All posts tagged: good company

Jesus of the Small Screen

Jesus of the Small Screen

Published by skeptic

THE THIRD SEASON of The Chosen, a television series about the life and ministry of Jesus, includes a moving scene between Jesus, played by Jonathan Roumie, and his disciple James, the son of Alphaeus, known as “Little James.” Jordan Walker Ross, who plays James, has severe scoliosis, minor cerebral palsy, and a noticeable limp. His character, nervous, vulnerable, and troubled in spirit, requests a moment with Jesus. Why would Jesus send out his disciples to heal the sick and lame, he asks, and not heal him? Jesus, speaking with tenderness, explains to James that he could heal him, and if he did, James would have a good story to tell, as many others who had been healed by Jesus did. “But think of the story that you have, especially in this journey to come, if I don’t heal you. To know how to proclaim that you still praise God in spite of this. To know how to focus on all that matters so much more than the body. To show people that you can be …

The Question the Supreme Court Shouldn’t Answer

The Question the Supreme Court Shouldn’t Answer

Published by skeptic

An upcoming Supreme Court case could wreak havoc on American tax law. But there’s an easy, overlooked way to avoid that outcome. Matteo Giuseppe Pani; Source: Getty December 4, 2023, 7 AM ET The Supreme Court rarely hears tax cases, and tax cases rarely threaten to affect the public at large. Moore v. United States, to be argued tomorrow, is that rare exception. The case raises an issue at once beguilingly simple and oddly difficult: What does income mean? This is a question with ramifications for virtually every area of American taxation; depending on how the Court answers it, Moore could produce a chaotic ruling that casts constitutional doubt on huge swathes of the tax system. But it’s also a question that the Court doesn’t need to answer, and one that it shouldn’t. The issue teed up in Moore may be so intellectually stimulating that nobody seems to have noticed that the case has been fundamentally misframed. The story of Moore starts in 2017, when President Donald Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. …

I Removed the Internet From My House

I Removed the Internet From My House

Published by skeptic

Before our first child was born last year, my wife and I often deliberated about the kind of parents we wanted to be—and the kind we didn’t. We watched families at restaurants sitting in silence, glued to their phones, barely taking their eyes off the screens between bites. We saw children paw at their parents, desperate to interact, only to be handed an iPad to keep quiet. We didn’t want to live like that. We vowed to be present with one another, at home and in public. We wanted our child to watch us paying attention to each other and to him. The reality, after our son was born, was quite different. In those sleep-deprived early days, I found myself resorting to my phone as a refuge from the chaos. I fell into some embarrassing middle-aged-dad stereotypes. I developed a bizarre interest in forums about personal finance and vintage hats. I spent up to four hours a day looking at my phone while right in front of me was this new, beautiful life, a baby …

Trump’s Loyalty Only Goes One Way

Trump’s Loyalty Only Goes One Way

Published by skeptic

The symmetry is striking: two lawyers, two different eras of Donald Trump’s career, and two courtrooms in different regions of the country. The lessons from Jenna Ellis and Michael Cohen, however, are the same. Loyalty to Trump is seldom returned, with disastrous results for those who offer it. In an Atlanta courtroom today, Jenna Ellis, a former attorney for Trump, pleaded guilty to a single felony count of aiding and abetting false statements. She agreed to five years’ probation and will pay restitution and testify in future cases. Ellis is the third lawyer—following Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro—to plead guilty in the past week as part of the wide-reaching racketeering case over attempts to subvert the 2020 presidential election. But she is the first to make a statement in court as she entered her plea, and what she said was revealing. “As an attorney who is also a Christian, I take my responsibilities as a lawyer very seriously and I endeavor to be a person of sound moral and ethical character in all of my …