Sometimes the stone that the builders rejected ends up as the cornerstone of the whole building.  That may not quite describe the role of Christianity in American foreign policy, but in some important and little understood ways the massive surge of Christian faith in the developing world is tilting the global playing field in America’s […]

In one of the most embarrassing news stories I’ve ever seen in the mainstream press, the New York Times has a comprehensive report on the catastrophic meltdown in the public’s interest in global warming.The only problem: nothing in here is news, if by news you mean ‘new’.“Climate Fears Turn To Doubts Among Britons,” blares the […]

The world economy is like a person with a bad stomach flu; that horrible sick feeling keeps coming back.  In 2008 it was mortgage-backed bonds and the failure of Lehman Brothers; last year it was the worst recession since the 1930s; this year it’s the European financial crisis.  We still don’t know where this is […]

Chris Baker and Pasuk Phongpaichit are two of the keenest observers of Thai society and their recent Wall Street Journal article on the violence in Bangkok, like their book Thaksin on the exiled businessman who revolutionized Thai politics is required reading for anybody who wants to understand the events that are shaking what used to […]

I’m a book person; I spend much more time with books than I do watching TV or going to movies.Most of the time, I like books.  I’ve spent some of my happiest hours reading and over a lifetime of learning books have opened new worlds of ideas and experience to me.I like the way books […]

The new British government was still settling into its offices when the 38-year-old Chancellor of the Exchequer (in the US he’d be called the Secretary of the Treasury) George Osborne dashed off to Brussels to announce that Britain would not fight, because it could not win, over new regulations on hedge funds.  Meanwhile, the next […]

The news from Thailand is bad.  The Associated Press spoke of Bangkok “in flames“; 18 provincial capitals and have been placed under curfew and government buildings have been attacked in the cities of Udon Thani and Khon Kaen.  An estimated 65 people have been killed in the last two months of on-again, off-again violence and […]

Geopoliticians like GUTs–Grand Unified Theories–that reduce the complexity of world events to a simple underlying concept.  For the last ten years the world’s favorite GUT has been “the decline of America.”  For the ten years before that it was “America’s unilateral moment.”GUTs are always oversimplified; sometimes they are useful.  Right now, the reigning GUT is […]

Our apologies to those of you who were unable to connect to the blog this afternoon.  We had some problems with the servers, but these are apparently behind us. 

It was the beginning of the end of the Episcopal Church as we have known it.  At a Saturday ceremony in Long Beach, California, Mary Glasspool was consecrated as bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, California.  Bishop Glasspool has lived for 22 years in a committed relationship with another woman.  She is the […]