AddieStan

As she reads this morning of Israel's ground invasion of Lebanon, your blogstress finds her heart sinking ever deeper as the Middle East War intensifies. One can't help but feel this thing deeply as the names of ancient cities on both sides of the border appear on the role call of towns bombed and attacked by missiles. Yesterday, your écrivaine flinched as the town of Tyre appeared on the list; this is the place from whence Hiram, the architect and builder of Solomon's temple hailed. Last night, as she watched the BBC News, your cyberscribe meditated on the graphic that accompanied the report: the flags of Israel and Lebanon, shown side by side. The former, of course, is adorned with the ancient symbol of the Jewish faith, the Star of David. At the center of the latter is a great cedar tree -- the wood used to frame the temple. I do not argue that Israel has no right to defend itself; of course it does. But accusations of collective punishment do tend to ring true when...

From a reader and believer in Southern California, your blogstress received this missive regarding her essay at The American Prospect Online , "A Canterbury Tale." I have a slight disagreement with your excellent article in TAP about the religious left. You wrote this: "In seeking to create a counterpart to the religious right, we tried to force our values through a narrow hole. In essence, we bought into the religious authoritarianism of the right, inferring that moral authority proceeds only from religion. In this, we have sold ourselves short." I don't see it that way. The religious left isn't making the argument you suggest, not even implicitly. We are trying to do two things: 1. Convince religious people that leftist politics is a valid option for religious people. When the right has a monopoly on religion, religious people who otherwise might be sympathetic are given the false choice of being liberal or being against God. That may not seem important ...