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.

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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hero or zero?

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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of porches and picnics

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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hold the mayo and pass the monogamy

Over at CNN guest columnist Christopher Ryan goes to great lengths to assure us we are not naturally monogamous, but that primitive man (and woman) lived in egalitarian tribes of hunter-gathers who shared everything.

No one thought about private possessions until they started raising crops and claiming land. Then a wife became just a thing, he says, citing the 10th commandment as evidence for his conclusion: “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that [is] thy neighbor’s.”

Monogamy is an agricultural accident, he claims:

Research from primatology, anthropology, anatomy and psychology points to the same conclusion: A nonpossessive, gregarious sexuality was the human norm until the rise of agriculture and private property just 10,000 years ago.

That’s a lot of research. And it’s also a lot of nonsense.

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save the date

Just so you know, the rapture of believers will take place on May 21, 2011 and God will destroy the world on October 21, 2011. I know this because I read it on the internet at wecanknow.com, not to mention that it’s also on a bench at a bus stop in Colorado Springs. We can have confidence in this prediction, since we can apparently also know that the world was created in 11,013 B.C.

Or not. Although Jesus himself said he didn’t know the hour, he was holding out on us since he knew the date. Either that or he was bad at math, unlike the people over at The-Latter-Rain ministries, who, by the way do not request, nor accept, donations.

No need, I suppose. According to the countdown calendar there are only 295 days left. They count the hours and minutes based on sunset in Jerusalem, if you need to set your watch.

naked and not ashamed

“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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why we do what we do

In 1969 a psychologist named Edward Deci conducted an experiment with a puzzle involving wooden blocks. A group of college students was paid a dollar for each puzzle they completed. Another group was not.

The experiment was really about what happened when the researcher left the room, supposedly to get a survey for the students to complete. The ones who were paid to do the puzzles were distracted, looking at magazines and other items in the room. Those who were not being paid, however, continued to try and solve the puzzles.

In his book Why We Do What We Do: Understanding Self-Motivation Deci describes this and similar research, arguing that rewards and punishments may actually work against parents, teachers and employers in the long run.

I’m inclined to agree, especially since such motivators reinforce external rather than internal motivation. If you control your kids by offering them rewards for everything they do, you don’t get good kids—you get greedy ones.

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a room of my own

In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. — John 14:2

When I was born my parents lived in a little apartment in North Naples, Florida, but when they were evicted we moved to Augusta, Georgia. My dad got a job as a used car salesman and we lived in a little flat over a drug store.

Mom’s dad gave them a piece of land, so we moved back to Naples where we lived in a small RV, then a two room cottage, and then what became the family home, a decent two bedroom house, all on the same lot near the bay. I had a room of my own, and my dad, a sign painter at the time, painted life-size Pogo characters on the wall.

Then Dad decided to go to Bible college. We moved to a small rental house on S. Kelly in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and then, after a year or so, to an apartment on Missionary Ridge, where I kissed the landlord’s daughter in a cherry tree. I was seven.

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cremating the cat

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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