Category Archives: The gods of Politics
Was I Friends with Adam Lanza?
We became friends in freshman honors Geometry class when Mark stood up to answer a Trigonometry bonus question that the teacher said was well beyond our ability. Mark was a strange kid: the kind of kid who wears snow boots in October; who had a mustache as a freshman; who transferred from another school and claimed that the other school was “St Mary’s Over Looking the Thames.”
As Dumb as the Market Demands: How to Make a Crappy Argument
If there is one thing I can teach my kids before I die it will be Never use a post hoc logical fallacy. A post hoc logical fallacy declares that correlation implies causation. Our example today is provided by Bryan Fischer, Director of Issue Analysis, American Family Association. In a post titled “Homosexuality, Hitler and ‘Don’t Ask Don’t [...]
As Dumb as the Market Demands: How to Be a Crappy State
I spent my childhood summers at a Christian camp in Wisconsin. We made fun of these obese farm brothers Luke and Matt with stretch marks, and Ritalin. Let’s be honest, we thought the locals were dumb, with their stories of bull castration and horse insemination. So we imported 16 inch softball and Deans chocolate milk. [...]
Preventing the Death of Baby Girls is “Hypocritical”
Some days I wake up and wish I wasn’t the hateable-white-back-woods-patriarchal-moralist that I am. I really wish that I was more progressive and open-minded. But I’m so stubborn-stupid. Just yesterday I had begun to think that maybe I had shed some of my bigotry. But the internet reminded me that I’m still a hateful turd-head. [...]
Are You Christian or American?
Stanley Hauerwas has a fascinating insight into the word “we“: I always say I represent the “Tonto principle of Christian ethics.” When Tonto and the Lone Ranger found themselves surrounded by 20,000 Sioux, the Lone Ranger turned to Tonto and said, “This looks pretty tough. What do you think we ought to do?” Tonto replied, [...]
Stranger in a Strange Land
David Brooks wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times on Monday titled “Why Men Fail“. Brooks explains that the world is changing and men are not changing with it. In elementary and high school, male academic performance is lagging. Boys earn three-quarters of the D’s and F’s. By college, men are clearly behind. [...]
Mad as Hell isn’t the answer
On July 20, a gunman entered a crowded Colorado Theater and opened fire during the opening night of Batman: The Dark Knight Rises. That shooting brought to mind the Fort Hood and Columbine incidents of years past. Although I’m sure there have been others. The Onion wasted no time in getting their satire served fresh and dripping that “Sadly, Nation Knows Exactly How Colorado’s Shooting Aftermath Will Play Out“.
The Dark Knight Rises and Research Plummets
Does anyone do research anymore? Or do modern writers and bloggers simply spill their half-baked assumptions onto the electronic page without so much as consulting the basic interpretive clues of the “text” they are analyzing much less the canon of which that text is a part? I’ve been sent several articles reviewing Christopher Nolan’s The Dark [...]
