Gene Edward Veith Jr.'s Blog, page 409
May 13, 2013
“The assumption of the humanity into God”
Yesterday was Ascension Sunday. (The actual Ascension Day, 40 days after Easter, the time the risen Christ remained on earth, was last Thursday.) It commemorates something important and profound: the now-and-still Incarnate Son of God, His work of redemption complete, returning to His Father and assuming His eternal place in the Holy Trinity. Some people [...]
What is a nation?
As college classes, including my own, conclude for the Summer, I will reveal an academic secret: professors often learn from their students. Being an audience of one for all of those papers has its rewards. In my Shakespeare class, several students wrote about some aspect of the emerging view of nationhood in Shakespeare’s history plays. [...]
IRS targeted conservatives
The IRS targeted conservative organizations–and admits it! And is now apologizing for it! Investigations are underway. This is an egregious case of the abuse of governmental power and may turn into a major scandal. From the Associated Press: The Internal Revenue Service inappropriately flagged conservative political groups for additional reviews during the 2012 election to [...]
May 10, 2013
This new commenting system
As you have seen, the new “Disqus” commenting system being implemented on all Patheos blogs that I said was coming has gone into effect. I’m still figuring it out myself. One thing I learned: “Disqus” is pronounced “discuss.” (Get it? I know, I know. . . ) Here are a few features that might have [...]
Camouflage
As an example of how government spending mushrooms due to unnecessary duplication, bureaucratic turf protection, and lack of assessment, consider the varieties of camouflage the military has been using for uniforms over the past decade. (For the ten patterns, go here.) The story about this in the Washington Post is quite instructive and might make [...]
Benghazi whistleblowers
Three diplomats on the scene in Libya when Islamists killed the American ambassador and torched the embassy facility in Benghazi testified before a Congressional committee that the official State Department account of the incident is not exactly correct. The three also told of pressure they received not to tell the whole story. From Ernesto Londoño [...]
Classical Lutheran Education conference
The Consortium for Classical and Lutheran Education (CCLE) will hold its annual conference at Concordia Theological Seminary in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, on July 16-18. I’ll be there! The conference will kick off a teacher certification program and will feature extended teacher-training seminars just for that purpose, in addition to sessions on all kinds of topics. [...]
May 9, 2013
Our partnership with the dead, the living, and the unborn
Peter Wehner quotes British journalist Charles Moore, reviewing Jesse Norman’s new biography of the 18th century father of modern conservatism, Edmund Burke: As his struggles for America, Ireland and Corsica showed, Burke was no automatic defender of existing authority. But what he understood, and expressed with immense rhetorical power, was how human beings stand in [...]
The world’s worst violators of religious freedom
The worst countries for religious freedom are either Muslim or atheist. (Burma is Buddhist.) We understand about Islam, but atheists like to present themselves as tolerant. What does it tell us that no countries of Christian heritage are on the list? (After the jump: the 15 countries currently on the official list of the worst [...]
Tweaking movies for China
Hollywood talks a lot about artistic freedom, but the prospect of reaching the vast market that is China trumps concerns like that. To get past the still-Communist censors, movie-makers make all kinds of changes. From ‘Iron Man 3’ is latest Hollywood movie to court Chinese censors – The Washington Post: Even the nerdiest comic-book fan [...]
