These morally hazardous times

Giving Congress a blank check is like throwing red meat to sharks. Giving Congress a blank check and screaming Fire!, as President Obama has been doing, guarantees the worst sort of knee-jerk Congressional response: just throw money at everything and hope that something works.The "change we ... Continue reading

A prayerful inauguration

The verb inaugurate means literally "to practice augury." Happy to clear that up for you.Augury, for those of you who aren't students of classical literature, was the ancient practice of foretelling the future, divining what will come by reading various signs and omens. In Roman times, an augur ... Continue reading

A debate rages in New Mexico

I spotted this sign while driving through New Mexico recently, and it piqued my curiosity. Dust storms may exist. As a dedicated rationalist, I was frankly surprised, for I was certain that by now, these claims by some for the existence of dust storms had been stamped out. But to my chagrin, I was ... Continue reading

The myth of private vice

My blogging friend Ken Brown, writing at C. Orthodoxy, has been thinking a lot lately about how we use technology (specifically birth control, but the trend is wider than that) to try to mitigate the consequences of immoral behavior. The goal is to make that behavior (promiscuity, for instance) ... Continue reading

Survival instinct

[Joe Eszterhas] plopped down on a curb and cried. Sobbed, even. And for the first time since he was a child, he prayed: "Please God, help me."Mr. Eszterhas was shocked by his own prayer."I couldn't believe I'd said it. I didn't know why I'd said it. I'd never said it before," he ... Continue reading

Deconstructing Woody

Woody Allen cuts his banana into seven slices each morning. Six slices, or eight, and something bad might happen. "I know it would be total coincidence if I didn't slice it into seven pieces, and my family were killed in a fire," he says. "I understand that there could be no correlation, but, you ... Continue reading

No going back

We are stardust, we are golden And we've got to get ourselves back to the garden — Joni Mitchell, Woodstock I hiked the Old Baldy trail in Madera Canyon last weekend, making it to Josephine Saddle at 7,080 feet before starting back down the longer and hotter Super Trail. The hike was about 6.5 ... Continue reading

Political psychosis

Oh my. Amy Sullivan, a Christian journalist of the Democratic persuasion, someone I normally find to be thoughtful and rational, has fallen deep into the magic mushrooms with her latest piece in Time Magazine, An Antichrist Obama in McCain Ad?The "story" is that some Democrat talking heads ... Continue reading