Concerning events in and around Anoka, MN
This is so depressing/infuriating that I actually recommend putting off reading until you have time to decompress afterward. I took it in two chunks.
“This isn’t something you kid about, Brittany,” her mom scolded, snatching the kitchen cordless and taking it down the hall to call the Johnsons. A minute later she returned, her face a mask of shock and terror. “Honey, I’m so sorry. We’re too late,” she said tonelessly as Brittany’s knees buckled; 13-year-old Sam had climbed into the bathtub after school and shot herself in the mouth with her own hunting rifle. No one at school had seen her suicide coming.
tweet of the day
I don’t need to read articles or books on atheism.My dog’s farts assure me we are all alone.
— Brian Posehn (@thebrianposehn) February 3, 2012
Offer: Blow up nativity for yard
Posted to Dubuque Freecycle group:
Offer: Blow up nativity for yard Clarke area of Dubuque
This works, we just don’t have a spot in our yard here that works, we are all hill! This is in great shape, only one stitch holding up a sheep has come out otherwise good as new. Quick pickup would be a plus, hoping to put it out today. Thanks
from the comments
I thought this was really sad at first, but in thinking it through, it also makes sense. In a country that no longer makes things, I suppose one of our last commodities that can be bought and sold is our attention.
Place the medieval techniques alongside those laid out in modern handbooks, such as Human Intelligence Collector Operations, the U.S. Army interrogation manual, and the inquisitors’ practices seem very up-to-date
The inquisitors were shrewd students of human nature. Like Gui, Eymerich was well aware that those being questioned would employ a range of stratagems to deflect the interrogator. In his manual, he lays out 10 ways in which heretics seek to “hide their errors.” They include “equivocation,” “redirecting the question,” “feigning astonishment,” “twisting the meaning of words,” “changing the subject,” “feigning illness,” and “feigning stupidity.” For its part, the Army interrogation manual provides a “Source and Information Reliability Matrix” to assess the same kinds of behavior. It warns interrogators to be wary of subjects who show signs of “reporting information that is self-serving,” who give “repeated answers with exact wording and details,” and who demonstrate a “failure to answer the question asked.”
A history of torture and interrogation in the Middle Ages, and how it compares to the standards applied in “The Global War on Terror”.
Dateline: Dallas
From my friend Susan W:
Jehovah’s Witnesses made their annual visit to our house. They ended up asking for investment advice from Scott, but left a copy of the Watchtower for our consideration.
headline of the day
Swedish Government Recognizes File-Sharing Faith as a Religion
Christianity and the Future of the Book
Alan Jacobs writes a beautiful exposition on the importance of understanding technology and theology, underscoring what makes books so incredible:
Consider the moment in the Confessions when, after hearing and obeying the voice telling him to “take it and read,” Augustine sees the words in what he calls “the book of the apostle” that changed his life. Note first that he can open the book to a random place, something that would have been difficult with a scroll; then, after reading the momentous passage, he closes the book, with his finger inserted to mark the place. He goes, “with a face now at peace,” to tell his friend Alypius what has happened, bringing the book with him, and when Alypius asks to see the passage, Augustine simply opens the book to the place marked by his finger and shows it to his friend. To us such a set of movements is absolutely natural — and yet not so many generations before Augustine the incident could not have played out in anything remotely resembling this famous scene. Nor, to anticipate a later stage in this exposition, would it have played out in the same way had Augustine been using a Kindle.
(thanks, Josh)
12 Indicted On Hate Crimes Charges For Hair Cutting Assaults Led By Break-Off Amish Group
I think this is my favorite story of 2011.
tweet of the day
Why couldn’t the fruit of the tree of knowledge be a banana? The whole rest of the bible is metaphorical. Maybe they didn’t eat it, per se.
— ★ＯＫ★ (@horsedreamer) December 19, 2011
from the comments
One of the few homilies I remember from the days I went to Mass was about when the priest, Father Rich, was a young boy. He sat in mass one Sunday and watched as a man took cash out of his (Father Rich’s) mother’s purse. Young Rich said nothing.
When the money was discovered missing and Rich was asked about it he told his parents what he’d seen. Incredulous, they asked why he hadn’t said anything sooner. The young boy told his parents that they were in church and that he just assumed that nothing bad could happen in church; he thought it must have been ok. Of course, his parents didn’t believe him. They too couldn’t believe someone would steal from them during mass and young Rich was blamed.
I don’t remember what Father Rich was getting at by telling the story. It probably wasn’t to highlight the danger of sanctity.
As a side note, Father Rich (the same priest that married Alicia and I) later left the church after coming to the realization that he was a homosexual. For some, I’m sure this was an assault on the sanctity of the church.
dear clusterflock
In what contexts, if any, are sanctity or the idea or possibility of sanctity valuable?
Tim Tebow & Why Faith Makes Us Nervous
If you all haven’t already happened upon it, Chuck Klosterman wrote an absolutely fascinating essay for Grantland describing the significance of Tim Tebow and why he seems to be so polarizing as a professional football player. It’s mostly about Tebow and football, except that it’s not – it’s about so much more than that:
I doubt many Christians believe that God is unfairly helping Tebow win games in the AFC West. I’m sure a few hardcores might, but not many. However, I get the impression that especially antagonistic secularists assume this assumption infiltrates every aspect of Tebow’s celebrity, and that explains why he’s so beloved by strangers they cannot relate to. Their negative belief is that penitent, conservative Americans look at Tebow and see a man being “rewarded” for his faith, which validates the idea that believing in something abstract is more important than understanding something real. And this makes them worried about the future, because they see that thinking everywhere. It seems like the thinking that ran this country into the ground.
I don’t think I’ve read such a straight-forward and correct explanation for why I get so nervous in a culture preoccupied more with feeling something than knowing anything. Also, I’m fairly convinced that some of the best writing happening today is on Grantland, the little sports website that could.
biblically inspired design
I am not a fan of all of it, but I love the concept.
I guess that’s the way the whole durned human comedy keeps perpetuatin’ itself.
The Lamentation
The Baptism of Christ
The Lebowski Cycle by Joe Forkan. (via Beautiful/Decay)
Save Me, Cheesus
I can’t think of a better way to start off a tenure at Clusterflock than by sharing this wonderful Kickstarter project. Dig deep, people.
Mrs. Fisher dreamed of Heaven.
And in Mrs. Fisher’s Heaven, Mr. Peanut was God, and his Son was a Spud. And the Son of God wore a bellboy’s cap upon His head, and He so loved the little children that He wrenched their arms from out the sockets and extended his sprouts unto them, and they danced in a ring. And the Son of God was merry, and the Son of God was ashamed.
from the comments
They could freeze dry sperm when Jesus was alive?
photo out of context
headline of the day, II
Man believes he is in heaven after finding a free beer truck
We failed
in our mission, but we learned from our mistakes and will try again.
Next time: different tools.
I did, however, stand in the pouring rain “in a lonely hollow” and scream, “I hate God! I hate the Devil! I hate the living, and I hate the dead!”
And dare lightning to strike me.
So that was all good.
headline of the day
President: “I do not believe in the Divinity of Christ.”
As the Spirit Moveth
A pentecostal minister has provoked the ire of her fellow believers after praying in tongues via her Facebook wall.
(The Dish)
Richard Dawkins’ thoughts on Rick Perry, and by extension on a frighteningly large American political class
A politician’s attitude to evolution is perhaps not directly important in itself. It can have unfortunate consequences on education and science policy but, compared to Perry’s and the Tea Party’s pronouncements on other topics such as economics, taxation, history and sexual politics, their ignorance of evolutionary science might be overlooked. Except that a politician’s attitude to evolution, however peripheral it might seem, is a surprisingly apposite litmus test of more general inadequacy. This is because unlike, say, string theory where scientific opinion is genuinely divided, there is about the fact of evolution no doubt at all. Evolution is a fact, as securely established as any in science, and he who denies it betrays woeful ignorance and lack of education, which likely extends to other fields as well. Evolution is not some recondite backwater of science, ignorance of which would be pardonable. It is the stunningly simple but elegant explanation of our very existence and the existence of every living creature on the planet. Thanks to Darwin, we now understand why we are here and why we are the way we are. You cannot be ignorant of evolution and be a cultivated and adequate citizen of today.
I think I found a Dawkins article Andrew can get behind?
from the comments
Daryl’s quote brings to mind Jon Huntsman’s recent newsworthy antics, mainly that he’s distancing himself from his opponents by saying that he trusts scientists’ expertise from everything ranging from global warming to evolution. Strange to see how this has become controversial, but again, I think the bottom line is that A) conservatives also tend to be very religious and science often makes claims that contradict religion and B) conservatives don’t like to be told what to do. Palin et al. often frame the debate around environmental regulations by saying “they want to restrict how you do a, b, and c” – it’s a rhetorical fallacy that never accounts for the actual science or reasoning behind regulations, but it’s been pretty successful so far.
I recently saw that a reporter was questioning Rick Perry on how, if he selectively believed what the scientific community claims, how he could be trusted to responsibly support the scientific community in keeping America on the forefront of technological advancement. Not surprisingly, he didn’t really have an answer.
