Just as my wife and I have just moved into a new home, so has the Cranach blog. As I said would happen, WORLD's sub-blogs are being kicked out of the nest, which is a good thing. I have my own domain, even, which will make possible my doing other things on the web. Cranach's new address is www.geneveith.com. Please bookmark this new site and visit often. This site will still be up for awhile, as the discussions keep going on. It will also take me awhile to move the archives and the blogroll. But do move with us as Cranach goes into its new phase.

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The Colorado Rockies are getting criticized for crediting their astonishing ascension to the World Series to God's blessing. To the point that the major league website has censored out the God-talk from an interview with Oklahoma-slugger Matt Holliday. But the Rockies go beyond making the sign of the cross when they go up to bat. As a policy, they have instituted what they term "character" practices: General Manager Dan O'Dowd, in an interview with USA Today before the streak, said: "You look at some of the moves we made and didn't make. You look at some of the games we're winning. Thos... [read more]

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Have you read any of the stories on Erik Prince, C.E.O. of the Blackwater security company, recently in the news for nefarious deeds in Iraq? One motif of those stories is to associate Mr. Prince with the conservative evangelicals, which have become the boogie-men that secularists like to scare themselves with. The picture of Mr. Prince is of a "theo-con" with a private army, out to take over the world. But, as Mollie Hemingway points out, Mr. Prince is a Roman Catholic! The mainstream media doesn't even understand the difference!

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James Watson won the Nobel Prize in 1953 for discovering the structure of DNA, a feat he popularized in his book "The Double Helix." Lately, he has been spouting off about how black people are genetically inferior. Michael Gerson gives more details and raises the spector that looms behind such comments, the new biology's penchant for eugenics. Gerson goes on to show that science alone can recognize NO BASIS for equality, human rights, or protecting the weak. For that you need to believe in something "transcendent" : In 2003, Watson spoke in favor of genetic selection to eliminate ugly... [read more]

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My favorite sentence in a sports commentary this year is by Dave Sheinin, on the Colorado Rockie's last 22 games: Win, win, win, win, win, win, win, win, win, win, win, loss. Win, win, win, win, win, win, win, win, win, win. Make your World Series predictions here.

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Now a million people have been evacuated due to the wildfires in California, the biggest mass evacuation in California history.

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As I blogged about earlier, leaders of the Christian right met in Washington to try to decide what presidential candidate to rally around. The results of the straw poll, with 5,776 votes cast: First place: Mitt Romney (1,595) Second place: Mike Huckabee (1,565) Rudy Giuliani only won 107 votes, but that was more than John McCain's dead-last showing at 26.

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Still-Communist China is buying a big stake in the major investment bank Bear Stearns. This to go with earlier purchases of the private equity firm the Blackstone Group and the British establishment bank Barclay's. This is a brilliant tactic that Marx and Lenin never dreamt of! Become the proletariat of the whole world and make so much money that you can just buy the Capitalists! (Whenever I bring this sort of thing up, some of you maintain that China isn't really Communist any more, that what we are seeing is the victory of capitalism. I'm telling you that China is indeed Communist an... [read more]

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Southern California is on fire. A quarter of a million people have been evacuated, the most since Hurricane Katrina. Wildfires are ravaging San Diego, Orange County, Malibu, and many other beautiful places, including Pepperdine University. Hundreds of homes, churches, and other buildings have been destroyed, and one person so far has been killed. We've got lots of blog readers in those areas. Someone who has been evacuated into some big basement or whose home has been burned down is unlikely to have internet access, so I don't expect first-hand reporting, but I'd like to hear from you ... [read more]

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The North Carolina conference this year was about the Office of the Ministry. I had been asked to approach the topic as a layperson and to suggest what we lay people need from our pastors. I was rather uncomfortable with that assignment, not wanting to be a pastor critic as I've been a movie critic, but I came up with some things to say. I can't believe I didn't ask this sooner so that I could have used it as research for my presentation, but I'd like to know (especially since the seminary profs there said that I need to convey my message to their students so I might talk about this some... [read more]

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