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Monthly Archives: August 2017

Trump and Evangelicals: What About Culture? What About Forgiveness?

August 7, 2017, 1:36 pm

Everyone has a theory about why overwhelming numbers of evangelicals and other long-time right-wing Christians supported, and continue to support, the presidency of Donald J. Trump. Trump received 80% of their vote in November, a higher share than George W. Bush – who is, unlike Trump, an avowed evangelical. And they have stuck with him in similar numbers for the first 200 days of his presidency. Everyone has an explanation that accounts for this — but no one has my […]

The War for Mars United, Chapter 28: The Sky Above Mount Sharp

August 5, 2017, 8:18 am

The war had no drone phase. The A.A. hadn’t bothered to bring drones, knowing that it wasn’t worth the trouble of fighting off M.U. jamming signals. Now, the dogfight between Mars United and the Asian Alliance resembled the vision of a thousand microbes, seen through a microscope, exposed to increasing heat. It was total chaos at 10,000 meters above Mars’ surface. Only this time, it wasn’t a sim. This was as real as a heart attack. “Peterson!” Martina barked into […]

Hairy Twitter and the Half-Baked Controversy

August 2, 2017, 11:33 am

Over the last few days, J.K. Rowling got herself into disability-related trouble. The basics of the case are here. The TL;DR version is that Rowling tweet-attacked Trump over mistreatment of a disabled child, the child’s parent corrected Rowling, and Rowling deleted the tweets and apologized to the family but not Trump. The TL;DR version of MY blog post is: keep up the good work, Joanne. Don’t let this setback change the way you advocate for society’s most vulnerable. Parents like me are counting […]

In 2100, an American History Book Explains the First Fifth of the 21st Century in Five Paragraphs

August 1, 2017, 8:06 am

Today’s babies are likely to live until the 22nd century. When they do, how will they think of the first fifth of the 21st century? I don’t mean the history buffs; I mean the average, non-historically-thinking citizens, assuming that there are average citizens in the year 2100. What will they think of the first 20 years of the century that just finished? I believe the TL;DR version can be summarized with two slashified numbers and three “I”s: 9/11, internet, inequality, […]