From the New York Times Op-Ed section.
I was pleased to read some of yesterday’s court decision about teaching Intelligent Design (check here for Orac’s take). It’s not that I don’t think that there could be Divine influence in the creation of our world — it’s simply that IMO, what belongs in the classroom is […]

Jesus was a Liberal.
Rick had an interesting post talking about the need to be liberal in how we love each other. I agree with him. Here’s a snippet:
I even heard someone say, liberal Christians talk about following the teachings of Jesus but not about following Jesus. How can one follow the teachings of […]

I’m an apparently intelligent, liberal, not-too-generous, not-too-selfish, relatively well adjusted human being!See how compatible you are with me!Brought to you by Rum and Monkey

Via Feministe, I came across this.
Edutopia asked its readers: What five things would you do to save public education?

Raise teacher salaries.
Reduce class size.
Decrease standardized testing.
Increase parental involvement.
Educate the legislators about the schools.

Read the detailed answers here.
Those five points could make for an entire series of posts. The first two are a given…teacher salaries are […]

Here’s the background: a gal joined a playdate group I participate in from time to time, and we discovered that we live relatively close to each other. Granted, I’m in a teeny-tiny condo, and she’s up on the hill behind Garden of the Gods in a neighborhood that is VERY high end. […]

Brandon wrote about Ingrid’s insistance that Donald Miller and Anne Lammot are clearly not truly Christian — because they curse.
Good fucking God. (Is that enough for a start?)
Caveat: I have not read Ingrid’s site. Probably won’t, since I’m just not in the mood to get THAT pissed off.
The one that bothers me the […]

The top 10 “most conservative cities” in the U.S. according to the Bay Area Center for Voting Research:

Provo, Utah
Lubbock, Texas
Abilene, Texas
Hialeah, Florida
Plano, Texas

Colorado Springs, Colorado

Gilbert, Arizona
Bakersfield, California
Lafayette, Louisiana
Orange, California

No big surprises there, LOL. See the rest of the list here.

They are drawn as if by magnetic forces; they speak of Colorado Springs, home to the greatest concentration of fundamentalist Christian activist groups in American history, both as a last stand and as a kind of utopia in the making.
This is how an article called Soldiers for Christ (part 1) begins in Harpers. For […]

Okay, I recorded Grey’s Anatomy tonight, and started watching it after it was done (nicer that way, so I can fwd through the commercials…god I love tivo). Anyway, 20 minutes before the show’s end, the world had to know that Peter Jennings passed away from lung cancer. The entire rest of the show […]

Paul Krugman wrote the editorial French Family Values for today’s New York Times, and I think he gets it right.
He starts out with this:
Americans tend to believe that we do everything better than anyone else. That belief makes it hard for us to learn from others.
Wow. Those two sentences sum up so much […]

I love NPR; I even describe myself (regularly) as an “NPR-junkie.” When people attack NPR as delivering news with a liberal bias, I defend it. No, no, I say; while many of the contributors may be biased, the actual reporting seems to me to be more balanced than much that’s out there […]

Survey Reveals That Teens Would Rather Be Cool Than Smart

An overwhelming majority of teens surveyed (67%) considers being called “cool” a more flattering compliment than “smart.” In addition, teen guys who responded to the survey would rather be named “life of the party” than “valedictorian” (58% vs. 27%). In fact, a higher percentage of respondents […]

Badchristian (another blog I highly recommend) said it well today. Here’s a sample:
You say that pop culture icons are our new spiritual mentors.
…you may be right. I probably would sleep better at night knowing that instead of looking up to Jerry Falwell, Joel Osteen, or whomever the next big pastor is, we’re […]

Courtesy of Layla, here’s another quiz. For many (most?) of the questions, none of the answers actually applied…I had to fake it!

You Are 51% American

Most times you are proud to be an American.
Though sometimes the good ole US of A makes you cringe
Still, you know there’s no place better suited to be your home.
You […]

How appropriate that I came across this comic today, considering that today’s topic is Morality.

I’m still reading Searching for God Knows What by Donald Miller (reading is a catch-as-catch-can proposition with a baby in the house), and some of his comments really struck me. Not that I’m some Don-Miller-aphile or something, but really, he […]