Hitchens vs. The Unitarian

At NRO, Kathryn Jean Lopez posts an exchange between Unitarian minister Maryiln Sewell and atheist Christopher Hitchens: Maryiln Sewell: The religion you cite in your book is generally the fundamentalist faith of various kinds. I’m a liberal Christian, and I don’t take the stories from . . . . Continue Reading »

Is Petri Dish Pork Kosher?

Scientists have recently discovered a way to grow pork in a petri dish —a technique to turn pig stem cells into strips of meat that could one day offer a green alternative to raising livestock. Although in-vitro pork won’t be reaching supermarket shelves anytime soon, it’s not too . . . . Continue Reading »

SOTU Word Cloud Comparisons

How does Obama’s first year State of the Union Address compare to other recent Presidents? Below are word clouds, based on the number of times a word was mentioned in the speech, for the first-year SOTUs of Reagan through Obama. Barack Obama (January 27, 2010) George W. Bush (January 29, . . . . Continue Reading »

A New Definition of “Social Conservative”

And you thought this was an easy one. You thought being a “social conservative” meant some sort of combination of pro-life, pro-family, pro-fiscal responsibility, pro-original intent, and so forth. You thought that your faith was on the leading edge of this ethic. Well, do I have news for you. But it will have to wait just a few minutes. You see, there is some correction of history that we need to do.

History, it seems, has been playing a dirty little trick on us. No longer are the socialism (national and international) of Hitler and Stalin the products of the Marxist-Progressive movement. Castro was not a “progressive” and Mao did not represent the Leftist turn of the modern liberal movement. History is a real trickster. Just like the human-caused global warming “scientists” who have written away the Little Ice Age, a new breed of Leftist “historians” have written away the bloody heritage of the Left and assigned it to — you guessed it — the social conservative. Continue Reading »

Learning FROM Literature

Before we move too far beyond the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, I thought I’d post one more thought about the subject. After I’d had my moment when babies became real (see my last post), I had an overlapping experience that greatly shaped my understanding of literature.While I teach . . . . Continue Reading »

The Most Popular Unknown Novelist in America?

The New York Times has a profile of one of the world’s most sucessful novelists. Can you guess who it might be? And no, it’s not Stephen King, John Grisham, or Dan Brown (over the last few years he has sold more books than all of them combined ). Here are some other clues: Since 2006, . . . . Continue Reading »