Fouad Ahmad Alfarhan is a Saudi Arabian business manager, educated in the United States, who has run afoul of the government of his country for producing a blog in which he has called for things like freedom of speech and due process in the Saudi justice system. He’s been jailed since December 10 and so far, no word from Saudi authorities regarding the charges, if any, against him. To learn more about Fouad Ahmad Alfarhan, go here, here, and here. At the latter site, you’re invited to...

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman began his piece yesterday by pointing out that on both Wednesday and Thursday, the price of oil briefly hit $100 a barrel. The implications of that, beyond the effect that having that price stick might have? Krugman says, that among other things, as this 2008 presidential campaign is unfolding, “we’re having the wrong discussion about foreign policy.” As he puts it: Almost all the foreign policy talk in this presidential campaign has been motivated,...

After Iowa, a few fearless predictions… #1: Hillary Clinton will not be the Democratic nominee for president. Democrats in Iowa chose among candidates they all more or less liked and whose views on the major issues aren’t all that different. Their judgment in favor of Barack Obama was, in part, a judgment that Senator Clinton, dogged by “high negatives,” at least 45% of the electorate saying they will never vote for her, cannot be elected even in an election that is the Democrats...

Here, I indicated on December 23, that I thought Mike Huckabee and Barack Obama would win the Iowa caucuses in their respective parties tonight. I also spoke of the parallel universes that are the Democratic and Republican presidential nomination races this year. But are there commonalities between the two parties’ races? I think so and it’s their common themes. In selecting Huckabee and Obama this evening, members of both parties were choosing change. This, of course, is probably more...

I don’t know what Emmanuel Mwambulukutu’s religion is, but the Tanzanian government’s representative in South Africa is a profile in courage, grace under fire. An update on his condition is here.

What role should religion play in politics? That question has suggested itself for many reasons during the already too-long 2008 presidential campaign. It’s a question of particular interest to me because I’m a lifetime political junkie, a student of history, and a Lutheran pastor. There are, it seems to me, three main reasons we’re asking the question in a major way this year. The first is the candidacy of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, a Mormon. Personally, while I have the same...

The results of the Iowa caucuses, coming on January 3, will likely tell different stories in the presidential nominating races of the Republican and Democratic parties. That shouldn’t be surprising. For months now, the campaigns for the two parties’ nominations have unfolded like tales from parallel universes. The datelines and the timelines are the same, but the plotlines are altogether different. Democratic voters are generally happy with their field of presidential contenders. The...

With Illinois Senator Barack Obama in a virtual tie with her in Iowa polls before that state’s presidential caucus, Senator Hillary Clinton and her husband are claiming that Obama is dangerously lacking in experience which the New York senator apparently possesses. The New York Times reports that former President Bill Clinton says that electing Obama would be “rolling the dice” for the United States. This is a curious argument for Clinton and her campaign to make. The reason it’s...

Cynical sports intelligentsia, many bloggers, and run-of-the-mill sports fans will insist that the appropriate response to former Senator (and Judge) George Mitchell’s report on steroid use among major leaguers is a yawn. “I don’t care if he used steroids or not,” I heard one Fox radio sports host say last week of a major leaguer whose name has often been associated with use of the drug. Well I do care. And not because I’m a moral vigilante. If the use of steroids didn’t...

On November 22, here on TMV, I riffed off of an insightful column by David Broder, saying that as US voters prepare to pick a new President in 2008, they, above all, are looking for grown-ups, explaining the recent surges of Senator Barack Obama among the Democrats and former Governor Mike Huckabee among Republicans. Near the end of the piece, I wrote: Obama and Huckabee, in contrast, although obviously both committed to some core principles, also seem willing to look beyond the political cliches...

I like Ike. A version of what became Dwight Eisenhower’s 1952 campaign slogan existed in the late-1940s. In an Irving Berlin Broadway musical of that period, after Eisenhower had become a national hero for his work as Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe during World War II, an ensemble sang a satirical overview of prospective 1948 presidential candidates, finding each deficient but one. “We like Ike,” they sang. Born ten months after Eisenhower was first inaugurated as...

Get involved with the Boys and Girls Clubs in your community. Having recently served on the board of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Clermont County for four years, I can vouch that the clubs do change young people’s lives for the better. And that’s good for our communities…ultimately for our country. From the ‘Better Living’ archives, here are posts I’ve written on the Boys and Girls Clubs: here, here, here, and here.

“The line-item veto is unconstitutional determined not by John McCain, but by the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court found that the line-item veto is unconstitutional. If I hadn’t challenged that, I would not have been carrying out my fiduciary duties for the people of New York City. That was money that was illegally deprived to the people of my city. I fought for them.” So said former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani in Wednesday night’s Republican presidential debate....

[This piece was cross-posted at my personal blog.] This past week, the community to which my family and I recently moved, buried one of its most beloved citizens. Leland Conner was killed after a thirteen year old boy stole a vehicle from a rental agency and proceeded to cause a five-car crash that involved Mr. Conner’s car. Conner’s death is one of those freakish tragedies that sometimes happen in this world, ample reason for the community’s grief. Although seventy-seven years...

I wrote here about a blood and bone marrow transplant screening drive held in the facilities of the congregation I now serve as pastor, Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio. Members of Saint Matthew spearheaded the event. Its members and neighbors here in Logan, touched by the illness of a young woman from Saint Matthew, responded with an impressive love of neighbor. One thing I neglected to mention in that original post is that two community groups had a major hand in the event: the county...

[This is a rerun of a post I wrote for my personal blog a few weeks ago.] Not long ago, I listened to some of Talk of the Nation’s interview with Chris Matthews. Matthews told two interesting and evocative stories from his days as an aide to Democratic Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill. Both involved O’Neill and Republican President Ronald Reagan, two men with markedly different political philosophies and differing visions for the country. The first of Matthews’ stories took...

Several years ago, Slate magazine linked to a post from my blog and described me as “liberal Mark Daniels.” At about the same time, a blogger linked to something I’d written and called me “very conservative.” It’s an experience that I’ve had many times through the years. If that isn’t confusing enough, add this simple fact: I rarely express a political opinion. I talk about politics, to be sure. I’ve written extensively on my blog and elsewbere...