WRITING
Slave Prices Reach New Lows
Often, stores I shop in offer me “credit,” or more accurately, “debt.” If I’m simply willing to go into a little bit of debt, I can get 10% off my order! Sometimes, just a, “No, thank you,” will end the conversation, but often the decline is followed up with, “No? You don’t want to save […]
Vanity of Vanities, All is Vanity!
OK, here’s a question to determine just how vain you are: Would you rather be 25 but look 50, or be 50 but look 25? For my part, I would totally choose the latter which, I guess, makes me super vain. Also, if my outward physical appearance weren’t affected at all by the food I choose to eat, I […]
The Late Great Hal Lindsey
In the 1970s, Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth was the “no. 1 non-fiction best-seller of the decade” according to the New York Times. To summarize, the book interpreted current events through the lens of biblical “prophecy” and convinced a lot of people that they were living in the last generation and that the […]
Extremism, Flowers, and the Powers that Be
If you take a strong position on some issue, or on cultural/political matters in general, it is easy to label those on the other side as “extremists” or “reactionaries” (while failing to see that they might be passing the exact same judgment on you). For example, I remember when the O.J. Simpson verdict was about […]
Police and Wannabe Soldiers
Piggybacking on our latest podcast, I thought I’d post this clip from John Oliver’s HBO show, Last Week Tonight. In it he addresses the shooting of Michael Brown and chides the Ferguson Police Department and mayor’s office both for their deplorable handling of the situation, but also for ridiculous weapon-envy: “The police are troublingly dressed like […]