Yo. Let’s see if this is actually seven or not! “Bullying Prevention Programs May Have Negative Impact.“ To me the key thing here is the recommendation to focus on “systemic change within the schools,” rather than turning bullying into a Thing which you’ve set aside and spotlit. If you’re instilling students with respect for one another and for the teachers, and if teachers and other authority figures aren’t tacitly approving of bullying, you are a lot less likely to get... Read more
tr. Robert Chandler: Viktor’s hat fell to the ground. People were probably looking at them. “Yes, yes, we have no right,” he repeated. He kissed her hands. As he held her small cold fingers, he felt that the unshakeable strength of her resolve went hand in hand with weakness, submissiveness, helplessness…. Read more
asks for your help: …There’s a certain irony, of course, about pursuing friendship, since, as C. S. Lewis notes, “The very condition of having Friends is that we should want something else besides Friends.” Sadly, and this is borne out in my experience, the times when someone is most desperate for friendship may be the times when it is hardest to find. And that’s why I’m interested in what’s implicit in Karen’s comment—that most of us are already involved in... Read more
from Al-Jazeera America: …On the last Wednesday in July, Wick showed up at CWOP, a non-profit group located in an East Harlem housing project. She joined nine parents — eight moms and one dad, all accused of abuse or neglect — in a room lined with flyers and inspirational posters. They stood holding hands for an opening prayer. Among them were volunteers and paid staff of CWOP who had their own histories in the child welfare system but had reunited... Read more
hard but necessary reading: As recently as five years ago, American corrections officials almost uniformly denied that rape in prison was a widespread problem. When we at Just Detention International—an organization aimed at preventing the sexual abuse of inmates—recounted stories of people we knew who had been raped in prison, we were told either that these men and women were exceptional cases, or simply that they were liars. But all this has changed. What we have now that we didn’t... Read more
What I’m reading. First off, this post from David Lapp is relevant to my review of Coming Up Short: Working-Class Adulthood in an Age of Uncertainty: …One of the striking things about Brown’s portrait is how poverty co-existed with family cohesiveness and the expectation of marriage. When these poor rural individuals and families migrated North during the 40s, 50s, and 60s, they brought with them their family cohesiveness. But while Elmer and Alice grew up poor, got married, and recently... Read more
Last night I put in my two hours at the pro-life pregnancy center where I volunteer, and it was a real mixed bag. I know I did some good work, but I can’t stop thinking about my first client, who needed something very different from what I initially tried to give her. Obviously I can’t use any identifying details, but she was in her teens (and in fact explicitly called herself “a teen parent,” as a shorthand for saying, “so... Read more
What on earth is going on in this “interview“? It is 20% actual interview, 50% psychoanalysis, and 30% inquisition. Never before have I thought, Evelyn Waugh is so patient! Fascinating, in a kind of sick way. Read more
Helen Rittelmeyer is obviously right that we’re in a cultural moment where addiction and recovery provide almost the only common language we have for exploring subjects like grace, penitence, and hope. Thanks for Sharing, the sex-addiction romcom starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Mark “Ruffalo Ruffalo ruffalo ruffalo ruffalo Ruffalo ruffalo” Ruffalo (…sorry), is yet another example of Helen’s point. Ruffalo (ruffalo) is a recovering sex addict named Adam, who after five years of sexual sobriety is ready-ish to start dating again,... Read more
at AmCon: The engine which runs “After the Revolution,” a play by Amy Herzog that will show at Theater J (the theater of Washington’s Jewish Community Center) through October 6, is a generations-old betrayal: A fledgling leftist activist from a family of Communist Jews learns that her much-honored grandfather spied for the Soviet Union during World War II and then perjured himself in front of HUAC denying it. The revelation shatters Emma Joseph’s trust in her family and in her... Read more
Eve Tushnet
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