Spiritual Overextrapolation [Pope Francis Bookclub]

Last updated on: May 26, 2014 at 6:11 pm By Leah Libresco

In 2014, I’m reading and blogging through Pope Francis/Cardinal Bergoglio’s Open Mind, Faithful Heart: Reflections on Following Jesus. Every Monday, I’ll be writing about the next meditation in the book, so you’re welcome to peruse them all and/or read along. I’m non-metaphorically feverish, so my thoughts on this week’s chapter from Pope Francis’s book will be brief. Here’s the quote I was most struck by in this week’s reading: When Jesus Christ is present, the true light shines and all shadows disappear (1... Read more

Help me plan my summer and learn to solder!

Last updated on: May 25, 2014 at 2:06 pm By Leah Libresco

My time at The American Conservative comes to an end this week, as the new crop of editorial assistants rotate in. I’ll be heading out to California shortly afterwards to drop in to teach Bayes for layfolk, run prediction markets, and take other actions correlated with delight as a guest instructor at one of CFAR’s workshops. In the fall, I’ll be starting work doing statistical consulting in education, but swaths of my summer are as-of-yet unspoken for. And by swathes,... Read more

7 Quick Takes (5/23/14)

Last updated on: May 23, 2014 at 3:37 pm By Leah Libresco

— 1 — I’m delighted by how many of you wrote in to tell me that “modern stylites” exist, after I referred to them hypothetically in the post on Orthodoxy and eating disorders. Here’s one of the best links you guys found: Shortly after the collapse of communism and the resurgence of religion in Georgia, former “bad boy” Maxime Qavtaradze (now 59) decided to live atop the pillar in the way of the old stylites. “When I was young I drank,... Read more

Putting the Casual Back in Casual Dating

Last updated on: May 22, 2014 at 4:03 pm By Leah Libresco

Boston College students have been signing up for a class on dating, using it as a precommitment device to go on actual dates. (Extra credit is given to any student who asks out someone s/he is romantically interested in — in person only). [Professor Kerry] Cronin says this all came together for her during a lecture she gave about the campus hookup culture eight years ago. She says she was nervously anticipating controversial questions about sex and intimacy, but instead... Read more

Designing Emotional Contraception

Last updated on: May 22, 2014 at 11:22 am By Leah Libresco

Over at The American Conservative, I’m discussing a bioethicist who’s done a literature review to find anti-love drugs. He’s not discussing science fiction, but drugs that currently exist which could have the side effects of suppressing lust, attraction, and/or attachment if prescribed off label (anti-depressants are high on the list). His ethics questions are mostly focused on the level of the individual, but I’ve got concerns about how they’d shift societal expectations about responsibility and relationships. Treating Heartbreak With a Pill... Read more

The Stories We Tell About Illness

Last updated on: May 22, 2014 at 9:25 am By Leah Libresco

Sarah Sparks has a really excellent post today at First Things about the interactions (good and bad) between theology and therapy. As an Orthodox Christian and a recovering bulimic, Sarah has has to do a lot of translating between the sacred and the secular, since the treatment of sin, fasting, and self-control are very different in each of the two worlds she moves in. It looks like both groups have a lot of cultural false cognates — moments where they’re... Read more

When Asking for Help is Generous

Last updated on: May 20, 2014 at 11:13 am By Leah Libresco

My piece in the most recent print edition of The American Conservative came out from behind the paywall today, and it’s about friendships, shared needs, Nisbet…. and massively multiplayer online roleplaying games. If you read it, like it, and share it, you’ll have a ready made excuse to ask favors of other people and look askance at LMGTFY links. (Oh, and if you haven’t heard of LMGTFY, then, here, let me Google that for you). Even new, online forms of association and... Read more

Bringing Beauty to a Gun Fight [Pope Francis Bookclub]

Last updated on: May 26, 2014 at 6:01 pm By Leah Libresco

In 2014, I’m reading and blogging through Pope Francis/Cardinal Bergoglio’s Open Mind, Faithful Heart: Reflections on Following Jesus. Every Monday, I’ll be writing about the next meditation in the book, so you’re welcome to peruse them all and/or read along. In this week’s chapter, Pope Francis talked about evangelization being more than simple explanation of the Gospel: Whatever form it takes, our task as bearers of the epiphany always goes beyond the simple acts of transmitting a message, relating a verifiable history, or... Read more

When “Health” Doesn’t Leave Room for Scars

Last updated on: May 19, 2014 at 11:32 am By Leah Libresco

Technically, I’m writing about sports this morning for The American Conservative, but, unsurprisingly, it’s a feint to talk about bodily integrity and philosophy of medicine. When the Pursuit of Health Turns Pathological Why doesn’t Tommy John surgery draw comparisons to doping? The surgery isn’t just more natural with respect to its methods, but also in terms of its aims. Although some baseball players believe that they’ll come back stronger from the procedure, the goal isn’t to augment the player’s pitching,... Read more

A Trans-Atlantic Dating Gap

Last updated on: May 18, 2014 at 12:52 pm By Leah Libresco

By playing the clip below, you can get a sense of my level of bafflement when I read these remarks by French GQ sex columnist Maïa Mazaurette. In an interview with New York, Mazaurette summarized the difference between the American and French approaches to sex and dating. So tell me, how would you describe the French attitude toward sex? I can only compare it to the countries I’ve lived in — Germany, and now Denmark, and I’ve made some trips... Read more