The Beast Says TMR's The Only Rational Non-Hypocrite

I just checked, and I've done 47 posts on Whole Foods. 

I'm pretty sure every one of them has someone labeling me a whacko, of one kind or another, but I've insisted on standing my ground - and there's a reason why. 

I've been willing to endure the public humiliation, and some pretty tense moments with friends, because - in spite of the grocery chain's popularity - I knew I've been right. I was just waiting for someone else to say it with me, and The Daily Beast now has:

   Whole Foods: America’s Temple of Pseudoscience

Americans get riled up about creationists and climate change deniers, but lap up the quasi-religious snake oil at Whole Foods. It’s all pseudoscience—so why are some kinds of pseudoscience more equal than others?

I'll let you read it for yourself, but I would like to point out three other little things here:

1) The author, Michael Shulson, spends quite a bit of time on the paleo-diet as pseudoscientific.

2) Glenn Reynolds has spent quite a bit of time pushing the pseudoscientific paleo-diet.

3) I warned you, back in 2011, that Glenn Reynolds can't spot quackery.

And, as I keep winning these come-from-behind victories based on surveying nothing but the ethical landscape, I submit to you:

Instapundit's political instincts are severely over-rated as well,…

 

Blacks Ended Slavery - Not Whites (End Of Story)

The truth is, whites HELPED to end slavery, just as they HELPED in the Civil Rights Movement, but the idea that anyone wanted freedom for blacks more, or suffered more to get it, than blacks themselves, is preposterous. Blacks have always freed ourselves, and the importance of destroying slavery wasn't a choice, like it was for whites. No white man had to tell Harriet Tubman what she was doing, and they didn't always know, but "Moses" is one example of blacks destroying slavery.

 - The Crack Emcee, February 20, 2014

Slavery ended because blacks could no longer stand it. Most whites, however, understood that they could live without it. That is not quite the definition of moral progress we might expect. But it is a humbling reminder of how moral campaigns are actually won: with more than simple appeals to the heart.

 - The Daily Beast, February 18, 2014, reviewing David Brion Davis' new book, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation

 

Friends Say What's True - Not What You Want To Hear

The Daily Beast has a good question:

  Has the shutdown made the Tea Party go bipolar? Some of them want our pity; others are too busy celebrating to care about real people.

The answer is "no" - it wasn't the shutdown - it was Mitt Romney. 

Very quickly:

The Right was waaay beyond mistaken to run Romney. They might as well have been speaking japanese. 

He never stood a chance - and even he knew it. 

They just weren't going to tell you.

Because of the vast amount of deception going on (Thank you, Glenn Reynolds & Co.) Romney's loss came as a "shock" to conservatives. This resulted in a doubling-down of their efforts, but now with a reckless abandon.

Rather than thinking through what they'd been doing (as they swore they were and would) they stayed in Saul Alinsky's "attack" mode and absolutely anything became a sign we're dying as a nation, witnessing an outrage, or had stumbled upon a scandal. 

None of it stuck.

So now, in order to make something stick, they're throwing what they admitted was a "Hail Mary" pass. Implicit in that terminology is the understanding they recognized how far they were behind.

They just aren't going to tell you.

Post-Romney desperation led the Right to make some brutal mistakes, repeatedly, and they're all their own fault.

I've no doubt about that.

But none is as big as not dealing with the fact there's been major problems all along.

And, unfortunately, they aren't telling you that, either,...

 

Hey - Excuse Me - Did I Ever Mention I Don't Like Cults?

Several cult-watching sites, and even The Daily Beast, have picked up on the Mormon excommunication story I sent to Glenn Reynolds, Ann Althouse, and Robert Stacey McCain because - let's face it - with a Mormon headed to the White House THERE'S NO STORY THERE:

David Twede, 47, a scientist, novelist, and fifth-generation Mormon, is managing editor of MormonThink.com, an online magazine produced largely by members of the Mormon Church that welcomes scholarly debate about the religion’s history from both critics and true believers. 

A Mormon in good standing, Twede has never been disciplined by Latter Day Saints leadership. But it now appears his days as a Mormon may be numbered because of a series of articles he wrote this past week that were critical of Mitt Romney. 

On Sunday, Twede says his bishop, stake president, and two church executives brought him into Florida Mormon church offices in Orlando and interrogated him for nearly an hour about his writings, telling him, "Cease and desist, Brother Twede."

Even better, as I write my own criticisms of Mormonism, I'm constantly teased and admonished by The Althouse Hillbillies that nothing could happen to me because - let's be serious - people who don't exactly follow the dictates of "the Prophet Muhammad of North America," whose slogan was “Either al-Koran or the Sword,” have nothing to fear from the LDS, riiiight?

In an exclusive interview with The Daily Beast, Twede says that during the interrogation he felt “attacked, cornered, and very anxious." 

The four church leaders verbally chastised him, he says, for hiding his identity on MormonThink and his personal blog in order to avoid discipline. Twede, who writes using only his first name, says they kept asking him why he didn’t identify himself online if he had nothing to hide. 

“I told them I hide my name precisely because of things like this,” he says. “I said, ‘Look how fast you got to me.’ I know a lot of members don’t want their life disturbed. In the Mormon church, if you’re not part of the uniform group, you are ostracized.” 

“When they interrogated me, they denied that they were on a witch hunt, but they kept asking me, ‘Who are the other individuals you work with on MormonThink?’” he says. “They continued demanding that I tell them. But I didn’t.”

"If you’re not part of the uniform group, you are ostracized.” Now THAT'S AMERICAN! Oh, how good, honest, and wholesome it all sounds. And just the kind of influence we need in the White House, as Glenn Reynolds & Co. labor, either to pooh-pooh or cover-up everything, so as to put a nice shiny gleam on all Mitt and his cult are about - and, by extension, themselves:

Twede's situation was first publicly disclosed this week on an ex-Mormon online discussion site by Steve Benson, the Pulitzer Prize–winning editorial cartoonist for The Arizona Republic and grandson of former secretary of agriculture and Mormon prophet Ezra Taft Benson. 

Benson, who left Mormonism in 1993, the same year he won the Pulitzer, is now a vocal critic of the church and is an active voice on the ex-Mormon sites. 

“What you’re seeing with David is not atypical of what the church has done in the past, where local leadership becomes focused on riding into battle under the flag ‘out damn spot’ and ridding itself or perceived apostates,” Benson tells The Daily Beast. “I was under this kind of investigation when I left in '93. I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of an excommunication. I no longer wanted to be a member of that organization.” 

Twede insists the church shouldn’t be allowed to act in this manner and quietly get away. “This encourages them to continue with others using similar tactics,” he says. “We prefer they act responsibly with those that dissent. We believe this article will in fact halt disciplinary action against me. However, my feelings about being part of this organization are changing rapidly. Even if they proceed, it will not be considerably harmful to me anymore.”

Not even a critical word from Mitt Romney about all this, and he was just in Salt Lake a few days ago, but then I shouldn't be surprised:

Despite the unpleasant interrogation this week, Twede says he does not want to ruin the public reputation of church leaders in Florida because he believes they are “acting as agents of HQ leadership in Salt Lake.”

Yeah, just like a certain presidential candidate I know,...