Tolerance – Beguine Again

Aug292019 by jrcowlesNo Comments

Memorial, Marriage, And Memory

"Life" Issues, 14th Amendment, 5th Amendment, activism, anger, aros, Art, awareness, bible, bigotry, Challenge, Change, Christianity/Catholicism, citizenship, civics, community, Compassion, conflict, conservatism, constitution, courage, Creativity, critical judgment, culture, Discernment, empathy, Equality, Ethics, faithfulness, Freedom, GLBT, history, Hope, injustice, justice, Marriage Equality, praying with art, progressive politics, Religion, Secularity, sexual orientation, Sexuality, social justice, Tolerance, Uncategorized, Women

Every several years or so, perhaps every decade or so, a work of art captures my emotions and imagination, and sticks in my memory, even though it may be several years between viewings – assuming I ever see the original of the work at all. One such is Renoir’s Luncheon of the Boating Party; another is Rembrandt’s Slaughtered Ox; another, Picasso’s Guernica; still another, Edouard Manet’s The Old Musician. I have never seen the originals of the Rembrandt and the Picasso. I know them only from reproductions. But they haunt me. I recently discovered another such image while visiting the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC: Patricia Cronin’s Memorial to a Marriage (hereafter Memorial ). Memorial is a bronze sculpture, cast from a marble original, depicting two women lovers,...

Nationhood And “The Root Of All Evil”

Abundance, activism, awareness, bigotry, causality, Challenge, Change, citizenship, civics, Compassion, conflict, conservatism, Consumerism, critical judgment, culture, Economy, Ethics, Failing, Fascism, hate, history, Ideology, injustice, justice, law, Muslims, Naziism, Paul von Hindenburg, political rhetoric, Politics, Poverty, racism, resentment, Secularity, social justice, soldiers, Statistics, Suffering, Tolerance, Treaty of Versailles, Uncategorized, Weimar Republic, World War I

I recently told my Beguine editor, Terri Stewart, that, because I regarded the re-election of Trump as quite likely, I considered politics a dead subject for leftists / progressives, at least for the near- and medium-term future, and that I would henceforth write about science, art, philosophy, in other words, anything except politics. I had every intention of abiding by that resolution until I read a column by Hugh Hewitt in the Washington Post of April 27 exulting in his prediction – which, to repeat, is probably accurate – that Trump would not only win the election in 2020, but that the election would not even be “close” (Hewitt’s word, not mine). The reasons Hewitt cites for that prediction, while factually accurate, go straight to the heart of what it means to be a nation – and, ...

Jesus, Jefferson, and Jingoism

"Life" Issues, community, conflict, conservatism, Consitution, critical judgment, culture, declaration of independence, Ethics, fourth of july, Religion, Spirituality, Tolerance

I am re-publishing this "Skeptic's" column today because, if anything, it is even more relevant today than when it first appeared. I am also re-publishing it because, when I originally published it, politics used to be ... you know ... both fun and funny. So for a few moments, we can share a trip down Memory Lane to a time of comparative innocence. Well, we are in that time of year again – July in general, and the Fourth in particular -- when we all make the obligatory pilgrimage to the First Church of American Exceptionalism, also known colloquially and variously as "the back yard" or "the deck" or "the patio", where we celebrate the Sacrament of Opportunistic Patriotism with beer instead of wine, with burgers instead of unleavened bread, on an outdoor barbecue grill instead of an alta...