Obiter dicta

Karen Armstrong, whose book The Spiral Staircase I highly recommend, has an excellent piece in The Guardian about taking scripture literally. One of her more interesting notions is part of the problem with taking written scripture literally stems from the fact that most major sacred texts were initially transmitted orally. (Via Blog of a Bookslut).

I’ve added SD War College to the blogroll. A generally fair and analytical look at things from the GOP perspective, PP’s unique aggregation of other SD blogs drives enough traffic here that I thought turnabout is fair play.

On the flip side of things, it appears Maureen Dowd, one of my favorite columnists, has returned from her book leave of absence.

Common Content is a web site that catalogs Creative Commons-licensed content, including images, movies and prose. (Via Neat New Stuff on the Web). Creative Commons has its own search page and some directories.

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.

Philip K. Dick, I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon