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Who Is a Jew? Court Ruling in Britain Raises Question - NYTimes.com
Fascinating article -- a UK court has declared that any definition of Judaism based on descent -- i.e., on whether an individual's mother is Jewish -- is ipso facto discriminatory and thus illegal. The context was an admissions policy for a publicly-funded Jewish school, which had excluded a student applicant because the school's Orthodox policy did not recognize the mother's conversion, conducted in a liberal setting, as valid and thus did not accept the applicant's claim to be Jewish. Archived: http://sqrl.it/?l3q8t and http://www.webcitation.org/5lBnaZcq8
How the Virtual Academic(TM) Works
From Chicago's writing program -- a short, sharp analysis of what makes academicese so maddening. Thank you to Louise for posting. The "toy" -- a random sentence generator which actually produces things that sound authentic -- is at http://j.mp/38VtE
Children 'will go to hell if they celebrate Halloween', says church leaflet - Telegraph
I don't have a good feel for what things are like in the UK, but if this were a US news story -- and I can easily imagine that it would be -- I would think that the subtext was a developing split between evangelicals and traditionalists in this particular community (part of the Church of England, I assume). Some evangelical-leaning activists put together an article condemning Halloween, it gets into the local church newsletter, and traditionalists are more or less blindsided by the controversy that results.
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Add Sticky NoteChristians do not celebrate Halloween - an American festival - because it has
links to witchcraft and ghosts.- Really, now! - on 2009-11-03
Christian registrar should not be disciplined over same-sex marriage refusal - Telegraph
From the UK: a clerk who refused to solemnize a same-sex marriage is claiming that her refusal to do so -- which she says stems from her religious beliefs -- is protected under freedom-of-conscience laws. She is suing her employer, the Islington Council, for religious discrimination, and she "claims she suffered ridicule and bullying as a result of her stance and said she had been harassed ... by the council."
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James Dingemans QC, representing her, told a panel of three appeal judges that
Ms Ladele had never wanted to undermine the human rights or respect due to
members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender communities.
But human rights laws must also be there to protect people with committed
views about marriage, he said. -
'Modern human rights jurisprudence was not intended to obliterate religious
beliefs held for millennia.''
Mr Dingemans said she could not go against her faith and take an active part
to enable same-sex unions. - 1 more annotations...
Swine Flu Shots Revive a Debate About Vaccines - NYTimes.com
Excerpt: "According to a CBS News poll conducted last week, only 46 percent said they were likely to get the [H1N1 flu] vaccine... Web sites, Twitter feeds, talk radio and even elevator chatter are awash with skeptics criticizing the vaccine, largely with no factual or scientific basis. The most common complaint is that the vaccine has been newly formed and quickly distributed without the benefit of clinical trials; in fact, the swine flu vaccine was made using the same techniques as seasonal flu shots over the last two decades... There are also claims that the vaccine contains adjuvants -- sometimes added to make vaccines more effective -- although they have not been used in this one. In addition, there is fear that the vaccine could lead to Guillain-Barré syndrome, as was suspected the last time a swine flu vaccine was distributed, in 1976; flu vaccines are now much purer than they were, minimizing the risk, and Guillain-Barré is far rarer."
Swine Flu Shots Revive a Debate About Vaccines - NYTimes.com
Excerpt: "According to a CBS News poll conducted last week, only 46 percent said they were likely to get the [H1N1 flu] vaccine... Web sites, Twitter feeds, talk radio and even elevator chatter are awash with skeptics criticizing the vaccine, largely with no factual or scientific basis. The most common complaint is that the vaccine has been newly formed and quickly distributed without the benefit of clinical trials; in fact, the swine flu vaccine was made using the same techniques as seasonal flu shots over the last two decades... There are also claims that the vaccine contains adjuvants -- sometimes added to make vaccines more effective -- although they have not been used in this one. In addition, there is fear that the vaccine could lead to Guillain-Barré syndrome, as was suspected the last time a swine flu vaccine was distributed, in 1976; flu vaccines are now much purer than they were, minimizing the risk, and Guillain-Barré is far rarer."
Sam Harris et al., "The Neural Correlates of Religious and Nonreligious Belief," PLoS ONE 4 (October 2009): e7272+
From the abstract: "While religious faith remains one of the most significant features of human life, little is known about its relationship to ordinary belief at the level of the brain. Nor is it known whether religious believers and nonbelievers differ in how they evaluate statements of fact. Our lab previously has used functional neuroimaging to study belief as a general mode of cognition [1], and others have looked specifically at religious belief [2]. However, no research has compared these two states of mind directly."
Salazar v. Buono: Can Government Give One Religion's Symbol Prominence in a Public Park? - Pew Research Center
Pew Forum backgrounder on the Establishment Clause case surrounding the large cross-shaped war memorial in the Mojave desert. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Oct. 7, 2009.
Garden State Cultural Association -- sponsors of the 2009 Durga Puja in Plainfield, NJ (Sept. 26-27, 2009)
This is the webpage for the Garden State Cultural Assocation. Right now (Sept. 2009), the site is mostly devoted to news about the upcoming Plainfield, NJ celebration of Durga Puja, which will happen on the weekend of Sept. 26-27, 2009. This is one of eight or nine major Durga Puja celebrations in the U.S. I'd kind of like to see this someday. It's probably all in Bangla though.
Orlando Sentinel - Parents sue Walmart over kids' bath photos
Walmart called the cops on two parents who submitted photos of their kids for processing, because among the photos were several that showed their kids (ages 18 months, 4 years, and 5 years) taking a bath. The parents are now suing Walmart for not disclosing details of their "unsuitable print" policy. From the article: "[T]he Demarees were not allowed to see their children for several days and didn't regain custody for a month while the state investigated." The state did not file any charges against the parents.
Gerald Graff's advice to new college students
From the piece: "1. Recognize that knowing a lot of stuff won't do you much good unless you can do something with what you know by turning it into an argument. 2. Pay close attention to what others are saying and writing and then summarize their arguments and assumptions in a recognizable way. Work especially on summarizing the views that go most against your own. 3. As you summarize, look not only for the thesis of an argument, but for who or what provoked it -- the points of controversy. 4. Use these summaries to motivate what you say and to indicate why it needs saying. Don't be afraid to give your own opinion, especially if you can back it up with reasons and evidence, but don't disagree with anything without carefully summarizing it first... [T]he better you get at entering the conversation by summarizing it and putting in your own oar, the more you'll get out of your college education."
"What Can You Catch in Restrooms?" (from WebMD.com)
Although the subhed on this piece is "Bathroom Paranoia," there really are a lot of freaking nasty germs in bathrooms. More disturbing, though, is the fact that the highest concentration of fecal coliform bacteria in your whole house is probably in the sponge in your kitchen. Second is the kitchen sink.
The Grapes of Wrath revisited: a modern-day road trip through John Steinbeck's fiction to Barack Obama's reality | World news | guardian.co.uk
From the article: "Much of Good Samaritan's work is funded by hospitals trying to keep patients who cannot pay out of emergency rooms, where they must be treated for any immediate health crisis by law whether they can pay or not. Those same hospitals have an interest in promoting charity as an alternative to President Obama's plans for government to take the lead in getting healthcare to the poor and the middle classes likely to be bankrupted by catastrophic illness. Good Samaritan makes no secret of where it stands on the issue -- the government has no business involving itself in healthcare." Thanks to Mel M.
Raymond Carver reviewed by James Campbell TLS
On the new version of "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love," which attempts to restore the stories to the state they were in before Knopf's Gordon Lish edited them (and, in most cases, drastically shortened and altered them).
Study Demonstrates How We Support Our False Beliefs - UB NewsCenter
From the article: "Our data shows substantial support for a cognitive theory known as 'motivated reasoning,' which suggests that rather than search rationally for information that either confirms or disconfirms a particular belief, people actually seek out information that confirms what they already believe. In fact, for the most part people completely ignore contrary information... The study demonstrates voters' ability to develop elaborate rationalizations based on faulty information." Seen on @wildcat2030 's Twitter stream
Elephants could be extinct in 15 years - ban ivory sales (petition)
Fifteen?! I Apparently this is true, though.
Laura Munson, "Those Aren’t Fighting Words, Dear (Modern Love)," The New York Times (July 31, 2009)
From the article: "'I don't love you anymore. I'm not sure I ever did.' His words came at me like a speeding fist, like a sucker punch, yet somehow in that moment I was able to duck. And once I recovered and composed myself, I managed to say, 'I don't buy it.' Because I didn't.'... He'd lost pride in himself. Maybe that's what happens when our egos take a hit in midlife and we realize we're not as young and golden anymore." Archived: http://sqrl.it/?lgavr
"One man's declassification of solitude," People's Daily Online (July 20, 2009) -- on Liu Zhenyun, One Word Matches Ten Thousand
Liu Zhenyun's new novel, One Word Matches Ten Thousand, is "an in-depth analysis of the alienation and estrangement that is considered common among many Chinese. 'The loneliness that plagues Chinese people permeates in each society in Chinese history and the novel, focusing on the general population and delving into their souls, constitutes the first of its kind in dealing with the subject since the May 4 Movement in 1919,' commented An Boshun, a well-known publisher and editor of the novel."
All Sorts - a linguistic experiment
Crowdsourced collective noun-izing. Examples: "a grope of stable boys, a rustle of squirrels, a queue of commuters, a tuple of geeks, a lurch of zombies, a whelming of emails, a clamour of emails, an ambuscade of paparazzi, an abhorrence of vacuum cleaners, a brace of dentists, a block of aspiring writers, a cycle of mormons, a boiler of steampunks, a shelf of librarians, a quibble of geeks, a deployment of jehovah's witnesses, a tangle of chargers, a piteousness of doves"
Dewi Cooke, "Religion less crucial in wedlock," Sydney Morning Herald (July 20, 2009)
From the article: "A researcher, Genevieve Heard, said as Australia became a more secular society, the role of religion in some individuals' lives would also change. 'It doesn't mean an absence of religion; it means the withdrawal of religion from everyday life and practices, including partnering,' she said." I would argue that it means, rather, a redefinition of popular understandings of religious identity and practice.
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