Olde Frothingblog

I’ve decided I can no longer justify spending the money to maintain a domain name for a low-traffic vanity blog. As such, this blog is moving immediately to a new, free address: http://dmdarlington.wordpress.com. All the posts and links have been imported; nothing has been lost. Please update your links and bookmarks accordingly.

This web address will stick around until the end of May. I intend to cancel my account before I’m charged another year by my web provider.

This LA Times report on the internal workings of Al Qaeda brought a little smile to my face. According to documents captured in Afghanistan and Iraq dating from the early 1990s to the present, Osama bin Laden’s terrorist buddies are a bunch of squabbling middle managers in an inefficient bureaucracy. The documents depict “an organization obsessed with paperwork and penny-pinching and afflicted with a damaging propensity for feuds.” What happens when you betray an Al Qaeda superior? Do you lose your head? No, you get a nasty memo:

Mohammed Atef was furious.

The Al Qaeda leader had learned that a subordinate had broken the rules repeatedly. So he did his duty as the feared military chief of a global terror network: He fired off a nasty memo.

In two pages mixing flowery religious terms with itemized complaints, the Egyptian boss accused the militant of misappropriating cash, a car, sick leave, research papers and an air conditioner during “an austerity situation” for the network. He demanded a detailed letter of explanation.

“I was very upset by what you did,” Atef wrote. “I obtained 75,000 rupees for you and your family’s trip to Egypt. I learned that you did not submit the voucher to the accountant, and that you made reservations for 40,000 rupees and kept the remainder claiming you have a right to do so. . . . Also with respect to the air-conditioning unit, . . . furniture used by brothers in Al Qaeda is not considered private property. . . . I would like to remind you and myself of the punishment for any violation.”

Gives new meaning to the phrase “toxic boss.”

The good folks at Moody Publishers recently sent me a copy of Sex, Sushi, and Salvation, a new book by Christian George. I’ve done book reviews before, but I’ve never been been solicited to do one. This review was originally published at ITA.

There’s a minor genre these days of 20-something authors writing to their peers and trying to illustrate truths through autobiography. The most prominent examples from within the Christian framework are Lauren F. Winner and Donald Miller (Blue Like Jazz). 26-year-old Christian George joins the fray with his third(!) book, Sex, Sushi, and Salvation.

The subtitle of the book is “thoughts on intimacy, community, and eternity.” George’s thesis is that all humankind has an innate desire for those three things, and that ultimately those desires can only be fulfilled perfectly by God Himself. It’s not a thesis that George rides hard though, trying to shoehorn every idea into one of those three points. In fact, Sex, Sushi, and Salvation meanders gently between personal anecdotes and larger theological arguments–lingering more on the later–and it’s these theological sections that set the book apart from others in the genre. Christian George is the son of respected evangelical scholar Timothy George and a rising PhD candidate in theology himself, and in his book he demonstrates a strong knowledge of the Bible and a grounding in Christian thought (C.S. Lewis, Thomas Merton, Saint Francis of Assisi, Charles Wesley, and various Reformed heroes make appearances). This keeps him anchored on firmer theological ground than say, Donald Miller (though I’m a fan of Miller as well). George uses his knowledge to greatest effect when he’s prophetically pushing the church to spit out “cotton-candy” theology that doesn’t challenge anybody and makes promises more in line with the American dream than with anything put forth by Christ. “There’s more to life than computerized slippers and sexy ring tones,” he says, as he challenges his readers to look for a more honest, authentic, and potentially dangerous, faith.

This being an autobiography, the book also has a few memorable anecdotes as well. My personal favorite was when young Christian and a high school buddy were kicked out of a Pentecostal prosperity gospel church for refusing to speak in tongues on demand (”you must have unconfessed sin in your lives!” they were told). George uses this as the jumping off point for his dissection of the American dream church. There’s also a sad (and a little creepy) story of a pet hamster “Fluffy” that starts the discussion of human depravity and suffering. Frequently, George will use memories of international travels with his scholar-missionary father to link to related biblical events.

Christian George’s prose is smooth and refined, though occasionally over-written. I think if you’re within this book’s demographic–that is, the author’s generation–it’s a decent addition to a library.

An enterprising blogger has come up with what he thinks is a better singles map than Richard Florida’s map, which I posted last week. The difference here is that this one focuses on the ratio of women-to-men in urban areas, where Florida’s focused on the gross numbers of men and women, possibly overstating the surplus of women in most metro areas.

Still, many metro areas do so a slight surplus of women. Why is that? Well, more women than men are earning college degrees these days, so it might have to do with the availability of well-paying jobs requiring college degrees in urban areas. You’re more likely (but not much more) to be able to get by in rural areas with just a high school diploma.

As Neil Postman and Zach Wendling have noted, politics on television is the height of triviality. Rarely is anything noteworthy said and rarely is anything of substance discussed. Last night’s Democratic debate was no exception. Thanks to my wretched cable company, which doesn’t carry the Versus Network in its basic package, I was shut out once again from NHL playoffs, so I watched Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama go at it from the Constitution Center in Philadelphia.

Those who missed it didn’t miss much. The first hour was dedicated to rehashing the delightful talk radio “issues” of the last four months–Bittergate, Rev. Wright, Bosnian snipers, and flag pins. Later in the debate, we were subject to debates about Obama’s friendship with William Ayers of the Weather Underground (this issue will not hurt Obama because, as Obama pointed out, President Bill Clinton pardoned those jokers), Clinton’s strong defense of cops and fireman making over $100k a year, Charles Gibson’s attempted use of the Laffer Curve to question Obama on capital gains taxes, and Clinton’s slow morph into a Giuliani Republican (New York! 9/11!).

To make it easier on all of us, for all future made-for-television political events I’m going to institute a “10-Word Review” feature. Any political event on television, be they rallies, debates, or State of the Union addresses, can be described in precisely 10 words. As such:

ABC uses questions submitted by talk radio; bitter Dems fume.

The 2008-09 NFL schedule came out today. The word for this is YIKES!

UPDATE: First impressions prove to be correct. Most difficult schedule in the league, according to ESPN.

Pittsburgh Steelers chairman Dan Rooney has endorsed Barack Obama in next week’s Democratic primary. Here’s a letter from Rooney published earlier today in the Pittsburgh area newspapers. Let’s see if he can help swing the state towards Obama and away from Hillary Clinton, who maintains her small lead.

This clip comes from the “Idol Gives Back” episode of American Idol, broadcast earlier this week. It’s the remaining Idol contestants singing “Shout to the Lord” to close the show.

What’s wrong with this clip? Well, as anyone who’s gone to an evangelical church once in the past 15 years can tell you, someone excised the name Jesus from the first lines of both verses. It’s an odd change, obviously not just done for time. Did an Idol contestant object? Was Fox concerned about broadcasting an overtly Christian song? It’s still an obviously religious song — even in its denuded state, no one is going to confuse this with one of those “Jesus is my boyfriend” praise songs that curse the church these days. For all the garbage Fox does broadcast, I find it hard to believe that the network got squeamish about the evangelical musical standard of the 1990s because “Jesus” appears twice.

Stylistically, it’s a good tribute to the original. I personally prefer it a bit faster though. This song can drag when you’re performing it.

Richard Florida, chronicler of the “creative class” and author of the new book Who’s Your City?, posted an interesting map and article on his web site the other day. Florida’s map tracks the disparity between the numbers of single men and single women between the ages of 20-64 in various metro areas around the country. Red circles indicate a surplus of single women while blue circles indicate a surplus of single men. Florida writes,

By far, the best places for single men are the large cities and metro areas of the East Coast and Midwest. The extreme is greater New York, where single women outnumber single men by more than 210,000. In the Philadelphia area and greater Washington, D.C., single women outnumber single men by 50,000. . . One reason young women in the prime marriage years - the 25-44 age range - flock to big cities is to compete for the most eligible men. And smart women who gravitate to vibrant cities are more likely to stay single - for longer, at least - because they rightly refuse to settle for someone who can’t keep up with them intellectually or otherwise.

But women do have an advantage in the American West and Southwest. In greater Los Angeles, for example, there are 90,000 more single men than women. In Phoenix and the San Francisco Bay Area, single men outnumber single women by roughly 65,000. There are considerably more single men than women in San Diego, Dallas, and Seattle, too. Each of these regions has grown substantially over the past two or three decades, offering jobs in everything from high tech to construction and services. As numerous studies of migration show, men - especially those in regions with declining economies - are initially more likely to move long distances for economic opportunity, while women are more likely to stay closer to home and family.

People have no problem with moving across the country to get a good job. But considering how the choice of one’s mate is at least as important as the choice of one’s profession, should young singles be willing to relocate for love as well? To the bachelor willing to make the journey, there’s only one answer — Go east young man, go east!