"I’m just thinking: There’s more there! She’s got more to offer. I mean, come on, dudes."

"You know what I’m saying? But hey, sin: It’s not logical, my man. It’s just not logical."

"Duck Dynasty" star Phil Robertson talks about sin and logic. The line before the one quoted above is more graphic (and I didn't want to put it in the post title): "It seems like, to me, a vagina — as a man — would be more desirable than a man’s anus."

I note the ambiguity in what Robertson says about logic and sin. At first, I thought he meant that when he thinks about anatomy, the vagina makes more sense as a place to put a penis, if one has undertaken the reasoning task of determining the most desirable orifice. But there's nothing logical about that. There are unexamined premises: 1. that the penis be inserted somewhere, and 2. that the place should be the most desirable place. Even assuming those 2 premises, there's the obvious problem of the subjectivity of what is desirable, and Robertson admits that by saying "to me" and "I'm just thinking." In this interpretation, the word "logical" is effectively jocose.

Then, I saw an alternate meaning: The prefatory clause "But hey, sin" gives meaning to the repeated phrase "It's not logical." Sin is not logical. What impels us toward sin and what constitutes sin? These are not matters for logic. Perhaps we could reason logically about what sin is, but Robertson's approach is to accept the traditional Christian beliefs and this faith is not acquired through logic. In this interpretation, there's no logic in defining sin, and, too, there's no logic in a person's feelings that draw him into doing things that fit that definition of sin.

Of course, Robertson is getting criticism for these remarks, which are called "anti-gay," but he's rejecting all of what is traditionally understood in the Christian religion as sin, including adultery and fornication. In the process, he talks about his own natural sexual orientation and seems perhaps to concede that it's easy for him to avoid one sin that he knows other people feel drawn toward. But overall, his effort is to call people into traditional religion and to save them from what he believes is sin. Myself, I support gay rights, but I do not like the simple portrayal of traditional religionists as mean or bigoted (even though I do understand that it may be the most effective way to defeat them politically).

"Why Is Pope Francis Promoting Sin?"

There's a click-bait headline that seduced me. It's an op-ed at Bloomberg.com.

By dwelling on inequality, the pope is promoting envy. The Catholic Church, I had always understood, disapproves of envy, deeming it one of the seven deadly sins. I would have expected Francis to urge people to think of themselves in relation to God and to their own fullest potential. Encouraging people to measure themselves against others only leads to grief. Resenting the success of others is a sin in itself.

Obviously, one can say the Pope is promoting virtue, notably charity. But the pitch comes from a Harvard professor, Lant Pritchett, whose expertise is in alleviating poverty, but hear him out. This next part may win over even the Pope fans:

While Jesus repeatedly preached against the love of riches, he was urging people to respond to a call to God and to become “rich to God.” It was not an appeal for people to resent the riches of others and obsess about material inequality. Jesus, when asked to remedy inequality, turned the focus back on envy and greed.

“Someone in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me.’ He replied to him, ‘Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?’ Then he said to the crowd, ‘Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions.’” (Luke 12:13-15)

I am all for reducing poverty... What I’m against is talking about “inequality” as if that term denoted any of those concerns. Poverty matters; injustice matters. Mere inequality is beside the point.

Mere inequality is beside the point.

"Why do you think so many American Christians identify as political conservatives?"

The American Conservative asks the novelist Marilynne Robinson, who answers:

Well, what is a Christian, after all? Can we say that most of us are defined by the belief that Jesus Christ made the most gracious gift of his life and death for our redemption? Then what does he deserve from us? He said we are to love our enemies, to turn the other cheek. Granted, these are difficult teachings. But does our most gracious Lord deserve to have his name associated with concealed weapons and stand-your-ground laws, things that fly in the face of his teaching and example? Does he say anywhere that we exist primarily to drive an economy and flourish in it? He says precisely the opposite. Surely we all know this. I suspect that the association of Christianity with positions that would not survive a glance at the Gospels or the Epistles is opportunistic, and that if the actual Christians raised these questions those whose real commitments are to money and hostility and potential violence would drop the pretense and walk away.

Did God prank-call Scott Walker?

Slate columnist David Weigel has a piece titled "Why Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker Credits God for his Political Success." Weigel has Walker's new memoir, "Unintimidated," which has a bit in it about something we talked about back in February 2011 (during the big protests): A prankster pretending to be David Koch got through on the phone to Scott Walker, who talked to him for a while, even as he said things like "You gotta crush that union" to try to get Walker to blurt out something that would be used against him. From Weigel's summary:

[W]hen Murphy/Koch asked about the wisdom of “planting some troublemakers,” Walker said his team had “thought about that” but dismissed it.

Walker haters used that "planting some troublemakers" business as much as they could. (In March 2011, when Meade was physically attacked by protesters, a woman pointed and said "These are Walker plants.")

Back to Weigel, summarizing Walker:

The governor claims that he “hesitated” to take it, and “was upset that my staff had let the call get through to my office, making me look so silly.” He never actually “thought about” the fake troublemakers—he now writes that he “did not want to insult Mr. Koch by saying that we would never do something so stupid.”...

“Only later did I realize that God had a plan for me with that episode,” writes Walker. After his press conference, he picked up his daily devotional and saw the title for Feb. 23: The power of humility, the burden of pride.

“I looked up and said, ‘I hear you, Lord,’” writes Walker. “God was sending me a clear message to not do things for personal glory or fame. It was a turning point that helped me in future challenges, helped me stay focused on the people I was elected to serve, and reminded me of God’s abundant grace and the paramount need to stay humble.”

I can't really tell if Weigel (or the Slate headline writers) think Walker is getting too religion-y here and is claiming that God has special messages and plans for him. (Is Scott Walker a God plant?) I can't even tell if Walker is honestly describing his stages of processing the unpleasant incident. But I do think this account is conventional, mainstream religion. Something bad happens, and you realize that God had a plan. You extract a lesson that lightens the burden from the past and redirects you toward a future.

You don't even need God in the mix to indulge in this sort of positive thinking. What doesn't kill atheists makes them stronger — don't you know?

But Walker haters are going to want to use his religion talk against him. They use anything they can against him. I'm going to be looking out for this, because there's a tendency amongst the media elite to mock religion, to assume — like a governor assuming he's got true supporter on the phone — that everyone they're talking to thinks that anyone who feels God's presence in his life is weird, scary, and surely not to be trusted with the levers of power. They're quite wrong. Especially if they are writing on the internet, where everyone sees what they are saying.

And 90% of Americans believe in God — or as Gallup charmingly puts it "More Than 9 in 10 Americans Continue to Believe in God/Professed belief is lower among younger Americans, Easterners, and liberals." (I love the "Continue to," which implies: Come on, people, after all the evidence, what's your problem?!)

"Now that leading mayoral candidates Bill de Blasio and Joe Lhota have both vowed to add two Muslim holidays to the public school calendar..."

"... advocates for other religious and ethnic groups are clamoring for their days to be recognized too."

“I think the city has to recognize (Chinese New Year),” said [Assembly Speaker Sheldon] Silver, a Democrat whose district includes Chinatown in lower Manhattan. “We don’t want to take away from the learning days, but we have to adjust the calendar appropriately to include all of the major populations that we have.”

All the major populations... what about the minor populations?

[City Councilman Daniel Dromm] introduced a resolution in July to close school on the holy day of Diwali, a festival of lights celebrated by Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs and Jains.

A spokesman for Lhota said he’d consider adding other holidays. De Blasio has said he supports adding the Chinese New Year, but his campaign wouldn’t comment on Diwali.

Where will it all end?

Imagine putting education first.

"An Egyptian court on Monday ordered the dissolution of the Muslim Brotherhood and the confiscation of its assets..."

"The court ruling formalizes the suppression of the group..."

Monday’s ruling addressed a lawsuit filed by the leftist party Tagammu, which accused the Brotherhood of being a terrorist organization and of “exploiting religion in political slogans.” Laying out its decision, the court reached back to the Brotherhood’s founding in 1928, when Egypt was ruled by a British-backed monarchy, and argued that the organization had always used religion as a cover for its political goals....

The Brotherhood, which began as a social and religious revival movement, was tacitly tolerated for years despite being outlawed, growing into Egypt’s largest philanthropic organization, with a national network of clinics, schools and other charities helping to provide a partial social safety net below the rickety Egyptian state....

Ibrahim Moneir, a Brotherhood official who is still at large, called the ruling “totalitarian.”

What is wrong with using religion as a cover for political goals? In the United States, we staunchly defend our right to do that.

"When I say that the article of religion is deemed a trifle by our people in the general, I assert a known truth."

"But when we suppose that the poorer sort of European emigrants set as light by it, we are greatly mistaken."

Patrick Henry, 1766.

"It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation."

Writes Vladimir Putin... in a NYT op-ed.

There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.

What a fine time Putin is having, repurposing American pieties and slapping our President around!

That's the very end of the op-ed, and here's a line from the top of the column: "But we were also allies once, and defeated the Nazis together." Putin is sly enough not to be explicit, but the inference is there: Remember when the Nazis encouraged the Germans to see themselves as exceptional?

Poor Obama! Righties have been pummeling him for years for failing to manifest a belief in American exceptionalism. He throws them a sop and Putin hits him over the head.

"That was perfunctory."

If you want to know what I said after listening to Obama's speech last night, that's it.

I wasn't so much talking about the text, but the way he said it — the choppy, listless delivery, especially as he came to the end:

With humility, but with resolve, let us never lose sight of that essential truth.

Thank you. God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.

I found myself immediately retreating to the cliché of imagining how Ronald Reagan said those words "God bless the United States of America."

Like he meant them.

And I'm not saying I don't think Obama means them. I'm only saying that he said them as if they meant: Okay, now I gotta get outta here.

Rush Limbaugh cites facts that raise the "the obvious question: How do elections happen the way they do?"

The facts:

CNN is down, the networks are down, while conservative books sell through the wazoo and end up number one on the New York Times list.

The most listened to radio talk shows are conservative.  The most watched cable news network is conservative. ... We own books; we own talk radio; we own cable news. 

His answer is:

We're nowhere in the pop culture.  We are nowhere in movies.  We're nowhere in television shows.  We are nowhere in music.  Nowhere!

On the fiction side of books, we're nowhere, in terms of what conservatism is, being cool and plot lines and that kind of thing.  We're not in the classroom, we're not in academia, we're not the professors and the presidents of universities.  We are not school superintendents.  Those are very crucial because they get people when they're young, young skulls full of mush. They get to make and form those brains and basically propagandize them and indoctrinate them however they wish.

It wasn't liberals who originated the idea that has most famously been phrased: "Give me the child for his first seven years, and I'll give you the man." That was the methodology of traditional religion. Liberals — of both the right and left — should value the autonomy of the young. They should revere it. They should perform their sacred duty to develop and guide young mind. Yet they fight for the power to indoctrinate. Shame on all of them.

The central characters in good pop culture stories tend to be free and independent, so Rush's frustration that conservatives can't get hold of the "fiction side" of things is reason for hope. Left-wingers of the big government variety should have the same problem appropriating pop culture. Even if the various stars mouth left-wing propaganda, they can't imprint that agenda in the stories, which require strongly autonomous heroes and heroines.

"We are nuns. We rely on God and the angels to protect us."

"At the end, [the mob] paraded us like prisoners of war and hurled abuse at us as they led us from one alley to another without telling us where they were taking us."

Female politicians "have resorted to flexing their womb-manhood."

Writes Kathleen Parker, riffing on Sarah Palin's statement that "goes something like this: 'I’m more fertile than you are.'"

(If you scroll down you'll get to the actual quote: "I say this as someone who’s kind of fertile herself." Palin was reacting to Jeb Bush's recent awkward reference to the fertility of immigrants. Parker seems to like to rewrite quotes: What Jeb said "sounds an awful lot like, 'Hotahmighty, those people can’t tie their shoes without getting pregnant.'")

It wasn't just Sarah Palin who flexed her womb-manhood to make a political argument. Parker also points to Nancy Pelosi:

When challenged about the difference between late-term abortion and the killing of babies who survived late-term abortions at the hands of the convicted murderer Dr. Kermit Gosnell, Pelosi hid behind the skirt of her own bassinet.

Rather than answer the question, she invoked her five children and declared any discussion of abortion “sacred ground” to her Catholic sensibilities. Fecundity, apparently, triumphs over moral reasoning.

Parker acts as if Pelosi were claiming authority solely by virtue of her motherhood and declined to engage in "moral reasoning," but Pelosi was saying I believe in Catholic doctrine. She didn't just say she had 5 children. She said "my oldest child is six years old the day I brought my fifth child home from the hospital." That's offered as proof that she believes the doctrine — including the proscription against birth control. In my book, that translates into a statement of morality. Maybe some people don't think that's "moral reasoning," because it's the acceptance of religious doctrine (and not individual philosophizing). But clearly Pelosi was saying: I have very deep beliefs about morality here and my life as I've lived it vouches for the sincerity of these beliefs.

Parker's next sentence is:

Most likely, Pelosi is deeply troubled by what her politics requires and what her Catholic mother-heart tells her is true. 

Catholic mother-heart? Pelosi claimed she is a believing Catholic. Beliefs exist in the brain as well as in the emotions. You can call the emotions "heart," but it's still not just something her heart is telling her. It's religious doctrine that she knows and purports to accept. Now, of course, it's very easy to say that Pelosi cannot square her support for abortion rights with her Catholic beliefs. And Pelosi deserves that hit because she did have a how-dare-you shaming tone in her voice and she refused give an elaborate response to the questioner who wanted to hound her about Gosnell.

But I know what the answer is. It's that when the question is about enduring a pregnancy, the beliefs of the woman within whom that pregnancy exists are what matters. The true moral answer is that you should never have an abortion — that's the Catholic's religious belief — but the legal answer is that every woman has freedom of belief and her own beliefs control what she does with her body.

I think this is like what Jesus said about divorce:

The Pharisees also came to Him, testing Him, and saying to Him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?”

And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”

They said to Him, “Why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?”

He said to them, “Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery.”

I know that Moses didn't say it, but one might say abortion is permitted because of the hardness of your hearts.

With 2 references to hearts — Parker's "Catholic mother-heart" and Jesus's "the hardness of your hearts" — I am reminded again of the Supreme Court's notion of what it called "the heart of liberty": "the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life." That's the basis of the right to have an abortion: the individual's freedom of belief.

But where was Kathleen Parker going with this column? Two highly partisan women used their own personal fertility to leverage a political argument. Noted. The 2 women are on opposite sides of the political spectrum, but they were arguing about different issues: immigration and abortion. Now, we know Palin is pro-life, and Parker declares Palin's position "more palatable," but she proceeds to knock her for "her coquettish reminders that her field is still tillable," which, Parker says, "diminishes her credibility as anything other than a one-liner comedienne." I take it that's Parker's way of stating the conclusion that women ought to refrain from flexing their womb-manhood.

I think it's fine to include one's own personal experience as part of a political argument. It's a problem if you do it badly. (You don't want your audience to perceive you as coquettish!) And it shouldn't be your only argument. (You don't want to seem to be saying I have more children then you, so shut up.) But talking about real-world experience gives depth, color, and credibility to a politician's speech. As with any political speech, you need to do it well.

"Religious freedom does not mean freedom from religion."

"People of faith too often feel they can't express their faith publicly. And if they dare display it, they find themselves under attack from individuals and organizations that have nothing to do with them or their communities for that matter," said Rick Perry, signing the "Merry Christmas" bill.

One might wonder why such a law is necessary. Republican state Rep. Dwayne Bohac, who introduced the bill, explained how he had become upset upon hearing from his 8-year-old son that the Christmas tree at his public school was referred to as "a holiday tree."

Bohac said he brought his concerns to the school district office, where he was told words like "Christmas" weren't used at the school because officials were afraid of being sued.

As if, now, no one's going to get sued. Or is that the point? If the school officials avoid saying "Merry Christmas" and having Christmas trees because they are litigation averse, there's never a lawsuit. I think Perry et al. would love to have a lawsuit about this, even if they think they will lose it. There's political gain in any legal outcome.

And yet, even with this law, those officials might still avoid saying "Merry Christmas" and having Christmas trees because of timidity about lawsuits. It's not as if the new statute requires Christmas trees and Christmas greetings.

Perhaps all that ever happens is this political theater with Rick Perry celebrating Christmas in June. Perhaps that was the point.

ADDED: Perry's phrase "organizations that have nothing to do with them or their communities" is sending out the bat-signal to Madison's Freedom From Religion Foundation. 

"Buddhist Mobs Burn Mosque and Muslim School in Myanmar."

"... a sign that radical strains of Buddhism may be spreading to a wider area of the country."

Why is Chelsea Clinton leading a big new religion program at NYU?

"The former first daughter has tackled what the school calls a 'multifaith' role as co-founder and co-chair of its brand-new Of Many Institute. The program is described by the university as aiming to 'develop multifaith dialogue and train multifaith leaders.'"

Back in September, Clinton — who’s married to banker Marc Mezvinsky — told Time of her desire to study faith and education: “With all candor, because my husband is Jewish and I’m Christian, and we’re both practicing, it’s something that’s quite close to home,” she said.

A rep for NYU told us that the Of Many program is not academic, but is a part of the university’s Center for Spiritual Life. NYU’s Web site says the institute has developed a “minor degree in multifaith and spiritual leadership” shared with the Silver School of Social Work and the Wagner School.

I have never associated Chelsea Clinton with religion. She has a Master of Public Health degree from Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health and she's been teaching graduate level classes there.

But maybe the NYU "Of Many" concept of religion really is about "public health." Let's think about the interwoven nature of public health and religion — especially as the Clintons might understand it. When Hillary Clinton first emerged on the national scene, she was associated with religion. I remember a magazine cover — was it Tikkun? — depicting her as "St. Hillary" and lots of talk about "the politics of meaning," which was some politics-and-religion theme back in the 90s. And Hillary segued into public health in a way that we were supposed to understand, but didn't.

So here comes Hillary II, Chelsea Clinton merging health and religion. What does it all mean? How well will this lay the groundwork for a career in politics? I strongly prefer the separation of government and religion, and I don't want government to wield the powers of religion or powers over the human mind that are too much like the power of religion. And though government is going to have some role in public health, its growing and over-intrusive activity is disturbing. A politician who builds a career in health and religion should scare us. This is wedging very deeply into the realm of the individual — mind and body.

Here's some background reading: "All Politics is Cosmic," a 1996 article in The Atlantic by Lee Siegel, reviewing Michael Lerner's book "The Politics of Meaning." Excerpt:

In the beginning there was a hunger for vision. And then came a great need for rhetoric. Soon President and Mrs. Clinton sensed representative vibrations in the quasi-mystical-socio-politico-psychological coat of crazy colors that the author and activist Michael Lerner calls the "politics of meaning." They must have felt that Lerner, with his talk of a universal inner pain and "hunger" for connection, might help them administer verbal balm to an America collectively turning inward amid social and economic disruptions....

Lerner had come sprawling onto the public scene in 1986 with his magazine Tikkun . A licensed psychotherapist, he had spent the previous ten years in Oakland, California, treating patients at a clinic he co-founded called the Institute for Labor and Mental Health. 

Health!

(Lerner has claimed that his vision for America came to him through his encounters with patients.) But problems have beset Tikkun from the start. A former leader of Students for a Democratic Society and co-editor of the ultraleft magazine Ramparts, Lerner seemed to long for the old confrontational days. He began to confront himself. He began to march on his own magazine.

SDS!!

At its best Tikkun has tried to speak with a nonpartisan voice of common decency, outside the crumbling framework of left-right antitheses. But for Lerner, all politics is cosmic. And in his own offerings in the magazine, for page after page he has spluttered on like an old Volkswagen about "pain" and "healing," "misrecognition" of our true selves and "healing," "surplus powerlessness" and "healing," "healing" and . . . well, "healing."

Religion! Leftist politics! Health!

"Secular youth used Facebook and Twitter two years ago to help topple President Hosni Mubarak from power..."

"... but now Salafi Islamists are gaining sway in Egypt because of TV sheiks like Khaled Abdullah."

Mr. Abdullah, a bearded 48-year-old, isn't a real sheik. But he plays one on a popular Egyptian religious satellite station, where he has blasted the secular-leaning opposition as homosexuals and atheists and decried legislation that would ban marital rape.

"Here in Egypt, anyone who has a beard can be called a sheik," said a smiling Mr. Abdullah, whose daily show on the Al Nas network is watched by millions.

Highlights from "Meet the Press."

Here are the things that jumped out as I watched "Meet the Press." this morning.

1. At the end of a discussion of the Boston bombing, David Gregory asks "[W]hat are you really focused on that you’d like the intelligence community and the FBI to answer?"

REP. PETER KING: I think it’s important to know are there other people involved in this threat? Are there others that are still out there?... Are there family members or people in-- in the community? That’s very important to find out. Also, what did cause them to radicalize? Was it done here? Was it done overseas? Was it done over the internet? What caused that to happen? How can we stop it in the future? Also ask why the FBI is not cooperating more with the law enforcement? Why they did not give vital evidence to the NYPD about another possible attack.

GREGORY: This is that you think a failure that needs to be learned from?

REP. KING: Absolutely. Absolute failure.

2. Chuck Todd, talking about Obama's routine at the Washington Correspondents Dinner:

...I wonder how many people realized at the end when he did his-- you know, there’s always this part at the end where they get serious for a minute, and it’s usually the part where president say, you know, I think the press has a good job to do and I understand what they have to do. He didn’t say that. He wasn’t very complimentary of the press. You know, we all can do better. He was-- it did seem-- I thought his pot shots joke wise and then the serious stuff about the internet, the rise of the internet media and social media and all that stuff. He hates it. Okay. He hates this part of the media. He really thinks that the sort of the buzzification, this isn’t just about BuzzFeed or Politico, and all the stuff, but he thinks that sort of coverage of political media has hurt political discourse. He hates it. And I think he was just trying to make that clear last night.

3. Gregory asks Tony Blair about his "now infamous meeting in the Azores" with George Bush, "at a very delicate time for [Blair] politically back home." Referring to the Iraq invasion, did Bush tell Blair: "back out if you need to, don’t do this, don’t stand by me when you have to go back and address parliament if it’s going to cost you your leadership"? Blair says:

He did say that. I mean, he-- he made it clear that, you know, he understood the-- the huge political difficulties I had and that-- that I shouldn’t, as it were, put my own premiership on the line. It was more important in-- in a way, to him, I think, that I stayed. But my attitude was that, you know, there are lots of things in politics where-- where you-- you’ll compromise and you’ll maybe back off exactly what you think you should do and, you know, these are often the run of the mill everyday types of issues. When it comes to issues of war and peace and-- and life and death, I think your-- your-- I came to the conclusion your proper obligation to your own country is to do what you think is right....

GREGORY: In this library, the president has decided not to separate Iraq-- out Iraq. Iraq is presented as part and parcel of the war on terrorism, which is how he saw it. But won’t history judge that as a false impression that this was a war of choice that became a misadventure in the eyes of so many?

MR. BLAIR: I think, you know, the controversy around that, I mean, around how you categorize it, will remain. But what I found was that, you see, removing Saddam happened within a matter of weeks. You then spent the next, you know, eight-- nine years in a different type of battle and that was a battle against precisely the forces that are trying to destabilize the Middle East today al Qaeda on the one side, Iran on the other side, and this toxic cocktail, if you like, of religion, politics, ethnicity, tribalism. So, I mean, I never said the two things were linked in that direct sense, 9/11 and Iraq, I think the difficulties we ended up encountering in Iraq were difficulties that arose from precisely this-- this force of terror unleashed by religious extremism and I think that’s the, you know, frankly, what we still face today...

4. I thought "toxic cocktail... of religion, politics, ethnicity, tribalism" was a very helpful phrase to those of us who shrink from criticizing anything that contains an element of religion (other than America's majority religion). Blair also used the phrase "an ideology based on a perversion of religion" and equated it to the violent political ideologies that are not religious and that we don't hesitate to criticize:

[There] are various groups, Islamist groups, that I’m afraid don’t have the same concept of democracy or freedom that we do....  I'm afraid, that this-- this ideology is being pumped around websites, is being encouraged by people in many different parts of the world and it’s-- and it’s there and it’s very hard for us to deal with. The first obligation of a government is to try and protect its people, but then you’ve got to-- you’ve got to cast out this ideology. I mean, I think this is very similar to the fight we faced in the 20th century against first of all fascism and then revolutionary communism. You know, it’s an ideology. It’s not got one command and control center, it's not a-- you know, you’re not talking about a country, but you are talking about an ideology based on a perversion of religion... which has an enormous force. If you don’t deal with this issue, this long-term question, this ideology based on-- on a perversion of the religion of Islam, you are going to end up fighting this for a long time.

5. And here's a nice tribute to Bush from Blair:

And President Obama actually put his finger on it when he said it’s impossible to know George Bush and not like him. So, you know, often people say to me back home, they say, come on, you didn’t like him really, did you? And I say, you can totally disagree with him but as a human being he is a someone of immense character and genuine integrity. So, you know, you can say-- people have different views about decisions, but there’s a very few people who-- who don’t like him and respect him as a person.

"'Yoni Ki Baat,' loosely translated as 'Talk of the Vagina,' is a nationwide theatre ensemble..."

"... dedicated to creating a space in which womyn of color can express their own views on sexuality and their bodies - topics which are traditionally kept 'hush-hush' in many of our cultures and communities.... YKB also aims to end the silencing of violence against womyn, especially in diasporic cultures around the world."

Email inviting me to a (free) theatrical performance which will take place at Madison's glitzy Overture Center.

We are proud to present UW-Madison's fifth production of YONI KI BAAT, also known as the womyn of color Vagina Monologues. We will be performing the narratives and stories of womyn in the diaspora, some of which have been written by the performers themselves.

The yoni (Sanskrit word for "vagina") has long been held sacred in Hindu mythology, but through years of patriarchy and colonialism, it has rarely been allowed to speak its mind. In 2003, South Asian Sisters, a collective of progressive desi womyn, decided that the yoni needed a chance to get on stage and tell its side of the story. Thus, "Yoni ki Baat" (YKB) was born.

Thanks for defining "yoni," but what about "diaspora"? The OED (which I can't link, unfortunately) gives only one meaning of "diaspora," and it relates to the Jewish people:

The Dispersion; i.e. (among the Hellenistic Jews) the whole body of Jews living dispersed among the Gentiles after the Captivity (John vii. 35); (among the early Jewish Christians) the body of Jewish Christians outside of Palestine (Jas. i. 1, 1 Pet. i. 1). Hence transf.: see quots.

(Originating in Deut. xxviii. 25 (Septuagint), ἔση διασπορὰ ἐν πάσαις βασιλείαις τῆς γῆς, thou shalt be a diaspora (or dispersion) in all kingdoms of the earth.)

1876   C. M. Davies Unorthodox London 153   [The Moravian body's] extensive diaspora work (as it is termed) of evangelizing among the National Protestant Churches on the continent.
1881   tr. Wellhausen in Encycl. Brit. XIII. 420/1 at Israel,   As a consequence of the revolutionary changes which had taken place in the conditions of the whole East, the Jewish dispersion (diaspora) began vigorously to spread.
1885   Encycl. Brit. XVIII. 760 at Philo,   The development of Judaism in the diaspora differed in important points from that in Palestine.
1889   Edinb. Rev. No. 345. 66   The mental horizon of the Jews of the Diaspora was being enlarged.

I am no fan of the talking genitalia theater genre, but I'm very interested in word choice and the appropriation and repurposing of one culture's highly serious words by another culture.

Secret recording of Mitch McConnell strategy session about how to go after Ashley Judd.

David Corn at Mother Jones has lots of audio clips and transcript, but he doesn't tell us who made the tape and gave it to him. Surveillance on a political campaign? If that's not bad, should we revise our opinion about the Watergate burglary?

Corn would like us to think he's got material that's quite nefarious, because "McConnell and his aides considered assaulting Judd for her past struggles with depression and for her religious views." But doesn't every campaign brainstorm about everything that could possibly be used? One campaign aide said:

She's clearly, this sounds extreme, but she is emotionally unbalanced. I mean it's been documented. Jesse can go in chapter and verse from her autobiography about, you know, she's suffered some suicidal tendencies. She was hospitalized for 42 days when she had a mental breakdown in the '90s.

And there's a quote of Judd's about how bright and flashy things are in America, such that when she returns home from overseas things, like "pink fuzzy socks on a rack" can make her "absolutely flip[] out" and she "can never anticipate what is going to push [her] over the edge." We're supposed to be offended that McConnell's people even considered using material like that? Hey, she kind of used "pink fuzzy socks" against America. Surely, the pink fuzzy socks can be used against her. No! Not the fuzzy socks!!!!

How about using religion? Well, it depends on what kind of material you have!

She says Christianity gives a God like a man, presented and discussed exclusively with male imagery, which legitimizes and seals male power, the intention to dominate even if that intention is nowhere visible.

Is there something bad about a campaign thinking of using and how it would use material like that? Obviously, there's some overall theme that Judd is flaky and not in synch with mainstream Kentucky. 

CNN reports:

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's re-election campaign is "working with the FBI" on how Mother Jones, a liberal magazine, obtained a recording of political aides meeting with McConnell and discussing opposition research on Ashley Judd, McConnell campaign manager Jesse Benton told CNN Tuesday....

"Obviously a recording device of some kind was placed in Senator McConnell's campaign office without consent. By whom and how that was accomplished will presumably be the subject of a criminal investigation," Benton said in a statement.

Either this kind of bugging is acceptable or it's not. I'm surprised Corn went forward with it when the material isn't even shocking. It's actually quite bland... in comparison to what I assume is batted around within all the various campaigns as they decide how to attack opponents. Can we get transcripts of all that crap? I'd love to blog it.

Suddenly, I realize why Corn may believe this material is worth printing: These are attacks on a sweet and pretty lady. Corn's decision to publish is — ironically — evidence of sexism.

ADDED: There's an update at the first link that says the tape came from "a source who wishes to remain anonymous" and:

We published the article on the tape due to its obvious newsworthiness. We were not involved in the making of the tape, but it is our understanding that the tape was not the product of any kind of bugging operation. We cannot comment beyond that, except to say that under the circumstances, our publication of the article is both legal and protected by the First Amendment.

Here's my question to Mother Jones: Do you want to encourage the activity that produced the tape? Do you endorse this activity as applied to all the politicians you love? You are profiting from this activity. Whether you are protected from legal action or not, your actions imply that you believe what you are doing is ethical and good journalism. That applies across the board, whether the intruded-upon politicians are ones you loathe or ones you love. Step up and endorse that, explicitly and clearly. I challenge you!

"I’m proud of my dad, not necessarily because of where he is now on marriage equality (although I’m pretty psyched about that)..."

"... but because he’s been thoughtful and open-minded in how he’s approached the issue, and because he’s shown that he’s willing to take a political risk in order to take a principled stand. He was a good man before he changed his position, and he’s a good man now, just as there are good people on either side of this issue today. We’re all the products of our backgrounds and environments, and the issue of marriage for same-sex couples is a complicated nexus of love, identity, politics, ideology and religious beliefs. We should think twice before using terms like 'bigoted' to describe the position of those opposed to same-sex marriage or 'immoral' to describe the position of those in favor, and always strive to cultivate humility in ourselves as we listen to others’ perspectives and share our own."

Dad = Rob Portman.

ADDED: Clicking "edit" on this post, I said: "Do I have a 'humility' tag?" Then, laughing: "No, I only have a 'humiliation' tag." I love adding tags that I've already made, but I resist making new tags. Having "humiliation" but not "humility" strikes me as funny, but on further thought, I do have a tag for humility, which is "modesty." You don't want a lot of synonyms in the tags. "Modesty" is close enough — even if it sweeps together things as diverse as World Hijab Day and the judicial philosophy of Oliver Wendell Holmes.