Month: May 2018
what if college admissions gave priority to students attending low-income schools?
Rachel Cohen reports on an intriguing idea to combat educational inequalities: Many of the white parents’ fears were prejudice, plain and simple. But Scott-Railton knew that the parents were right about one thing: Integrating the school could mean that the...
song post: Nick Flora, “Catch Me Up To Speed”
I’ve enjoyed listening to Nick Flora’s latest EP, Conversation Hearts, and this song about falling in love in particular: Conversation Hearts by Nick FloraNick talked on the Future Conversation podcast about trying to write songs on this EP about the more-neglected...
“Traumatized officers sent out to deal with traumatized citizens”
Baynard Woods tells the story of a Baltimore police officer struggling with mental illness very well here: In a city like Baltimore, where a large number of citizens are suffering from severe and repeated trauma, often at levels higher than...
“we don’t speak a language, we speak normal!”
Our family lived down the road from Shelvis and Nancy Smith-Mather when I worked in South Sudan, and we were enormously blessed to be their neighbors and friends. They, like us, have had to relocate and are now doing peacebuilding...
song post: Sara Groves, “This Cup”
A song that I have thought about a lot in the last few months as I’m trying to get right side up on using the Internet is Sara Groves’ This Cup: Thank God for our dependence Here’s to our chasm...
a betrayal: how do we help young people escape violence?
This deeply-reported story about a young man who tried to cooperate with law enforcement and escape MS-13 is both moving and unsettling: Henry did his part to aid the federal crackdown on MS-13. In addition to the gang members he...
Coptic churches in America on mission
I enjoyed this story by Shira Telushkin about the Coptic Church in America adapting culturally. Growing up in the church and working overseas, debates about how to adapt to “the culture” are usually about European or Western traditions either trying...
the public health promise of vaping
Smoking is very, very bad. It’s in everyone’s interest to cut it back. And it looks like e-cigarettes might be helpful as smokers try to quit! And then the kids started doing it… and then the kids found the juul. Cigarette...
friendship, families, and the celibate
I am a bit biased because Wes Hill is a dear friend, but man! This essay of his in Comment about breaking up with a friend and choosing to build deep, intimate friendships with families is so good: I spent my...
sex robots: not just about sex anymore… or ever!
Everyone loves a good read about the history of sex robots, right? “Sex robots,” therefore, have always been about more than sex. They’ve been a cultural repository for wider uncertainties in times of social change: a literalization of the fear...