Luke's Commonplace Book

Jul
6th

Sun

By the 2012-2013 fiscal year, $15.4 billion will be spent on incarcerating Californians, as compared with $15.3 billion spent on educating them.

— here

Jul
4th

Fri

"We Who Prayed and Wept" by Wendell Berry

We who prayed and wept
for liberty from kings
and yoke of liberty
accept the tyranny of things
we do not need.
In plenitude too free,
we have become adept
beneath the yoke of greed.

Those who will not learn
in plenty to keep their place
must learn it by their need
when they have had their way
and the fields spurn their seed.
We have failed Thy grace.
Lord, I flinch and pray,
send Thy necessity.

Someone selected Ryan Adams. This made me happy for two reasons. The first is that I suspect Adams is something of an underrated semi-genius, and I like the fact that he’s more appreciated in places where nobody cares whether or not Paul Westerberg hates him. The other reason is that I think there’s probably a 98 percent likelihood that Ryan Adams will read this sentence, put down the magazine, walk over to his four-track, and immediately write a psychedelic country song titled “Hey Little Leipzig Girl (I’m Glad You Dug Those Whiskeytown Bootlegs),” which I will be able to listen to on the Internet forty minutes from right now.

— Chuck Klosterman on the answer one of his German students gave to the question: “Who do you consider the most interesting twentieth-century American — not necessarily the most historically important, but the individual you find most personally compelling?” The whole article is short, but I liked that little part, because I’d probably say Ryan Adams too.

Jun
26th

Thu

excerpts from "Where does your Faith lie?" by Jon Hatch

Does your faith lie in the belief that the universe was created in six 24-hour days?

Does your faith lie in the hope that heaven is full of people like you?

Does your faith lie in God once wiping out a city of thousands because it had homosexuals living in it?

Does your faith lie in the next president of the United States?

Does your faith lie in the belief that ‘follower of Jesus’ and ‘member of a church’ being synonymous?

[found here on the Ikon wiki, which is worth exploration]

Jun
25th

Wed

portraitoftheartistasayoungman:

“The strongest argument for agnosticism that I’ve come across.”

here

Jun
22nd

Sun

Eric L. Santer from here

Jun
20th

Fri

Lilypad archipelagos for climate refugees and those of us with ongoing obsessions with Atlantis.

Barack Obama’s skin is the color of AMERICAN SOIL.

— From Slate’s The Truth About Barack Obama: Rumors the Obama campaign shouldn’t try to correct.

Jun
16th

Mon

“Perhaps then the next film will not have Batman running around beating up drug dealers and pimps (an impotent project anyway as there is only one Batman for the whole city), but rather dissolving Wayne Industries, setting up free health care and campaigning for radically different socio-political structures.”
—Peter Rollins, read the comments on the post as well.

Rollins has ruined Batman for me. He used to be my favorite superhero (bat cave, cool gadgets, “people need dramatic examples to shake them out of their apathy,” etc.), but I can now no longer support Batman.