Were it not for the inclusion of the great "lugubrious" I would be tempted to deem this list's author a jejune moietywit. On the other hand, one out a hundred ain't bad.... But Moiety?
25
#24:
This is a joke, right?
If there is any reason to vote for Romney, it would be #24. Certainly you jest, Mr. Carter.
posted on 07.02.2007 8:17 PM26
Regarding #28.
What a ridiculous study. The conclusion comes from whole cloth as it assumes that a person who lived most of their as not black would suddenly find themselves poor and uneducated if they were just as suddenly black. If anything it shows that many whites think that problems such as substandard education and a lack of financial resources to be personal problems to be solved by individuals. At least that would be my take on it and that is just as supported by the data (i.e. not at all) as their conclusions.
And what does reparations have to do with being black? Let us pretend that we cut a $100,000 check for each and every black person in the U.S. What would that accomplish? Would it suddenly educate every black high school drop out? Would it get each black person working for less than $20,000 a year a better paying job? It is a ridiculous proposition that a reparation check will suddenly make everything all right for any black person.
Bill Cosby has the correct prescription for the ills that befall black people: education. Stop listening to your peers who tell you that making good grades is "acting white". Consider schools to be your ladder out of poverty. Use the educational resources available to you whether it is free public schools, low price community colleges, government student loans and grants, or demanding better schools (or even school vouchers) from your local and state politicians.
posted on 07.02.2007 11:09 PM27
What a ridiculous study. The conclusion comes from whole cloth as it assumes that a person who lived most of their as not black would suddenly find themselves poor and uneducated if they were just as suddenly black.
Good point kbiel. I do think however that people do underestimate the cost such a burden would impose. In other words, if assume they will become black but retain their experience, education, etc. they would still underestimate the cost of the hit (not only in income but also in less tangible ways). I also think the flip side may be even more so. If you asked blacks how much economic benefit would they capture if they woke up white tomorrow they will tend to overestimate the benefits of being white (remember the Eddie Murphey skit where he disguises himself as a white man and discovers everything is free when whites are alone?)
And what does reparations have to do with being black? Let us pretend that we cut a $100,000 check for each and every black person in the U.S. What would that accomplish? Would it suddenly educate every black high school drop out? Would it get each black person working for less than $20,000 a year a better paying job? It is a ridiculous proposition that a reparation check will suddenly make everything all right for any black person.
No it wouldn't suddenly make everything better but it would nonetheless be a big benefit to every black person. If some space alien came to earth tomorrow and proposed to give every black person $100K I wouldn't object. But the other side of the coin is whose going to pay the $100K. I think it would harm non-blacks more than it would benefit blacks.
posted on 07.03.2007 8:59 AM28
Marie,
*Of course* I see a difference between executing a murderer and killing an innocent human being. That was my point! My point is that you can't reduce capital punishment to the aphorism I wrote and you can't reduce desegration efforts to the Chief Justice's aphorism. It's unconvincing.
This is assuming, of course, that you acknowledge a difference between conscious efforts to combat de facto segregation post-Brown and the Ku Klux Klan. If you don't, well, then, my point is lost... but then you're also, in my mind, tragically mistaken.
posted on 07.03.2007 11:08 AM29
re #14: The 28th reason would be that it keeps people from reading your blog too fast as they sit there staring at "Waiting for google-analytics.com..." for 30 seconds before anything interesting loads. ;-)
posted on 07.05.2007 9:41 AM