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Obama to Cave on Bush Tax Cuts: Letter to the Washingtonians, Chapter 1

…ould soon be at war. Traffic stopped, there were no planes in the sky, the phone didn’t ring. I supported the war to come, with only the reservation of who held the keys of command. Still, the enemies of the good must be punished, must be denied the safety of even a parched rocky hillside in a poor land. In 2002 and 2003, the grim infection of another war became more and more certain. I did not support this war. It was wrong, and I said so from my…

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Dear Scientists: Please Stop Bashing Free Will!

…law,” the physicist Stephen Hawking writes in The Grand Design, his latest bestseller, co-written with Leonard Mlodinow, “so it seems that we are no more than biological machines and that free will is an illusion.” Similarly, the neuroscientist Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith, contends in his new book The Moral Landscape that “no account of causality leaves room for free will.” He adds, “Our belief in free will arises from our moment-to-mom…

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Facebook: Internet Highway to Hell

…become the latest “sinful” activity. Perhaps Rev. Miller should get on the phone to Sarah Palin, and counsel her about her kids’ activity on Facebook. Bristol Palin found time from her “Dancing with the stars” practice to get on Facebook with her sister Willow to ride on a friend who had the chutzpah to say “Sarah Palin’s Alaska is failing so hard right now.” Willow’s response was to call the poster a gay slur, and Bristol jumping in the fray to r…

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Safety Not Guaranteed

…ing up. The narrow stairway of our fifth story walk-up is pitch black. Our phones have no signal, which means no AP alerts, no Facebook, no Twitter—and no way to contact friends and family. Except for the radio, we’re cut off. And so is everyone else in the mass of humanity that lives and works below 39th Street. In the afternoon, after the worst of Sandy has departed for the north, I walk across Avenue B again into the Red zone. Some time during…

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Why I Won’t Leave the Mormon Church Alone

…lt, particularly since the church wouldn’t leave me alone. (I got repeated phone calls, letters, and visits to my home from missionaries and people in the congregation, despite formal requests that they stop.) Eventually I sought a community of people also striving to come to terms with what it meant to have been but no longer be a devout Mormon. Luckily a diverse community of ex-, post-, or lapsed Mormons (we differ on what to call ourselves) thr…

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Global LGBT Recap: Culture War Claims More Victims

…i responded defiantly: Excellent Minister: You have never called me on the phone before. And you threatened me for a letter I addressed to Pope Francis. After today’s call I warn you that Christian-phobia is a type of religious persecution contrary to the liberty enshrined in our Constitution, which I swore to defend and obey.  I reject your threats, even if I am sacrificed like John the Baptist for simply because as an Ambassador [to the Vatican]…

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Confessions of a Hater

…ot. After that, he stayed more often after class, one day whipping out his phone to show me a photo of a white supremacist leader standing up in a convertible during what was obviously a white pride parade. The red-faced, fist waving man in the picture was flanked by two little girls sitting in the back seat, arms crossed with very pronounced frowns on their faces. “They don’t look all that happy,” I remarked to my student. “Those are my daughters…

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Escape From Manhattan: Tech, Tragedy and Storytelling in Sandy’s Wake

…And nobody can deny the convenience of ready access to information, maps, phone numbers, calendars, and social satisfaction that our reliance on technology provides. Technology is a tool, right? It doesn’t change who we are, right? It doesn’t blind us—it reveals reality by connecting us and showing us the world via our screens… right? Look, I know that our new imaginative, mediated work is doing good. I know people can feel a real sense of empowe…

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Does the Science Show that Spirituality Will Benefit Your Child?

…navigate emerging adulthood, a process Miller discusses in depth. Over the phone, Miller spoke with The Cubit about adolescence, definitions of spirituality, and the reframing of spiritual experience as a pragmatic tool. This interview has been edited for clarity and length. So how are science and spirituality interacting here? Science is actually an elegant way for understanding spirituality. It connects what so many devout people have known thro…

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The Fragility of Our Reality: A Conversation with the Brain Behind PBS Miniseries on Neuroscience

…, to a large extent, unmapped: the terra incognita in our skulls. Over the phone, Eagleman spoke with The Cubit about traumatic brain injuries, the idea of possibilianism, and the language we use to describe our brains. This interview has been edited for clarity and length. In The Brain, you do a good job of depicting the fragility of our experience of reality. Am I right to be a little scared by this instability? [Laughs] Well, you know, it’s one…

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