Don’t have much in way of posts – though I do have some vignettes in my head* and some photos I’m working on.** For now, though, let me share some links I’ve come across over the past few months.

Photography

Art Wolfe is, well, just made of awesome. I didn’t realize until recently he had a website.

This may be Trey’s best HDR – and he has a lot of them. Typically I find his HDR a hodge-podge of good and bad, but there are some stellar gems thrown in there. This is one of the best pictures I’ve ever seen, and it reminds me why I subscribe to his blog.

In case you don’t check the Big Picture religiously (as I do), here are some of my recent favorites from the past few months: The End of the Christmas Season, Tibet’s Great Prayer Festival, Scenes from Pakistan, Portraits from the Congo, Holi, and Holy Week. That’s a lot, but they’re all worth it, even on the second go-around.

Gay Rights, Etc

Sullivan responds to the National Review’s response to Iowa and Vermont. (And again to Rod Dreher.)

The exceptional thinking behind stereotypes.

This Youtube video debunking some of the common claims of gay marriage infringing on religious freedom. (Also check his video here about the difference between so-called Christian ‘bashing’ and gay bashings.)

The Box Turtle has had some quality articles the past couple months (though it’s still too many a day to put in my feed reader). I’d especially urge you to check out his coverage of the insanity recently going on in Uganda, and this brief post about Iraq.

Politics and Political Theory

Scott Sumner on economic theory and liberalism.

Wilkinson on ‘liberaltarianism’.

Glenn Greenwald on torture under Obama. (And on his overreaching, Bushian executive powers, again and again and again.)

Jason Kuznicki on nature and human nature.

Classical libertarian gripe about big government. (So delicious and painfully true).

Colbert does Glenn Beck.

On that final note, the disintegration of the GOP has been very interesting to me. It decided to align itself tightly with a particular strain of political American Christianity, and has been eaten alive by it, marginalized into that political religion’s insular corner of the world. And that religion has accommodated itself to some odd political claims. It’s a toxic mix. I’m not sure how this will all work out. Unlike many of my co-northwesterners, I’m not convinced human ‘progress’ is a given, but something that is deeply cultural and extremely fragile, which must be fought for and won. The Democratic party is now in power through no virtue of its own but because the Republican party is a disheveled mess, and I worry about an unchecked political party; what is best for the liberties of individuals is a limited, checked political power achieved through the marketplace of competing ideas. Because of the GOP massacre and subsequent flailings (Palin, Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and all the insanity that is currently driving the right), that marketplace in the US is dead right now. How will the current marginalization of the Republican party affect the drive toward greater human liberties and conversation of how to pursue them in this country? How long will this phase on the right last? How will conservative political American religion react to the aftermath of the Bush years? Fascinating stuff. But I’ll tell my inner classical liberal to shut up now.

Fin.

*Don’t expect anything soon.

**Ditto.