Diary, Astute Observations
Ellen McCarthy (Washington Post) puts her finger on just how significant the news of Al and Tipper Gore’s divorce is and spells out what this means for the instution of marriage in a modern wolrd with life expectancies reaching nine decades. Al and Tipper Gore’s separation makes us fear for our parents, ourselves Please Al and Tipper, don’t do this. For our sakes—don’t.Private Cooling: Al and Tipper Gore separate
We can’t handle it.
These kinds of things stopped bothering us long ago. Name almost any famous couple, and we’re happy to place under/over bets on the date they’ll divorce.
But the Gores were different. We believed in them. Even if we didn’t agree with their politics, we admired their marriage—the way, after all these years, they still genuinely seemed into each other.
Diary
Kiss Swallow the sweet can be pleased. Tell others why. Tell others nothing. Feel the tongue and how or how it can rage as only rage can and know there isn’t much to say “What a mouth will do” by Betsy Johnson-Miller, from Rain When You Want Rain. © Mayapple Press, 2010.What a mouth will do
the impossible hope that love
will last. An end to looking
as if for one glove.
lust of fruit—one way a body
goodness
and mercy can flow
like a river from the north
after that.
Diary
If the core of your religion is love for other human beings, allowing priests to sexually abuse children entrusted to them undermines the credibility of the institution. Now the central question is how many committed catholics will not tolerate this hypocrisy and demand changes to church. I doubt that celibacy will go any time soon—but who knows. Here is Henry Herzberg’s (New Yorker) take on the situation the church of Peter is in: INDULGENCE In October 31, 1517, a Roman Catholic priest and theologian, Dr. Martin Luther, put the finishing touches on a series of bullet points and, legend has it, nailed the result to the door of the castle church in Wittenberg, Germany—the equivalent, for the time and place, of uploading a particularly explosive blog post. Luther’s was a protest against the sale of chits that were claimed to entitle buyers or their designees to shorter stays in Purgatory. Such chits, known as indulgences, were being hawked as part of Pope Leo X’s fund-raising drive for the renovation of St. Peter’s Basilica. The “Ninety-five Theses on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences” touched off a high-stakes flame war that rapidly devolved into the real thing, with actual wars, actual flames, and actual stakes.Is the Widnening Sex Abuse Scandal the Greatest Challenge to the Catholic Church Since Martin Luther
Diary, Curious News
This line is coined by Jen McCreigh, a brave student from Indiana. She writes on her blog: This little bit of supernatural thinking has been floating around the blogosphere today: Sedighi claims that not dressing modestly causes earthquakes. If so, we should be able to test this claim scientifically. You all remember the homeopathy overdose? Time for a Boobquake! On Monday, April 26th, I will wear the most cleavage-showing shirt I own. Yes, the one usually reserved for a night on the town. I encourage other female skeptics to join me and embrace the supposed supernatural power of their breasts. Or short shorts, if that’s your preferred form of immodesty. With the power of our scandalous bodies combined, we should surely produce an earthquake. If not, I’m sure Sedighi can come up with a rational explanation for why the ground didn’t rumble. And if we really get through to him, maybe it’ll be one involving plate tectonics. So, who’s with me? I may be a D cup, but that will probably only produce a slight tremor on its own. If you’ll be joining me on twitter, use the tag #boobquake! Or join the facebook event! PS April 29, 2009: What I learned from BoobquakeIn the Name of Science, I offer my Boobs
“Many women who do not dress modestly ... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes,” Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi was quoted as saying by Iranian media. Sedighi is Tehran’s acting Friday prayer leader.
I have a modest proposal.
Diary, Curious News
The New York Times reports that Twitter Yourself into a Historical Figure
the Library of Congress will archive the collected works of Twitter, the blogging service, whose users currently send a daily flood of 55 million messages, all that contain 140 or fewer characters. Library officials explained the agreement as another step in the library’s embrace of digital media. Twitter, the Silicon Valley start-up, declared it “very exciting that tweets are becoming part of history.” Academic researchers seem pleased as well. For hundreds of years, they say, the historical record has tended to be somewhat elitist because of its selectivity. In books, magazines and newspapers, they say, it is the prominent and the infamous who are written about most frequently.
Diary
David Brooks columns are always interesting. Today he takes the reader back to his democratic youth, acknolwedges the success of the Democratic Party, but warns that America will follow Rome into oblivion. At least nobody can say that he did not warn us. The Democrats RejoiceDavid Brooks takes off his hat but fears for the worst
Parties come to embody causes. For the past 90 years or so, the Republican Party has, at its best, come to embody the cause of personal freedom and economic dynamism. For a similar period, the Democratic Party has, at its best, come to embody the cause of fairness and family security. Over the past century, they have built a welfare system, brick by brick, to guard against the injuries of fate.
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