"The Most Famous Man in America"

Just to pick up on the much-beloved theme of left blogistan, which is that religion in general, and Christianity in particular, is unalterably opposed to all that is good in the world, and is a source only of misery and mystification, may I direct your attention to this review of a biography of Henry Ward Beecher.

Beecher preached a "Gospel of love" (hello, Joel Osteen!), and championed women's suffrage, abolition of slavery, and even evolution. " 'Man was made for enjoyment,' he assured parishioners." Which attitude, of course, produced problems of it's own.

But in as ahistorical a country as this, when left blogistan is as ignorant of the recent past as anyone we criticize, reflecting on the life of a man who could make even Mark Twain attend church and make enough of an impression for him to write:

"sawing his arms in the air, howling sarcasms this way and that, discharging rockets of poetry and exploding mines of eloquence, halting now and then to stamp his foot three times in succession to emphasize a point"

He might just be a person worth learning a bit more about.