Weekly Meanderings, 4th of July Weekend

We expect that many of our readers are out and about this weekend. We heard some 2 million travelers will go through Chicago’s airports and some 50 million Americans will travel fifty miles or more. Travel safe, friends. So, Happy Fourth to you and yours! And, by the way, King George, though you said “You’ll be back!,” we are still here. We’re on pretty good terms, amiright?

Photo by Antonio Gabola on Unsplash

Well done, Jolien!

Belgian shot putter and hammer throw champion Jolien Boumkwo jumped through literal hurdles to keep her team alive in the European Championships in Poland this weekend.

After two of her teammates were injured, Boumkwo volunteered to run the 100m hurdles race to get at least some points for Belgium to make sure her team didn't get automatically disqualified. A Belgian athlete competing at the event was vital, as the bottom three countries will be relegated from Division 1.

She had finished seventh in the shot put competition the day before.

"My team is the most important thing for me. I couldn't let it happen to lose by one point. That's why I've considered taking part in 100m hurdles," Boumkwo said. "There was no risk for me if I took it calmly. Maybe it's once in a lifetime opportunity to take a part in such run. I really enjoyed the race. There were a few doubts in my mind but now I can tell I'm glad about this new experience."

Katelyn Beaty’s Substack on why she still goes to church — four reasons. Drop a comment here about her four reasons.

Mike Bird’s digging in his heels this week against some trends, including whether or not to sing Hillsong songs.

At one level, I think Katelyn is correct, Hillsong is something of a trainwreck right now. There are clear failures of leadership and governance, Brian Houston’s failure to disclose his father’s sexual abuse of a child to the police, the corporatization of Hillsong, as well as buying into the whole prosperity gospel. To be honest, as much as I like songs such as “Shout to the Lord,” other songs in their collection sound like, “Jesus you’re terrific, for you I’d swim the Pacific, yeah baby, yeah baby, yeah, yeah, yeah.” Who would want to support anything to do with that?

Be that as it may, I’m not joining a boycott of Hillsong music for several reasons.

But before I set out my reasons, a few disclaimers.

I’ve never been to a Hillsong church service. I’ve never attended the Hillsong Conference. I’ve never purchased a Hillsong CD. I’ve never purchased a book by Brian or Bobby Houston.

At the most, I’ve sung some of their songs at church. I’ve had a few academic dealings with their college. I once examined a master’s thesis by one of their students. Also, I’ve met several people at various levels of leadership and ministry from their circle.

It’s not my monkey and not my circus. I’m an innocent bystander. I’m happy to listen to the critics, they deserve their soapbox, and Hillsong deserves to be held to account.

I’m sceptical about Hillsong but I’m also sceptical about some of their critics.

Always fun to read a tirade like this: Nuyawkers, gotta love ‘em.

Woke bureaucrats want to destroy the last of New York City’s beloved coal- and wood-fired pizzerias in a crazed climate crusade.

That’s the lie fueling the latest rightwing outrage cycle, in a distorted account of a commonsense air quality rule passed in New York City seven years ago. In reality, the rule, which soon takes effect, requires a handful of pizzerias to reduce the exhaust fumes that could harm neighbors, using a small air filter like those required at other New York City restaurants, which have been used by pizza shops in Italy for decades.

But conservative attention-seekers seem determined to make this another kind of “Pizzagate”.

“Some f- - - - -g little liberal arts, Ivy-League, pink-haired, crazy liberal who’s never worked one day in the real world is trying to get rid of coal oven pizzerias in New York City,” seethed Dave Portnoy, the founder of Barstool Sports.

“This is utter bs. It won’t make a difference to climate change,” wrote Elon Musk on Twitter. (New York’s rule doesn’t actually mention climate change.)

And a pro-Trump activist, Scott LoBaido, unleashed an in-person tirade against “woke” lawmakers at New York’s city hall, throwing slices of pizza over the gate. (Mayor Eric Adams, a vegan, responded that LoBaido “needs to bring a vegan pie to me so we can sit down and I want to hear his side of this”.)

For actual New York City pizza lovers, it’s a spectacle without basis in reality. “This is not legislation that will corrode the New York pizza scene,” says Scott Wiener, a leading New York City pizza expert and historian, but some people “are so resistant to facts”.

The pizza pile-on was sparked by a inaccuracy-riddled report published over the weekend by the New York Post, which claimed that the city’s department of environmental protection was “targeting” coal- and wood-fired pizza restaurants by forcing them to install expensive emission control devices to reduce their “carbon emissions” by up to 75%.

The report also quoted an unnamed restaurateur who complained the air filters would be “ruining the taste of the pizza” and “totally destroying the product”.

Mike Bird chides the pacifists.

During the Iraq War and Afghanistan Occupation, it was very common to find Christian pacifists declaiming the evils of war, the inadequacies of just war theory, rallying against the military-industrial complex, and denouncing the evil American empire and the hawkish global elites who profit from the carnage of war. But why are those same people not speaking up against the Russians for invading or against the Ukrainians for daring to fight back?

Where have all the pacifists gone?

It feels like they’ve disappeared or become conveniently silent at this time.

Is this silence proof that pacifism is ultimately unworkable and that some wars, like wars of self-defense, are genuinely just?

SMcK: of course, nearly all wars can be justified by those who appeal to just war theory. Both sides, in fact. I’m sure just war and the Gospels don’t line up square to square. So, where are the pacifists? We’re still here, not fighting.

Stockholm’s Wood City, but will it attract the Wood Peewee?

In recent years, wooden buildings have reached new heights, with soaring timber skyscrapers completed or underway in countries like Norway, Switzerland and Australia. Singapore, meanwhile, can lay claim to the largest timber building in Asia with a sprawling 468,000-square-foot college campus that opened in May.

Now, real estate developer Atrium Ljungberg has announced plans to build the world’s largest “wooden city,” which will be constructed in Sweden’s capital, Stockholm, from 2025.

Stockholm Wood City will feature 7,000 office spaces and 2,000 homes in the city’s southeast, and will offer “a vibrant, urban environment with a mix of workplaces, housing, restaurants and shops,” according to a press release. Set across 250,000 square meters (2.7 million square feet), it has been described by its developer as the “world’s largest known construction project in wood.”

The project is being built in Sickla, a neighborhood already home to more than 400 companies, according to Atrium Ljungberg, which owns a retail park on the former industrial site. The developer describes the area as a “five-minute city,” claiming that workplaces, homes, leisure facilities and amenities are all within a five-minute walk of one another.