The website of John C. Snider
Remember when presidential candidate John McCain was confronted at a townhall by a half-addled little old lady who (mistakenly) lamented that McCain’s opponent, Barack Obama, was “a Muslim”? He immediately, firmly, but kindly, corrected her, emphasizing that Obama was a good man with whom he simply disagreed. Weeks later, McCain was visibly shaken by the …
About a year ago I noticed this new, two-sided historical marker had been installed in Roswell, Georgia’s Riverside Park. It’s part of a larger program by the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) to install such markers around the country. This particular sign is a sobering reminder of the lynching of Mack Henry Brown in 1936. Not …
Francis Fukuyama was an optimist. In his 1992 book The End of History and the Last Man, he put forth the proposition (if you’ll forgive my oversimplification) that, with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc, Western liberal democracy had finally gained a permanent foothold and there would, ultimately, be no returning to …
Today is the NATIONAL DAY OF PRAYER. Let us pray that American Christians come to realize that: * The NDP is a propaganda and publicity stunt organized by politicians and activists to manipulate the faithful into equating (conservative)(Protestant)(Christian) religion with patriotism, and to send a signal that non-religious Americans are second-class citizens. It is, to …
I’m often taken aback at how readily my fellow citizens resort to sadism when discussing our justice system, fantasizing about how miserable a future prisoner will be, expressing no compassion over botched lethal injections, even excitedly daydreaming about the prospect of male-on-male prison rape. We should be striving for a system where punishment is rarely …
Ben Carson recently blathered on about how he “would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would not agree with that.” It’s true that while the Constitution prohibits religious tests for office, it certainly doesn’t prohibit voters from using best-judgment in selecting whom to vote for. Nonetheless, the …
[Originally posted on October 26, 2007 at AmericanFreethought.com.] The Bible is pretty straightforward in its message when it comes to homosexuality: it’s a sin, and those who insist on practicing it are going to Hell. It’s simple. Or is it? The growing movement to reconcile gay rights with Christianity is the subject of a fascinating …
[This review originally appeared at SciFiDimensions.com in June 2004, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary edition published by Beacon Press. You can also read my interview with Ms. Butler here.] Life is good for Dana, a young black woman living in California. She and her husband have just moved into a new home, and …
[This interview originally appeared at SciFiDimensions.com in June 2004. Ms. Butler died in 2006. This interview was included in the 2009 book Conversations with Octavia Butler, edited by Consuela Francis, published by University of Mississippi Press. You can read my short review of Kindred here.] Octavia E. Butler has been an inspiration to a new generation of writers …