After the Futuretag:typepad.com,2003:weblog-2235642009-11-08T08:39:36-08:00"Without the ultrarational hopes and passions of religion no society will ever have the courage to conquer despair and attempt the impossible; for the vision of a just society is an impossible one, which can be approximated only by those who do not regard it as impossible."--Reinhold Niebuhr TypePadYou Got a Better Explanation?tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834520c4d69e2012875639b4b970c2009-11-08T08:39:36-08:002009-11-08T21:22:30-08:00Warning: I woke up pessimistic this morning. From Hullabaloo: . . . One of the most salient indictments of the Bush-Cheney regime was that they were stupid enough to fall for the biggest sucker bet in history, a pointless land...Jack WhelanGay Marriage vs. Civil Unions (Updated)tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834520c4d69e20120a6ac5a09970c2009-11-05T08:32:57-08:002009-11-06T08:00:07-08:00Maine got all the attention, but It's interesting to me that Washington State voters supported a bill popularly known as the "Everything but Marriage Act" that gives gay couples all the civil rights of marriage without calling it marriage. Maybe...Jack WhelanQuick Election Taketag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834520c4d69e20120a6a84e1a970c2009-11-04T07:44:04-08:002009-11-04T07:49:19-08:00I'm pleasantly surprised by Owens taking the NY 23. The undecideds decided it, and their doing so supports the idea that there is a sane middle in the American electorate, and the ones in upstate NY, even though they lean...Jack WhelanNY 23: Signs of the Timestag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834520c4d69e20120a64ab345970b2009-11-02T07:38:03-08:002009-11-02T13:10:40-08:00The right’s embrace of Hoffman is a double-barreled suicide for the G.O.P. On Saturday, the battered Scozzafava suspended her campaign, further scrambling the race. It’s still conceivable that the Democratic candidate could capture a seat the Republicans should own. But...Jack WhelanDesign Changetag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834520c4d69e20120a69edebd970c2009-11-01T21:22:22-08:002009-11-01T21:24:46-08:00I've had enough complaints over the years about how hard to read the drop-out type was--I just like the idea of the word appearing out of the night, so to speak. But when a glitch occurred with the "Kierkegaard on...Jack WhelanKierkegaard on the Couchtag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834520c4d69e20120a693e50f970c2009-10-31T09:31:01-07:002009-10-31T09:32:09-07:00...the specific character of despair is this: it is precisely unaware of being despair. --Soren Kierkegaard, Sickness unto Death There is abundant chatter today about “being spiritual” but scarcely anyone believes that a person can be of troubled mind and...Jack WhelanQuote of the Day: Yglesias (Updated)tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834520c4d69e20120a62bb57d970b2009-10-28T13:09:59-07:002009-10-29T08:18:37-07:00The Senate Republican caucus is organized, like the House caucuses of both parties, like a partisan political organization whose objective is to advance the shared policy objectives of the party. The Senate Democratic caucus, by contrast, is organized like a...Jack WhelanFighting for Healthcare Update tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834520c4d69e20120a6249e1a970b2009-10-27T09:15:02-07:002009-10-27T17:28:01-07:00For many years, it's been centrist and conservative-leaning senators who have been scoring legislative victories by digging in their heels, so this represented a quite dramatic turnabout. It is difficult to remember the last time that progressives won a legislative...Jack WhelanObama Coveruptag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834520c4d69e20120a67792e2970c2009-10-26T08:02:05-07:002009-10-26T08:02:05-07:00I just came from reading Greenwald's piece this morning about the NYT editorial taking Obama to task for covering up the Bush era war crimes and for embracing Bush abuses of power. The comments after the post voice a lot...Jack WhelanFutile Culture Warstag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834520c4d69e20120a675147d970c2009-10-25T09:16:22-07:002009-10-25T14:46:42-07:00I'm with Barzun. The West is decadent. Decadence happens, and like winter it's not necessarily a bad thing. It's just a time that doesn't have much exterior spiritual energy anymore--the spirit has gone underground, so to speak, into the soul's interior. And since the whole movement of salvation history has been a movement from outer to inner, from given to chosen, from the law given on slabs of so Sinai to the law written in the heart, it's understandable that the outer trappings of Christian Civilization should become emptied and less relevant for the living of the faith.Jack WhelanThe FOX Brouhahatag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834520c4d69e20120a670c66e970c2009-10-23T15:33:47-07:002009-10-25T19:44:07-07:00I'm just trying to understand the administration's calculation in using this attack tactic to deal with right-wing media. Clearly right wing media are never going away. Clearly, while they get a big media share of the news pie, they still...Jack WhelanYou Gotta Dance with Them that Bought You (Updated)tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834520c4d69e20120a64705ea970c2009-10-17T08:45:42-07:002009-10-27T13:18:50-07:00"Can I speak freely about the liberal whiners?" asks a well-connected Democratic strategist. "These are the same people who have never participated in, much less won, a campaign, who have no idea what it takes to maintain a majority and...Jack WhelanFighting for Healthcare Updatetag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834520c4d69e20120a6446b29970c2009-10-16T09:48:18-07:002009-10-24T09:00:03-07:00I'm feeling pretty good about getting a decent bill. We've come a long way from where we were in August. The insurance industry and its shills on the hill have overreached and have no credibility, and a broad consensus has...Jack WhelanQuote of the Day: Andrew Bacevichtag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834520c4d69e20120a5e0d85d970b2009-10-13T08:35:48-07:002009-10-23T21:43:00-07:00If the Afghan war then becomes the consuming issue of Obama’s presidency - as Iraq became for his predecessor, as Vietnam did for Lyndon Johnson, and as Korea did for Harry Truman - the inevitable effect will be to compromise...Jack WhelanFaith, Hope, and Love in a Decadent Agetag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834520c4d69e20120a62dc9f1970c2009-10-10T11:37:20-07:002009-10-27T13:20:44-07:00I see the fundamental gesture of Christian conservatism and its orientation to the past to be a fearful and self-protective, as lacking hope and lacking faith or confidence in the Promise with a resulting small-soulness that lacks the confidence to love the world as it is. This tight-fisted, irritable, I-get-no-respect Christianity is tiresome and irrelevant to the world's needs. I look forward to the renaissance of a magnanimous, open-handed, world embracing Christianity that is confident about its place in history and cares only about serving the world, not being respected by it. If that were the public face of the Church, it would have the spiritual authority and respect so many of its members it crave.Jack WhelanConservative Takedown of Reagan's Conservatismtag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834520c4d69e20120a5d339b7970b2009-10-09T10:00:03-07:002009-10-09T14:01:45-07:00My contention, though, is that there is no longer 'living memory' that we Americans can live from. It simply no longers informs our mainstream culture, and the project to try to sustain or conserve one's cultural heritage as a given "living memory" is as futile as the Irish trying to sustain Gaelic as their national tongue. That ship has sailed, and now the best we can be is the party of re-discovery, of re-membering, resurrecting, the treasures from the past that most lay strewn about in shards, and of using them in a future-oriented project to build something new.
Jack Whelan