Month: January 2006

Who Said This?

Money quote:

"America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world‚   The best way to break this addiction is through technology."

It’s the president tonight! Yes: this president! George W. Bush. I repeat: George W. Bush. He thinks we’re consuming too much oil. I’m not making this up. Promise. They just sent me an email.

And look: I know, I know. But the only sane response is to cheer and check the details. Five years too late … but better late than never. Now, how about that gas tax?

“Christianism” Explained

A reader writes:

Use of the word "Christianist," and not being sure of its meaning, led me to Google the word. Among several links that popped up was a very helpful one from the Christian Science Monitor. For a while I’ve wondered why you used "Christianist" when "Christian" would be so much easier to use. Reading how "Christianist" came into use, and of its true definition, helps me realize what a damning word it is, and how very different it is from "Christian."

Yes. I mean by it the complete conflation of Christian faith and secular politics of the hard right. I don’t see why I should concede my faith or my politics to those who share neither.

King George Watch

Kevin Drum has an interesting take on what Alberto Gonzales meant when he told the Senate that the administration was not violating the FISA law by wire-tapping U.S. citizens without warrants. He notes what Gonzales actually said about the president and the law:

"[T]o the extent that there is a decision made to ignore a statute, I consider that a very significant decision, and one that I would personally be involved with, I commit to you on that, and one we will take with a great deal of care and seriousness."

Translation: we reserve the right to ignore the law of the land, but we will only do so very carefully. Reassured now?

God Is Love

The Ratzinger fan-club blog has an excellent round-up of responses to the first papal Encyclical of Benedict XVI. They take a few pot-shots at yours truly, but what’s new? One passage from Benedict’s work struck me, reading it on the blog:

"Faith is not a theory that one can take up or lay aside. It is something very concrete: It is the criterion that decides our lifestyle. In an age in which hostility and greed have become superpowers, an age in which we witness the abuse of religion to the point of culminating in hatred, neutral rationality on its own is unable to protect us."

This attack on reason as a neutral way of understanding the world is what makes Benedict an ally of the fundamentalisms we see colliding and resurging around us. As humans, we only have reason to temper the passions and the demands of religion. By submitting reason to the imperatives of faith – imperatives Benedict alone has ultimate authority over – we see this Pope’s essential position with respect to the Enlightenment. Opposed.

Christianists and Blasphemy

Just when the Islamists seem to getting ahead on the anti-blasphemy front, America’s religious extremists reminds us they exist as well. They’re targeting AOL because of alleged blasphemy in its new Instant Messaging icon ad campaign. Money quote from the outraged fundamentalist:

"He is the Creator and Savior of the world. He alone is to be worshipped. To take His name in vain, or use as a common thing is blasphemy, a vulgar sin of offense. Perhaps you have not read the Third Commandment, since they have removed it from so many public monuments in the last decade. But breaking it as a means of marketing your products offends the mind of everyone who worships Him."

I’m waiting for Bill Clinton to weigh in.