Rap Sheet
Links on R&P from around the web
A Pledge to Science? That’s Something Congress Should Consider
posted on December 12, 2012Adam Frank of NPR advocates a national Pledge for Science, which would ensure political support for scientific education and research. However, he does not want the pledge to become a battle between atheism and creationism and believes that a commitment to science does not belittle a commitment to religion. Frank writes, “Standing up for science should be a no-brainer for us. We are a nation that has shown, many times, how much we value the endless possibilities flowing from the pursuit of knowledge, not the least of which include a lasting peace and a generous prosperity for everyone.”
Hallelujah
posted on December 11, 2012For the current issue of Harper’s, novelist Rivka Galchen pens the creative essay “Hallelujah,” subtitled, “An economic companion to the Messiah.” Amid stream of consciousness vignettes, Galchen explores the musical composition and the Christmas holiday. “The first of several Christmas concerts I attended last year was a performance of the Messiah at Trinity Wall Street church,” she writes in one section. “A few days later, Occupy Wall Street protesters attempted to move into a space owned by the church. An Episcopal bishop, George Packard, was the first to climb over the fence and occupy the lot. Protesters were almost immediately removed by the police.”
A New Birth of Reason
posted on December 11, 2012At The American Scholar, Susan Jacoby memorializes Robert Ingersoll, who was known as the Great Agnostic during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, but since then has faded into the depths of American history. According to Jacoby, Ingersoll was passionate about “spreading the gospel (though he would never have called it that) of reason, science, and humanism to audiences across the country.” She writes, “It is not an overstatement to say that Ingersoll devoted his life to freethought, the lovely term that first appeared in England in the late 17th century and was meant to convey devotion to a way of looking at the world based on observation, rather than on ancient ‘sacred’ writings by men who believed that the sun revolved around the earth.”
The True Meaning of Hanukkah
posted on December 11, 2012At The New York Times, Hilary Leila Krieger has an op-ed about the evolution of Hanukkah from a modest Jewish holiday into a “holiday for Jews who wanted to fit in with other Americans celebrating the holiday season.” During the commercialized eight nights of Hanukkah, it is easy to forget that the holiday is really celebrating “a committed band of people led a successful uprising against a much larger force, paving the way for Jewish independence and perhaps keeping Judaism itself from disappearing,” Krieger writes.
Add This Group to Obama’s Winning Coalition: “Religiously Unaffiliated”
posted on December 11, 2012At NPR, Liz Halloran reports on the influence that the “religiously unaffiliated” voters had on the reelection of President Obama. In a recent report, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that Obama secured at least 70 percent of the religiously unaffiliated vote, making them as strongly Democratic as white evangelicals are Republican. “My question is what is it about having no religion that makes you align so dramatically with the Democratic Party,” J Ann Selzer, an Iowa-based pollster, told Halloran. “Sociologically, how fascinating is this?”
Thomas Jefferson and the Divinity of the Founding Fathers
posted on December 11, 2012Ta-Nehisi Coates of The Atlantic questions the virtue of Thomas Jefferson, who advocated for the emancipation of slaves but, given the opportunity, failed to free slaves and maintained a household of slaves on his plantation. Coates writes, “It seems clear to me that one can salute the ideas of a founding father, and at the same time condemn his cowardice when it came to putting them in practice. In other words, Jefferson can be both the intellectual father of this country and a notorious violator of the very ideas he put forth.” But, he adds, “It’s not enough for Jefferson to have laid the ideological foundation for equality. He had to have practiced it, too.”
For Mormon Feminists, Progress “With an Asterisk”
posted on December 11, 2012John M. Glionna of the Los Angeles Times reports on continuing gender inequality in the LDS Church, despite the recent two-year reduction in the age requirement for women missionaries. Gender disparities still exist in the amount of time a missionary can serve for and the age at which a Mormon can become a missionary. For church members like Jana Riess, an author and feminist, these changes represent “progress with an asterisk. It’s just not equality, and after a few glorious moments of believing it would be, that stings.”
Egypt Army Given Temporary Power to Arrest Civilians
posted on December 11, 2012At Reuters, Alistair Lyon and Marwa Awad report from Cairo about Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi’s decree that allows members of the Egyptian army to arrest civilians until the upcoming constitutional vote takes place. Morsi is trying to push through the new constitution despite opposition. Mahmoud Ghozlan, the Muslim Brotherhood’s spokesman, said that the protestors “are free to boycott, participate or say no, they can do what they want. The important thing is that it remains in a peaceful context to preserve the country’s safety and security.”
Gay Rights Gets a Brown v. Board – If It Doesn’t Backfire
posted on December 11, 2012At The New Republic, Linda Hirschman explores the consequences of the Supreme Court’s decision to take up two gay marriage cases this term, one on DOMA and the other on California’s Prop 8. For gay rights advocates, she warns that the court’s consideration of the challenge to Prop 8 “raises the odds that the Supreme Court strategy may backfire—a risk that the modest challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act was likely to avoid.” Hirschman is the author of Victory: The Triumphant Gay Revolution and an upcoming book on Justices O’Connor and Ginsburg.
Cadet Quits, Cites Overt Religion at West Point
posted on December 7, 2012At Yahoo, Michael Hill reports that a cadet at West Point has decided to drop out less than six months before graduation, saying that he could not participate in a culture promoting prayers and disrespecting nonreligious cadets. Hill writes that Page “denounced ‘criminals’ in the military who violate the oaths they swore to defend the constitution.” Page said, “I don’t want to be a part of West Point knowing that the leadership here is OK with just shrugging off and shirking off respect and good order and discipline and obeying the law and defending the Constitution and doing their job.”