Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
One of the oldest pieces on this site (around ten years, I think) is A State of Being, which concerns the prominent and gracious Palm Beach socialite Helene Tuchbreiter (right.) She and my mother were friends, and they worked together to found Palm Beach's first (I think) resale shop: the Church Mouse. Helene's charitable work …
Continue reading "First the Celebration of Life. Then the Cocktail Party."
Looking around at all of the "tea parties" today, the first thing that strikes me is one of my father's old favourite experessions: "the winners count their money and the losers cry deal." It's an old poker player's expression, not something you'd expect from an "Evangelical." But unfortunately the losers cried deal all across the …
Continue reading "Tea Parties: The Winners Count Their Money, and the Losers Cry Deal"
I’ve regularly lamented on this blog the failure of the “Religious Right” to “bring America back to God.” It seems that not only has our President proclaimed to the world that we are not a Christian nation, but also the likes of James Dobson has admitted that the whole effort has ended in failure. How …
Tull fans may remember this line from A Passion Play: We pray for souls in Kentish Town. Evidently someone's prayers along these lines got answered, as the former well-known sceptic A.N. Wilson attests: A week ago, there were Palm Sunday processions all over the world. Near my house in North London is a parish with …
Continue reading "Special to Jethro Tull Fans: When Prayers for Souls in Kentish Town Get Answered"
I thought I'd get past Holy Week before delving into this in detail, now more timely that Vermont has legislated same sex civil marriage. In response to my last post on Iowa's Supreme Court decision, I received the following response from a friend on Facebook: Living in the bible belt, and being very much a …
Continue reading "Some More Thoughts on Same Sex Civil Marriage"
This is Maundy Thursday; our podcast is the institution of the Eucharist (along with the acclamation,) from Roger Smith's album Who Shall Spread the Good News.
From Reuters: By a show of hands, the National Assembly rejected Thursday a bill concerning hacking on the Internet which would have enacted a "measured reaction" up to and including the suspension of internet access for the authors of illegal downloading. This dramatic turn of events was caused by the absence of deputies of the …
Continue reading "The French Reject Sanctions Against Downloaders"
This is really cute: California mega-church pastor and author of The Purpose Driven Life Rick Warren says he apologized to his homosexual friends for making comments in support of California's Proposition 8, and now claims he "never once even gave an endorsement" of the marriage amendment. Monday night on CNN's Larry King Live, Pastor Rick …
Continue reading "Now He Tells Us: Rick Warren Bails on Proposition 8"
He poses the problem: "Let's be honest, most of the discrimination ... has come at the hands of religious people, and the greatest single hindrance to the achievement of full civil rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people can be laid at the doorstep of the three Abrahamic faiths: Christianity, Judaism and Islam," Robinson …
Continue reading "So Why, Gene Robinsion, Are You a Bishop?"
Today's Holy Week podcast exploration looks forward to Good Friday. It's the Kairosingers' Cross of Shame, from their album Of One Accord.
Positive Infinity 