Gene Edward Veith Jr.'s Blog, page 69
June 23, 2017
What percentage of gays have gotten married?
Gallup now has some data about same-sex marriage. According to Gallup’s survey, 10.2% of LGBT adults are married to someone of the same sex. Interestingly, this is fewer than the number of LGBT adults who are married to someone of the opposite sex: 13.1%. Gallup says that this is because half of LGBT folks are [Read More...]
The Senate’s health care bill
Senate Republicans released their proposed health care bill, which, if it passes, must be reconciled to the bill passed by the House of Representatives. Go here for a helpful comparison of the Senate bill with that of the House of Representatives and with Obamacare. But the Senate bill is already in trouble. Republicans have 52 [Read More...]
June 22, 2017
Von Uhde’s “Christ with the Peasants”
More from the Lutheran artist Fritz von Uhde, another variation on the theme of “Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest.” Also note von Uhde’s common theme of Christ coming to ordinary, lowly folks. This painting is titled “Christ and the Peasants.” By Fritz von Uhde, 1887-1888, – 1. magnoliabox.com2. The Bridgeman Art Library, Object 198475, Public [Read More...]
The Thucydides trap
The White House is full of aficionados of Thucydides, the Greek historian and chronicler of the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta. In fact, Thucydides is very much in vogue today among lots of diplomats and foreign policy experts. In the White House, Defense Secretary James Mattis, National Security advisor H. R. McMaster, and Trump’s [Read More...]
The history of pews
Lutheran writer and humorous church historian Luke T. Harrington writes about the history of church pews. In Luther’s day and before, everyone stood or kneeled sometimes in church. The pews were invented first as private boxes that allowed the nobility to avoid mixing with the vulgar masses. Then they kept evolving. Read what happened, including [Read More...]
June 21, 2017
A painting of “Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest. . .”
In researching yesterday’s post on Saying Grace, I came across this painting. I said to myself, that’s the Lutheran table prayer! Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest And let these gifts to us be blest. Amen I used to look down on this prayer, when I first became a Lutheran, because it sounded just like [Read More...]
Is Amazon a monopoly that needs to be broken up?
Imagine a store whose clientele is not one city but the entire country, if not the world. And that sells nearly everything–books, electronics, clothing, toys, food. That is what Amazon.com has become. Does that constitute a monopoly? Corporations in a free market often grow until they become monopolies, whereupon the free market ceases to function because there is [Read More...]
Election billed as referendum on Trump goes for the Republican
When Georgia congressman Tom Price was named Secretary of Health and Human Services, that opened up a congressional seat and called for a special election. Democrats thought that the suburban Atlanta district, which went for Trump by a tiny margin, was winnable. They found an attractive candidate, Jon Ossoff, to run against the Republican Karen [Read More...]
June 20, 2017
Saying grace
About half of Americans say grace before meals, according to a new study. Even 11% of those who don’t believe in religion a say some sort of grace. (For regional, ethnic, political, age, and denominational breakdowns, read after the jump.) Religion journalist Sarah Pulliam Bailey writes about the phenomenon, interviewing a number of different people about why [Read More...]
Special rights for eccentricity
More from iconoclast Camille Paglia. In this interview, she discusses transgenderism–its conflict with feminism, how La Leche League now says men can nurse their babies, how liberals oppose science when it comes to gender, and how “sex changes are impossible.” From Jonathan V. Last, Camille Paglia: On Trump, Democrats, Transgenderism, and Islamist Terror | The Weekly [Read More...]
