tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-132020532011-09-14T13:26:07.092-04:00news and views from the heartland of america's devolutionAndy Langhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05490449811588272391noreply@blogger.comBlogger351100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13202053.post-86260648917426222662011-07-30T19:42:00.009-04:002011-07-30T19:55:14.847-04:00

Andy Langhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05490449811588272391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13202053.post-37685735388041951852011-04-28T21:00:00.011-04:002011-04-28T22:32:40.781-04:00

Buckingham Palace has released the official schedule for the viewing of the Royal Wedding at Lang Palace on Shaker Square.5:30 a.m. (9:30 GMT)The Lord Chamberlain, together with the cat of the household (Schatzi), rise and proceed to the kitchen.A high-protein, low-carbohydrate breakfast is prepared for the diabetic cat. The breakfast is served.5:50 a.m. (9:50 GMT)Coffee is prepared.The

Andy Langhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05490449811588272391noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13202053.post-1166762206718865972010-12-15T23:34:00.000-05:002010-12-16T21:48:16.712-05:00

by Andy LangOn the first Christmas in New England, Indians arrived at the doors of the Pilgrims’ rustic meeting house bearing barrels of a spiritous liquor distilled from cranberries and pine needles. They found the church doors locked, and the entire community huddled inside their homes. Christmas, their ministers had told them, was a “paganish Mummerie of indecent Revells and the Werke of

Andy Langhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05490449811588272391noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13202053.post-53948733395886804532010-12-01T10:53:00.004-05:002010-12-01T11:47:11.408-05:00

I was going to change the title of this blog after Democrats swept the national elections in 2006 and 2008, but I'm glad I waited! Once again I am Blue in a Red state.Speaking of Reaction, here's a memory from the summer and fall of '68, when, as a star-struck member of "Youth for Nixon-Agnew" (aka the "Nixon Jugend"), I took home from GOP headquarters in my home town a 45rpm record featuring the

Andy Langhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05490449811588272391noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13202053.post-26358396507474413662010-08-25T20:15:00.002-04:002010-08-25T20:20:11.627-04:00

Now that I've more free time that I'd anticipated, I thought I'd produce another sheet of Bible bookmarks with citations from "Daily Readings," the daily supplement to the Revised Common Lectionary for Sundays. These are easy to print out and use a bookmarks in your Bible for daily prayer or Lectio Divina. They're available here.

Andy Langhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05490449811588272391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13202053.post-29726820079473537502010-02-11T11:35:00.003-05:002010-02-11T11:47:30.491-05:00

This was a delightful respite from the usual form of Internet scam. It takes fractured grammar to new heights. And what's with the address given (below) for the CIA?Central Intelligence AgencyCity in Carter Lane, next to St.Paul's.https://www.cia.gov/Att:This is letter from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) You was reported in this office last year that you have been dealing with some Nigeria

Andy Langhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05490449811588272391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13202053.post-86951865323425974002008-11-10T16:11:00.006-05:002010-12-16T21:50:22.380-05:00

Please note that this paper, which I wrote 12 years ago, does not reflect my current thinking on the subject. But I'm offering it for further discussion.Freedom, including my freedom to love, therefore begins with the sovereign freedom of God who elects humanity to be God’s covenant partner, and who forms our lives so that we are called to relationships that correspond to the image of God’s

Andy Langhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05490449811588272391noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13202053.post-71235590722823141302008-11-05T11:59:00.003-05:002008-11-05T12:08:00.829-05:00

Among the winners in yesterday's elections were three polling firms: Rasmussen, Pew, IPSOS (McClatchy Newspapers) and Opinion Research (CNN).Rasmussen and Pew were right on the money, predicting a six-point spread at 52 percent for Obama and 46 percent for McCain. IPSOS and Opinion Research were off by one point, both predicting Obama would win 53 percent of the popular vote.Forecasting an Obama

Andy Langhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05490449811588272391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13202053.post-88581376824203986732008-11-05T11:29:00.003-05:002008-11-05T11:59:08.294-05:00

European newspapers are greeting Obama with ecstasy. German media in particular are shuddering with a delight not seen since the late edition of Voelkischer Beobachter on Jan. 30, 1933.Der Spiegel Obama erweckt das neue Amerika Obama awakens the new AmericaSueddeutsche ZeitungNeuer historischer Zeitabschnitt New chapter of historyZDF (German Second TV)Obama weckt Hoffnung in aller Welt Obama

Andy Langhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05490449811588272391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13202053.post-2890819205032601962007-09-19T16:56:00.001-04:002008-12-11T01:26:17.944-05:00

The spammer wanted to invest in medicine, poultry or real estate.They're mostly blocked by spam filters, but I still occasionally graze through the junk mail folder to enjoy the hundreds of offers of easy money. A born-again widow in the Congo has only months to live and wants to deposit $14 million in my bank account becaue she has heard that I am "trustworthy" and will spend the money "for the

Andy Langhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05490449811588272391noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13202053.post-9091929856930458472007-06-07T11:37:00.000-04:002008-12-11T01:26:18.233-05:00

Paris Hilton "cracked" after three days in Los Angeles County Jail.On Monday, after 24 hours in the women's jail, Paris "was doing well under the circumstances," according to her lawyer, but her condition began to crumble later that day.(Warning: irony turned off.) The medical director for the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services was called in, and certified that Paris

Andy Langhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05490449811588272391noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13202053.post-71801967296856566772007-03-30T13:14:00.000-04:002008-12-11T01:26:18.413-05:00

Apparently the "Traditional Values" Coalition does not consider the ninth commandment ("Thou shalt not bear false witness") a traditional value.Rev. Lou Sheldon, the coalition's founder, is organizing a campaign to defeat Congressman John Conyer's "Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007." The law, he says, "begins to lay the legal framework to persecute and prosecute those who

Andy Langhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05490449811588272391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13202053.post-23932836278750740712006-12-28T11:12:00.000-05:002008-12-11T01:26:18.773-05:00

Ford in the Oval Office with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Chief of Staff Dick CheneyI think history will treat Gerald Ford kindly. He stepped up to the plate during a terrible time in our political history and his fundamental decency helped the country through the transition. He was not a great president, but he was a good president, and since G.W. Bush has significantly lowered the

Andy Langhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05490449811588272391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13202053.post-1142283769395205752006-03-13T15:58:00.000-05:002006-12-22T23:10:26.516-05:00

Is genuine Christian community possible through the Internet? The latest in a series of experiments is i.UCC (at i.UCC.org)—an online community project sponsored by the United Church of Christ. I've been hired as developer and designer for the community.Please check it out, and let me know what you think.

Andy Langhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05490449811588272391noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13202053.post-1139261111437616492006-02-06T14:33:00.000-05:002006-02-08T20:13:48.153-05:00

Like the unfortunate Britishism "went missing", "famously" is currently one of the high-mindedly hip clichés that writers at the New York Times imagine will lend a certain cachet to their otherwise enervating style. There were 12 uses in the past week, 65 in the past month, 653 in the past year. Twenty years ago, the Times conjured up the adverb only 34 times. Like the avian flu, "famously"

Andy Langhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05490449811588272391noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13202053.post-1127406793158982312005-09-22T11:35:00.000-04:002005-09-25T20:14:40.370-04:00

The decision was widely anticipated, but now it's official: the Roman Catholic church will bar all homosexuals from ordination to the priesthood—even those whose sexual probity is beyond question.The church is fortunate the new policy was not in force when Father Mychal Judge was ordained in 1961. He was the heroic fire chaplain who was buried with full honors after his body was pulled from the

Andy Langhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05490449811588272391noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13202053.post-1127144739577184842005-09-19T10:37:00.000-04:002005-09-23T21:24:17.700-04:00

The Left Party's opposition to American-style economic and tax policies was a magnet for voters from across the Federal Republic's political spectrum. The Left was the only party to win votes from all of the other major parties in Germany—from left to right. It was also uniquely the one party to mobilize non-voters who returned to the ballot box on Sept. 18 to cast their votes for the embattled "

Andy Langhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05490449811588272391noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13202053.post-1127074034011120562005-09-18T15:17:00.000-04:002005-09-22T22:58:18.643-04:00

The Left Party—an alliance formed by post-communists and defectors from Germany's ruling Social Democratic Party—has won 8.7 percent of the vote in today's federal election. The result more than doubles the party's previous score of 4 percent in 2002. In that election, just over 1.9 million voters supported the post-communists when the party failed to reach the five-percent threshold required

Andy Langhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05490449811588272391noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13202053.post-1124246388692513332005-09-18T00:01:00.000-04:002005-09-23T11:01:12.640-04:00

This analysis of the Left Party's dramatic rise in German politics was originally published on Aug. 16. I am republishing it here for the convenience of my readers. The party's final score in Germany's federal election on Sept. 18 was 8.7 percent—more than 4 million voters.Left Party poster for candidate Lothar Bisky: "The market cannot rule everything. Whoever looks upon the world only as a

Andy Langhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05490449811588272391noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13202053.post-1126389085012264952005-09-10T16:30:00.000-04:002006-02-08T20:32:06.616-05:00

One of the most interesting people I've met in Cleveland is Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Rumors that he is the former head of an international criminal organization are, he says, "LIES! ALL LIES!" I found his delightful reflections on Spielberg's "War of the Worlds" and its surprising relevance to current events worthy of note, and I think you will, too.Blofeld's idea for a sequel: Mars is now divided

Andy Langhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05490449811588272391noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13202053.post-1125946005290770342005-09-05T14:22:00.000-04:002005-09-14T10:40:20.043-04:00

By Steve KurdzielSteve Kurdziel of Shaker Heights, Ohio, is our guest columnist as we continue to explore the moral and economic consequences of Hurricane Katrina. This column is a renewal after more than 30 years of our relationship as reporter and editor when we were undergrads at Georgetown University. He's a gifted writer and an occasional (and highly-praised) columnist for the Cleveland

Steve Kurdzielnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13202053.post-1125797896138610012005-09-03T20:53:00.000-04:002005-09-14T11:51:23.283-04:00

"In an ideal world, we would pick up and dispose of any cadavers," Secretary of Homeland "Security" Michael Chertoff said at a press conference Sept. 1. But "[w]e're not in an ideal world." An Army construction battalion begins to repair the damaged dikes. Oh, my mistake: that's a unit in Iraq.Political reporters like to know "where the bodies are buried." But, as we've watched the scenes of

Andy Langhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05490449811588272391noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13202053.post-1124999290068535482005-08-25T14:33:00.000-04:002005-09-14T15:19:04.073-04:00

Pat Robertson has apologized for his public call for the assassination of Hugo Chávez, but then compared the Venezualan president to Adolf Hitler and asked, "would it not be wiser to wage war against one person rather than finding ourselves down the road locked in a bitter struggle with a whole nation?"To sum up: Robertson is sorry he said the U.S. should kill Chávez. But he's not very sorry. "

Andy Langhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05490449811588272391noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13202053.post-1125250074559591782005-08-25T14:05:00.000-04:002006-02-08T20:28:12.266-05:00

One eye of James Bond nemesis Emilio Largo went missing.It came right out of the blue, like a Spitfire firing all eight barrels at a lumbering Junkers bomber. It was like the lead sentence of today's blog, designed to grab your attention like the aggressive display of an angry polecat defending her young. So imagine my surprise when I read the following in a New York Times book review:"[H]e wears

Andy Langhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05490449811588272391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13202053.post-1125437098293789342005-08-24T23:59:00.000-04:002005-08-31T17:40:12.330-04:00

On FindLaw.com, former presidential counsel John Dean argues that Pat Robertson committed a felony under federal law when he advocated the assassination of President Hugo Chavez."It is a federal felony to use instruments of interstate or foreign commerce to threaten other people, he wrote. "The statute is clear, and simple. Title 18 of the United States Code, Section 875(c), states:"Whoever

Andy Langhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05490449811588272391noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13202053.post-1124853813401303172005-08-24T22:53:00.000-04:002005-09-01T02:15:14.003-04:00

Finding myself bored this evening, and wanting to beat back for a few minutes the encroaching shadows of melancholy, I decided to amuse myself with a game of Babble. You can do this with any online translation program: I prefer Altavista's Babelfish.Now, you don't necessarily have to play this game to produce unintentionally hilarious translations. For instance, a straightforward sentence in a

Andy Langhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05490449811588272391noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13202053.post-1124817166408491732005-08-23T12:35:00.000-04:002005-08-25T18:42:49.466-04:00

On Monday, televangelist Pat Robertson urged the U.S. government to assassinate Hugo Chavez, the elected president of Venezuala. On Tuesday, Brother Roger Schutz, founder of the ecumenical Taizé community, was buried in a funeral liturgy that attracted 10,000 mourners from every continent. Robertson calls himself a Christian, and so did Brother Roger, but are their gods the same?Pat Robertson's

Andy Langhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05490449811588272391noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13202053.post-1124897365839693422005-08-10T11:06:00.000-04:002005-08-29T10:54:51.513-04:00

BOOKS MUSIC FILMI'm beginning to build an online shop for you, dear visitor. You'll find this collection of books, music and film to be eclectic and, perhaps, eccentric. But that's what the ego-trip called blogging is all about. If my obsessions became your obsessions, then we would have world peace.

Andy Langhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05490449811588272391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13202053.post-1118690485606690812005-06-13T15:10:00.000-04:002005-08-31T14:14:27.656-04:00

More on the transformation of one of the (soon to be formerly?) beautiful and historic spots in New England: eastern Connecticut. The New York Times features the economic transformation of the region in today's edition. In Connecticut, one quiet cornerThe story mentions that the Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun casinos—two of the biggest in the world—have created 60,000 jobs. It reports that the

Andy Langhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05490449811588272391noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13202053.post-1117552956745331552005-05-31T10:50:00.000-04:002005-08-28T15:11:19.913-04:00

A judge in Indianapolis ruled that two wiccan parents cannot raise their nine-year-old son in their faith. Judge: Parents can't teach pagan beliefsWicca—one of the eclectic byproducts of the New Age movement—has become so mainstream that U.S. military chaplains are instructed in its beliefs so they can provide care for Wiccan members of the armed forces. They are not satanists. In any case,

Andy Langhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05490449811588272391noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13202053.post-1117400811826829512005-05-29T17:06:00.000-04:002005-08-29T22:41:19.233-04:00

Allied soldiers in the ruins of a church at Lucey-le-BocageIn remembrance: two versions (with audio) of an antiwar song inspired by the mass graves of World War I. The original text (1976) by Scottish-Australian folksinger Eric Bogle is titled "No Man's Land" or "The Green Fields of France." The German version, "Es ist an der Zeit" ("This Is The Time"), is Hannes Wader's 1980 interpretation of

Andy Langhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05490449811588272391noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13202053.post-1117312472498148952005-05-28T16:32:00.000-04:002005-08-22T08:53:42.240-04:00

Okay, so he's not really you-know-whom, but a discontinued Action Hero named "The Aquarian."

Andy Langhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05490449811588272391noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13202053.post-1117300660111552552005-05-28T13:17:00.000-04:002005-08-22T08:42:50.633-04:00

Thanks to the "Next Blog" button which Blogger considerately places at the top of this page, it was easy for me to take a quick tour of the "blogosphere." The first five hits revealed it as a wondrous place of trenchant commentary, significant discourse and high pathos:1. squirrels on speed2. Wabbits wuv karrots farm3. freak on the loose4. The World According to Me (Perception = Reality)5. and

Andy Langhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05490449811588272391noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13202053.post-1117217109654609722005-05-27T13:57:00.000-04:002005-08-22T16:49:12.356-04:00

Schatzi Lang is not attending Kirchentag, but I give him a full report every day.I know you all have been waiting with bated breath (or baited breath, like my cat Schatzi's fishy breath) ... anyway, I know you've been eager for my latest report from the German Protestant Kirchentag (Church Convention) which is now in its third day. So I will not disappoint.About 100,000 travelled to Hanover and

Andy Langhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05490449811588272391noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13202053.post-1117144872156296932005-05-26T17:58:00.000-04:002005-08-22T08:49:50.640-04:00

Who is this man? What is he thinking? Where has he been, and where is he going? Who was his best friend? Does he write poetry? Plays? Folksongs? Prize for the winner: a free lifetime subscription to this blog!

Andy Langhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05490449811588272391noreply@blogger.com8