October 2005 Archives

Lesbian Minister Defrocked By United Methodist Church

Mark Tooley, a conservative Methodist at the Institute on Religion and Democracy in Washington, said the rulings show that Methodism "is not moving in the direction of the Episcopal Church and declining liberal Protestantism in the West." Rather, he said, it "is moving in the direction of global Christianity, which is robustly orthodox."

The Methodist Church has apparently chosen to embrace bigotry by defrocking a lesbian minister and reinstating a minister who denied membership in his congregation to a gay man. Amidst much discussion of church law, there is little mention of the example of Christ. Once again, I am proud to be an Episcopalian.

Rosa Parks, Black Activist

From abroad, challenges to US role as top innovator | csmonitor.com

Federal spending on research in the physical sciences, when measured as a share of the national economy, has been falling for four decades, notes Don Giddens, dean of engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology, in Atlanta.

If we are losing our technological edge, much of the reason would appear to be our stinginess in supporting research.

The Hand of Time

It has been 36 years since he published "Slaughterhouse-Five," his breakthrough novel about a time-and-space traveler named Billy Pilgrim, the planet Tralfamadore and the firebombing of Dresden by Allied forces during World War II.

Juvenile, simplistic . . . maybe, but you've still got to love Kurt Vonnegut.

Weekly book reviews and literary criticism from the Times Literary Supplement

British lawyer jokes, while attributing "lying, greed and trickiness"� to lawyers, do not portray them as a "pestilential affliction"�, worthy of mass drowning. British lawyers are seen as "funny in the way that golfers and salesmen are funny". Or Scotsmen, perhaps.

Scientists Finding Out What Losing Sleep Does to a Body

According to the New York Times, too little sleep makes you fat. Guess I'm in trouble.

www.AndrewSullivan.com - Daily Dish

Andrew Sulllivan celebrates the Senate's historic 90-9 vote to ban the use of torture by the U.S. military and establish clear guidelines ffor interrogation. The House has yet to vote, but this vote is very encouraging.

Serious Riders, Your Bicycle Seat May Affect Your Love Life - New York Times

The link between bicycle saddles and impotence first received public attention in 1997 when a Boston urologist, Dr. Irwin Goldstein, who had studied the problem, asserted that "there are only two kinds of male cyclists - those who are impotent and those who will be impotent."

Great. Just as I was congratulating myself on the health benefits of my new bicycle, the New York Times tells me too much bike riding leads to impotence. Then again, avoiding bicycle induced erectile dysfunction won't help me much if I keel over young from a heart attack.

Crooks and Liars

Sounds like a movie worth seeing.

What Your Office Says About You

In my ongoing quest for self improvement, my next resolution is to have a neat desk — the sign of an organized office and a good file system.

Buying of News by Bush's Aides Is Ruled Illegal - New York Times

Federal auditors said on Friday that the Bush administration violated the law by buying favorable news coverage of President Bush's education policies, by making payments to the conservative commentator Armstrong Williams and by hiring a public relations company to analyze media perceptions of the Republican Party.