Haaretz reports that sources in New York said on Monday that Muslim religious and business leaders will announce plans to abandon the project in the next few days.
Over at Fox news, an article about the flight attendant who cussed out a rude passenger, grabbed a couple of beers, and slid down the escape hatch, asks if he is as cool as all his fans think he is.
Hero or zero, the story asked. Well, that’s easy. Zero. Yes, passengers (and customers of any kind) can be rude, but he was getting paid to be nice to them. Yes, his mom has cancer and his schedule was keeping him from seeing her as often as he liked. Yes, friends and family say he has a quirky sense of humor and a flair for the dramatic. Yes, yes, yes.
Who cares? Apparently over 170,000 Facebook supporters. The police too, since he has been charged with criminal mischief and reckless endangerment.
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Saturday night Rob and Lindy dropped by and we sat on the porch until the mosquitoes drove us inside where we had tea. And air conditioning.
Pilgrim and I were talking to Rob about aesthetics and music. Can a style be inappropriate apart from its content? Katie and Lindy were talking about Abraham.
Sunday we had a church picnic at our house, with about 90 people. We borrowed a grill, set up tables and set out toys for the sand box. Actually, we borrowed a huge grill, one big enough to grill ten racks of ribs, six whole pork loin, ten chickens and two bushels of corn—all at the same time.
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“And the man and his wife were both naked and they were not ashamed.” Genesis 2:25
In his brief book, This Momentary Marriage
, John Piper unpacks this interesting but overlooked text. It has some bearing on matters of modesty, which I’ve discussed elsewhere. But it has something to do with marriage too.
Their lack of shame was not because they had perfect bodies, Piper says. There are lots of things to make us self-conscious, despite our perfect nose. Even my perfect in-step, clearly the subject of another conversation, fails to offset my many flaws.
But being ashamed requires having someone to shame us, even if it’s ourselves. Not being ashamed is a consequence of the leaving, cleaving and holding which the previous verse says causes us to be “one flesh.” This is much more than merely a physical union. (Paul refers to a union that is merely physical as prostitution in 1 Corinthians 6.)
No, Piper argues, it is our covenant commitment that creates the context for a shame-free marriage, not our physical beauty or acts. Thankfully.
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Frisky died Sunday night. He was 23 years old, which is pretty old for a cat. Our son Pilgrim, a junior in college, has never lived in a world without Frisky.
This was an insistently affectionate cat that thought he was a dog. He would follow you around or wake you up about five in the morning wanting to be petted.
Technically the cat belonged to our oldest son, Christian, who disputes his brother Michael’s claim that the cat was only 21. But as every parent knows, no pet ever really belongs to the kids. Whatever they learned about loyalty and responsibility by owning an animal they take with them when they leave home and get married, but not the animal itself.
Over 30 years of parenting I’ve buried lots of animals, but Katie and I decided to cremate the cat. We’ve had pets dug up by various creatures around the farm, and the burial sites are all forgotten and unvisited.
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Deci describes this and similar research, arguing that rewards and punishments may actually work against parents, teachers and employers in the long run. 
a mosque in Manhattan
This isn’t a political blog.
I’m interested in politics, and read articles representing different viewpoints at realclearpolitics every day. I just don’t write about them. I won’t be endorsing political candidates any time soon.
But I do write about the so-called culture wars. I’ve written about abortion, for example. With the exception of politics generally, I write about faith and culture, where ever it intersects. And right now it is intersecting on a piece of real estate a couple of blocks away from ground zero, the site of the former Twins Towers.
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Posted in commentary, culture
Tagged first amendment, ground zero, mosque