Andrew Sullivan's Blog, page 2553

Celebrity - In A YouTube

This is a kind of human assassination, a video I just watched that reveals to me, at least, that fame is a cancer not just on our multi-media society but on the human beings who are caught in its cross-fire. This is really what killed Diana, Princess of Whales. It's really what killed Michael Jackson. Yes, these people choose it in a way. But it should be possible to be a princess or a model or a singer and not be treated this way. And yet nothing can stop it.

I don't know the answer; but I d...

Jesus Didn't Die For Collective Rights

Peter Montgomery analyzes freedom of religion and ideas of salvation in the era of Beck and his frequent guest David Barton. Here he tackles Beck's obsession with individual rights:

In the Tea Party era, 'collective' is a four-letter word. Beck and Barton don't even like the terms "human rights" or "social justice" because they see them as collectivist. In a televised conversation in April, Barton dismissed social justice, saying "That's collective rights. Jesus was not into collective...

The View From Your Window

Cong, Ireland, 5 pm

Ireland - United States - Travel and Tourism - Economy - Republic of Ireland

Quote For The Day

"Perhaps if there were large numbers of unequivocal moderates, I wouldn't need Imam Feisal as a dialogue partner. But there aren't. And as an Israeli and a Jew, I need him desperately. I need him because large parts of the Muslim world are going the way that large parts of the Christian world went in the 1930s.

Yes, Imam Feisal has advocated a one-state solution, and I've spent much time over the last years countering the demonization of Israel generally and the pernicious notion of the"one s...

Like A Localized Deafness

Kristina Budelis excerpts the handwritten notes of Roland Barthes, on the death of his mother:

Struck by the abstract nature of absence; yet it's so painful, lacerating. Which allows me to understand abstraction somewhat better: it is absence and pain, the pain of absence—perhaps therefore love?

Roland Barthes - Semiotics - Social Sciences - Linguistics - Semioticians

Ignoring His Holiness

Johann Hari is calling on British Catholics to protest the Pope's upcoming visit:

I know that for many British Catholics, their faith makes them think of something warm and good and kind – a beloved grandmother, or the gentler sayings of Jesus. That is not what Ratzinger stands for. If you turn out to celebrate him, you will be understood as endorsing his crimes and his cruelties. If your faith pulls you towards him rather than his victims, shouldn't that make you think again about your ...

Mental Health Break

"Just a friendly reminder as to how small we really are":

takeoff from cole rise on Vimeo.

Multimedia - Development Frameworks - Flash - Vimeo - Protocols

"Tell All The Truth, But Tell It Slant" Ctd

A reader responds to the philosophy of truth in Emily Dickinson's poetry:

[It:] seems like the metaphysical equivalent of what stargazers call averted vision. If you are trying to observe a dim object in the night sky, it is better to look a little to one side of it rather than straight on, because the rod cells toward the periphery of the retina gather more light in those conditions than the cone cells at the center. The trade-off is that you won't see color or fine detail, but at least you...

Crime After Crime

Despite the relatively good news that Iran has suspended stoning this week, Robert Fisk's sober account of recent honor killings is as tough as it is necessary to read:

So terrible are the details of these "honour" killings, and so many are the women who have been slaughtered, that the story of each one might turn horror into banality. But lest these acts – and the names of the victims, when we are able to discover them – be forgotten, here are the sufferings of a mere handful of women...

A Poem For Sunday

A reader sent me this as a response to my reflections on grief earlier this week. It's called "The Acts Of The Apostles", by William Bronk. It blew me away:

The second time the flesh was harder to put on
and there was no womb to shape and soften it,
unless it were Joseph's tomb in the cut rock
that shaped, perhaps, but more misshaped to a kept
mask, as a wet shoe is hardened as it dries
to a foot shape and the print of a step, but not
to the moving muscle and bone that walking was.
What wonder...