This is a great editorial by Bruce Feiler, author of two of my favorite books of the last few years:  Walking the Bible: A Journey by Land Through the Five Books of Moses and Abraham:  A Journey to the Heart of Three Faiths.  I participated in several religion classes of this type in college.  As part of my elective requirement I could take one of three religion courses:  Old Testament, New Testament, or Religions of the World.  I loved them so much I took all three.  The Old and New Testament classes were taught from an historical perspective by, of all people, a former Southern Baptist Minister.  He was great.  At no time did he teach faith, and he had no problem teaching the class in this manner.  In fact, he actually took the time to talk about the similarities between folk tales that predate the bible and the Biblical stories we all know and love.  I really enjoyed his New Testament course in part because of the varied discussions we had on the authorship of the Gospels and whether or not they were written decades after the death of Jesus.  I got more out these classes than I ever did in a decade’s worth of Sunday School.  If we could offer something like this in America’s high schools without turning it into a political football I think it would be great.  The problem is, as Feiler points out, the hard right would hate anything that did teach the inerrant word of God, while the hard left would bitch and moan about any sort of religion in school.  Of course, as long as it was an elective there’s little either could do about it — except their usual lawsuits, of course.

This just isn’t turning out to be a good year for President Bush and friends.  I can’t say I’m unhappy about this.  Even among conservative scientists the consensus is that the amount of oil we might be able to get from ANWR will be a drop in the bucket of our needs.  If we truly wanted to create energy independence, we’d be looking at ways to reduce our need on oil, not maintain the status quo.  What I don’t understand is why this is such a big thing for Republicans.  Why is it they act as if the country will fall down around us if we don’t rip up ANWR?

It took some guts for Judge James Robertson to resign from the court that oversees government surveillance.  Of course, he was appointed by Bill Clinton, so Conservatives will drag out the activist judge bullshit and dismiss the whole thing, while at the same time providing excuses for why an elected leader has the power to secretly spy on American citizens.