Banned Books Week

Were you aware of such a thing? Well, there is, and it's this very week. I've read only one of the "10 Most Challenged Books of 2007" - Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass.

the hope of the evangelical on Election Day

Scot McKnight has an absolutely excellent piece about the eschatology of politics.

Where is our hope? To be sure, I hope our country solves its international conflicts and I hope we resolve poverty and dissolve our educational problems and racism. But where does my hope turn when I think of war or poverty or education or racism? Does it focus on November 4? Does it gain its energy from thinking that if we get the right candidate elected our problems will be dissolved? If so, I submit that our eschatology has become empire-shaped, Constantinian, and political. And it doesn’t matter to me if it is a right-wing evangelical wringing her fingers in hope that a Republican wins, or a left-wing evangelical wringing her fingers in hope that a Democrat wins. Each has a misguided eschatology.

As they say, read the whole thing.

AND THE WHOLE WORLD HAS TO ANSWER RIGHT NOW, JUST TO TELL YOU ONCE AGAIN...: What's BADD?

Does the MSM want Obama to win the presidency?

Professor Althouse believes it does. And so do I. Absolutely.

Is Jesus Enough?

That's the question Brant Hansen has had on his mind.

My name is Brant, and I'm on mind-altering drugs. And that is both the best first line, ever, on this blog, and -- distressingly --it's also quite true.

Read the rest, please.

will Palin step down?

Some conservative people, like Brooks and Frum, think John McCain's choice for the vice presidency doesn't have the chops for the job, even if she does consider herself to be a pitbull.

"Sarah Palin has many virtues," Brooks wrote in a recent column. "If you wanted someone to destroy a corrupt establishment, she'd be your woman. But the constructive act of governance is another matter. She has not been engaged in national issues, does not have a repertoire of historic patterns and, like President Bush, she seems to compensate for her lack of experience with brashness and excessive decisiveness."

Maybe the brashness is what McCain likes about her. But brashness isn't always equated with good decision-making skills. And we don't need someone on the job who counts her state's nearness to Russia as something akin to having international experience.

AND: I guess we don't have to watch the debate tonight, because we already have a declared winner.

the most famous drugstore in America

Have you been?

meeting with the presidents

Recently, my step-father-in-law attended a reunion of his squadron from the U.S. Air Force. The reunion was held at the base in Rapid City, South Dakota. Guess who he and my mother-in-law were able to see when they were there?



The presidents were gracious enough to grant an audience, up close and personal.


Question: if plans were made to add a fifth face to the monument, whose would you suggest? I would vote for FDR, for leading the country through the Great Depression and the majority of WWII.

the similarities between a hockey mom and a pitbull

We all know how they're different, but they are the same in that neither have the ability to answer a question.

I'm no fanboy of Andrew Sullivan, but I think he's right to question this. If she's as unafraid as a pitbull, why isn't she talking to the press more?

Apparently, thousands of women are experiencing hysteria because Sarah Palin could be the next Veep

Senator McCain's selection of Governor Palin of Alaska as his running mate, which was hailed in some quarters and met with skepticism in others, is sparking intense reactions from some New Yorkers, who report being driven to fits of rage and even all-consuming panic.

All of my women friends, a week ago Monday, were on the verge of throwing themselves out windows," an author and political activist, Nancy Kricorian of Manhattan, said yesterday. "People were flipping out. ... Every woman I know was in high hysteria over this. Everyone was just beside themselves with terror that this woman could be our president — our potential next president."

Thanks, Josh Gerstein, for bring to mind an old psychological term. You know what I immediately think of when I hear the word hysteria?

This:

"you don't win any apologetic merit badges by demanding a 7-day creation when the point of that story has nothing to do with a calendar week."

You in fact should take at least one demerit for doing so -- and you will, from those you are seeking to evangelize."yeah, but!" comes the response for many, if not all, of you loyal readers. "Yeah but what about the word 'day'? Don't we need to get very interested in how the word 'yom' is used in Genesis 1 so we can finally put to bed how old the universe is?"

Frank on the point on Genesis 3. He started here.

Shiver me timbers!

It's that time of year again...

Happy morning!

If Salvadore Dali made commercials, they would surely look like this, for Folgers coffee (my dad loves it! the coffee, not the commercial):

Conrad Heyers examines the language of Genesis

Careful consideration of Genesis 1 in its historical and theological context indicates that it uses a very different kind of narrative form and linguistic usage than those used in modern natural histories. Much of the controversy over creation and evolution is, therefore, inappropriate and misleading.

Read.

Was the universe "born" in 4004 BC? I can guess what my nonChristian friends who stop by here would say, but what about my Christian friends (and family)?

What would my name be if Sarah Palin was my mother?

Spoon Archer Palin.

What would your name be?

devastation, in pictures

Ike.

Hope believers can believe in

Believers for Barack. I'm thinking they're probably younger, nonfundie types of believers.

(HT: LaShawn)

what they said about Elvis

That's the real trick, isn't it? Knowing the line between dangerous and too dangerous, and vowing not to cross it.

Farm Bird

Bipolar disorder

Not just for adults. James, the focus of this New York Times article on the growing prevalance of bipolar disorder diagnoses among children, was declared to be bipolar at age 8.