The Revealer points to Malcolm Gay on gay marriage and the Episcopal rift--and deeper into "queer Christianity."#

, whose arguments he presents with greater cogency than many of them do themselves, but some more surprising provocateurs. Take "Mary," a United Church of Christ minister from a conservative congregation who studies at the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies, but critiques queery theology's concentration on presenting the gospel's eroticism as some kind of new revelation, a gift of the gay community to the straight world. "'Has the entire heterosexual world for all this time been failing to commune with God?'" she asks.

Or Gabriel Hermelin, a transgender seminarian who rejects attempts to find queer antecedents in scripture. "'It doesn't matter to me whether ... there's proof that the eunuch of yesterday is the transsexual, or transgender of today,'" Hermelin says, referring to queer theology's focus on the role of eunuchs -- neither male nor female -- in the Bible. "'I think that we'll find whatever we want to find. Each marginalized group tries to bolster or justify their position using the same thing that's used against them.... There's no merit in it for me. You have to start from scratch.'"

Mike Walsh writes about Jesse Ventura at the Harvard Kennedy School.#

Jesse Ventura was one of seven new IOP "fellows" introduced to the Harvard community at a panel last evening at the Kennedy School. Each fellow was asked to describe what they would be covering in their workshops this Spring term. Jesse said that one of the things he wanted to look at was the war on Terrorism… "but from a different angle." He wanted to show it from the side of a real "on the ground" operative. That's when he made the comment about bringing a "shooter" to KSG.

That little sound byte froze the audience. "Did Ventura just say what I think he said," whispered the gray haired grandmotherly type sitting next to me who up to this point was knitting a baby socks (I think they were baby socks but they could have been condoms).

Tony Pierce was the luckiest man in the world on Tuesday.#

at one point karisa turned to me and said how amazing it was that tsar is so much better than every band thats out there right now and i agreed and we clinked our budweisers and then ordered kamikazees and shot them and then ordered rolling rocks and drank them and i toook tons of pics

and i hugged moxie

Charles Miller writes about Wikis and other types of communities.#

The defining nature of a Wiki is consensus. Every participant in a public wiki has the same power to create or destroy, and the resulting content is the consensus of the group. Where there is no consensus, the content remains self-contradictory. The natural mode of a disagreement on a Wiki is to start off with one page going back and forth in thread-mode, that is later rewritten as two pages stating each side of the disagreement, linked to each other.

The defining nature of a mailing-list is exhaustion. Debates continue well beyond their usefulness. On a chronological mailing-list, as opposed to the frozen-in-time wiki, there is a definitive "last word". Participants in a debate will continue not until all sides of the debate have been expressed, or until a consensus is reached, but until every participant but one has grown tired of the discussion.

Derek Balling has the right idea on gay marriage: The government should get out of the marriage business.#

The folks who are bombarding their elected officials "in defense of marriage" need to take a step back and think about something.

The problem, obviously, comes from the fact that the religious-right didn't "defend" marriage from government encroachment. When marriage became a "legal" state instead of a religious one, the government then has to "play fair" when it comes to anything about the legal entity known as marriage.

So what's the solution, as I see it?

Marriage, as a religious ceremony, gets you no legal privileges.

Tyler Cowen links to Jeff Hancock's report that people lie more over the phone than over email.#

Jeff Hancock of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, asked 30 students to keep a communications diary for a week. In it they noted the number of conversations or email exchanges they had lasting more than 10 minutes, and confessed to how many lies they told.

Hancock then worked out the number of lies per conversation for each medium. He found that lies made up 14 per cent of emails, 21 per cent of instant messages, 27 per cent of face-to-face interactions and a whopping 37 per cent of phone calls.

Halley Suitt writes about falling on swords and saying, "Who cares?"#

I used to have a boyfriend who would blame me for everything. I could do no right by him. My mom told me how to combat this ridiculous guy (and to dump him). If it was a "you left the toothpaste cap off the toothpaste tube" allegation, she suggested going into the bathroom and leaving about 5 or 10 other lids, caps, tops off of any available bottles, tubes, jars, and tell him how right he was to accuse me, that I was guilty as charged and point out that my behavior was far more egregious than he even imagined. Whenever he wanted to play "You're so bad and I'm so righteous," she taught me wisely to play "Oh, yes, you're so right and I'm so much worse than you know." With her good advice, I drove this guy crazy and drove him out of my life.

Moxie is a very smart Republican and puts Republican bashers to shame with her brilliant logic.#

When all is said and done either George Dubya will get a second term or one of those morons will be leading this country. It's in everyone's best interest to have the least moronic Dem running in November.

I support Edwards and here's why:

This isn't a sporting event wherein if you lose -- oh well some other city celebrates. We all suffer if an idiot is elected.

The Real Live Preacher is asked when he reads the Bible and wonders what Jesus said.#

My friend watches me with great interest. "Why do you seek the living among the dead?" he asks with the purest heart in the world.

The question stops me, and I look him right in the eye. This is THE question, of course. It is the only question, the starting place of all questions. Where exactly will you look for your answers? Why follow the yellow brick road unless you hope to see the Wizard?

I do not have an answer for him. I'm not sure what draws me to old books and ancient voices.

AKMA reports that the Franciscans are suing Starbucks.#

ROME (CNS) In an unexpected move, today the Franciscan Order filed suit against the Starbucks chain of coffee houses, enjoining them to refrain from using the name "cappucino" to identify their cream-topped espresso product.

Friar Roberto Pascattio, spokesman for the Order, explained that the Franciscans like a good cup of espresso as much as the next person.

"But 'cappucino' is a description based on a brand that the Franciscans have been cultivating for centuries." Cappucino is so named after its resemblance to the cowled, brown-robed monks of the Capuchin Friars, a branch of the Franciscan Order. The name of the coffee drink derives either from the brown color of the monks' robes, or the pointed crown of steamed milk that resembles the Capuchin hood. "After we've spent centuries building up the name recognition of our spiritual movement for simpler living, these people pirate our name and our trademark pointed hood and the goodwill associated with them, just to identify an over-priced cup of coffee."

The Black Saint editors deconstruct the relationship between Tom Cruise and Penelope Cruz.#

SER: She "refuses to watch her performances on the big screen"? Well, the rest of the moviegoing public agrees with her. Still, I don't think Cruise has dumped her. She's still a more than adequate beard.

Kelso: He probably forces her to wear a real beard... or a Tom Cruise mask. When she makes loves to him while wearing the mask... and a little somethin' extra, she cries out, "Take it Tom! You like it there Tom!" Then he snaps, "Lose the accent! I don't have an accent! Why are you even speaking? Don't make me take a photo of you!"

Richard Tallent writes a little bit about being a Creationist.#

Yes, I'm a Creationist. No, not one of those loons who try to pass off dinosaur footprints with human footprints or come up with wild ideas on how the Grand Canyon was formed in a few months' time. I believe firmly in the laws of physics and from have absolutely no qualms with our current understanding of the Universe's age or formation. I'm no astrophysicist, but I've read my share of Hawking, Davies, science rags, etc. and trust our current, if limited, understanding of the universe much more than any idiots running around trying to sell science-fiction conspiracy theory books to hapless church-goers.

Lisa Rein posts an awesome Daily Show video.#

Kuro5hin.org has great fiction today: In God's Garage (a dialogue with the Creator.)#

I found God in a garage in Milan. He asked me what the trouble with my car was.

"What are you doing here?" I exclaimed. "Everyone's been looking for you."

"I'm just keeping myself busy," he said, lifting the hood.

Richard writes about being "unencumbered by experience" and how to make and use connections.#

Using the phrase "unencumbered by experience" was more an attempt to show that wasn't full of myself and that I have a sense of humour about something that people usually whine about. The guy I talked to told me I should send him my resume, which actually surprised me a little, since that wasn't my goal when I went up to talk to him. I'm all about the weak ties these days, and every bit helps. When I read Betsy Devine's tips for getting hired by an Alpha, I initially thought she was saying "you must be an Alpha in order to get hired by an Alpha". But getting hired by an Alpha means (among other things, surely) not merely making a good first impression but making good first impressions to as many people as possible and then following up on them. The people who are not only smart but have an ability to learn something quickly—who may or may not be unencumbered by experience—seem to be prized over the ones who are experienced in something but can't learn or adapt to a new situation. (I happen think that while there's truth to that, a lot of it is hype, and having experience matters a great deal more that people say it does.)