Every election season it’s the same sermon from the politicians: vote, vote, vote. Get out and vote. Don’t sit at home. Vote, vote, vote. So people did. They voted. Now — where’s the count?
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God Had a Wife
The Bible says Israel worshipped one God, alone, from the beginning — and that every altar to anyone else was a rebellion. Then archaeologists started digging in the Sinai desert at a place called Kuntillet ‘Ajrud, a waystation where travelers stopped around 800 BC, and they pulled up storage jars covered in inscriptions. The jars bless their readers by “Yahweh of Samaria and his Asherah.” Another, from a tomb in Judah, says the same: blessed by Yahweh — and by his Asherah.
Asherah was the great goddess of the Canaanite world. In Israel, apparently, she was God’s wife.
Continue readingSix Killed in Kraków Market Square Shooting
A man drove onto the Main Market Square in Kraków, Poland, at about 3 p.m. local time on Saturday and opened fire on people at random, Polish police say. Five people were killed and about a dozen injured, including police officers.
Continue readingThis Is What You Voted For
The counting is not finished. Alaska and Mississippi are still out, and the exact size of the new House majority depends on which counter you ask. But control is settled: Democrats will hold both houses of Congress when the new Congress is sworn in this January, and the last two years of Donald Trump’s presidency will be divided government. Predictions about what that means are free, and worth what they cost. The winners have been more specific than the predictors. They said what they intended to do before Tuesday, and they have said it again since. So what did you actually vote for?
Continue readingSeven Days Later: What Actually Moved
A week ago I put four stories on watch — Israel’s election, the Iran pledge, the shipping war in the Gulf, and Ukraine’s deep-strike campaign — mostly expecting to report that nothing much had moved. That’s not the report. All four moved. None of them finished.
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