(if I were the) King of the Forest

Here is my take on Barack Obama and the Reverend Wright: most people and especially Obama partisans, have missed the point.

…assuming that things will continue to behave as they have always done — particularly after hundreds or thousands or millions of observations have failed to find an exception to that behavior — does not constitute or require a leap of faith. Faith is not belief despite the absence of proof but belief despite the absence of evidence.

I would be comfortable with a President who serves a philosophical ideal. I would not be comfortable with a President who serves a Master.

The chaos we are seeing — on the ground and in our own thinking — reflects the dissolution of the “nation” into more fluid and less tractable identities and spheres of interest. Al Quaeda is not a country, and yet in many circumstances it seems to define and control a “nation” of people who pledge it their loyalty. Iraq was not Al Quaeda, but were they really distinct — two “nations” apart — or were they part of the larger Arab — or was it Islamic? — “nation” to which both claim allegiance and from which the “clash of civilizations” is arising? Is the UAE a country allied with the United States, or is it a culture allied with Arabia or with Islam?

So colleges are supposed to open minds unless it makes them open to this particular brand of religion?

Colleges provide a forum for expression of different opinions and varying religious views — excepting that those particular opinions and religious views are to be silenced?

Proselytizing and recruitment by a Christian group with no university affiliation or endorsement — but not proselytizing and recruitment on behalf of Marxism or Utilitarianism or Feminism or Afro-Centrism or any of the other myriad -isms that contend for the students’ attention and commitment in the classroom and through student organizations with the official imprimatur and blessing of the university — constitutes an appalling imposition of those views?

In March of 2005 the Colorado Supreme Court voided the death sentence for a murderer on the basis of the fact that a juror during the penalty phase – when the decision of what sentence to impose was being debated – had copied down a verse from the book of Exodus and quoted it during […]

The issue of abortion is once again forming the backdrop for the political show of our election cycle. And, as for the last thirty years, it is the bogeyman in the shadows, obsession of the few, ignored by the many until it is needed by politicians to frighten voters when they seem to be happy with the opposition. Abortion is universally recognized as divisive and intractable, a subject to be used for advantage among partisans but avoided in polite company, a fuse you can light but cannot control.