Gene Edward Veith Jr.'s Blog, page 395

In vitro meat

Researchers in London served the first hamburger patty that came not from an animal but from genetic engineering.  Those who sampled it which consisted of protein generated from cattle stem cells, said that it tasted “almost like meat.”  Yum, yum. But many people are heralding the development as the beginning of a new era in [Read More...]

Buying up the old-guard media

Jeff Bezos, the founder and owner of Amazon.com, has bought the Washington Post.  That was just days after the New York Times unloaded the Boston Globe to the owner of the Boston Red Sox.  But those aren’t the only surprising media acquisitions.  Newsweek, which used to belong to the Post, has been bought by a [Read More...]

Lease-a-spouse

Now that we have changed marriage so that people of the same sex can marry, there are all kinds of other ways we might tinker with the institution.  Attorney Paul Rampell, writing in the Washington Post, says that we need to recognize that marriages, like other legal partnerships, often do not last a lifetime.  So [Read More...]

Socially conservative but economically liberal

Luke Foster notes a new breed of Christian political activists.  They are social conservatives–pro-life, pro-traditional marriage, pro-religious liberty–but they are liberal economically (wanting government programs that help the poor) and they are running as Democrats. From New York City’s Uprising » First Thoughts | A First Things Blog: New York City election headlines have been [Read More...]

What are we to make of Teddy Roosevelt?

Theodore Roosevelt was a Republican.  He was also a Progressive.  Showing that contemporary categories don’t always apply to issues of even the recent past, people today on both the left and the right don’t know quite what to make of the Rough Rider.  Some conservatives blame him for the mindset that gave us big government.  [Read More...]

Why there is only one way to salvation

Once again I see on the LCMS website in the “View from Here” feature an article I wrote a long time ago, I think for Lutheran Witness.  It takes up what has been called “the scandal of particularity”; that is, the claim that there is only one way that leads to Heaven, the person and [Read More...]

Shifting from family values to religious freedom

McKay Coppins notes a change in the message of Republicans and social conservatives in particular.  No longer are they pushing for moral issues, apparently feeling that those battles have been lost.  Instead, they are fighting for religious freedom, for the liberty of religious people, at least, to hold to their moral convictions. From  Republicans Take [Read More...]

Hollywood’s collaboration with the Nazis

The Hollywood Reporter has published excerpts from a new book documenting the ways that the American film industry collaborated with the Nazis in order to keep selling tickets in Germany.  From the introduction to the excerpt, linked after the jump: In devastating detail, an excerpt from a controversial new book reveals how the big studios, [Read More...]

Al Qaeda is up to something

The United States has closed virtually all of its embassies in the Middle East and has issued strong warnings to Americans in that region and in Northern Africa that a terrorist attack may be coming soon.  This is reportedly based not just on the usual “chatter” but on eavesdropping on senior Al Qaeda operatives.  (So [Read More...]

How church growth strategies keep missing the point

Rachel Held Evans tells about how churches that want to reach young people keep missing the point, trying to be cooler and hipper and more contemporary instead of attending to the far greater issues of substance.  Yes, she is calling for a measure of liberalism, but notice what else she is calling for.  Read what [Read More...]