Actually, things I've noticed over the past couple of days:
Ding, Dong, the Witch is Dead:
Tom DeLay is "retiring." Get this editorial from today's WaPo (which may actually be yesterday's, at this point):
"This is probably the worst day of his campaign," Mr. DeLay, speaking on Fox News yesterday, said with an air of grim satisfaction of his Democratic opponent, former representative Nick Lampson. The Texas Republican had been repeatedly admonished by the House ethics committee; he is under indictment in Texas on charges of funneling illegal corporate contributions to state legislators; and he is entangled in a federal probe that has produced guilty pleas from two of his former staffers. It's much tougher for Democrats to flog their "culture of corruption" message when they can no longer kick around "Representative #2," as he's been identified in the charges against his former aides.
Well, let's buy right in to DeLay's talking points. Of course this is BS: Lampson is faced with a Republican party that's scrambling to fill a sudden vacancy, that is itself tarred with the corruption scandals, in a district in which, in spite of gerrymandering, DeLay's numbers were sinking. I mean, what are their best bets in this? The candidates who lost the primary? We saw that happen in Illinois last election: state Republicans came up with a wingnut who could only carry the hardcore nutcases (which in Illinois, regrettably, is about 30%; still, that's less than the rest of the country, on average).
Mr. DeLay in his heyday got a lot done, but at a terrible cost to the institution -- and, we would argue, the party -- that he helped lead. Will the new leadership be more respectful of the rights of the minority, more willing to permit debate on the House floor, more willing to restrict cushy travel and other perks? That's far from clear. The gushing statements yesterday from Mr. DeLay's replacement as leader, Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) -- "one of the most effective and gifted leaders the Republican Party has ever known . . . has served our nation with integrity and honor" -- reflected not much embarrassment about Mr. DeLay, nor about DeLayism.
Boehner's comments are laughable, and of course, entirely expected. The writer is absolutely correct to be dubious about any changes, but not because of that: the Republicans have been beyond embarrassment for quite awhile now. The point is, neither Republicans nor Democrats have any real interest in reforming Congress. We've seen that already. The Democrats are just trying to figure out how to make K Street a Democratic enclave.
Nit Attack:
From 365gay.com:
The possibility of ending LGBT protections to workers delighted the American Family Association which is boycotting Ford over the company's advertising in the gay media.
"I find Ford's logic in asking the SEC to omit the resolution interesting," AFA Chairman Don Wildmon said in a statement.
"In essence Ford is saying they are concerned that a boycott by homosexual groups would financially hurt the company, but the boycott by the pro-family groups will not."
Based on empirical evidence, yes -- look at the success of gay boycotts of Florida citrus products versus AFA's boycott of Disney. Duh.
This resolution will go right down the tubes. The NY State Local Retirement System is going to be a hard bloc to defeat, and it will vote against the resolution. Count on it.
Anothe Nit Attack:
Again, from 365gay.com:
"In total disregard for the Constitution, homosexual activists in positions of authority in San Francisco are abusing their authority as government officials and misusing the instruments of government to attack the Catholic Church," said Robert Muise, the Thomas More Law Center attorney handling the suit.
"This egregious abuse of power is an outrage and a clear violation of the First Amendment."
Of course, Mitt Romney, who is trying to amend Massachusetts law to bring it in line with Catholic doctrine, is perfectly OK.
And that a-hole Huckabee (Arkansas) has the nerve to claim that the Christianists are not trying to turn this country into a theocracy.
Speaking of Which. . . .
Church wars: two related stories from NYT. In the first, UCC fights back:
Although some mainline Christians feel energized by the new toughness, others worry that such an approach could threaten the very pluralism that the mainline churches have come to stand for and the gospel of love that so many preach.
"I think this is a dangerous place to be," said Mr. Sharen of Yale. "You stand to lose the integrity of 'turn the other cheek.' "
The problem with that is, if you turn the other cheek too often, you wind up losing your face. Wake up, Mister -- the Institute for Religion and Democracy is not interested in integrity, and that's who you're fighting.
And in the other, somehow the IRS is involved:
A group of religious leaders accused the Internal Revenue Service yesterday of playing politics by ignoring its complaint that two large churches in Ohio are engaging in what it says are political activities, in violation of the tax code.
The IRS, of course, denies it, when it bothers to respond at all. The problem is, the IRS has been politicized before. Problem, Part 2: of course it's going to deny it, no matter what the truth is.
I find it very strange, however, that a liberal church in California would be investigated for an anti-war sermon, but the complaints against the Catholic Archdioceses of Boston and Chicago for direct lobbying against gay rights bills get no reaction, not to mention the churches in Ohio.
Strange, no?
And, in a related story (I see a relationship -- think about it for a minute.):
New Gospels:
The Gospel of Judas. It's apparently all over the press; here's the NYT story.
Sparked a thread at Epinions Addicts. I'm just going to plop in my comment, which received the approval of at least one member whose opinion I respect:
My understanding is that the Bible as presently composed is the result of conscious decisions to exclude certain writings and include others based on their support of Church teaching at that time. I also seem to remember hearing that the Catholic and Protestant Bibles are not the same.
Also, dating writings from that period or earlier is difficult, not in terms of the physical object itself, but in terms of sources or antecedents; given that most of the New Testaments only survives in copies, that would seem to be a generally applicable problem, so that the question of whether the accepted books are contemporaneous or nearly so and those not accepted are later would seem to be moot from an archaeological standpoint. About all anyone can say with any surety, it would seem to me is "this is the earliest extant example." (Yes, I understand that stylistic and linguistic cues can fix dates fairly accurately, but they don't really give a definitive indication of origins -- there is always the possibility of discovering an earlier version.)
As for the role of Judas in the Crucifixion, that whole story has some of the inevitability of a Greek tragedy. The point is, Judas betrayed Christ, for motivations not clearly understood, and in remorse killed himself.* Whether the details accurately reflect historical fact (which we simply cannot know) and divine will (and that is going to be a matter of faith), they certainly reflect artistic necessity.
Even assuming, as the article does, that the manuscripts are genuine, I don't expect it to change anyone's theology, which is, after all, based on careful editing of sources to begin with. Just keep in mind that "orthodoxy" is determined by those who have the power to make their opinions stick -- call it the theological variant on "the victors write the histories."
(* And, based on some other controversial ideas that have come out recently, it could have been spurned love and jealous revenge.)
OK, folks. That's it for today.
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