Father Orthoduck is an Antiochian priest. That means that he has many friends who are either Arab immigrant or descended from Arabs. This is part of the reason why he questions strongly some of the all-too-common American attitudes towards “Arabs.” Father Orthoduck would wish to remind readers that until the Islamic conquests the largest part […]
Texas, yet again, and again, and again … no Lone Ranger there!
Many of us remember watching the Lone Ranger when we were children. Every Saturday morning, there he would be, fighting the evil men and bringing justice to the West. He was a Texan in the most mythical sense of the word. He never shot a person directly, but always managed the impossible feat of only […]
Bad logic on Ground Zero Islamic Cultural Center
Today I received a mass e-mail that contained a sad argument against the proposed Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero. In part it said: Should there be a mosque near Ground Zero? In fact, what is proposed is not a mosque—nor even an “Islamic cultural center.” In Islam, every structure linked to the faith and […]
On a visit to a Veteran’s Administration clinic
Yesterday I went to visit a Veterans Administration clinic in Orlando. As many of you know, I am a veteran, my grandfather-in-law was a lifer, and our youngest daughter is serving as an officer in Iraq right now. Yep, service is part of our family. But, I digress. I went into the laboratory waiting room […]
On the swine flu and Latinos
The Wikipedia has some interesting data under the article on the Black Death that swept Europe in the Middle Ages. It says: Because fourteenth century healers were at a loss to explain the cause, Europeans turned to astrological forces, earthquakes, and the poisoning of wells by Jews as possible reasons for the plague’s emergence. . . […]
More chimpanzee inkblot test
Two days ago, I commented on the flap surrounding the New York Post chimpanzee cartoon. Well, it is still meandering its weary way through the “national” media, like a soap opera that refuses to end. Nevertheless, there is something that we can learn out of all this, as Christians. Part of our family’s missionary training […]
Chimpanzee inkblot test
Sometimes a political cartoon, or actually any sort of cartoon, can function as a type of Rorschach inkblot test. That is what we see in a cartoon may reflect our own internal thoughts more than they reflect either anything in the cartoon itself or anything that the author intended. But, sometimes there is actual agreement […]
I have a dream
Do we love the “other”?
“When we fixate on the racist individual, we’re focused on the least interesting way that race works,†said Phillip Goff, a social psychologist at U.C.L.A. who focuses his research on “racism without racists.†“Most of the way race functions is without the need for racial animus.†That quote comes from the NYT and can be […]
