Safire Finds a Job

...actually, Safire finds THE Job.

The latest in post-tsunami theodicy -- NY Times columnist William Safire turns to the Book of Job, and, like all good Job readers, finds gnarly things to think about and trenchant things to say. 

Points, however, to Charles Dodgson at Through the Looking Glass for the quickest, snarkiest comeback.

But Dodgson is right in an un-ironic way, too.  There hasn't been much Job in tsunami commentary.  We're better off with it.

I can't read Job anymore without thinking of Peter Awn's lecture -- a riff on God's response, boiled down to: "I can make a Leviathan.  Can you make a Leviathan?"  Awn's point -- that God is not exactly on point.  At best.  And at worst, we're dealing with a slightly disturbed God.  Of course, at the time, we were reading both Job and this -- which might also be worth a look before the tsunami fades into the background of similar catastrophic things.