• Recently Written

  • Move Over Health Care, Pass the Election Reform!
  • Back from Hiatus
  • Ingmar Bergman is Dead!
  • The End of the Anti-Manichaeist
  • Falwell, and the Religious Right, as seen by the World
  • Religious and Political Themes in Spiderman 3
  • A British Reporter Recounts the Pressures Faced While Reporting on Scientology!
  • Romney has No Comment on Upcoming Film on Historic Massacre by Mormons!
  • My Question for the Presidential Candidates
  • Servant Leadership Must Be Willing to Step Down!

• Categories

  • Uncategorized

• Archives

  • October 2009
  • September 2008
  • August 2007
  • May 2007
  • April 2007
  • March 2007
  • February 2007
  • January 2007
  • December 2006
  • November 2006
  • October 2006
  • September 2006
  • August 2006
  • July 2006
  • June 2006
  • May 2006
  • April 2006
  • March 2006
  • February 2006
  • January 2006
  • December 2005
  • November 2005
  • October 2005
  • September 2005
  • August 2005
  • July 2005
  • June 2005
  • May 2005
  • April 2005
  • March 2005
  • February 2005
  • January 2005
  • December 2004
  • November 2004
  • October 2004
  • September 2004
  • August 2004
  • July 2004
  • June 2004
  • May 2004

• Blogroll

  • 42 dreams of Arizona Bay
  • A Pilgrim’s Digression
  • Bart Campolo
  • Christian Persecution
  • dhalgren
  • Donlan News Wire
  • escape_velocity
  • Faith and Theology
  • Foreign Notes-Ukraine
  • from vigo to vega
  • Global Voices
  • God’s Politics by Jim Wallis
  • Imitatio Christi
  • jam on bread
  • Jesus Manifesto
  • Jesus Politics
  • Kruse Kronicle
  • Levellers
  • lunablue
  • Nukraya
  • Poser or Prophet
  • shnooks
  • Solly Gratia
  • stormfront
  • t. l. blumberments
  • Talking Points Memo
  • The Evangelical Ecologist
  • Touchy Subjects
  • Ukrainiana
  • Vanguard Church
  • without a map
  • XPatriated Texan

• Admin

  • Log in
  • Wordpress
  • Photo Album
  • 
  • XHTML

• Search

I decided to post a link to my How to be Pragmatically Prolife post over at TPMCafe.  I did this at a liberal blog, because I knew that it was critical to see how the approach would fair with prochoicers.  It is critical that their opposition be reduced for the idea’s success.  I have had a good deal of response and, while they did oppose the idea(after all, they are prochoice, not prolife.), I believe I’ve been able to respond to them well.  And, what has been more important for me, the dialogue has largely been courteous.  And that, sadly, is something that does not happen often when people deal openly about their differences over the politics of abortion.  Normally, it’s an exercise in futility as people talk past each other or things get heated easily rhetorically.  And so I’m willing to say that so far, I think things have been relatively successful. 

But it is interesting that if you read through my replies at this blog, which have mainly involved prolifers so far, and then my replies at TPMCafe to prochoicers, you might think I was talking out of both sides of my mouth.  However, I think it’s common in politics, or even in more dialogical approaches to apologetics, that we emphasize more those things that agree about with the people we are dialoguing with. 

Now that can be taken too far, but I’m not deviating in either case from what I’ve stated in my manifesto.  I’m being Pragmatic.  I’m being Purpose-Driven wrt the goals of spreading the word first, then getting together a broad coalition in favor of the Constitutional amendment that would contain my idea to depolicize abortion as well as many other local efforts to affirm the rights of females and to prevent abortions.  After all of which, there would begin a general public dialogue, interspersed with some nat’l referendums, about the implications of the human fetal developmental process and what makes us human beings and their implications for the legal and moral framework within which women may choose to elect an abortion. 

dlw

I don’t think people appreciate Warren Buffett, multi-billionaire who became the world’s greatest philanthropist recently, as much as they should. I just read a Business Week article from seven years ago on him that was quite impressive and followed it up by reading the Wikipedia entry that had some particularly impressive descriptions of his views on taxation and the importance of estate taxes and need for land-value taxation reform in the US.

I was googling about him, because I wanted to pitch to him my idea. I couldn’t find contact info so I thought I’d just do it from here. Read more

Nathan Newman at TPMCafe posts about the liberal reaction in the blogosphere to a recent speech made by Barack Obama on the failure of progressives to connect with many religious voters.  If you read the comment section and look at the extent of the ratings, you can see the fireworks.  It’s definitely a touchy issue among Progressives.  I think it’s up to Religious leftists/progressives to show that we can help make things happen to establish more voice for faith-based-activism.

dlw

Note: I had this at the end of my Pragmatic prolife post, but decided to make it a separate post.

I was at the Independence Party convention this past saturday to support my friend Pam Ellison who is running for gov’r of MN. She was seeking the endorsement of the party and the funds it got because of the quasi-successful campaign of Tim Penny four years ago, after Jesse Ventura decided not to run for reelection. Tim, unfortunately, took his loss four years ago hard and decided not to run again.

This was tragic. Now, the party has endorsed Peter Hutchinson as its main candidate along with his Team Minnesota. The problem is that Hutchinson is not as a good of a speaker or debater as Pam and one could maybe describe him as a Tim Penny Lite.

Which raises the question, if Tim couldn’t win four years ago with his political experience, prestige and great press coverage, how does Hutchinson think he’s going to win? One could argue that Pam is definitely a different candidate than Penny and, as a female with a female lieutenant gov’r candidate, would have several strategic advantages. Read more

This is a very well done article at Alternet that gets into the lessons we gringos can learn from Mexico’s presidential election.  Go Obrador!!!! 

dlw

There’s going to be a presidential election in Mexico soon.  The two main candidates are conservative Felipe Calderon of PAN and liberal Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of PRD. 

According to the BBC, Calderon ended his campaign saying his opponent would push Mexico into crisis, a “horror movie” of debt and division. 

I fear this sort of prophecy might be self-fulfilling, abetted perhaps by undue US support of Calderon on behalf of our MNCs.  I also fear that Economists in MX might be compelled to assent to this sort of polarizing rhetoric. 

But we will see, Mexico is definitely in need of changes, but if rhetoric like this serves to win the election, that will not set a good precedent and could result in serious violent and bloody conflicts.

dlw

I wrote an alternative prolife platform position for the Christian Democratic Union(CDU), a party I was considering joining. Unfortunately, they have an uncompromisingly prolife position. However, I do believe that my alternative is a superior strategy for dealing with the politics of abortion and could enable a third party to gain a serious foot hold on power by capturing the center on this most persistently contentious issue. Read more

Warren Buffett, 2nd richest man in the world, is donating 85% of his fortune to charity, an amount valued at 37 Billion dollars, 30 Billion of which is going to the Gates Foundation. 

This is unprecedented and will have huge implications for the future.  It may stave off world wars and save lives.  On the other hand, it may cause the corruption of the Gates Foundation, as power tends to do… 

We’ll see what the aftereffects are.  Read more

I just found out from a comment that

The Magdalene Gospel by Mary Ellen Ashcroft is currently being made into a movie. It is in the Development stage now with a production company in NYC.

This is good news.  The Magdalene Gospels will put the pseudo-history of the Da Vinci Code to shame and hopefully raise more productive forms of controversy. 

dlw Read more

Well, it was bound to happen eventually, but I finally got the big thumbs down from Alan Avans of the CDU for my idea to depoliticize abortion as a watered down version of RoeVWade that could never be part of their platform.  I kind of thought already this would happen, but it still stings some.  Read more

Next Page →