Category Archives: religion
Journalistic ethics, NYT edition
Randy Cohen, who currently “writes the The Ethicist for The New York Times Magazine” and will write another weekly column (“Moral of the Story”) “examin[ing] a news story from an ethical perspective,” shows either (a) sloppy writing, (b) a complete disregard for national sensibilities, or (c) a sort of carpet-bombing ignorance of the arts and [...]
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Culture Waterloo
Cultural warlord James Dobson, ~10 Apr ’09: “We tried to defend the unborn child, the dignity of the family, but it was a holding action,” he said. m3t00, 21 Aug ’08: White male cultural conservatives have every reason to whine: for the last century, everyone else—all those others—have been mopping the floor with their imaginary [...]
Chariots of the Gods 2: the Keynes Generation
Right on schedule—for example, WRT the decline and fall of Western Civilization currently underway—comes a host of “Atlantis experts” who believe they’ve found the object of their expertise: “The site is one of the most prominent places for the proposed location of Atlantis, as described by Plato,” the Atlantis expert said. “Even if it turns [...]
What about Hell?
Hugo Chavez, denouncing GWB, tells the UN General Assembly “it smells of sulfur here” (20 Sep ’06; money quote at 5:37): GWB shows a profound interest in the subject (12 Jan ’09): ”The Sulfur Cauldron, a pool of liquid sulfur, is found at the Daikoku submarine volcano. The only other known location of molten sulfur [...]
Markets in bears, not in bulls
A curious detail in the NYT’s survey of the Madoff malware (“Madoff Scheme Kept Rippling Outward, Across Borders,” 19 Dec ’08): The only thing that struck the Swiss banker as odd was the bull memorabilia strewn about his office. “It seemed strange for a guy to have all these bulls, little sculptures, paintings of bulls,” [...]
It
“When Republicans say that Democrats ‘just don’t get it,’ this is the ‘it’ to which they refer.” So what about when net-heads said it about bell-heads? (the muted horn)
Allah on oil prices
From Peter Arnett’s ’97 interview with bin Laden: REPORTER: Mr. Bin Ladin, if the Islamic movement takes over Saudi Arabia, what would your attitude to the West be and will the price of oil be higher? BIN LADIN: We are a nation and have a long history, with the grace of God, Praise and Glory [...]
Vague allegory
Cellphone pic of pig and rooster talking on the phone, carved into the capital of a column near a bank of payphones in Riverside Church.
Pope condemns relativism, changes mind, wishes he’d taken notes but decided not to because immaterial office has a smaller carbon footprint
The NYT has an article that says today (20 July) it was published tomorrow (21 July), reporting that the pope—formerly Herr Ratzinger—will have criticized materialism yesterday: It seemed like only last week he was denouncing moral relativism too, and that it was reported in the NYT. But, according to the NYT, he didn’t do anything [...]
Apocalypse async
Bruce Schneier’s 15 June 08 Crypto-Gram notes the service youvebeenleftbehind.com, which promises to spam dozens of friends and loved ones “6 days after the ‘Rapture’ of the Church.” Early reports stressed the service’s claim that since “[t]here won’t be any bodies … probate court will take 7 years to clear”—coincidentally(?) enough time for “the Government [...]
QOTD