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Joe Bageant, author of Deer Hunting with Jesus: 1946-2011

…ca is staggering under the sheer weight of its white underclass, which now numbers some sixty million. Generally unable to read at a functional level, they are easily manipulated by corporate-political interests to vote against advances in health and education, and even more easily mustered in support of any proposed military conflict, aggressive or otherwise. One-third of their children are born out of wedlock, and are unemployable by any contemp…

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Qaddafi Dies; Should it Matter How?

…ibya’s revolution ended his life releasing audiotapes only the Syrian government dared share. What do we learn from that? He was apparently found in a drainage pipe in Sirte, his hometown; ending where he began, under the ground not far from where he came into the world. Could he have imagined this ending, years back, after he overthrew Libya’s soft monarchy and challenged the world? Did he expect, as he funded so much of the African Union, that h…

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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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AAA: Like a Good Neighbor

…de of the road with a flat tire, or a broken down car, that help is just a phone call away. It also gives me discounts on lodging and other perks. My partner has a gold card with her name on it as well. The account number on both cards is the same. Years ago, when we signed up for the cards with the venerable roadside assistance company AAA, the woman at the counter smiled sweetly and never blinked an eye when we asked for the “family” plan. We we…

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Pope Decries ‘Ideological Colonization’ of Family; Islamic State Executes Gays and Others; Gay Couple Gets Long-Delayed Wedding in Mexico; Global LGBT Recap

…ral members of the European Parliament. Egypt: Anti-Gay media part of government’s ‘more Muslim than Islamists’ campaign We have been reporting on the Egyptian government’s persecution of gay men as a political tactic to prevent Islamists from building greater popular support. This week BuzzFeed’s J. Lester Feder and Maged Atef report from Cairo that IbrahimMonsour, the editor-in-chief of the Tahrir News, a leading liberal newspaper, told them, “T…

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The Tweets of the Christ

…descended from instant messaging of old (“lol,” etc.), distinct from cell phone text messaging only by the inclusion of tinyurl hyperlinks. The main feature of my experience of following the “service” was multitasking. Over the course of the three hours, I watched a lecture by Jared Diamond about the social functions of religion, cleaned up my kitchen, and did some transcribing for work. It allowed me, as Paul of Tarsus almost said, to check my e…

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On Harith, and Matters of Inheritance

…This went on for four years and then suddenly, in 2006, she picked up the phone. We began a relationship that was literally 40 years in the making. Too bad I had already made plans to move to California and once again I would be the prodigal sister. Still we made up for lost time and had a relationship like none I have ever had as an adult. I believe I already mentioned that my second of three grandsons was born on the 22nd of December. We shared…

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“Fast for Families” Immigration Reform Effort Enters 20th Day

…f compassionate immigration reform. How has that impacted your work? I get phone calls from LDS people who would identify themselves as politically conservative, but they say, “There’s this guy I know . . . Can you help him? He’s a really good guy.”  People need to remember that there are many “really good guys” out there waiting for immigration reform.  People coming to the US for work get villainized. “Illegal alien” is one of the most unbelieva…

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Bedside Manners: The Broken Spirituality of Contemporary US Medical Practice

…rome Groopman writes movingly about the breakdown of careful medical discernment and individual attention to the sick. Groopman notes how so many of the things that matter to good medical practice, all of which involve time and attention, are today unlikely to be compensated under the system of “Relative Value Units” by which almost all physicians are now paid: There is a compassionate, altruistic core of medical practice—sitting with a grieving f…

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The US Religious Right and the LGBT Crisis In Uganda

…rage and the audacity it takes for you to say this is who I am in an environment that says you mustn’t be that.” That environment in Uganda has been intensified over the last year and a half, says Kaggwa, since American religious right activist Scott Lively dropped, in his words, a “nuclear bomb against the gay agenda in Uganda.” Lively, the former head of the California affiliate of the American Family Association, and an ally of the AFA’s virule…

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