Religion Dispatches
…r, unnecessary, and unacceptable spectacle of a hanging captured on a cell phone. If there is something that should distinguish us from those dictators who have corrupted our world, it must be here. In humility before death. In appreciation of our common humanity. In the sense that the universe is infused with a law and a purpose that makes our lives and hopes sacred, and which, from time to time, turns against those who offend it, to remind us th…
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…f what we might call algorithmic sorting: the cultural attempt to simplify complex historical and social issues into patterns that we can recognize and make sense of. Typically, this is accomplished by vastly reducing the variables and historical contexts involved and effectively transforming lived events into games with predictable rules, defeatable “bad guys,” and the hopeful celebration of an “epic win.” Part of the problem with representing an…
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…red forever, because some things are eternal. This is clearly presented as commentary on Trump’s indictments, while also elevating him to god-like, immortal status. Now, if the voice in that video sounds familiar, that’s because you’ve probably heard it in countless movies—it’s Matt Damon speaking. The monologue is lifted (and edited significantly) from Damon’s 2023 film Air, in which he plays sport marketing legend Sonny Vaccaro—and the person he…
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…by private citizens with government complicity. If a lesbian victim of the common “corrective rape” were to go to the police station to report it, Kaggwa said, she would risk being raped again—by the police. Kaggwa, who this week received the 2010 Human Rights First Award, has played a leading role in the Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights and Constitutional Law, which formed in response to the AHB last year and whose principal goal is to pre…
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…ractice, 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 family after a loved one is lost; lending your experience to a younger colleague struggling to manage a complex case; telephoning a patient and listening to how she is faring after surgery a…
Read More…be canvassing the state, in preparation for “a full-scale get-out-the-vote phone bank operation to make sure every last pro-freedom and pro-family voter goes to vote on behalf of our values.” So far, the right’s anti-union battleground in Wisconsin hasn’t been explicitly framed as a “pro-family” issue, but here’s Marx: Please join Tony Nasvik and join the fight with 100 plus FFC activists who will be going door-to-door encouraging the Badger State…
Read More…ss; some profess no particular belief). This like interfaith marriages has come to a new level of maturity and exclusivity is counterproductive and redundant. This made me think about other matters of inheritance in Islam. It comes up sometimes as simple mathematical affirmations of male superiority. (The other one is the witness, but I’ll have to get to that another time.) When I present ideas about gender equality in Islam, I’ve been asked, “But…
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…t stories high. The caption at the bottom of the screen says, “The Muslims come to watch the application of the law.” The text accompanying one photograph refers to a prison as “one of Lot’s people.” According to Vice, “The reference is to the biblical inhabitants of Lot’s towns of Sodom and Gomorrah, whose people sinned and were punished by God in the Old Testament for committing sexually deviant acts.” The execution of the gay men was part of a…
Read More…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 were granted a generous discount under the family plan over buying two individual plans. The American Family Association is just hearing about…
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…ngregation, 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) thrives on the internet. Another thing that makes leaving Mormonism difficult is how little it is understood by the world at large. It’s frustrating to have to…
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