I will see you on Tuesday, January 28.
Archives for January 2025
Blessing of Unicorns: Elon’s salute, childlessness, free press, hopeful realism, Odesa, opera, and CA fires
A Blessing of Unicorns upon your day!
LONG FORM: Driving Back to Georgia to Say Goodbye to Jimmy Carter
A father and daughter pay their last respects
Inauguration day was Monday. Evangelicals are still talking about the new administration. What are they saying?
Lance wants to replace NPR: Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA will now have correspondent in the press briefing room: Christian Broadcasting Network’s David Brody: Brody seems to believe that the primary reason Americans voted for Trump was his promise to […]
Drain the swamp?
Here is Will Weissert at the Associated Press: Donald Trump took office eight years ago, pledging to “drain the swamp” and end the domination of Washington influence peddlers. Now, he’s opening his second term by rolling back prohibitions on executive branch employees accepting […]
Kids at the inauguration and in other public spaces
Including kids and families in public events is good.
Commonplace Book #319
Within symbolic capitalist circles, the term [“Latinx”] is increasingly regarded as the correct way to refer to people of Hispanic or Latino origin. Its use has grown increasingly pronounce in outputs by nonprofits, think tanks and advocacy groups, academics, journalist, […]
“Evangelicals believe…”
I am teaching my history course on the “Age of Hamilton” this semester. In between the first and second class periods I asked the students to watch Lin Manuel Miranda’s Broadway musical Hamilton. On the second day of class we […]
The Two-Thirds Compromise
Considering abortion in the shadow of slavery
When a member of the clergy calls for mercy for undocumented immigrants it is “radical ideology.” When Trump pardons violent criminals who beat police officers it is “redemption.”
Mike Johnson believes in “redemption.” Here is how he responded to Trump’s pardons and commutations of January 6th insurrectionists: Here’s the money quote: “It’s kind of my ethos, my world view, we believe in redemption, we believe in second chances….” […]
Today is 52nd anniversary of Roe v. Wade: my reflections in Mere Orthodoxy
To hate the vulnerable—and wish their destruction—has become so normalized in our society as to go without notice.
He carried a big wooden cross around the world and was influential in George W. Bush’s conversion. Arthur Blessitt has died.
Here is a taste of Daniel Silliman’s obituary at Christianity Today: People had a lot of questions when they saw a hippie minister with slightly shaggy hair hauling a 12-foot cross with a wheel across North America, South America, Europe, […]
Trump’s immigration policy has a long history
Here is historian Ana Raquel Minian at The New York Times: Donald Trump has long explicitly challenged a foundational myth of American identity: the idea of the United States as a nation of immigrants that welcomes the world’s “huddled masses […]
Commonplace Book #318
Symbolic capitalist and affiliated institutions ritualistically describe themselves as racist, sexist, and so on in a paradoxical bid to demonstrate their virtue. However, to have others brand one as a bigot, and to be treated as a bigot, is a […]
January 6th pardons
Almost all the 1500+ rioters have been pardoned by President Trump. What should we make of this?
REVIEW: American Covenant
Yuval Levin aims for institutional reform. He needs a different target.
How dare this demonic “priestess” speak truth to Trump! (And other things evangelicals are saying in the wake of the inauguration).
Today at the Service of Prayer for the Nation at the Washington Cathedral, the Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, confronted Donald Trump about immigrants. Watch: By the way: This is what speaking truth […]
A historic Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod college basketball tournament is coming to an end
Here is Tom Raabe’s piece on the end of the Concordia Invitational Tournament: “Keep C.I.T.! Keep C.I.T.!” That was the chant that rose from the packed gym on the campus of Concordia University Wisconsin last year about this time. The final game […]
CURRENT’s 2024 Best American Essay nominations
Please join us in congratulating our nominees for this year’s Best American Essays collection. These are: Colleen Vasconcellos, “Funeral Food.” April 22, 2024. Amanda McCrina, “The Unmysterious Russian Soul.” May 28, 2024. Jim Wildeman, “Messiah.” July 22, 2024. M. Elizabeth […]
The culture wars (or lack thereof) at Gettysburg
Great long-form reporting here from Virginia Heffernan at Politico. Sometimes historical reenacting offers an escape. Here is just a small taste of her piece, “How Gettysburg Became a Refuge for Conservatives Battered by Trump-Era Strife“: The Gettysburg reenactment certainly shimmers […]