Professor Addicott visited the school a few months back. He is something of a Neocon apologist (money quote from his visit: "I give the Bush administration a B+ in its handling of the war on terror.") and needless to say I did not appreciate his views. The topic of the discussion was "Ethics & the War on Terror." The other two panelists (professors from my school) made some attempt to tie together professional ethics and the GWOT, but Addicott was in full cheerleader mode. I don't think he had much to say about ethics at all, aside from (and I paraphrase only slightly) "They want to kill us all and we can't let that happen." After the talk I had an argument with him about Christianity (money quote: "You can't be a Christian and a pacifist."). He seems to have a strange theology that doesn't fit in well with evangelical or mainline thought as I understand it, but that is an entirely different topic.
Professor Addicott recently wrote an article for Jurist explaining that waterboarding is not torture. It is a great read. Here's a link. The comments beneath are also worth checking out. For his efforts, he was referred to as a "Distinguished Professor of Law" by Professor Tamanaha over at Balkinization. Given the rest of the post, I suspect sarcasm might have been at play. Here's a link to that. The comments following that post are even more worth reading, since Professor Tamanaha likes to join in.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Some Evangelizing & Free Association: The Kadane Brothers
Top 5 Bands that include brothers, then a few omissions, then the rest of the list:
1. Bedhead
2. The Arcade Fire (but they got like 20 people in the band, so of course two of them would be brothers. Duh!)
3-5. All the other bands the Kadane Brothers have been in.
...
29. Chevelle (is it corporate rock? perhaps. but Steve Albini produced their first album. look for my upcoming series "People Who I Will Never Be As Cool As!" Part 1 will be dedicated to Steve Albini)
...
1000. Hanson
1001. The Jonas Brothers
There it is, the complete list, with only minor omissions!
Listen to "Wind Down": The Last song from What Fun Life Was, by the incomparable Bedhead.
Here's "The Unpredictable Landlord" from the same album. If you're not tapping your toes you have no soul!
For the uninitiated, this type of music has been referred to as a number of things: slowcore, shoegaze, emo, lo-fi, bedroom pop, I'm sure there's others. Those labels are reductive, unnecessary, and usually wrong. Particularly egregious is the "emo" label, which like "alternative," just refers to large and disparate body of music most people are too ignorant about to classify correctly. So, as opposed to labels, allow me to quickly evangelize some good bands that also happen to sound like Bedhead, at least a bit (individual posts coming for most of these bands eventually):
1. Low (cross reference: Steve Albini)
2. Pedro the Lion / David Bazan (same thing)
3. American Analog Set
Like the boys from Explosions in the Sky (fellow Texans), the Kadane Brothers have also scored a film or two (well only one that I know of). They supplied instrumental music for Hell House, a nifty little documentary about the spiritual-themed "haunted house alternatives" put up by evangelical churches to evangelize and scare the pants off of (or on to, given their focus on abstinence) kids around Halloween time. It's great for a double feature with Jesus Camp! And yes, I have an opinion on Jesus Camp. But I'm keeping it to myself for now.
1. Bedhead
2. The Arcade Fire (but they got like 20 people in the band, so of course two of them would be brothers. Duh!)
3-5. All the other bands the Kadane Brothers have been in.
...
29. Chevelle (is it corporate rock? perhaps. but Steve Albini produced their first album. look for my upcoming series "People Who I Will Never Be As Cool As!" Part 1 will be dedicated to Steve Albini)
...
1000. Hanson
1001. The Jonas Brothers
There it is, the complete list, with only minor omissions!
Listen to "Wind Down": The Last song from What Fun Life Was, by the incomparable Bedhead.
Here's "The Unpredictable Landlord" from the same album. If you're not tapping your toes you have no soul!
For the uninitiated, this type of music has been referred to as a number of things: slowcore, shoegaze, emo, lo-fi, bedroom pop, I'm sure there's others. Those labels are reductive, unnecessary, and usually wrong. Particularly egregious is the "emo" label, which like "alternative," just refers to large and disparate body of music most people are too ignorant about to classify correctly. So, as opposed to labels, allow me to quickly evangelize some good bands that also happen to sound like Bedhead, at least a bit (individual posts coming for most of these bands eventually):
1. Low (cross reference: Steve Albini)
2. Pedro the Lion / David Bazan (same thing)
3. American Analog Set
Like the boys from Explosions in the Sky (fellow Texans), the Kadane Brothers have also scored a film or two (well only one that I know of). They supplied instrumental music for Hell House, a nifty little documentary about the spiritual-themed "haunted house alternatives" put up by evangelical churches to evangelize and scare the pants off of (or on to, given their focus on abstinence) kids around Halloween time. It's great for a double feature with Jesus Camp! And yes, I have an opinion on Jesus Camp. But I'm keeping it to myself for now.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Happy Tax Day, WWJD Edition
Matthew 22:15-22 (NIV):
Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words. They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. "Teacher," they said, "we know that you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren't swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are. Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?"But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, "You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? Show me the coin used for paying the tax." They brought him a denarius, and he asked them, "Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?" "Caesar's," they replied. Then he said to them, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's."
Romans 13:1-7 (NIV) (h/t http://www.biblegateway.com/, for putting it on the front page)
Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. For he is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God's servants, who give their full time to governing. Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.
Remember that Paul was writing during the time of Nero. Food for thought for both left and right, I think. We can dissent, and forcibly, but we need to distinguish between actual questions of conscience and personal preference.
Happy Tax Day
Some thoughts on tea partying by a fellow with a snappy first name:
http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2009/04/14/americas-peasant-mentality/
Although I suspect Mr. Taibbi would disagree with me on a number of things, he is right on the money here. Questions of class must never be allowed to be a part of the national debate. After all, here in America, everybody is exactly as rich or poor as they deserve to be. So populist outrage must be directed, not at the people toppled the system, but at the people protesting them. Of course.
Let's say I give you two choices: (1) I will personally give you a hundred dollars, or (2) I will give a hundred dollars to someone else, who by the way already has a lot more money than you, and hopefully out of the kindness of his heart, some of that money will pass to you. Which do you choose? For millions of people, apparently the answer is (2). Why?
The only explanation I can think of is that most Americans are scared to death of being poor, scared to death to admit they are poor. So they keep running up the credit card debt, out of some delusion that someday they will wake up and magically be one of the small minority of people that far-right tax policy (let's call it what it is) actually favors. That's the American Dream, I guess. Of course the reality is that it never happens. On the contrary, these people are infinitely more likely to wake up and realize that their homes are magically in foreclosure.
Why the fear of poverty? Well, maybe because poor people are the cause of all our nation's problems. Remember the welfare queens? Remember minorities buying houses they couldn't afford, causing this whole economic crisis? If not, you should definitely watch more cable news. You are highly uninformed.
Did you notice that I said "poor" but then basically went straight to "minority?" Well, they're the same thing, right? Let's go over the bread and butter right-wing talking points: crime (tough on it / scared to death of it, especially gangs); immigration (keep 'em out, send 'em back); drugs (the worst thing ever, unless they're pharmaceutical, in which case, go crazy!). Who is the stereotypical enemy on all of these issues? (oh wait, I thought of another one, Affirmative Action) Poor and just incidentally not white.
And using "poor" as code for "not white" has the additional advantage of convincing poor white people that they're not poor. So any pre-existing racial prejudice gets channeled into "class resentment," despite the fact that they're members of the same class. It's military strategy 101, the ol' divide and conquer. And it has been effective, from the Southern Strategy to the Willie Horton ads. Somehow, instead of directing anger at the extremely rich people who moved jobs overseas or made it possible for people to receive loans that were impossible to pay off, anger is directed at the impoverished foreigners who took the jobs or now-impoverished citizens who took the loans.
But I digress. Enjoy tax day; like a good citizen, I have already spent my return.
http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2009/04/14/americas-peasant-mentality/
Although I suspect Mr. Taibbi would disagree with me on a number of things, he is right on the money here. Questions of class must never be allowed to be a part of the national debate. After all, here in America, everybody is exactly as rich or poor as they deserve to be. So populist outrage must be directed, not at the people toppled the system, but at the people protesting them. Of course.
Let's say I give you two choices: (1) I will personally give you a hundred dollars, or (2) I will give a hundred dollars to someone else, who by the way already has a lot more money than you, and hopefully out of the kindness of his heart, some of that money will pass to you. Which do you choose? For millions of people, apparently the answer is (2). Why?
The only explanation I can think of is that most Americans are scared to death of being poor, scared to death to admit they are poor. So they keep running up the credit card debt, out of some delusion that someday they will wake up and magically be one of the small minority of people that far-right tax policy (let's call it what it is) actually favors. That's the American Dream, I guess. Of course the reality is that it never happens. On the contrary, these people are infinitely more likely to wake up and realize that their homes are magically in foreclosure.
Why the fear of poverty? Well, maybe because poor people are the cause of all our nation's problems. Remember the welfare queens? Remember minorities buying houses they couldn't afford, causing this whole economic crisis? If not, you should definitely watch more cable news. You are highly uninformed.
Did you notice that I said "poor" but then basically went straight to "minority?" Well, they're the same thing, right? Let's go over the bread and butter right-wing talking points: crime (tough on it / scared to death of it, especially gangs); immigration (keep 'em out, send 'em back); drugs (the worst thing ever, unless they're pharmaceutical, in which case, go crazy!). Who is the stereotypical enemy on all of these issues? (oh wait, I thought of another one, Affirmative Action) Poor and just incidentally not white.
And using "poor" as code for "not white" has the additional advantage of convincing poor white people that they're not poor. So any pre-existing racial prejudice gets channeled into "class resentment," despite the fact that they're members of the same class. It's military strategy 101, the ol' divide and conquer. And it has been effective, from the Southern Strategy to the Willie Horton ads. Somehow, instead of directing anger at the extremely rich people who moved jobs overseas or made it possible for people to receive loans that were impossible to pay off, anger is directed at the impoverished foreigners who took the jobs or now-impoverished citizens who took the loans.
But I digress. Enjoy tax day; like a good citizen, I have already spent my return.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Welcome to my blog
Wherein I discuss conservative theology, progressive politics, and music. I will also use it as a means to evangelize things I like, as the title suggests.
This is not a finished product; it is a work in process. I don't really know if I write well enough for anyone to want to read me. It is also possible that my writing is fine but I am supremely boring. Time will tell.
This is not a finished product; it is a work in process. I don't really know if I write well enough for anyone to want to read me. It is also possible that my writing is fine but I am supremely boring. Time will tell.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
