Big Max

Blogging's been kind of slow lately, which is not unusual for me, but I do have an excuse this time. There's a new little dude in our house. Recently, my wife gave birth to our fourth child--Maximilian Karol. As you can see from the pic there, he's as cute as can be. He's doing great--nursing and gaining weight like a champ--but his bilirubin levels are causing concern for the doc. Say a prayer if you will. We have him, as much as we can, on a little bili-light bed at home. We're hoping that brings the levels down so he won't have to do the beds at the hospital--where he'll be taken from Mama for hours at a time.

New Atheists = Fundamentalists?

I don't completely share Chris Hedges' worldview, particularly his notion that there is no absolute truth; but that just makes his criticism of the new athiests all the more compelling, as it does not come from a religious point of reference. He makes some excellent points in this interview about his new book, I Don't Believe in Atheists.
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Chris Hedges is a journalist and author who focuses on American and Middle Eastern politics and society. He is currently a senior fellow at The Nation Institute in New York City and a Lecturer in the Council of the Humanities and the Anschutz Distinguished Fellow at Princeton University. He spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He has reported from more than fifty countries, and has worked for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News and The New York Times, where he spent fifteen years. He is the author of What Every Person Should Know About What and American Fascists. His newest book is I Don't Believe in Atheists. In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, acclaimed foreign correspondent Christ Hedges shares his criticism of the New Atheists, calling them "fundamentalists" in their own right. He responds to their account of the origins of Islamic religious extremism, and he accuses the New Atheists of racism. He explains his view that the New Atheists are proponents of the Neo-conservative agenda and how the American Left does advance secular values in the Muslim world. He also criticizes what he calls the "utopianism" of the New Atheists, detailing his skepticism about moral progress for humanity.

A Real Crisis

OK, now I'm worried about global warming.