One for our newer readers? - 3 September 2010

Cheers, sports fans. In anticipation of the upcoming professional football season, some quotes from a long-time player and commentator about how some of the NFL's most prominent people are also the worst example-setters and role models.

For those considering the costs of higher education, observe the following infographic about how student loans can easily be your greatest nightmares, because you can’t get out from them, even if you go bankrupt, there’s all sorts of sharking power attached to the agencies and corporations that will come after you if you should miss a payment, and the interest rates can be remarkably high.

Because I’m a sucker for discussion in my chosen field, have a look at this pairing - The Master's Degree Misperception, wherein we talk about how many people don’t notice the advanced degree of the librarian in their work, and the Shelf Check Response, where it's pointed out that paraprofessionals are pretty much doing all those things the librarian does, and they didn't need the debt and degree to do it with. It’s a perfect set-up for a discussion about what the librarian’s role in the building and in the community is. Should we be dumping standard reference off onto the people manning the desks so as to set the degreed professionals free to do higher-level, longer and more intense actions that require focus and time? Or is this a temporary consequence of budget problems, and once things improve, we should go back to separating out the business of circulating books from the business of recommending reading and answering queries?

Ellen Hopkins was uninvited to the Humble ISD Teen Lit Festival after one of the middle school complained about the themes of her books and the principal withdrew her invitation. Several other teen authors have cancelled their appearances in solidarity. Why would you pull out an author who talks about the things that teenagers are likely to experience in those years? Objectionable content is a mainstay of teenage life, whether self-generated or other-read. And worse, I’m a bit ashamed that it was someone who works in a library calling for an author to be censored.

Finally, in the Social Justice file - exercising her right to get married cost a dean of a Catholic school her job, because in choosing her legal right to get married, she contravened the policy of the diocese, who told her she could resign or be fired because she was now violating Catholic doctrine and was no longer a good role model for her kids. Yep, you can be closeted or deniable about it, and you can work there, but once you’re out, when it comes to the church in charge of the school, you’re out. The dean has also gone straight to the correct line of attack, namely that if we’re going to be applying the policy, then we need to apply it equally to all the employees there. So anyone using birth control, or who has had a vasectomy, or isn’t married to the person they’re sleeping with, or anyone pro-choice is going to have to be fired as well. At least, that’s what consistency demands. Hypocrisy, on the other hand, says it’s totally okay to fire one person for being overtly not-Catholic and fine to keep all the people with plausible deniability employed. No bet on the odds to which one the diocese will choose.

Outside the borders, an event that hasn't happened for forty years - a chaplain was killed in action.

The United States Defense Secretary is meeting the Afghanistan president and the general in charge of U.S./NATO operations in Afghanistan.

Here in the States, Mr. Gross of Vanity Fair takes a look (and a few jabs) into the Sarah Palin dabbling in the 2010 election season, a Palin that's increasingly public in her public sphere and increasingly private in her private sphere, apparently to the point that people don’t really want to talk all that much on the record about her, whether for fear of a famous temper, or the very real possibilities of revenge. Perhaps in response to this piece and other material surrounding Ms. Palin, she went striaght below the belt in accusing her critics of being "impotent" and using anonymous sources.

As might be expected, with a second oil platform explosion, the debate on whether a moratorium on drilling is sane and wise policy returns and intensifies. It seems fairly easy to say that some sort of safety requirements are needed and require implementation.

The head of the Council of Economic Advisers, before stepping down from her post, made a call for more stimulus spending instead of austerity and blocking measures currently in vogue by members of Congress.

Your Media Lessons department offering for today - despite quoting a reporter doing an investigation into the whole thing that there's nothing improper about it, the Washington Times sets up Representative Waters as conducting shady business by letting other candidates pay her campaign committee for inclusion on, and then having her committee pay her sister's company to print, a sample ballot she sends out with her picks given prominence. Including quotes from Ms. Sloan at CREW about how shady that kind of dealing is and mention of the investigation into the Congressperson’s ethics. Framing is important when giving information - it allows you to say things that won’t get you sued for libel in a way that makes your position on it pretty clear.

And then one for the road - when you're a governor of a Deep South state and you claim that race relations in that state's schools were perfectly fine and integrated while you went there, be prepared for someone to do the research and check to see if that's actually true.

Speaking of fact checking, if someone claims your taxes are going to skyrocket on the first of the year, they're betting on Congressional deadlock instead of the history of the chamber when it comes to extending tax cuts. If you happen to be really rich, your taxes might go up, sure, but probably not in any appreciable way, since you’re so rich.

In technology, zip, zip, zoom. Graphene transistors clocking in at 300,000,000,000 cycles per second, and edible storage structures for gases, which could make for renewable frameworks for fuels.

Pre-schoolers in Contra Costa County, California were given RFID-enabled shirts that they must wear that will allow the teachers to keep track of their whereabouts and whether they had eaten. Excpeting, of course, that arphids are notoriously insecure with their data, allowing for easy spoofing and cloning, which might allow for easier times doing harm to them, parents appeared not to have been consulted on the matter, and it's telling children at a very young age that there will always be someone tracking them - a useful lesson, but one that runs rather against the idea of a free people able to act freely so long as they are within the law.

In opinions, we open with the insistence that adhering to the timetable created by the previous administrator for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq is wrong, because Iraq is going to break apart when we leave. Iraq was always going to experience instability when the United States presence mostly left. And did we mention that the previous administrator worked out this timetable over increasing opposition to United States presence in Iraq that might have pushed us out or made things worse if we didn’t find a timetable?

That’s not important to Mr. Kuhner. What’s important now is that you believe the Iraq War was a good and just war, because Saddam Hussein was a Bad, Bad Man (justification #4 of 4), we spread Freedom and Democracy (justification #3 of 4), Saddam was going to get nukes anyway (justification #2 of 4), and he was letting al-Qaeda train in Iraq (justification #1 of 4), and if we leave now, according to the timetable, then Iraq will collapse back into being a backward Arab state ruled by Islamofascists. Truth, Lie, Damn Lie, Hellfire and Damnation Lie, domino theory, respectively. We also note that the proposed solution of meddling in the affairs of the self-governing Iraqis to ensure that our interests are represented is sort of antithetical to allowing a fledgling democracy to be, well, democratic. You’re not supposed to notice that, though, in the sweeping rush to condemn the current administrator as an anti-war demagogue who will gladly sacrifice everything Iraq has become so that he can pull out American troops, reduce our power in the world, and look good to leftists. Because he didn’t follow the timetable at all, instead calling for the immediate withdrawal of troops in Iraq in, say, February of 2009, yes?

Second up to the plate, The Washington Times would like you to believe that all people who profess a concern for the environment and the planet are actually deranged crazy people with no respect for human life, or are major hypocrites. Tea Partiers, of course, are inherently peaceful, but environmentalists will always be inherently violent against people and their lifestyles. And while they’re busily Othering people, perhaps they could take some time out to acknowledge all the other violent domestic terrorists who were acting because they thought they were patriots bringing the country back to its proper roots, especially that long historical streak of domestic terrorists that were particularly violent against black people? It would only be fair, after all - taking one’s far-right beliefs too far can have the same effect as taking those far-left beliefs too far.

Mr. Hanson thinks the wrold is collapsing in on itself, and the United States is responding to these things by withdrawing, weakening itself, and pulling back on traditional commitments. The dire doom is economic collapse in Europe, China and possibly some other nuclear powers keeping each other in uneasy check, Iran proliferating to terrorists, Islam as a political force reviving, Japan still stalled out, and Russia Imperial. So everyone else around them is afraid that these things will come to pass, and is asking the United States to keep them safe, as we say “Nope, sorry, international world, solve your own problems while we work on ours.” That seems rather skewed, to put it politely. After all, it’s usually conservative to say that you have to have your own house in order before putting someone else’s in place. These days, it seems that the United States is supposed to simultaneously put its own house in order and everyone else’s. That’s not likely to produce good results anywhere.

Last out for today, The Sonic Society, showcasing podcasters, theater crews, and audio dramatists for those looking for a radio theater feel.

Getting caught back up to date - 4-5 September 2010

Greetings, weekenders! For the curious, if a friend or other entity of yours has decided they're moving completely to a new platform and away from LJ, this guide may be helpful in allowing you to still comment and participate where they are without having to create a new account there. OpenID is pretty cool when done proper-like.

Out in the world today, an example of "Once burned, twice shy." - NATO commanders in Afghanistan are not as quick to say they will be able to capture a Taliban stronghold as they were before.

And then, the almost inevitable conventional wisdeom that says the United States will keep troops in past their deadline next year, because the conditions on the ground will demand it, instead of keeping to the other part of the timetable that requires all the U.S. troops to be gone. Which is contrasted with the "Out NOW!" President that seems to be the conventional wisdom among conservatives without anyone saying "One of these positions has to give." The President will simultaneously want everyone out as fast as he can and make the decision to keep troops in for longer to help accomplish great things in Iraq. You cannot have it both ways.

Finally, the macho posturing and pursuit of nuclear weapons by Iran may actually be strengthening a coalition against them and making more of their neighbors friendly to United States interests in stopping the expansion.

Here in the United States, we remind you that the movie industry could probably make several excellent films solely through reporting the events of real events. The latest candidate? An elaborate fraud scheme involving inventing a dead someone, having their actor-filled funeral, and then claiming a far more extravagant ceremony from insurance.

Because they want you to believe that this matter is about something other than the rights of a private group to build on private land a structure for the exercise of a private right to worship freely, there's news that one of the supporters of the Park 51 project also supports charities linked to Hamas. The person says he had no idea about the Hamas links at the time. Still, this is unimportant, unless you believe that Park 51 is some sort of triumphalist gesture by an organized Islam looking to thumb its nose at the United States and memoralize the one successful attack with a mosque.

A poll conducted of 900 persons for Fox News says 58 percent of people say that America did the right thing in going to Iraq. I hope those 58 percent are also more than ready to help out with how the soldiers are when they come back from the warzone, including helping them when the habits that saved their lives over there interfere with their lives over here.

Economically speaking, the private sector gained 67,000, the economy as a whole lost 54,000, and unemployment stays high. Well, someone's got to break the lock on things, whether it's through government employment or private sector employment. Really, only one of those things could be controlled. So let's get to making some infrastructure jobs.

On the matter of the housing crisis, Florida came up with a novel solution of using retired judges to clear out the case backlog on foreclosures. What that may be doing, however, is creating a climate where foreclosure is the default option and the burden of proof normally on the banks isn't being enforced, or is being supported with fraudulent documents created to take advantage of the speedy courts. Yet again, the bank doesn't actually care about you, specifically, just whether they can continue to make money on you.

Still showing off the slowness of the news, the provenance of a quote in the new Oval Office goes back farther than the person who uttered it, which means the quote as written is correctly attributed, but the speaker of that quote admits that he took it from another skilled rhetoritican and abolitionist before him.

In technology and sciences, increasing amounts of evidence that ancient beer was good for what ailed you - because it had antibiotics mixed right in.

The opinions open with Ms. Finley highlighting a school that cost a lot to build and isn't doing all that well, while these shiny charter schools built lots for cheap and are doing fine. While talking about building bonds and costs is important, and can be used as a finger to point for mismanagement at...someone, whether school officials or the voters that voted them the money, there is a curious lack of talk about the operating budgets for the schools. I don't actually know whether those charters can maintain healthy class sizes and have plenty of money to spend or not. there's a little bit of a guess abotu how overtaxed the public school system is, when a side mention of an overcrowded high school appears, but that's all there is about the operations of the school. Given the money and people to do it, I'd bet the expensive school would do really well, but Americans tend to be fond of overspending on unimportant things or things that they are told need to be done because otherwise terrorists win and underspending on those things that they know are terrible but have been told that increases will only line the pockets of political operatives.

Moving on, in response to the current administration's chair of economic advisers stepping-down speech, a chair under the previous administrator says everything that the government is doing is wrong and that we should go immediately back to 2003 with tax cuts, instead of investing business capital in infrastructure. The rolls of the unemployed grow because they're being fired and laid off. Yet corporate profits are pretty healthy. Almost makes you think that corporations don't really want to employ people if they don't have to. The solution proposed, though, of course, is to roll back everything that's been done so far and to make significant cuts to enttitlement spending. *yawn* Wake me when someone suggests something novel or something that might actually work. Even the peopel claiming 400 banks will fail because of these policies are starting to get a little boring.

Mr. Heninger says everyone, not just the 58 percent, should be glad that we went to Iraq, because otherwise, we'd have a nuclear Saddam, and everyone else would be upping the nuclear tension as well.

Last out, Mr. Elder says he wants to know who the real racists are, then spends an entire column saying, "People who accuse other people of being racists on any ground that I don't think is good enough are really racist themselves". And then goes straight to "Liberals accusing conservatives of being racist are the only people I will apply this rule to". Self-fulfilling prophecy.

On a similar vein, Mr. Prager accuses liberals of falling into bed with leftists since Vietnam and losing their ability to make accurate moral judgments, based on their apparent unwillingness to declare things like the Soviet Union or Islam evil. And for such heinous reasons as noting that there are a lot of people who kill in the name of Christ, past or present, as well as people who kill in the name of Islam, so they'll declare killing evil, but not Islam. Mr. Prager, thoguh, pooh-poohs the idea that people are killing in the name of Christ, because they don't shout "Christ is Lord!" before opening fire in the abortion clinics, that there are far less people killing in the name of Christ than there are in the name of Islam, (Ask some of the members of the military about that, Mr. Prager, and tell me that there aren't plenty of people killing in Christ's name), and that using the Crusades as a reference point is invalid because it happened so long ago. So, really, because liberals don't share the same ideas of what is good and evil, Mr. Prager thinks they can't make effective moral judgments. How many fallacies can you count?

Last for tonight, perhaps the most concise review of Twilight I have seen yet.

Gigantic Thinky - How do you tell whether someone is a Real True Religious Person?

Greetings. Anyone who might be new, on news posts and Thinkies alike, I tend not to use the cut. This may mean you have to scroll past walls of text to see other entries on your lists. I hope that you’ll stop and read, or at least bookmarks to make comment on later. Now, onward with the wall of text.

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In her haste to make a point that’s tenuous at best, a columnist skipped the bigger point without noticing. Our target for today? Ms. Coulter, who says that there's no way Barack Obama can be a Muslim. He's clearly an atheist, according to her. Reasoning? A lack of “real” church attendance in present and past, because Jeremiah Wright’s church isn’t actual Christianity, but liberation theology and atheism, a lack of Christian parents, his at least nominally pro-choice stance, and his “spiritual advisers”, who are all apparently not Real True Christians, or even Christians in name, and don’t count for anything. Oh, and he’s a liberal. All liberals are godless atheists. Except Mike Huckabee, who’s a liberal Christian. These were fairly standard attacks against liberals who weren’t being tagged with the Secret Muslim line. They’re not actually that interesting.

What is, though, is Ms. Coulter stone-skipping off of an important question without giving it the weight and answer it deserves. Quoting from her column, “[The idea that we should believe people when they say they belong to a religion or philosophy] would make professions of religious belief, unlike all other self-professions, unchallengeable...Doesn’t anyone question the Christianity of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker [sic]? How about the Satanists claiming to be Christians who stand outside soldiers’ funerals with signs that say ‘God Hates Fags’?” She uses examples of how people questioned Saint Reagan’s Christian beliefs when he was in office and how Bill Clinton’s Christian beliefs clashed with his affair with Monica Lewinsky to assert that religious beliefs should be objectively challengeable. Ms. Coulter is arguing both that there are such things as Real True Religious Folk, and that one can determine who they are through the use of entirely objective criteria. As the Gargoyle says when you tell him the Thieves’ Guild password is “Swordfish”, “That’s RIGHT! But that’s also WRONG!”

(As an aside, if at any point I mischaracterize someone’s belief system, or say something that’s not true, correct me. Doubly so if you’ve done scholarship on the matter more in-depth than my hummingbird-style flitting.)

At first blush, she seems to be sitting on solid ground - after all, the Foundational Writings of most religions and philosophies are usually pretty clear about what someone needs to profess, do, dress, behave, or believe to be part of the group. Islam has the Five Pillars, four of which are required and one is encouraged. The Torah are the books of Moses and the law of G-d. A communist works to put the means of production in the hands of the people. An atheist avows there is no God. It’s fairly cut and dried as to how that works, right? If you love me and keep my commandments, then you’re part of the Kingdom of God.

...except when you’re not. Good philosophy is notorious for followers being able to read in exactly what they want to hear into the text. For example, are you a Sunni, a Sufi, a Shi’ite? A Baptist, a Presbyterian, an Evangelical, a Catholic? Orthodox? Heterodox? Eastern Orthodox? Vatican II or St. Pius X? Maoist? Marxist? Stalinist? Agnostic? Deist? Someone thinks you’re not actually part of the group you claim to be. Yet most of those groups will lay claim to a larger title - Muslim, Christian, socialist, communist - and claim that they are the true followers of that discipline. (They will usually tolerate some amount of heterodoxy in relation to themselves for communities that are close, but not quite exactly their own, but they still claim they're the true descendants.) With so many groups claiming to be the One True Way, this only ends in one of three ways:

1. There is a One True Way, and life and afterlife happen according to their dictates. This does not mean, necessarily, that the One True Way is in the group of people claiming they have it. It may turn out that the Zen Buddhists of 2050 are actually correct, and one of their precepts is that you never claim you are the correct way.


2. There is more than one True Way, owing to differing gods and natural forces, and life and afterlife happen according to the dictates of whichever deity you follow or has claimed you as their own, or has cast you to the unforgiving nature of the impartial cosmos.


3. There is no True Way. That can mean anthropomorphizing has led us all astray into creating gods, natural forces, and other bits of order out of the chaos, or everyone who has a philosophy has grasped some aspect of the True Way, but nobody can stitch it all together into a single path. (Which, would mean the Taoists are right on the aspect of the Way that can be named is not the eternal Way.)

So let’s look at Ms. Coulter’s first premise - there are Real True Religious Folk out there. (For purposes of completeness, we’re including atheists as religious folk. We could use Scotsmen, of course, but that would be a knowing wink to logicians, who are intellectuals, and there’s still that strong anti-intellectual streak...) Unfortunately, until one of the three conditions above can be proven, there’s no way of knowing whether there is a finite group of Real True Religious Folk, everyone is part of Real True Religious Folk, or nobody is part of Real True Religious Folk. So let’s scope it down to that there is such a thing as a Real True Christian, a Real True Muslim, etc. That should be easier.

It’s not. Internecine warfare proves that particular point isn’t workable. There may be some doctrinal similarities, but the details are devilish and have been causing schisms, splits, reformations, revolutions, and renamings throughout history. So we’ll scope it down further and say there’s such a thing as a Real True Catholic. And then a Real True Member of the Vatican-II approving Catholic Church. And then a Real True Member of the American Vatican-II approving Catholic Church. And den... and den... and deennnnnnnn...

As you can guess, eventually you have to scope down to something that’s very close to the individual level. Premise One is a bit of a bust, at least for use in large sweeping generalizations. We have no idea whether there are such beings as Real True Religious Folk, but the more details we add on to our characterization, the closer we get to being able to say with confidence that there is one of a particular type of Real True Religious Folk. That ties into Premise Two, which at the macro-level also falls flat, but which also gets better the more micro we get. The more qualifiers we add onto what we’re looking for, the easier it becomes to assess whether a person fits those criteria. At least some of those qualifiers can be objective. For example, “Does Person X tithe 10 percent of their income to their church?” For some denominations, a no answer excludes Person X. “Does Person Y practice birth control?” If so, they’re not going to be Real True X in more than a few Christian denominations.

Thus, the Gargoyle’s response to Ms. Coulter’s password - you’re right, but you’re also wrong. If, instead, you tell him that you don’t know what the password is, he says, “At least, if you’re a thief, you’re ashamed enough to lie about it. Come on in.” That’s not quite the right phrasing for the intended Aesop, but work with us here. If you’re someone who is Real True Religious folk, odds are pretty good that you’ll win friends and influence people by right action and without trumpeting around proclaiming that you’ve got it all and everyone needs to listen to you. Wait, maybe that phrasing does work. Even if you are Real True Religious Folk, at least you’re cognizant enough to not go praying on the street corners like the Pharisees and the hypocrites do. Come on in.

Anyway, I think that while Ms. Coulter is trying to assert a universal in Premise One, for it to be truly universally applicable, it will have to be re-written as “There are people who think they are Real True Religious Folk”. Premise Two will still slot nicely into this - “You can tell who those people are using objective criteria.” Now, though, If you take the two together, it takes a significantly more left-handed turn, doesn’t it? No longer are we talking in the realm of confidence that there are good people in the world, only humans who think they’re good people. And you can measure the measure of their goodness with objective criteria...based in what you think of as good. Finally, we’ve hit the meat of the argument made to us - “Doesn’t anyone question the Christianity of Jim and Tammy Faye Baker, of the Westboro Baptist Church, or of President Obama? Why should they be allowed to assert they are Christians when they clearly are committing evil acts?”

And thus, we open up the fascinating realm that is exegesis. Christians inherit some of their Foundational Writings from Judaism, and Judiasm has a long tradition of interpreting the Written Law in the Torah and the Oral Law of the mitzvot. Read up on the midrashim and how many different commentaries we still have in our modern times to see just how possible it is to interpret the same thing differently. And that’s in the root practices. The Christians and the Muslims both keep that tradition quite alive (speaking ex cathedra, the Protestant Reformation, or issuing fatwas, for obvious examples) and diverge in their conclusions to the point of schism, heresy, and heterodoxy. God Hates Fags is one conclusion, Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin is another, and yet another says that gays and lesbians can be ordained as ministers in the church and administer all its rites. If you ask each of them, they’ll all point back eventually to the Foundational Writings for justification (some may go through church law first, but they’ll get back to it eventually). If you believe that the Great Commandment of Matthew 22:36-37 (or Leviticus 19:18, if you like) trumps all other things, then other parts that talk about the law of the people aren’t as important as the requirement to love G-d with one’s whole being and treat one’s neighbor with the same respect as you treat yourself, then regardless of whether they’re gay, straight, or otherwise, everyone deserves to be treated with love. If you’re more partial to the laws of Moses than the laws of Jesus, and take the angry Jesus that drives out all the unclean businessmen from Temple as your model, then you probably end up in the God Hates Fags camp. Both sides can point to the texts as saying they’re right. So how do you tell which one is and which one isn’t? It depends on your conception of G-d. Angry G-d tends to emphasise the fact that we’re all going to be smote if we don’t reform ourselves accordingly, benevolent G-d says we need to work at bringing everyone into the happiness and love offered. Angry G-d often results in angry preaching, the need to go out and save everyone from the hell they richly deserve by whatever means needed, benevolent G-d says that good behavioral modeling as well as a sell that will appeal to people’s wants to be saved and protected and benefit from a positive relationship from G-d is a good idea. Same G-d, the one that created the flood and the one that sent the Israelites out of Egypt, the one that sent his son as a sacrifice and that will put the world through tribulations before returning in triumph.

As you can see, the God that fits us is the God we imagine in the world. There’s a commandment against murder, so clearly people who kill are not Christians...excepting for those people who killed others in the name of unborn babies. Jesus commanded his people to sell their possessions, give their proceeds to the poor, and live a life of poverty...unless, that is, he wants you to give generously to your church, in which you will be rewarded in your faith and actions many hundredfold and grow very wealthy and rich in this life and the next. God said people who are gay and lesbian will go to hell...unless he said only practicing gays and lesbians go to hell...or he wasn’t actually talking about gays and lesbians there, and he made us all exactly the way he wanted us. Baptism is something you do as infants...or when you reach the age of reason...or when you fully want to get committed to the church. Alcohol is an evil, evil thing or proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. Each believer has their own image of what God should be. And each of those believers has objective criteria to tell whether or not the person next to them believes in the same God they do. Most of those criteria mesh, but not all.

Ms. Coulter is right, though - people should be questioning the Christianity of President Obama, Tammy Faye Baker, Rick Warren, Fred Phelps, Glenn Beck, Benedict XIII, Ann Coulter, and everyone else who claims to be a Christian. Take them at their word and then ask questions about whether or not they are living up to their own definitions of Christians, and whether their definitions of Christians are the kinds of definitions they want to be propagating to the next generation. Questioners should be looking at their own definitions, too - are they living up to the teachings they profess to? Are they accusing someone else of having a speck in their eye when there’s a freakin’ huge plank stuck in theirs? Do they blithely assume that their vision of God is the correct one and that they can judge all others as followers or not based on that single vision, making their own assertion unchallengeable, but everyone else’s challengeable? Do they loudly assert their beliefs in order to gain material power and trust from others who say they’re the same?

It probably says a lot about the dominance of one thought pattern in this country that someone like Ms. Coulter can skip right over this very deep pool of thought and assume that everyone she’s talking to understands her assumptions and agrees with them as “objective”, committing the very act she’s criticizing in her column without noticing it. I’m equally sure there’s some sort of Big Finish to this whole Thinky that someone else will find, whether it is that they have a great revelation and deepen their practice, or they accuse me of moral relativism for even daring to equate the One True Way with the heretics, heterodox, and pagans. Find your own ending, I guess, and keep your own beliefs under the microscope and try to have other people point out where you have differences. If you’ve followed me out to the rhetorical wasteland here, I guess you’ll have to find your own way back.

Happy journeys.