My friend Ilana Yurkiewicz is an excellent doctoring blogger, and I particularly appreciated one of her recent essays, “What’s so healthy about skepticism?” Her post about being deceived by a patient and deciding what lessons to learn from the encounter is excellent. I’ll blockquote a small bit here, but you should pop over and read the whole thing: I had been deceived before, both in and out of the hospital walls. But it never bothered me as much as did then. There was... Read more
I’m never one to pass up a chance to leverage people’s interest in a hot-button social issue to talk about probability theory. I’m over at Ethika Politika today, talking about how base-rate neglect can skew people’s understanding of the significance of screening test (specifically, those for fetal abnormalities) A New Danger to Expecting Mothers: Statistical Illiteracy Abortion, the talking point goes, is a private matter between a woman and her doctor. But, after a series of missteps by companies offering... Read more
I’ll be travelling for work in the next few months, so, if you were hoping I would come to speak in your neighborhood without having to cover my travel costs, this is your lucky day… provided you live in New Orleans or the Bay Area. I have conventions for work that will put me in: San Francisco: Jan 30th-Feb 2nd New Orleans: March 27-29 If you live in the area (or have friends or family who do and might be interested),... Read more
You’ll be able to catch my weekly radio program, “Fights in Good Faith” streaming today at 5pm ET and tomorrow (Sun) at 1pm. And the archived audio is already up on the show page! Every week, I put up a “Radio Readings” post, so you can track down the books, articles, songs, (and, this week, museums!) that I cite on the show. So, without further ado, here’s what I’m talking about this week. Being Christ in the Civil Rights... Read more
Just a reminder, my new radio show (“Fights in Good Faith”) began last week (and the first episode is now up for streaming). Tune in live this week at 5p Saturday or 1p on Sunday. I’ll be talking about my visit to the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis. — 1 — It’s hard to get more Leah-baity than a competition for math puns, so that link naturally gets first billing this week. Here’s my favorite: Heard this joke about... Read more
Yesterday, I wrote in praise of Dominicans, and today I have an interview to share with you that I did with a Jesuit. Sean Salai, S.J. sent me eleven questions about my conversion and my current spiritual life, and you can read my answers in America. Here’s a preview: How does Catholicism influence your approach to being a writer? It makes it a lot easier to resist weighing in on every hot button or controversial issue/news story to come along. I... Read more
I’ve been reading (and loving!) sociologist’s Ray Oldenburg’s The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community, and, today, I’m over at Ethika Politika talking about how to rebuild some of the “Third Places” that Oldenburg praises–places outside of work or home where we come to share our lives with others. Here’s an excerpt from my piece, “Learning to Linger in Leisure Spaces” We seem to need excuses to inhabit communal... Read more
I’m looking forward to hearing Eve Tushnet speak about her book, Gay and Catholic: Accepting My Sexuality, Finding Community, Living My Faith, tonight at the Catholic Information Center in DC. And that means it seems like a good time to blog about her book one more time. In November, I hosted a book club for Eve’s book, and a lot of our discussion was focused on Eve’s expansive use of the word “vocation” and how this more generous concept could... Read more
I’m at The American Conservative today, talking about the legitimacy of campaigns for civility and condemnations (not de jure censorship) of extreme and/or offensive speech: The Case for Civility Campaigns After Charlie Hebdo Arguing that campaigns for civility, against catcalling, against graphic sexual content in the public sphere, against “microaggressions,” differ only in degree, not in kind, from the Charlie Hebdo murders requires casting every cultural war as an exercise in annihilation. In this schema, anyone pushing against offensive, crude, blasphemous, or otherwise objectionable material really has... Read more
My new, weekly radio program, Fights in Good Faith, premiers today. You’ll be able to stream it live here on Real Life Radio at 5pm Eastern, and you can catch it again on Sunday at 1pm. After it airs, the audio will be available on my show’s page. And, in the meantime, here’s the 30 second promo for the show: Every Saturday, before the show airs, I’ll be posting on the blogs to share links to all the major books, songs,... Read more
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