Assistant Village Idiot

The question from evangelicals to Jews, and even to mainstream denomination Christians, has a plaintive quality. It is the anger of hurt, n...

The conversation with Elisheva has been interesting to me, and I have carried much of it around in my head over the last week. We are getti...

Evangelicals are the Golden Retrievers of Christendom. That’s making it a bit too easy-going, so I have tried on German Shepherds, Boxers, ...

Elisheva's comment reminded me of something that used to be true, but I don't know if it still is. For good historical reasons, Ame...

This was a bubble-gum, unattractive song by its original artist - who I will not even link to. When I first heard Alison Krauss sing it, I ...

Talking about Tevye before he gets lost. As Woodstock was not the birth of a new nation but a farewell party for the 60’s, “Fiddler On The R...

Shorter versions of the essays mentioned in Part I. My own observations on these thoughts will come later, likely influenced by whatever br...

If anything gets passed by Congress on health care, Obama's supporters will say that was what he had planned all along. It reminds me o...

(Tevye will eventually make a guest appearance in this series) I grew up under the misapprehension that Jews were the third-largest group in...

Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me included mention of one ACORN scandal this week. They focused on the two white kids' clothes, and how th...

This seems to be the topic of the month where I visit. Norman Podhoretz has a book out with this title and has a summary at Wall Street Jou...

Getting off the media reservation and reading conservative news sources is something we postliberals do, er, have done. Which comes first? ...

I cannot sit and listen to someone deliver information to me in lecture style for very long at this point. My ability to get information fr...

What did evangelical kids do during congregational meetings before there was Veggietales? I had trouble remembering yesterday. There were ...

There are any number of sites around the web where people are putting forth the idea that they can have a Christian life separate from a com...

Reading maketh a full man; conference maketh a ready man; writing maketh an exact man. Sir Francis Bacon "Of Studies"

We were still debating stretching a wall along our southern border in those days. I interviewed an old New Hampshireman who thought we shou...

Whenever I encounter in a comments section someone who has a standard signoff like "Cheers," or "Regards," it is abundan...

Big Brother Bob Emery. I hadn't realized he was national long before he was the local lunchtime kiddie show guy in the Boston area. W...

I haven’t said much about this topic, as it’s not an issue that means that much to me. As it continues to hang around, however, it deserves...