It’s time once again for news and views that you can peruse! It’s another edition of your Weekly Reader! As always, if you find something–big or small–that you’d like or want to share, drop a link in the comments! The more reading material, the better! It’s like a party, but with words instead of alcohol. 🙂
Raising Children Without the Concept of Sin (from the New York Times): “The notion of sin dominated my girlhood. Raised in Indiana by fundamentalist parents, sin was the inflexible yardstick by which I was measured. Actions, words, even thoughts weren’t safe from scrutiny. The list of sinful offenses seemed infinite: listening to secular music or watching secular television, saying “gosh” or “darn” or “jeez,” questioning authorities, envying a friend’s rainbow array of Izod shirts. God was a megaphone bleating in my head: “You’re bad, you’re bad, you’re bad!” I had recurring nightmares of malevolent winds tornado-ing through my bedroom — a metaphor, I now realize, for an invisible and vindictive god.”
Bill Maher Continues Attacks On Comics and Stan Lee, Doesn’t Bother to Check His Facts (from Medium): “What all three of those writers share, and Stan Lee as well, is that their work was loved and consumed by the “masses.” Maher, who famously called the majority of Americans “stupid” ten years ago, doesn’t even bother to do any criticial thinking here. If a lot of people love comic books and movies based on them, then it must be for dumb-dumbs and toddlers. He clumsily makes this connection by showing a few social media posts tagged with “#adulting.” These are meant to serve as examples that the younger generation is just a bunch of widdle babies. To do a pun bit from his rant better than he did: Apparently when Baby Boomer comedians get into their 60s, they are at an increased risk of irony deficiency. Maybe some people use that word/hashtag unironically, but the posts he showcased were obviously not sincere.”
Law creates barriers to getting care for mentally ill (from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel): “In fact, people often are discouraged from helping others get psychiatric help, as though they are being rude or meddling to suggest a psychological problem, Lehrmann said. Mental illness is shrouded in shame and secrecy in ways other illnesses are not.
Why didn’t people around Cho or Loughner do more to make sure these obviously ill men got care and that others around them were safe? Why couldn’t Martha and Jeff Wilson force their troubled son to take the medicine that might make him well?
The answer begins 40 years ago on the second-story window sill of Alberta Lessard’s West Allis apartment.”
Chiropractors see diabetes as a chance for new patients — and profit (from the Los Angeles Times): “You’ve no doubt seen newspaper ads that tout “breakthroughs” in diabetes research and even a possible reversal of the condition. People with diabetes are invited to attend a free dinner or seminar where all will be revealed.
In most cases, that free event will be a sales pitch from a chiropractor offering months of treatment, including lightly regulated nutritional supplements, that can cost thousands of dollars.
And in some cases, doctors and officials say, that treatment may be little more than snake oil.”
What Was New Atheism? (from the Point Magazine): “During this same time, some fans of New Atheism began to flirt with aspects of the growing online far right, posting in forums such as r/atheism on Reddit. Though the alt-right includes a spectrum of views—from white nationalists and neo-Nazis to extreme anti-feminists and right-wing internet trolls—the rejection of liberal sensitivity and “political correctness” is a thread that runs through most of them. Many New Atheists would deny sympathy with the most extreme versions of those views, but there has nonetheless been voluminous commentary on the overlap between the fans of Harris and Dawkins and those of the “alt-light,” made up of self-proclaimed “provocateurs” who delight in riling up their liberal adversaries. In 2017, the repentant liberal atheist Phil Torres went so far as to conclude that New Atheism had undergone a “merger” with the alt-right.”
Vaccines: Facts vs myths (from USA Today): “Fourteen scientific studies have failed to find a link between autism and vaccines, says Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
The myth was fueled by a small, flawed study in The Lancet in 1998, which was later retracted. British medical authorities in 2010 found the author guilty of serious misconduct related to the study — including accepting more than $675,000 from a lawyer hoping to sue vaccine makers — and banned him from practicing medicine in England.”
Boys Will Be Boys. Covington’s Showed Yet Again Why Only White Boys Can Smirk Through That. (from the Daily Beast): “However, when it comes to justice, race, gender and wealth are all too often the deciding factors. If those high school boys had been black and hailed for Over-the-Rhine—a predominantly black neighborhood just across the Ohio River from Covington, KY in Cincinnati, OH, the outcome would almost surely have been different.”
It’s Now Clear None of the Supposed Benefits of Killing Net Neutrality Are Real (from Motherboard via Vice): “In the months leading up to the FCC assault on net neutrality, big telecom and FCC boss Ajit Pai told anybody who’d listen that killing net neutrality would boost broadband industry investment, spark job creation, and drive broadband into underserved areas at an unprecedented rate.
As it turns out, none of those promises were actually true.”
White America’s Need for White Heroes (from John Pavlovitz): “These young men are now the red-hatted symbol of an entitled white privilege that perpetually sees itself as righteous, forever imagines itself oppressed, and refuses to own its culpability in marginalizing already marginalized people.
This week, Conservative politicians, partisan media, and the President himself rushed in with the supposed “smoking (or should I say, ‘smocking’) gun,” of an extended video that apparently exonerated the students, and served as some gotcha moment that indicted the “fake news” of the Left. That is not reality. This is what gaslighters do: create an alternate reality, and try to make you lose faith in your eyes—and then your sanity.”
And that’s all for this edition! Stop by again for even more links of interest. Until then, happy reading!
Iacon East 