I’m gonna do this so it gets progressively cheerier as it goes on. The last link is about oppressed people on a party ship prison ship into awesome koalaland exile so uh this subject only gets so cheery. But it’s a terrific link, you should scroll. “Man Jailed for Traffic Ticket Dies in Cell After 17 Days of Torture. Guards Watched It Happen”: It was a death sentence. David Stojcevski, a 32-year-old resident of Roseville, Michigan, was arrested for failing... Read more
writes: …Some kids are indeed prone to hurt others. “If you’ve ever watched a group of 4- or 5-year-olds play Duck, Duck, Goose,” says Carlson, “there’s always one child who, when it’s his turn or her turn, will not tag. They’ll slap.” Socially and developmentally behind their peers, the offending children are those who most need the lessons big-body play can teach. Keeping them from playing tag, says Carlson, “is not the way they learn how to tag more gently. Continuing... Read more
Ever since that Courage conference I’ve been trying to figure out a way to write a post about the many, many, many problems with the way scary statistics about gay people are deployed in some Christian circles. You know the thing I’m talking about: Gay people are more likely to be depressed, to beat our partners, to use drugs and abuse alcohol (why do you call it abuse when the alcohol never complains), to die young and leave a fabulous... Read more
check out the tags on this article…: Looking back over my 29 years as a medic, I think my year at the cancer hospital was the hardest. Every fourth day and weekend without fail, I would cover the intensive care unit for 24 hours as the resident middle-grade doctor. In all my time there, not one patient survived, though not for lack of trying. Not one. more Read more
The shortest, gladdest chaplains of life! I had the chance recently to talk to some people responsible for student life at a big Catholic school, who wanted to know how they could better serve and shepherd their LGBT students. Here’s some of what I said. Also I could come to your school, btw, email me [email protected] if you’re interested in that. * Know that you’re asking these students to, at a fairly young age, reject key components of what we... Read more
Glorious: It’s nothing personal, says Ben Ewen-Campen, he just doesn’t think French impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir is much of a painter. Monday, the Harvard postdoc joined some like-minded aesthetes for a playful protest outside the Museum of Fine Arts. The rally, which mostly bewildered passersby, was organized by Max Geller, creator of the Instagram account Renoir Sucks at Painting, who wants the MFA to take its Renoirs off the walls and replace them with something better. Holding homemade signs reading “God... Read more
(part one) I’m into season two now. Some things I’m noticing: * The writers are very consistent with the message that peacemaking is unnatural to human beings. We’re the savage species, the killers who for some reason decided to go out to the stars to answer cries for help. This seriously comes up every other episode (it’s part of what they use Spock’s alienness for) and it adds so much emotional resonance to the (less-consistent) peacemaking itself. I am not... Read more
for AmCon. This piece could have been twice the length–I have a lot of feelings about this show, apparently: We’ve suffered a rash of cynical, sarcastic, hyper-competent white manchildren on our TV screens: “House” was one of the purest versions of this creepy fantasy, where self- and other-loathing make you cool and insightful. Recently there has been a bit of a backlash. Leading men (Walter White, Don Draper) now display the gross and pathetic nature of entitled narcissism, no matter... Read more
on a great saint (and a great hagiography): G. K. Chesterton’s biography of St. Francis was one of many books that helped introduce me to the truth and beauty of the Catholic faith. But Francis himself stuck with me in a special way. I was particularly drawn by the powerful combination of joy and asceticism in his personality. Asceticism was not new to me. I had grown up Southern Baptist, and joined the Presbyterian Church in America in college. I... Read more
“How Mississippi Slashed Its Prison Population and Embraced Criminal Justice Reform”: If Mississippi were a country, two years ago it would have had the second highest incarceration rate of any nation in the world. The state’s conservative politicians spent years increasing sentences for offenders and decreasing parole, a tough-on-crime double-whammy that kept landing more and more people behind bars — until last year, when legislators finally came to their senses. Mississippi lawmakers coalesced around a set of complex criminal justice system... Read more
Eve Tushnet
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