Those forgiving pastors

Neetzan Zimmerman recounts the story of Alois Bell, pastor of a St. Louis church, who took a group of her flock to her neighborhood Applebee’s for dinner. The bill included an 18% gratuity built in, which is the restaurant’s policy for groups of 8 or more people, something that is fairly common. Serving large groups is tricky (especially if they order separately and want separate bills) and unfortunately some customers try to stiff the wait staff by under-tipping. (This whole business of tipping is a complex one and I expressed my own views on it back in 2005.) [Read more…]

Are You Ready for Some Torah?

Religious people are always fighting the inroads made by secular modern culture. One example is the Super Bowl that is coming up this Sunday and which is expected to drawn an audience of around 100 million. Some religious groups are worried that the halftime shows are not appropriate for their flock because the performances can be somewhat raunchy. Ever since the entire nation was traumatized in 2004 by briefly seeing one of Janet Jackson’s nipples, religious groups have felt the need to protect believers from such dangerous threats to their holiness. [Read more…]

Bertie Wooster and the n-word

At the risk of beating a dead horse, I want to come back one more time to the question of when the use of the n-word might be appropriate.

I am a huge fan of English humorist P. G. Wodehouse, especially enjoying his Jeeves and Wooster series. If you have read Wodehouse, you know that his stories largely deal with the life of the British upper classes and aristocracy and are set in the time between World War I and World War II. His funniest writing also occurred in this period, though he was a prolific writer, churning out stuff right up to his death in 1975. [Read more…]