Hello, world. I’m MacDara Conroy, and this is my blog.


The Antichrist of North Carolina?

She may not be the Antichrist of North Carolina, but there seems little doubt to me that Barbara Ehenreich loves to bait those right-wing Christians (c/o (woolgathering)):
>I was getting into my new role as North Carolina’s premier amateur philosopher and religious studies scholar, and hoping for some in-depth discussion of my own “anti-Christian bigotry,” as one of the state legislators put it, no doubt referring to my description, in “Nickel and Dimed” of Jesus as a “wine-guzzling vagrant and precocious socialist.” On the “vagrant” part, there can be no debate, and, although “guzzling” may be a bit overstated, Jesus was sufficiently associated with wine (“I am the true vine,” etc.) to be confused with the Greek wine god Dionysius in the Hellenistic world – a subject I have yearned to expound on for years.
Ms. Ehenreich sure has a nice broadsheet elaboration to qualify her distinctly tabloid language, doesn’t she? She knew exactly what kind of reaction such an inflammatory statement as “wine-guzzling vagrant” would have; if she didn’t, she wouldn’t have chosen those particular words now, would she?
This is nothing more than controversy for controversy’s sake — it only serves to undermine whatever arguments she has to make, however valid. And this critique is coming from someone who isn’t even offended, just disheartened.
Playing semantic games with the religious right might be fun, but on this scale, it’s not very smart. Ehenreich should know better.