“America’s Imperial Mental Illness”: I’m in AmCon

Last updated on: February 20, 2015 at 2:41 pm By Eve Tushnet

reading Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche. I finally got around to Ethan Watters’s 2010 Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche, an exposé of the exporting of American concepts of mental illness. Watters writes with justified outrage about the corporations, humanitarian organizations, and mass media which have acted as pushers of both drugs and therapies. He depicts charities descending on post-tsunami Sri Lanka, ignoring local cultural practices and basic needs in order to promote... Read more

A Church Home: Tim Otto’s “Oriented to Faith: Transforming the Conflict Over Gay Relationships”

Last updated on: February 15, 2015 at 10:00 pm By Eve Tushnet

Tim Otto is a dude who believes gay marriages can be biblical and fully in line with what God wants for a couple, but he has taken a vow of celibacy as a way of living out obedience to his church and the intentional community in which he lives. He’s a great guy–I interviewed him for my book–and well-positioned to offer insights to churches on all sides of the various current controversies over homosexuality. Oriented to Faith is excellent and... Read more

Company That Sells Video Visiting for Prisoners Pushes Jails to Eliminate Face-to-Face Visits

Last updated on: February 15, 2015 at 3:19 pm By Eve Tushnet

surprise surprise! While Securus is feeling the heat in its phone business, it is moving into new sectors to secure profits. The most lucrative investment appears to be video visiting, a new technological frontier where the company already has a foothold. Video visits from home can be of much benefit to families, especially for those whose loved ones are incarcerated in remote locations, where so many prisons lie. However, as with phones, Securus’ main focus is not providing access, but... Read more

David Carr, RIP

Last updated on: February 13, 2015 at 8:48 pm By Eve Tushnet

I now inhabit a life I don’t deserve, but we all walk this earth feeling we are frauds. The trick is to be grateful and hope the caper doesn’t end anytime soon. —The Night of the Gun I’ve noticed in reading the tributes to David Carr that he used the word “caper” a lot. He talked about life–sobriety, work, marriage, parenting–like it was a carnival, like it was something he was getting away with. His book, which obviously you should... Read more

Kristin Lavransdatter as “The Great Augustinian Novel”

Last updated on: February 13, 2015 at 7:41 pm By Eve Tushnet

ooh: I’ve always thought of Kristin Lavransdatter as “the great Augustinian novel.” I’ve never read anything that conveyed more powerfully the Augustinian sense of lives that are fragmentary and damaged, which we can’t hold together in any rounded meaningful whole, but must entrust to a grace which is slowly drawing them into a pattern that we can’t see much of yet and won’t in this life. from an email from a friend via Read more

“Chthonic,” “Miasma”: David Bowie Answers the Proust Questionnaire

Last updated on: February 11, 2015 at 12:56 pm By Eve Tushnet

and it goes about how you’d imagine it would: Which living person do you most admire? Elvis. Who are your heroes in real life? The consumer. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? While in New York, tolerance. Outside New York, intolerance. What is the trait you most deplore in others? Talent. more Read more

“The Gay Catholic Writer Who Changed My Life”: Wesley Hill

Last updated on: February 11, 2015 at 12:33 pm By Eve Tushnet

gives a super-kind review of my book for Christianity Today: …Tushnet is a gay Catholic writer who embraces her church’s teaching on marriage and sexuality. By the time I learned about her, I’d been admitting to myself for a few years that I was gay, though I hadn’t told many other people yet. I was still too frightened and unsure of what kind of welcome (or lack thereof) I’d receive. You know those novels and movies about the yearning, aching... Read more

“Do Catholics Have Crisis Pregnancies?”: Moving Post

Last updated on: February 11, 2015 at 12:27 pm By Eve Tushnet

(although the answer will not surprise you!) Let me tell you about a woman I know. She is a cradle Catholic and firm pro-lifer, happily married to a supportive and loving husband. She lives in a modern apartment in a safe, friendly neighborhood, and her family’s income is enough to provide for their necessities and a few luxuries too. She has a wonderful support group of like-minded family and friends. But last year, she became unexpectedly pregnant and it was one of... Read more

“To Celibacy!”: Tim Otto

Last updated on: February 5, 2015 at 2:13 pm By Eve Tushnet

raises a toast to the sorrows: I made a vow, six years ago, to be celibate. The night before the vow I went with friends to a trendy Tapas bar in San Francisco. Next to us a group of frat guys were making loud, boisterous toasts. Their enthusiasm was infectious, and soon we were lifting our glasses with them. At one point my friend, the mischievous Michael, hoisted his glass and bellowed, “To Celibacy!” Everyone lifted their glasses and yelled,... Read more

Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig Reviews “Gay and Catholic”

Last updated on: February 5, 2015 at 12:29 pm By Eve Tushnet

for AmCon. Really like the point about my book being specifically lesbian rather than gay–and it should’ve been much more lesbian! If I had it to do over I’d do a LOT more research into the history of love between women, e.g. Boston marriages, “romantic friendship.” This piece focuses more heavily than the book does on the specific, perhaps outre case of vowed friendships, which I’m presenting as a beautiful possibility grounded in tradition and not some kind of universal... Read more