Religion Dispatches
…before and it never gets old. But… we confess we’re starting to nurture a bit of a Susan Lucci complex — always a nominee, never (yet) a winner. In the past we’ve lost to much larger media outlets (such as the public network that rhymes with “Zee Bee Ess”) and this year are up against the likes of Krista Tippett’s “On Being” and others. So, here’s where you come in: We want (and need) your vote in the Webby’s People’s Voice contest. It only takes…
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…slowly, wising up to the evils of social prejudice. We are even more globally aware in that respect. My wish for a snow day is only local. But a snow day here is connected to warmer polar temperatures that affect everyone. Why don’t I think of the rest of the world when I’m dressing like an Inuit to wait for the bus? I need to turn my eyes to the sky. The world is the one thing we all share and the atmosphere covers us all. Unless we can sustain o…
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…his encounter, saying that he was so moved by it, so shaken, that it can only have been the Holy Spirit. I don’t think I overstate things when I suggest that the screenwriters mean for us to interpret their movie by the same rubric. The movie moves us… or, well, it moves the people it was intended for. Aha, that must be the Holy Spirit at work! Theologically, though, such a rubric is entirely wrongheaded. If my mind should generate some pious-soun…
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…to peak after church When do people tweet out their Easter feelings? The Cubit’s analysis suggests that the hours immediately following church are the sweet-spot for Easter hashtagging. Across the board, popular Easter-related tweets (including #easter, #HeIsRisen, #jesus, and #jesuslives) display a sharp peak around 1:00pm CT. Supporting the hypothesis that people tend to tweet after church, the one tag that also works in many European languages—…
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…veryone participates. Immunity is one of those elusive social goods that only works if (nearly) everyone opts in. When a population is thoroughly vaccinated, even the stray unimmunized child will be safe. No one is around to get her sick. There’s no cost for opting out, until enough people do so that the population is peppered with unvaccinated dissenters, and, bam: measles outbreak at Disneyland. It’s not just the children of anti-vaxxers who are…
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…ively, the NPB itself is now run by a legally distinct entity from the Family, and only the president, senators, and members of Congress are invited, with their respective plus-ones. A separate event, “the Gathering,” is held simultaneously at the nearby Washington Hilton. Those at the Gathering get access to some of the NPB’s programming, including the president’s speech, via video feed—and, while they may not gain unfettered access to the presid…
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…ou’ll find surprising and provocative perspectives at The Cubit. Why The Cubit? The cubit is an ancient unit of measurement, based on the length between the elbow and the tip of the middle finger. Ancient China, ancient Egypt, the Roman Empire, and other cultures independently made the forearm a standard of measure. And why not? It’s convenient and ubiquitous. When you lift a hammer, it’s already sitting at the end of a cubit. We chose this humble…
Read More…y blended with patriotism. That’s not to understate, of course, Lane’s likely visible role in the early primary states (and, significantly, in also helping to shape Republican opinion about Israel, which is also sure to be a big campaign issue in 2016). He’s certainly a player, and perhaps even more so because of the support he has received from the American Family Association, which was behind Lane-inspired efforts like The Response (hosted by th…
Read More…oman’s body’ because I’m starting to realise that my body is my body and only I can define it.” Put simply, he isn’t a “man in a woman’s body”; he’s, well, Chris in Chris’s body. Zimbabwe: Activist says anti-gay policies hamper HIV efforts In Zimbabwe, led by the intensely anti-gay Robert Mugabe, a gay-rights activist is warning that the government’s hostility is hampering anti-HIV efforts. Chesterfield Samba, director of Gays and Lesbians of Zimb…
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…re are people of color in your book, race isn’t a dynamic that you explicitly analyze. I’m curious if you have any thoughts about how race factors into the realm of the business of exercise. What do you make, for example, of the appropriation of “Eastern” traditions like yoga, meditation, and the Color Run? I dealt more with socio-economic aspects rather than race, and I do think that this [is] a very affluent trend. One of the [topics] that I exp…
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