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Denali: the kind of symbolic gesture we’ve needed so that maybe now we can stop being dicks
When I read the news that the White House would change the name of North America’s highest peak, I was elated. And thankful. Mt. McKinley will now be Denali. Outstanding! The article was posted under the headline on Yahoo!’s frontpage: Obama renames North America’s highest peak The president’s action is a symbolic gesture to Alaska Natives on the…
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I can only hold 2 things in my brain at once
I’m going to the store! I tell her. We need milk for cereal in the morning. There isn’t enough in the fridge. I grab the keys. [bctt tweet=”‘There isn’t room in my brain for any of these other things.’” nofollow=”yes”] Do we need anything else? We could use some bread. She tells me. and some…
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This is the shift
We are shifting toward enlightenment. Not The Enlightenment, for we are leaving much of that behind. But a certain enlightened view of the world that is more than logic and rational, ideological and fearful, more than cynical and compassionate. We’re moving toward being real and being forgiving. I know this sounds pie in the sky…
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Oversimplifying the problem is killing us
We are fond of the dialectic method of arguing. In this, there is always “us and them” and things are always “black and white”. We assign sides and it is simple and clean. Life is never so simple and clean. Those raising concerns about systemic violence in the criminal justice system, particularly toward young, unarmed, black…
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King David’s Faithiness
When David was creeping on the roof, looking in windows like a perv, he saw this woman, naked, bathing. And in true Biblical form we’ll say that “lust was in his heart”. Which just sounds like the euphemistic excusing “boys will be boys” of Biblical interpretation. It makes David seem so innocent to his urges:…
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How the guards protect the city from GOD.
Scholars speak of the book, Song of Songs as love poetry to GOD. That it takes its form from the romantic poetry genre and applies it to love of GOD. It possesses a certain sensuality that is scandalous, if for no other reason than it talks about breasts and sex in ways that would make…
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The one acceptable hypocrisy
The biggest problem we’re facing in the 21st Century involves the limits of inclusion. It is at the heart of the so-called culture war, the immigration debate, and post-9/11 foreign policy. We are seeing it now in matters of race: in policing and in flags: and in matters of guns and safety. And we are (quite remarkably)…
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Why the lion?
The reason we can condemn an asshole who goes halfway around the world to kill a lion is because it’s a safe thing to condemn. It is safe to say animal cruelty is bad. It is safe to say what he did doesn’t really count as hunting. It is safe to say rich people can get…