Andrew Sullivan's Blog, page 2838
June 20, 2010
A Poem For Sunday
"Epithalamium"
Without silence there would be no music.
Life paired is doubtless more difficult
than solitary existence -
just as a boat on the open sea
with outstretched sails is trickier to steer
than the same boat drowsing at a dock, but schooners
after all are meant for wind and motion,
not idleness and impassive quiet.
A conversation continued through the years includes
hours of anxiety, anger, even hatred,
but also compassion, deep feeling.
Only in marriage do love and time,
eternal enemies, join f...
Face Of The Day
"Devin of Springfield, Illinois," one of a series of photographs:
In 2009, Austin, Texas photographer Dave Mead traveled to Anchorage,
Alaska to capture portraits of the 2009 World Beard and Mustache
Championship contestants. The celebrated Magnificent Specimens will be
on display at Chelsea Market in New York City, May 9 - June 30, 2010.
Prints available here.
Photographer - New York City - Photograph - Alaska - United States
Malkin Award Nominee
"You don't have to look very closely to figure out that in Macy's "wedding" sales space, there are lesbian and homosexual couples represented. Apparently Macy's has been very active when it comes to capitalizing on the marketing opportunities afforded by the legalization of gay marriage. They ran ads in California after gay marriage was (briefly) legalized in that state, promoting their gay marriage registry services. And now that Washington DC has legalized gay marriage they are opening up s...
As The Church Heads Backward
The latest salvo from the theocon-dominated bishops is a thinly-veiled argument that lay Catholics have no right to engage in their own civic and moral reasoning on questions like the recent health insurance reform. It comes by way of an attack on the magazine, Commonweal, one of the few remaining Catholic venues where freedom of thought is not regarded as somehow hostile to true faith. Money quote from the editors:
Catholics seeking full and equal participation in American democracy have...
Quote For The Day
"Those whom heaven helps we call the sons of heaven. They do not learn this by learning. They do not work it by working. They do not reason it by using reason. To let understanding stop at what cannot be understood is a high attainment. Those who cannot do it will be destroyed on the lathe of heaven."
-- Chuang Tse, from Ursula le Guin's novel "The Lathe Of Heaven"
The title is actually a slight mistranslation.
Ursula K Le Guin - The Lathe of Heaven - Zhuangzi - Arts - Ursulaimg
Till Death Do Us Part ... ? Ctd
A reader writes:
In college, I was required to take 3 classes in religion at my Catholic institution. Looking through the course catalog, I was doing whatever I could to shoehorn in my last class in between a schedule full of business major courses. The only one that fit my schedule?
Christian Marriage. "Shoot me," I thought, "this is going to be horrible."
I was wrong. It was a fantastic course and one that, I would argue, made the difference in choosing a small, private, Catholic school vs...
June 19, 2010
Wisdom Is Messy
Jessa Crispin reviews Stephen Hall's Wisdom: From Philosophy To Neuroscience:
Wisdom is not the same as knowledge, and so it seems odd it hasattracted the attention of science. There is such a thing as "wisdomstudies" now, and in his book Hall talks to researchers andneuroscientists in a search for the latest information about wisdom.Scientists treat wisdom the way they treat anything else. They break itdown into its smallest components to identify and test, and theyattempt to figure out how...
Classic Biden
You gotta love this (even Maureen will):
Hosting - Web Design and Development - Free - Sports Related - Object-Oriented
"Clean Fusion Power This Decade" Ctd
A reader writes:
You fell for a sleight of hand with your headline on the possible breakthrough in controlled fusion. The "clean" implies that there are not any dirty radioactive isotopes being used or being produced as with nuclear fission reactors. In principle, nuclear fusion could be a radioisotope free process but the one using deuterium-tritium pellets is definitely not -- tritium is radioactive.
This is too bad. I happen to support nuclear power but I do not think these DOE PR...
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