Monthly Archives: March 2010

US Government Spending is about 45% of America’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

Posted on March 30, 2010 by

That’s a high number, and not seen since World War II. And it needs to come down. My prediction: as the economy recovers over the next few years, the percentage will drift downward, below 40% (and Republicans will not notice). … Continue reading →

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Making music using iPhone apps

Posted on March 30, 2010 by

Somebody had to do it.

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Rhetorical Honey v. Rhetorical Vinegar: Jerry Coyne in the Light of Thomas Paine and Martha Nussbaum

Posted on March 30, 2010 by

Rhetorical honey v. rhetorical vinegar? Evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne thinks that atheists shouldn’t be shy about what they believe, guarding the feelings of religious believers. As an agnostic, do I think that he is he right? I think that he is. … Continue reading →

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Reverse Super-Size Me: Kenda Swartz Pepper Feels Like 1.02 Billion

Posted on March 29, 2010 by

People, that is. Kenda Swartz Pepper, on March 20, started an experiment: to spend 21 days experiencing what it’s like to join the one billion people on the planet who go to bed hungry. Here’s Kenda today: 1.02 billion people in … Continue reading →

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A Fresco Painting from Pompeii Paired with Emily Dickinson’s Bedroom Window (and One of Her Poems)

Posted on March 28, 2010 by

A bedroom fresco? Whose bedroom? Source: Spiegel And here’s Emily Dickinson’s bedroom window: Dickinson’s bedroom was at her family’s Amherst homestead. Emily’s room was on the second story of their home. Here’s one of her poems: I felt a Cleaving in my … Continue reading →

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I think that Henry David Thoreau would have liked Dr. Michael de Ridder

Posted on March 28, 2010 by

In Spiegel this weekend, Dr. Michael de Ridder advocates a return to simplicity in human death: no frantic rushing about, no elaborate rescue measures: Dying a simple death is no longer an option in our society, even in places where one might … Continue reading →

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David Frum’s Wife on the American Conservative Movement: “I’ve never seen such a hostile environment towards free thought and debate”

Posted on March 28, 2010 by

Danielle Crittenden, the wife of conservative David Frum, sees a serious narrowing of the intellectual range of opinion that you can safely express within contemporary American conservatism (and still remain in the fold):   We have both been part of the … Continue reading →

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Photo for a Sunday: Christianity Militant? Whatever Happened to “Pray for your enemies”?

Posted on March 28, 2010 by

Didn’t Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, say to pray for your enemies? In Lancaster, California recently, I noticed this message outside a Presbyterian church, and it put me in mind of Mark Twain’s “The War Prayer“:                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          . … Continue reading →

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Eggs watch a cooking show

Posted on March 27, 2010 by
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Turn or burn? Among the young, is Evangelical Christianity losing its hell bite?

Posted on March 27, 2010 by

Is human imaginative sympathy and love slowly conquering fundamentalist dogma? Perhaps, and it might be because the world is getting smaller, making it more difficult to live an insular existence and project dehumanizing traits onto others.  This yesterday at NPR (in … Continue reading →

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Agnostic and Atheist Values: How I Ground Morality Absent Religion

Posted on March 27, 2010 by

I am not responsible for bringing consciousness, happiness, or the sense of freedom into the universe, but now that they are here—and however they got here—I appraise them as very good things, and want them for myself and, by imaginative sympathy, for others. … Continue reading →

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Henry David Thoreau on not reacting to every insistent demand

Posted on March 27, 2010 by

This Henry David Thoreau quote comes from the second chapter of Walden (1854): If the engine whistles, let it whistle till it is hoarse for its pains. If the bell rings, why should we run? We will consider what kind … Continue reading →

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In Case You Missed It: Welcome to Laredo, Texas! 250,000 People, Zero Bookstores!

Posted on March 26, 2010 by

This was in the Los Angeles Times a couple of months back: Laredo, Texas, is set to become the largest U.S. city without a bookstore. The B. Dalton in the Mall del Norte, owned by parent company Barnes & Noble, is … Continue reading →

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Conservative Brick Throwers and Tim Pawlenty: Did Tim Pawlenty Call on Republicans to Smash Federal Government Building Windows?

Posted on March 26, 2010 by

“Conservative” paired with “brick thrower” would appear to be an oxymoron. But not among contemporary American conservatives. And at CPAC recently, Tim Pawlenty seems to have called on conservatives to engage in acts of violence against the federal government’s buildings that eerily anticipated … Continue reading →

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“Epistemic closure”: Julian Sanchez on American Conservative Insularity

Posted on March 26, 2010 by

At his blog today, Julian Sanchez uses the phrase “epistemic closure” to describe contemporary American “conservatism” (which I would call, in fact, a neo-authoritarian cultural movement): One of the more striking features of the contemporary conservative movement is the extent to … Continue reading →

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Sherry Marquez Bait: a Man from Catholic Brazil Decapitates His Mother

Posted on March 25, 2010 by

This today from a Latin American news service: Police in the northeastern state of Bahia are looking for a 22-year-old man accused of decapitating his mother and fleeing with her head, the news Web site G1 said Tuesday. I await … Continue reading →

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Move over Adam and Eve? With the recent fossil discovery at the Denisova cave, there is evidence of a fifth human species (now extinct) that inhabited the Earth just 30,000 years ago

Posted on March 25, 2010 by

Denisova cave poses yet another big problem for biblical literalists, for as recently as 30,000 years ago it appears that homo sapiens were very, very far from alone, but had at least five non-extinct and closely related human cousin species that we shared … Continue reading →

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Yes we did

Posted on March 25, 2010 by

Barack Obama’s signature on the health care bill.

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Surprise, Surprise

Posted on March 25, 2010 by

After the passage of health care reform, Barack Obama’s job approval number has markedly risen. See Gallup here.

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Target Democrats

Posted on March 25, 2010 by

When is a metaphor not a metaphor?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            . The double entendre accompanied by (im)plausible deniability. Republicans have been escalating this sick game for over a year.

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