I tried yesterday (really I did) to break the silence in this space, but my workstation crashed rather ungracefully while I was writing a post. So well.

There have been several things I’ve been pondering this week, and I don’t have long entries for any of them. But I’ll mention a couple:

1. Gideon Strauss has a post about evangelicals and politics. One of the more interesting links in Gideon’s post is to an article by William Stuntz (“Faculty Clubs and Church Pews”). Stuntz hits upon a kernel of truth here:

I don’t think my liberal Democratic professor friends like this state of affairs. And — here’s a news flash — neither do most evangelicals, who regard helping the poor as both a passion and a spiritual obligation, not just a political preference. (This may be even more true of theologically conservative Catholics.) These men and women vote Republican not because they like the party’s policy toward poverty — cut taxes and hope for the best — but because poverty isn’t on the table anymore. In evangelical churches, elections are mostly about abortion. Neither party seems much concerned with giving a hand to those who most need it.

2. Matt Chester also talks about finding common ground between the political aisles. He also includes the following quote from Charles Bowdon:

“We are an exceptional model of the human race. We no longer know how to produce food. We no longer can heal ourselves. We no longer raise our young. We have forgotten the names of the stars, fail to notice the phases of the moon. We do not know the plants and they no longer protect us. We tell ourselves we are the most powerful specimens of our kind who have ever lived. But when the lights are off we are helpless. We cannot move without traffic signals. We must attend classes in order to learn by rote numbered steps toward love or how to breast-feed our baby. We justify anything, anything at all by the need to maintain our way of life. And then we go to the doctor and tell the professionals we have no life. We have a simple test for making decisions: our way of life, which we cleverly call our standard of living, must not change except to grow yet more grand. We have a simple reality we live with each and every day: our way of life is killing us.”

I don’t know much of anything about Bowden, and it has a bit of a Tyler Durden-esque tone to it, but it’s also an accurate description of our society.

Also, a bit of rally news. Subaru has signed Stephane Sarrazin to share the second works Impreza with Mikko Hirvonen. The factory rosters are now set for season:

Subaru
Petter Solberg
Mikko Hirvonen/Stephane Sarrazin

Peugeot
Marcus Gronholm
Markko Martin

Citroen
Sebastien Loeb
Francois Duval

Ford
Toni Gardemeister
Roman Kresta

Skoda
Armin Schwarz
Janne Tuohino/Jani Paasonen/Alex Bengue

Mitsubishi
Harri Rovanpera
Gilles Panizzi/Gigi Galli

Posted on 10 December 2004