Archive for: December 2008

Reaching out to the other side.  For instance, I think we can all agree with this sentiment:
“It’s hard to place exactly where this begins on the level of wrongness.”

Below, Dicentra says:
Jeff’s discussions on X undoubtedly constitute the overarching theme of Protein Wisdom.
Solve for X.

And pale in comparison, no doubt, but that hasn’t stopped me before.

Jeff’s discussions on interpretative theory undoubtedly constitute the overarching theme of Protein Wisdom. He has persuasively argued and demonstrated that the frivolous yet fanatical anti-intellectualism that permeates the halls of Academia has real-life consequences, particularly in the realm of Constitutional interpretation and in how speech acts are treated in the public forum.

Interpretative theory goes back much further than postmodernism or semiotics, however; any society with holy writ is also necessarily concerned with how to interpret a text. Jews, Christians, and Muslims have all explored exegetical theories and techniques thus to better understand their scriptures and thereby obey God.

Lisa Miller’s Newsweek Cover Story that purports to make a Biblical case for same-sex marriage is the latest slab of red meat on offer to the starboard side. (For a doctrinal/scriptural smackdown of Miller’s article, Albert Mohler’s response is as good as any.) Me, I’m going to suss out the interpretative theories manifest in her article.

Having listened to her interview on Laura Ingraham this morning, I’ve spent the bulk of my day trying to figure out what Miller thought she was doing versus what she actually did. Newsweek touts it as “The Religious Case for Gay Marriage,” and I’ve no doubt that Miller believes that she’s set up a pretty tight argument.

So let’s look at the structure and assumptions in her arguments:

As much as I love your guts, this sorry attempt to parody this even sorrier attempt at journalism is just plain unnecessary.

It is, in the words of Salisbury in Shakespeare’s King John:
Therefore, to be possess’d with double pomp,
To …

1. Sociopath

2. Insane

3. Only virgin in the harem

That last one might apply to someone else from the Chicago machine; I’m not sure.

For those of you, like me, who are squirming in the slimy taint of Illinois politics, feel free to cleanse yourself with the incredible example of selflessness amid transcendent sorrow from Dong Yun Yoon:
A Korean immigrant who lost his wife, two children and mother-in-law when a Marine Corps jet slammed into the family’s house said Tuesday he did not blame the pilot, who ejected and survived.

“Please pray for him not to suffer from this accident,” a distraught Dong Yun Yoon told reporters gathered near the site of Monday’s crash of an F/A-18D jet in San Diego’s University City community.

“He is one of our treasures for the country,” Yoon said in accented English punctuated by long pauses while he tried to maintain his composure.

“I don’t blame him. I don’t have any hard feelings. I know he did everything he could,” said Yoon, flanked by members of San Diego’s Korean community, relatives and members from the family’s church.
There is a video link but beware; it is beyond heartbreaking. I couldn’t make it through half of the conference.

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich (D) arrested for attempting to sell BHO’s junior US Senate seat. Why should anyone be surprised?

From her latest Salon column (emphases mine):
Once the Republican ticket was defeated, the time had passed for ad feminam attacks on Palin. Hence my surprise and dismay at Dick Cavett’s Nov. 14 blog in the New York Times, “The Wild Wordsmith of Wasilla,” which made a big splash and topped the paper’s most-read list for nearly a week. I have enormous respect for Cavett: His TV interviews with major celebrities, which are now available on DVD, set a high-water mark for sheer intelligence in that medium that will surely never be surpassed.

However, Cavett’s piece on Sarah Palin was insufferably supercilious. With dripping disdain, he sniffed at her “frayed syntax, bungled grammar and run-on sentences.” He called her “the serial syntax-killer from Wasilla High,” “one who seems to have no first language.” I will pass over Cavett’s sniggering dismissal of “soccer moms” as lightweights who should stay far, far away from government.

I was so outraged when I read Cavett’s column that I felt like taking to the air like a Valkyrie and dropping on him at his ocean retreat in Montauk in the chichi Hamptons. How can it be that so many highly educated Americans have so little historical and cultural consciousness that they identify their own native patois as an eternal mark of intelligence, talent and political aptitude?

Suroba, who estimates his age in his sixties, remembers the last time the government launched a campaign to eradicate the penis gourd, known here as a koteka, in the 1970s. It was a dismal failure.
“Back …

For best reaction to the Blago arrest:

The Blithesome Banality of Blago’s Blunders

The word “evil” has been used twice today in the Corner to describe Blago’s crimes. I’m not really disputing the use of the word. But that’s not really …