A House for Hope

I loved this article, which is an interview with the authors of a liberal Christian text, A House for Hope: The Promise of Progressive Religion for the Twenty-First Century. It's discouraging at times to hear violent and incendiary rhetoric against Muslims, gays, feminists, and ecological responsibility from extremists within the "religious" right, but encouraging to see an alternative view proclaimed with conviction.

Given that John Boehner has become our new Speaker of the House, it's a little alarming to learn the extent of his knowledge about climate science:-O He seems to think the problem scientists have with carbon dioxide is that they think it's a carcinogen, not a greenhouse gas:-O The GOP's outright rejection of climate science, apparently based on total and stunning ignorance of the subject, just might one day prove advantageous to their opponents as the extent of the problem is becoming increasingly obvious to all most, and the science has developed to the point that the IPCC will supposedly remove all conditional language from their next report. Hopefully the extremists will then be exposed as dangerously callow and ignorant and derelict in their governmental duties and will be denied influence forevermore. More likely, however, they'll just change the subject by declaring jihad against Iran, and their followers will stampede after them like rabid lemmings. Shoot 'em up: fun; science: too hard.

Last night, Laura, Emma, and I decided to spend the night at a nearby Residence Inn as I had a Marriott certificate that's about to expire. 'Not a particularly exciting mini-vacation, but the kids love the indoor pool and spa, and a "special trip" is always fun for them. The hotel just kept feeding us! They laid on a hot buffet with wine in the evening, followed by a wonderful breakfast this morning!