Steve Thorngate
Small Town Heroes, by Hurray for the Riff Raff
On Alynda Lee Segarra's fifth album as Hurray for the Riff Raff, the Puerto Rican Bronx native wraps social commentary around Americana references.
How not to act in solidarity with Ferguson
What’s the best way for white Americans to act in solidarity with black Americans protesting the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson?
...Other people saying things
"We already know that he started out at a time when it was accepted for a Ferguson cop to ...
An army of cops in a community with little reason to trust them
Police overreach has long targeted black Americans. And in Ferguson, cops who don't seem to know what they're doing have massive firepower with which to do it.
A throwback to Birmingham
It's difficult to imagine police responding to white protesters the way they've responded to black protesters in Ferguson, Missouri.
Mayhem in northern Iraq
In the current issue of the Century, Philip Jenkins writes about the fall of Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city...
Other people saying things
“Every day, we think that the crisis here cannot get worse and every day it does."
..."The cat's got their prophetic tongue"
The Catholics and the Southern Baptists have joined others in calling for a compassionate response to the unaccompanied minors from Central America. Russell Moore of the SBC has even signed a letter (pdf) explicitly opposing changes to the 2008 law that currently prevents such children from being summarily deported. Most Americans agree, including majorities of both Republicans and white evangelicals.
Yet Congress went on recess without doing anything about this.
Are Christians really divided primarily by our views of sex?
Interesting exchange last week between Rod Dreher and Andrew Sullivan, two fine bloggers often at odds with both major parties and sometimes with each other, too.
...Other federal budget lines that don't address character
Reading David Brooks sometimes makes me want to tear my newspaper to shreds, throw the shreds in the fireplace, and douse them in something that burns even faster. Of course, my fireplace is decorative and my newspaper’s actually a laptop, so I control myself.
Brooks would approve. He likes self-control.
A mixed bag from Paul Ryan
Ordinarily, when Paul Ryan puts something out about poverty and social spending, the response is predictable and polarized....
Other people saying things
"GOP shoves massive tax hike down middle-class voters' throats."
...Obamacare covered somebody's health, but not mine
Remember in the fall, when Obamacare's insurance exchanges got off to a shamefully bad start, and people who never liked the health-care law in the first place started cheering its impending doom?
Yeah, they were wrong.
We mostly like Jews, Catholics, and evangelicals! Do they like us?
How do American people-of-faith feel about American people-of-different-faith?
The Pew Forum has a new polling report on this question. It seems Catholics have a slightly higher view of Jews than vice versa, while white evangelicals' view of Jews is much higher than Jews' view of evangelicals. White mainline Protestants have moderately positive views of Jews, Catholic, and evangelicals, while the opposite is....
Huh, okay.
I know she's still with us. (She's sitting right over there.)
I found this June NYT article a bit disturbing: some funeral home directors have been placing dead people in lifelike, meticulously personalized poses for their own funerals.
It's easy enough to see this as just a continuation of the standard individualistic funeral treatment, honoring people's hobbies and interests.
Welcoming these kids is the least we can do
Taking in refugees, giving asylum—these are things that generous people from a better place do for helpless people from a worse place. But we aren’t actually better.
Other people saying things
"The humanitarian crisis at the border is not a political problem. It is not even an immigration problem....
The (slight) Chipotle difference
Several weeks ago, Chipotle founder Steve Ells published a column headlined "Conventional vs. Grass-fed Beef." As you've probably heard, Chipotle prefers the latter—the fast-casual burrito chain has a lot to say about agricultural reform, ethical food, etc. But here the subject is more complicated than the title suggests: Ells was defending Chipotle's decision to stop buying exclusively domestic beef in favor of importing some of it from Australia, where the grass-fed supply is better.
It's a classic food-ethics connundrum: should you go with the higher production standard, or the food produced closer to home? Chipotle chose the former, a perfectly defensible choice if you just have the two.