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Put Your Money Where Your Mind Is: A For-Profit Meditation Studio Opens in New York

By Michael Schulson

Ellie Burrows and Lodro Rinzler had their big idea over a cup of tea. Certain details change with the telling (was it a nail salon or a hair salon?), but here’s the official version: during a teatime conversation, Burrows asked Rinzler “why there wasn’t a modern, non-religious, drop-in studio where she could meditate in the same way she could drop into a salon and get her hair done.” Rinzler, it turned out, had been thinking along the same lines….

I Miss Tina Fey

By Julie Ingersoll

…I went to see Sarah Palin here in Jacksonville. Rather than repeat the details of the event I’ll just make these observations. As I drove across the bridge there was (seriously, I’m not kidding) a huge dark cloud over downtown. The gritty details: This was a fundraiser for Heroic Media, a faith-based non-profit that publicizes alternatives to abortion. Originally planned for an auditorium that holds over 2000 people, it was moved to a smaller ve…

It’s Time to Put an End to Virginia’s Racist Death Penalty

By LaKeisha Cook

In the next few weeks, Virginia’s General Assembly will be asked to consider a bill to end the death penalty. A decade ago, this pursuit would have been seen as impossible given Virginia’s status as the state with the highest number of executions in the country going back to colonial times. But as more and more Virginians have come to understand that the Commonwealth’s use of the death penalty is deeply intertwined with the state’s history of lyn…

Inspired by the Anti-Abortion Movement and QAnon, Anti-Trans Rhetoric is a Blatant Call for Violence

By Annika Brockschmidt & Thomas Lecaque

…t down a second time on September 9th, the latest in a series of threats against the facility and those who work there. What the staff at Boston Children’s Hospital have had to endure simply to do their jobs isn’t an anomaly in the US; many healthcare facilities that provide best-practice medical care for trans people have seen a rise in violent threats. This hate campaign has largely been driven by the far-right “Libs of TikTok,” whose Facebook a…

Politics in a Fallen World: Lying, Fact-Checkers, and the Future of Civilization

By Michael Schulson

…inced that (at least) one of the candidates for president is a bald-faced liar. To many voters, Clinton seems uniquely dishonest. To many others, it’s apparent that Trump is living in an alternate reality, willing to make statements that directly contradict video and Twitter evidence. Why this disconnect? If anything, the 2016 election has highlighted the enormous diversity of ways that Americans perceive honesty. But the territory of lying has al…

‘People You May Know’ Reveals a War on Democracy Being Waged With Big Data

By Chrissy Stroop

…Kriel developed an interest in big data and its use in disinformation campaigns. This eventually led to his appointment as special advisor on fake news to the House of Commons’ DCMS (Digital, Culture, Media, Sport) select committee as it investigated the roles Cambridge Analytica, Facebook, and Russia played in influencing the Brexit referendum. Disappointed with Britain’s lack of political will to pursue needed regulation of tech companies, Krie…

How Much Did Jesus Care About Sex?

By Peter Laarman

…matter of sexual freedom is the characteristic heresy of progressive Christians: “It is to progressive Christianity as the heresy of the prosperity gospel, or nationalism, is to conservative American Christianity.” Just two points about this. First, it has not been my experience that progressive Christians are blind to the problems of a hypersexualized culture or that they/we are saying libertinism is acceptable—that anything goes. Religious progr…

Episcopal Church Assault Data Reveals the Dark Side of Inclusive Christianity

By Charlotte Dalwood

…come diverse experiences of gender and sexuality, manifest safe and appropriate boundaries, and implement strategies to prevent sexual misconduct.” The intent is to underscore “the importance of providing places for inclusion and support for those who have experienced rejection, shaming, and violence”—in particular, members of the LGBTQ+ community—which sounds like a welcome and refreshing change. But there’s a problem. Gender and sexual minoritie…

Heaven: Our Enduring Fascination with the Afterlife

By Lisa Miller

…. The bombers are martyrs, according to their beliefs, and are going to straight to heaven to receive the rewards promised there. The victims are martyrs, according to their beliefs, and are also going straight to heaven. So: which is it? Is everyone going to heaven? Is there a different heaven for terrorists and for the people killed by terrorists? This led to a very basic exploration of ideas of heaven: Heaven as a real place, heaven as an idea…

Power Up: Turn Off the Cell Phone

By Daniel Schultz

…duties, he’d always be stuck in that sort of position. Never start in the mailroom, etc. I hated that guy. Anyway, this Bloomberg piece on power players eschewing the use of cell phones strikes me as of a piece with my executive’s perspective. Technology is for the people who work for you. The article literally discusses someone getting Third-World peasants to loan her a cell in a pinch. You don’t get much more entitled than that. Still, there is…