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POPS"Want to save marriage? Ban divorce," by Candace Chellew-Hodge (@revtheodyke) A good, short opinion piece by Candace Chellew-Hodge (@revtheodyke) on John Marcotte's effort to get a new, Proposition 8-like measure placed on the ballot in California to "protect traditional marriage" by making divorce illegal. After all, she points out, Jesus never mentions homosexuality, but he sure does have a problem with divorce.
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POPSThe real threat to "traditional" marriage: heterosexual couples who don't think the way they're supposed to The money quote: "There is a greater expectation that women will work, men will be more involved with their children, and household duties will be more evenly shared... In essence, straight couples are 'queering' heterosexual marriage... If neither partner conforms to his or her 'unique role,' heterosexual marriage starts to look like its same-sex counterpart and illustrates that those 'unique' gendered roles aren't as unique as the bishops claim they are. If in a heterosexual marriage a man can provide nurturing and emotional sensitivity and a woman can provide leadership and effective decision-making skills, could they not bring these traits to a same-sex marriage?"
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POPSNews from Nepal: preparations underway for world's largest mass animal sacrifice From The Himalayan Times, some information about logistical preparation for Ghadimai fair (Nov. 24 and 25), which is the site of what is thought to be the world's largest mass slaughter of sacrificial animals (mostly goats, buffalo, and fowl). 250 butchers have been appointed as official slaughterers, a stadium-sized structure for the simultaneous killing of 10,000 buffalo has been erected, and a 3-km wide stretch of land has been set aside for the butchering.
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POPSBad news for Mississippi's black colleges It looks like the end might be in sight for several of Mississippi's HBCUs. In the wake of the 1992 US v. Fordice decision -- which, ironically, represented an attempt to undo the historic effects of the state's segregated higher education system -- they were starved of funds, receiving less than 3% of the budget they were allotted. They are now being condemned as non-performers (surprise, surprise) and will probably undergo massive program cuts.
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POPS"Most sophisticated computer attack ever" drains $9M from over 2000 ATMs at once Four hackers in Russia, Estonia, and Moldova orchestrate a global attack on an ATM network, stealing over nine million US dollars from over two thousand ATMs in 280 cities on three continents, all within twelve hours. As a postscript, three of the accused hackers have now been apprehended and will be tried either in the US or in their home countries. Thanks to Rob M. for posting.
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POPSH1N1 and religion: ritual improvisation and public health A roundup of some changes made to ritual and liturgy in Montréal, Toronto, and elsewhere in Canada as strategies of counteracting the spread of the flu. The piece has a slightly puffy, amused tone, but I think this is pretty interesting, especially for what it implies about the value of ritual and community as opposed to discourse and information (e.g., if the epidemic gets worse, expect churches to tell everyone to stay home and get their sermons via podcast).
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POPSAn amicus brief for the validity of religious-law arguments in potential Eighth Amendment cases I don't know quite how i feel about this. I have a lot of sympathy for their position, but I don't get the argument for including religious arguments in an amicus brief like this. The argument is that it violates key religious provisions (ideas like mercy and compassion) to give a juvenile a life-without-parole sentence for a non-homicide offense. Part of the argument rests on the notion that the values of rehabilitation, mercy, and hope are universal across religious traditions -- those sorts of claims always make me a little skeptical.
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POPSGulf oil to drop dollar-denominated pricing Starting in 2018, the Gulf states will no longer sell their oil for dollars. They will instead use a "basket" structure which will include Chinese, Japanese, and European currencies, gold, and a yet-to-be-created common Gulf currency. This could, to put it mildly, have very far-reaching effects.
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POPSDurga Puja is coming up. Swami Sivananda says: do not sacrifice animals for Devi Commentary from Swami Sivananda, founder of the Divine Life society, on the observance of Durga Puja. Traditionally, animal sacrifice has often been a part of the ritual, but Sivananda declares this a violation of the principle of ahimsa, which is binding on all Hindus no matter what caste, jati, or situation they belong to. An interesting example of second-order discourse in contemporary non-Western religion.
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POPSRight, so tell me again how the "free market" is the best way to manage health-care delivery An editorial from 2007 shows how research into three promising anticancer drugs has been abandoned. The reason is that the compounds on which the drugs are based cannot be patented (melatonin, for example), which means that pharma companies are unlikely to turn a profit. Understandable, from the perspective of the pharma companies, but unconscionable, from the perspective of cancer patients.
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POPS"Why I threw the shoe," by Muntazer al-Zaidi From the piece: "When I threw the shoe in the face of the criminal, George Bush, I wanted to express my rejection of his lies, his occupation of my country, my rejection of his killing my people. My rejection of his plundering the wealth of my country, and destroying its infrastructure. And casting out its sons into a diaspora."
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POPSDavid Grann, "Trial by Fire: Did Texas Execute an Innocent Man?" (on Todd Willingham's execution, Feb. 2005), The New Yorker (Sept. 7, 2009) A damning piece by The New Yorker on the story of Todd Willingham. Willingham was executed in 2005 for triple homicide after being convicted of killing his three children by setting their room on fire. Texas officials ignored reports by fire scientists, whose investigations showed that there had been no solid evidence that the fire was arson. The arson investigators who testified in Willingham's case relied on traditional methods whose scientific validity had long ago been disproven, and the parole board apparently did not even bother to read the exonerating information provided to them by Willingham's lawyer.
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POPSThe latest on Rifqa Bary, from the Orlando Sentinel (Sept. 4, 2009) It appears that the legal issues surrounding Rifqa Bary's situation are getting more and more complicated. The judge has so far been dealing only with procedural questions. For the time being, most of the relevant documents are sealed, the attorneys are under a gag order, and the seventeen-year-old Bary, who is insisting on staying in Florida (her parents want her to return home to Ohio), remains in foster care under the guardianship of the state of Florida. In my opinion, the child's lawyers have been making some very unscrupulous and inflammatory public statements, such as the claim that the parents' Columbus mosque is a "haven for Islamic terrorists" (law enforcement officials say there is no evidence for this). From the perspective of the parents, this is a matter of family law; for their opponents, it's about Christianity versus Islam.
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POPSControversy at Calvin College over GLBT issues in the classroom It sounds to me like this is a classic case of a teaching faculty resenting the imposition, by a relatively distant and detached board of trustees, of a set of vague and ideological guidelines for classroom discussion. As a teacher myself, I find it incredibly insulting when someone who's never worked in a classroom setting presumes to tell me what constitutes an acceptable thing to say. Seen on christianitytoday's Delicious stream (delicious.com/christianitytoday).
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POPSMore NHS problems: are terminal patients being sedated to death? More ammunition for the anti-health care reform camp. A protocol known as the "Liverpool Care Pathway," which is meant to prevent over-treatment during a terminal patient's final hours and preserve his or her dignity, has come under fire for acting as a "self-fulfilling prophecy." Once a patient is thought to be near death and is "put on the pathway," they are heavily sedated and are unlikely to make any visible improvement. Very disturbing.
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POPSChris Hedges: "We owe Nader an apology" According to Chris Hedges, progressives were sold a bill of goods with the Obama campaign -- empty slogans and no real pressure for change. I don't entirely agree, but I'm getting there. Clipped mainly for this: " he question not how do we get good people to rule -- those attracted to power tend to be venal mediocrities -- but how do we limit the damage the powerful do to us." Archived at Iterasi: sqrl.it/?jre18.
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POPSOpponents of U.S. healthcare reform take on... the U.K.'s National Health Service This is a good example of what happens when a political culture develops in which true facts no longer matter. In order to discredit the current plans for health-care reform, opponents are trying to tar it with the National Health Service's failures. Only problem is, most of the failures they describe are made up. I kind of like the super-glue story, though. I mean, hell, I pay for a group dental plan through my job, and my wife needs an implant, and I'm seriously considering a second mortgage to pay for it. And I have insurance. Somehow, these supposed British horror stories haven't convinced yet me that our current system is so wonderful that we shouldn't change it. Remember: the U.K. has the 18th-ranked healthcare system in the world; the U.S. has the 37th; and we spend plenty more than they do.
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POPSWhy good teachers quit (hint: it's not just "burnout") This is a point I've made over and over again -- we live in a society that does not value education, period. We might pay lip service to the work teachers do, but at the same time, Americans tend to look down on teaching as a profession for "nice" people without a lot of ambition. They're not respected by students, by parents, by school administrators, or by the culture at large, and teachers are frequently used as convenient scapegoats for a whole range of societal failures. No wonder good people decide not to stay.
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POPSBarbara Ehrenreich on the criminalization of poverty There are a lot of Kafkaesque stories in this piece, like that of wheelchair-bound 62-year-old homeless veteran Al Szekely, who was imprisoned after a nighttime raid on a homeless shelter. His crime? He had an outstanding court summons for criminal trespassing -- he'd gotten a ticket for sleeping on a sidewalk. In other words, " hey arrested a homeless man in a shelter for being homeless." The truancy discussion strikes me as the most vicious part, though.
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