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[ by Charles Cameron — a little semi-private laughing at myself via Madam Secretary ]
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I’ve been having some private chuckles watching season 1 of Madam Secretary, and I’m betting Dr Henry McCord, the religion professor / NSA guy, doesn’t have to beg his friends for copies of their journal papers the way I do, lol.

Here are some screengrabs:

I’m afraid you may sometimes feel much the same when I forcefeed my own equivalent on you all.

And then there’s this:

He’s good on Aquinas and reads Arabic to boot. That’s impressive.

But it’s true you know, religion professors don’t necessarily know apocalyptic, and apocalyptic specialists don’t necessarily know the full range of apocalyptic expressions across continents and centuries. At which point, may I recommend:

Richard Landes, Heaven on Earth: the Varieties of the Millennial Experience

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I was impressed that the show, in covering a “cult” situation in season 1 episode 18, showed knowledge not only for Jonestown and Waco, but more specifically of scholars of religion Phillip Arnold and James Tabor‘s contact with David Koresh, which had the potential to resolve the Waco situation in ways the FBI’s dismissal of theology as “Bible-babble” sadly ruled out:

Henry McCord: You know, in Waco, Koresh was at an absolute standoff with the FBI until a couple of religious scholars got him talking about his beliefs, the Bible, and then that’s when he was ready to come out peacefully.

Elizabeth McCord: So scholars almost saved the day at Waco, huh?

Henry McCord: Okay. There’s no way of telling how that might have turned out.

Spot on.

And while we’re on this topic, may I recommend:

Nancy T. Ammerman, Waco, Federal Law Enforcement, and Scholars of Religion

James Tabor & Eugene Gallagher, Why Waco?

Jayne Docherty, Learning Lessons from Waco: When Parties Bring Their Gods to the Negotiation Table

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Okay, I can’t walk in Dr McCord’s shoes, but I’d happily follow his footsteps a little farther — once Season 2 arrives on Netflix.

Envoi:

For a little unintended current political input:

[ by Charles Cameron — two phrases, two anthropologies, two ways of virtue — Lincoln & Trump ]
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Jeff Sharlet is one of our finer writers about religion, and his piece on Donald Trump in Saturday’s NYT Magazine is worth your attention.

Here, I simply want to contrast Lincoln‘s “better angels of our nature” with Sharlet‘s “lust, the envy, the anger of our more honest selves” — idealism and realism? sanctity and authenticity? — as phrases representing two approaches to human nature, each clearly enunciating a virtue in its own context.

Sources:

Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address

Jeff Sharlet, Donald Trump, American Preacher

[ by Charles Cameron — the self-examining word ]
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Hasler‘s Getting the response to terrorism completely wrong — which goes after Trump and Cruz by name — was published tomorrow — it’s 11.58pm Sunday here in California.

Yeats‘ poem remembers the Easter of 1916, a hundred years ago today.

[ by Charles Cameron — under the impression a bird requires bipartisan wings to achieve flight ]
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If you’re looking for signs and wonders to guide your vote this electoral season, it’s worth noting that the same eagle also attacked Bill Clinton — as Master Falconer Jonathan Wood said in that first clip, “he’s an “equal opportunity biter”.

[ by Charles Cameron — various angles on graphical thinking in two Republican presidential campaigns ]
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To start with, here is presidential candidate Donald Trump tweeting a humorous, tasteless and wildly unfair DoubleQuote in the Wild against his rival for the Republican nomination, Ted Cruz — evidence for the pervasiveness and persuasiveness of this mode of thinking & linking, if any such were needed:

"@Don_Vito_08: "A picture is worth a thousand words" @realDonaldTrump #LyingTed #NeverCruz @MELANIATRUMP pic.twitter.com/5bvVEwMVF8"

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 24, 2016

The tweet comes from Trump’s verified Twitter account, and might as well feature the words, “I’m Donald Trump, and I approve this message”. Ugly, and thus sad.

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Once you get me started DoubleQuoting Trump and Cruz, though, it’ll be hard to rein me in.

The Trump logo below was, I believe created for a graphic design contest unaffiliated with the Trump Campaign, but has since been tweeted at least once by the verified “Real Donald Trump” account, while the cruz logo is undoubtedoy official.

Both, you’ll note, feature the American flag and a lone star, though Trump is triumphantly New Yorkan, while Cruz is junior senator for the Lone Star State.

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While some have compared the Cruz logo with such secular analogs as the Al Jazeera logo and the Onion‘s onion, the Washington Post comes closer to the point, trumping them with a variety of pentacostal-themed logos —

— a matter of some significance given Ted Cruz’s anointing to a kingship role within his father’s “Seven Mountains” pentecostal faith tradition.

And Donald Trump? Here the hair is significant, and Trump himself seems to have a good-humored attitude, as evidenced by the upper panel below. If this seems superficial, however, the lower panel demonstrates beyond question that Trump follows the Golden Mean —

— though whether the emphasis is placed on “golden” or “mean” would seem to be a matter of personal and political preference.