Look in the mirror, Luntz

Some of you may remember Lee Atwater. He was a Republican political operative, a wunderkind, known for his vicious, ruthless style who would do anything to help his candidate win, especially using racist messages in overt and coded language. He worked for George H. W. Bush and ran a particularly vicious campaign against Michael Dukakis in the 1988 election. He was diagnosed with aggressive form of brain cancer in 1990, converted to Catholicism, and tearfully issued apologies to all he had harmed in his slash-and-burn career, though it is suspected that even those apologies were fake and manipulative. He died in 1991 at the age of 40. [Read more…]

Snow day!

Or rather a cold day. My university has decided to close today because of the frigid temperatures that are all across this part of the country. It actually is a bright sunny morning with the kind of clear blue sky that one gets in winter and is quite beautiful, with white snow covering everything and glistening in the morning light. As long as one is indoors looking out, it is gorgeous but deceptive. For anyone outdoors it is brutal. It is the clear skies overnight that allow for heat to radiate away more rapidly, resulting in early morning temperatures of -8oF and today’s daytime high will only reach 4oF. [Read more…]

With friends like these …

I do not know who Paul Carr is (apart from the fact that he is a Briton who lives in the US and agrees with the call by the New York Times for ‘clemency’ for Snowden, whatever that might mean) but his piece on Edward Snowden is dripping with the condescension that we have come to expect from some of the media who seem to be obsessed with finding personality flaws in him, while grudgingly acknowledging the importance of the information he released. [Read more…]

Why evangelicals and Catholic leaders are against contraception

Why do the leaders of some religious groups like the Catholics and now even evangelicals oppose contraception, to the extent of even objecting to health insurance policies covering it? After all, access to safe, reliable, and easy contraception has to be one of the most beneficial advances that society has made. And the fact that 99% of all sexually active women use some form of birth control suggests that women are quietly ignoring the words of their religious leaders. [Read more…]