Times Watch for September 17, 2003
Christs Girlfriend
The Times Sunday magazine
features a Deborah Solomon interview with Laurie Whaley of Thomas Nelson
Publishers, the Christian publishing house. Whaley is senior editor for
Revolve, which Solomon describes as a Bible for teenage girls designed to
resemble a fashion magazine.
After a few questions on
the irony of the project, Solomon gets snotty, suggesting one passage of
Revolve is regressive and that it claims Jesus does not love girls who call
boys for dates. Solomon also describes Mary Magdalene as Christs girlfriend.
Heres an excerpt
from the interview. Whaley is game, and gives as good as she gets, even as Times
reporter Solomon attempts to impose modern-day feminism on Biblical text:
Deborah Solomon: But Mary Magdalene, who was
Christ's girlfriend, favored low necklines and loads of jewelry.
Laura Whalen, Thomas Nelson Publishers: Mary was a friend of Christ. From the
Bible, we have no indication that there was any sexual relationship with her.
Solomon: You could argue that Christ was drawn to her precisely because of her
flamboyant clothing.
Whalen: Christ was drawn to everyone. I think he loved Mary regardless of her
clothing.
Solomon: But he does not love girls who call boys, at least according to
Revolve! It's positively regressive for Revolve to suggest that God made men
to be the leaders in romance.
Whaley: There's no indication from Scripture that Mary Magdalene ever picked up
the phone and called Christ.
For more on Revolve, a fashionable Bible for teen
girls,
click here.
Bible |
Christianity
|
Interview |
Religion
|
Deborah Solomon
|
Teenagers
Fanatical
Tax-Cutters of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy
The Tax-Cut Con, columnist Paul Krugmans 7,000
word piece for the Times Sunday magazine, is a history of the modern-day
tax-cutting movement as seen from Krugmans skewed-to-the-left and sometimes
blinkered perspective.
As
Tom Maguire points out, economist Krugman manages to discuss the history of
supply-side economics without mentioning Dr. Arthur Laffer, considered by many
to be the father of supply-side economics.
Krugman writes that
American politics has been dominated for 25 years by a crusade against taxes:
I don't use the word crusade lightly. The advocates of tax cuts are
relentless, even fanatical. Later he writes: Loosely speaking, that is,
supply-siders work for the vast right-wing conspiracy.
Krugmans latest bete
noire is Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, and he goes after him at
the end, providing this dour warning: If Grover Norquist is right-and he has
been right about a lot-the coming crisis will allow conservatives to move the
nation a long way back toward the kind of limited government we had before
Franklin Roosevelt. Lack of revenue, he says, will make it possible for
conservative politicians-in the name of fiscal necessity-to dismantle
immensely popular government programs that would otherwise have been
untouchable.
Norquists vision of
Americas future, according to Krugman? Poor grannies and lousy schools: In
Norquist's vision, America a couple of decades from now will be a place in which
elderly people make up a disproportionate share of the poor, as they did before
Social Security. It will also be a country in which even middle-class elderly
Americans are, in many cases, unable to afford expensive medical procedures or
prescription drugs and in which poor Americans generally go without even basic
health care. And it may well be a place in which only those who can afford
expensive private schools can give their children a decent education.
For the rest of Paul Krugmans history of tax cuts,
click here.
Paul Krugman |
Grover Norquist |
Supply Side |
Tax Cuts