Month: October 2018
pluralism and hell
Shadi Hamid, who is one of the sharpest foreign policy commentators out there, has a really good interview in Providence magazine about Islam, liberalism, and pluralism: As for theological resources that conservatives might share across faiths, something I’ve been thinking about...
the wonderful world of zoning reform
Zoning reform, while decidedly unsexy, is probably one of the more important issues in America when it comes to reducing poverty. Housing is expensive and there’s no way to subsidize enough for everyone — we have to break down the...
life: quantity vs. quality
This entire essay from Raymond Barfield, reviewing Barbara Ehrenreich’s Natural Causes is gold: One conclusion to draw from her book is that we do not just need better doctors: we need better patients. And we only become better patients by...
the desperate need for global integrity
Christians should be people of integrity — the world is watching us as we image Christ, and if we are not living with integrity, we shame Him. Sadly, failures of integrity happen far more often than we would like, with...
murder, policing, and justice
This well-reported story about TJ Smith, the Baltimore Police Department’s former spokesman who lost his half-brother to violence in the city (and just resigned!), is well worth reading and reflecting on: As for Smith, his failed struggle to lead Dionay...
immigration and identity
There are so many things to think about from this piece by Luma Simms in National Affairs: Throughout history, people have traveled from country to country, trading with one another over long distances, returning home with the goods, habits, and even...
“Nothing can take form except within limits.”
Wendell Berry summarizes many of our contemporary problems quite well in this excellent interview with Gracy Olmstead: Those problems could be summed up as the triumph of industrialism and industrial values over the lives of living creatures, and over the...
when inadequate care kills people
This Lancet study suggests that low-quality health care is responsible for more deaths than lack of access to healthcare at all. Education is key to further developing healthcare systems — it’s why we do what we do! In low-income countries,...
everything you know about obesity is wrong — well, maybe not everything
This essay about obesity, stigma, and medical practitioners by Michael Hobbes is arresting and convicting: And the medical community’s primary response to this shift has been to blame fat people for being fat. Obesity, we are told, is a personal failing...
why are we still using faxes in the 21st century, anyway?
Ilana Yurkiewicz looks at the ugly world of health records and how one of her patients kept getting harmed by the lack of information sharing: While most hospitals in the United States today use electronic health records, they remain disparate,...