Pat Buchanan rails at ‘cultural cleansing’ of white Christian men from US history

Maybe I am a bit naive, but I just do not get exactly what Buchanan is complaining about ?

In a syndicated op-ed this week, conservative columnist Pat Buchanan argues that white, male, Christian historical figures are being “cleansed” from America’s national consciousness.

Unhappy that Saint Louis University (SLU) is relocating a statue of a Catholic missionary evangelizing to Native Americans, Buchanan published an op-ed on Monday decrying the statue’s move from a prominent outdoor location to a less conspicuous one inside. Buchanan further warns readers of a nationwide “cultural cleansing of Christian males.”

As evidence of what Christian men have to put up with these days, Buchanan quotes an SLU student’s description of the controversial statue. It “depicts a history of colonialism, imperialism, racism, and of Christian and white supremacy,” says Ryan McKinley, now in his senior year at the Catholic college. Buchanan disagrees with McKinley’s assessment.

“If the founder of Christianity is the Son of God,” Buchanan reasons, “then Christianity is a superior religion.” Students and staff at SLU who support the statue’s removal, Buchanan says, “seem to be ashamed of, uncomfortable with, or unable to defend, is the truth for which Saint Louis University was supposed to stand. But simply because they are cowardly, or politically correct, why should that statue be going into the SLU art museum? Why should not they themselves depart for another institution where their sensitivities will not be assaulted by artistic expressions of religious truths?”

Pat Buchanan rails at ‘cultural cleansing’ of white Christian men from US history

If we don’t teach religion in schools, Americans will never understand the rest of the world - Quartz

In the first week of my undergraduate course on world religions, I give students a “fill-in-the blank” sheet relating to eight major religions.

Students can give any response they want to the prompts, “Muslims are…” “Christians are…” et cetera. Responses are anonymous and students are encouraged to be as candid as they want. These data give me a baseline for the religious literacy of my students and allow me to tailor my lessons to whatever information (or misinformation) they already know. Their responses are often wildly inaccurate. My students have responded that Hindus make a pilgrimage to Mecca, that Daoists worship Winnie the Pooh, and that Judaism is an odd sect within Christianity.

My students are not dumb. In the United States, the level of religious literacy displayed in this exercise is par for the course.

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There is an assumption that studying world religion is like studying poetry—a garnish used to round out the “serious” subjects of a college education. But religious literacy is serious because religion is not a discrete and ahistorical phenomenon.

Religious beliefs and practices are embedded in the fabric of human culture, and religious literacy goes beyond the ability to appreciate Dante or Shakespeare. Religious ideas affect politics, economics, and law. Without knowledge of the world’s religions, students will not understand the traditions and values of their neighbors and coworkers. They will be ill-equipped to compete in a global marketplace. Most critically, they will have no framework with which to assess claims about religion made by politicians and the media.

If we don’t teach religion in schools, Americans will never understand the rest of the world - Quartz

The Culture of Exorcism | The Skeptics Guide to the Universe

Thank you SGU,,,

Again, this is just one example of a handful of news stories this past week about exorcisms, and it is a dangerous trend. None of the news articles showed any skepticism by asking things like whether or not possession is something that actually exists. Rationality is nowhere to be found in the reporting of exorcisms, and until it does, we will lose the battle against “the worser angles of our nature”.

The Culture of Exorcism | The Skeptics Guide to the Universe

Arrest made in San Francisco 'blessing’ scam - SFGate

A Chinese citizen was arrested in New York in connection with a series of big-dollar “blessing” scams in U.S. cities, including San Francisco, in which a professed doctor bilked people out of money and jewelry, authorities said Monday.

The suspect, a 61-year-old woman whose name was not immediately released, was taken into custody as she attempted to flee the United States for China on Oct. 27, authorities said.

She is being extradited to San Francisco, where police say she will likely face charges of grand theft, conspiracy, extortion and elder abuse.

Two elderly San Francisco residents, one in the Ingleside neighborhood and another in the Financial District, were among at least four people nationwide to fall prey to the scam, according to police. The other targets were in Los Angeles and New York.

Arrest made in San Francisco 'blessing’ scam - SFGate

See also: Chinatown 'Blessing Scams' Target Elderly Women

Religious exemptions to vaccines shouldn't exist | Finding Faith, Finding Home

An interesting read as I never quite knew how one could "justify" the anti-vac position biblically. As Stone points out, you can't (definitely something to explore,,,hmm).

One comment that struck me: "By the way, this summer being the centennial of the outbreak of World War I, it may be interesting to note that the U.S. Army lost more men to the 1918 flu than it did to German guns."
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“God Does Not Support Vaccines” is a remarkable example of scaremongering. The Big, Bad Government, Megan alleges, is steadily chipping away at the religious exemption currently allowed by 48 states. When that happens, you’ll have to home school, but even then, you can’t rest, because They Will Be Coming For You.

In some states, religious exemptions are simple to get. In others, it’s more complicated. Iowa, for example, requires that the parent demonstrate that

“immunization conflicts with a genuine and sincere religious belief and that the belief is in fact religious, and not based merely on philosophical, scientific, moral, personal, or medical opposition to immunizations.”

(Twenty other states allow a “personal belief” exemption, meaning that parents can simply decide, for whatever reason, that they don’t want their kids vaccinated and that is that.)

Megan’s post, as the title suggests, seems an attempt to offer vaccine skeptics a “genuine and sincere” belief “that is in fact religious,” this despite the fact that, as Judge William F. Kuntz II of Brooklyn’s Federal District Court noted in January, SCOTUS decisions have 

“strongly suggested that religious objectors are not constitutionally exempt from vaccination.”

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,,,Megan’s “religious” objections are founded on very shaky theological ground. She cites Genesis 1:31, the creation account, as ‘proof’ that vaccines contradict God’s will:

 “God saw all that he had made and ‘it was very good.’ God’s perfect. Nothing further needed.”

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If you truly believe that vaccine-free is best, get on a plane with your kids and go to one of the countries where measles, mumps, diphtheria, and polio are not even close to eradicated. Then realize anyone from there can come into your community, your school, your church, your grocery store and start an outbreak — if not in you, than in the vulnerable people you come in contact with you. And if that truly doesn’t bother your conscience, you don’t deserve a religious exemption of any kind, since virtually every religion includes something like this: take care of others as you’d take care of yourself.

Religious exemptions to vaccines shouldn't exist | Finding Faith, Finding Home

Walmart: ‘Work Makes You Free.’ It’s Prettier In The Original German.

Although this story has been "resolved," I find it ironic that the "queen of corporate welfare" would offer this example of cultural anthropology. Bare in mind that the entrance of Dachau is one of the most photographed historical markers in the world. The motto associated - Arbeit Macht Frei or Work Makes You Free - to call it "inspirational" in the general sense of the word, not so much.

Walmart: ‘Work Makes You Free.’ It’s Prettier In The Original German.

‘To Be Takei’ Traces George Takei’s Journey From Japanese Internment Camps to Cultural Icon - The Daily Beast

“It’s about being your best self"

I have always liked Takei even before he "came out." Sulu, is one of my favorite characters from the original ST series, besides Spock; both of whom I have "met" fer real at a ST convention (or 3) back in the late 70s early 80s. After learning his biography a few years back, he became more of a favorite.

But, around 2005, something strange happened. Although he’d been openly gay among his friends and family, and had been with Brad for 18 years, he publicly came out. That’s not the strange part. Following his personal reveal, Takei’s popularity soared. He’s since become a prominent LGBT activist and a highly influential presence on social media, where he engages daily with his 6 million Facebook followers, sharing humorous memes as well as messages of tolerance. And later this year, his musical Allegiance is expected to open on Broadway.

Jennifer M. Kroot’s captivating documentary To Be Takei, which premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, traces Takei’s journey from his childhood in Japanese-American internment camps all the way to Star Trek and the present, giving viewers background into how, at 76, the actor-cum-activist is at the height of his stardom.

,,,We lined up three times a day to eat lousy food, I went with my father to a mass shower, and then I started school. The irony that I still remember is that they taught us the Pledge of Allegiance, and I could see the barbed wire fence and the sentry tower right outside my schoolhouse window as I recited, “…with liberty and justice for all.”

‘To Be Takei’ Traces George Takei’s Journey From Japanese Internment Camps to Cultural Icon - The Daily Beast

Nepal’s ex-goddesses to receive monthly allowance to help them adjust to normal life | The Raw Story

Can we say Toddlers and Tiaras: ",,, worshipped [sic} as goddesses, but lose their special status once they reach puberty."

Nepal’s former Kumaris, girls worshipped [sic] as living goddesses in a centuries-old tradition, are to be awarded a pension to help them re-adjust to normal life, an official said Tuesday.

Ten former Kumaris will receive the monthly allowance of 10,000 Nepalese rupees ($101) from July for the next 10 years, Kathmandu Metropolitan City chief executive officer Laxman Aryal said.

“Although most of the Kumaris come from well-to-do families, they miss a vital period of their lives and often lag behind in our increasingly competitive society,” Aryal told AFP.

The council made the decision this week as part of efforts to help the girls who are worshipped [sic] as goddesses, but lose their special status once they reach puberty.

Nepal’s ex-goddesses to receive monthly allowance to help them adjust to normal life | The Raw Story

Geel's ancient community cares for the mentally ill – Mike Jay – Aeon

The line that caught my attention, "If these ties can be remade so that the individual is reintegrated with the collective, doesn’t ‘family care’ amount to therapy? Even, perhaps, the closest we can approach to an actual cure?"

When I was first diagnosed with bipolar over the course of 36 months, I was hospitalized 18of those months. I was pulled out of my job, put on medication and basically made to feel as if I was a failure. It wasn't until my last 6 week bout in hospital that my then therapist asked me whether I wanted to sink or swim. Instead of becoming a social outcast, I relearned how to function in this crazy mixed up world.

For others, however, Geel was a beacon of the progressive ideas that came to be known as ‘moral management’. Freeing the insane from their chains and madhouses, providing them with fresh air, occupational therapies and the chance to patch themselves back into normal life — this was treatment in itself. Philippe Pinel, the founding father of French psychiatry who was legendary for ‘striking the chains off the mad’ at the Salpetrière asylum in Paris, declared that ‘the farmers of Geel are arguably the most competent doctors; they are an example of what may turn out to be the only reasonable treatment of insanity and what doctors from the outset should regard as ideal’.

It is sad to see that this "old way" is slowly fading as modern improvements become the "norm." Sometimes modern isn't always better. Yes medications helped stabilize so I could once again function, but with that also came the "side-effects."

More optimistically, the decline of the system can be seen as a reflection of modern improvements. Psychiatry has met the town halfway: the choice is no longer limited to the stark alternative of Geel or the horrors of the asylum. Care in the community, of which the town was once the leading example, has become the norm. For most mental health service users, the combination of medication and community mental health teams has made the line between ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ more porous, with ‘outside’ the preferred option for doctors and patients alike, on grounds both of cost and quality of life.

I like this model much better thean some of the newer stuff being shoved down peoples throats,,,


In 1349, a church was built on the outskirts of the town around Saint Dymphna’s memorial, and in 1480 a dormitory annex was added to accommodate the growing number of pilgrims. When the stream of visitors overflowed the allotted space, townspeople started to house them in their homes, farms and stables. During the Renaissance, Geel became famous as a place of sanctuary for the mad, who arrived and stayed for reasons both spiritual and opportunistic. Some pilgrims came in hope of a cure. In other cases, it seems that families from local villages took the chance to abandon troublesome relatives whom they couldn’t afford to keep. The people of Geel absorbed them all as an act of charity and Christian piety, but also put them to work as free labour on their farms.

Today, the system continues along much the same lines. A boarder is treated as a member of the family: involved in everything, and particularly encouraged to form a strong bond with the children, a relationship that is seen as beneficial to both parties. The boarder’s conduct is expected to meet the same basic standards as everybody else’s, though it’s also understood that he or she might not have the same coping resources as others. Odd behaviour is ignored where possible, and when necessary dealt with discreetly. Those who meet these standards are ‘good’; others can be described as ‘difficult’, but never ‘bad’, ‘dumb’ or ‘crazy’. Boarders who are unable to cope on this basis will be readmitted to the hospital: this is inevitably seen as a punishment, and everyone hopes the stay ‘inside’ will be as brief as possible.

The people of Geel don’t regard any of this as therapy: it’s simply ‘family care’. But throughout the town’s long history, many both inside and outside the psychiatric profession have wondered whether this is not only a form of therapy in itself, but perhaps the best form there is. However we might categorise or diagnose their conditions, and whatever we believe their cause to be — whether genetics or childhood trauma or brain chemistry or modern society — the ‘mentally ill’ are in practice those who have fallen through the net, who have broken the ties that bind the rest of us in our social contract, who are no longer able to connect. If these ties can be remade so that the individual is reintegrated with the collective, doesn’t ‘family care’ amount to therapy? Even, perhaps, the closest we can approach to an actual cure?

Geel's ancient community cares for the mentally ill – Mike Jay – Aeon

The tattooist who is both artist and therapist – Margot Mifflin – Aeon

Anatomy is one reason she insists on choosing designs for her clients. It’s not that Roxx doesn’t respect their wishes (‘I’m a people-pleaser’), it’s just that she knows better. ‘A lot of these people, even if they’re 2D artists, they have no idea how things work when it comes to the 3D form. We know what works on the body and what doesn’t. I think it’s changing now where people trust the artist to do their piece and they don’t want to get in the way of the artist’s process. It’s a really privileged, nice position to be in, but I’ve worked really hard to get there.’ And, she says: ‘I don’t want to spend any more of my life doing art that makes my soul disappear.’

Blackwork tattoo, as defined by Marisa Kakoulas in Black Tattoo Art 2 (2013), which features Roxx’s art, emerged in the late 1960s and became fashionable in the ’90s. ‘It is a contemporary tattooist’s interpretation of an art largely derived from Polynesian, Maori and Southeast Asian cultures — often blending together signature styles from different traditions,’ Kakoulas explains. In the 1980s, the iconic artist Leo Zulueta popularised blackwork by combining it with Old School imagery — hearts, flames, and skulls. He was the first to build his style on a bedrock of tribal elements.

‘The black graphic look has introduced an important option to modern tattooing,’ wrote the artist Ed Hardy in Art From the Heart (1991), ‘that of clarity, visibility, and an appreciation of abstract form for its own sake.’

Throughout most of the 20th century, Western tattooing was a closed system wedded to a static roster of folk forms that included anchors, hearts, pin-ups, skulls, devils, snakes, panthers, tigers, swallows, eagles, mermaids, Christs, crucifixes, ships, tombstones, horseshoes, and nautical stars. A wave of Japanese and Polynesian influences enriched it both formally and technically from the 1970s to the ’90s, and by the turn of the millennium a recombinant postmodernism had scrambled the lexicon, allowing for everything from Day of the Dead pin-ups to solid black Banksy reproductions. This is the era in which Roxx came of age as a tattooist. But it was the blackwork that grabbed her: its abstract motifs promised timeless designs, and its graphic simplicity allowed for customising it on the body.

The tattooist who is both artist and therapist – Margot Mifflin – Aeon

Rafael Campo uses his stethoscope to explore rhythms of poetry | Art Beat | PBS NewsHour | PBS

Rafael Campo is a doctor, professor and highly-regarded poet who has just published his sixth book of poetry titled, "Alternative Medicine," which explores the primal relationship between language, empathy and healing.

For Campo, poetry and healing are intricately related.

"To me the patient's voice, the stories they have to tell are absolutely central to the work of healing. ... The poetry of the encounter helps me to think even more effectively and more thoughtfully really about that. I feel like listening to that story and really attuning my ear to the patients voice helps me listen to their heart more clearly ."

A graduate of Harvard Medical School, he teaches there and practices general internal medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. He is also on the faculty of the Lesley University Creative Writing MFA program.

Campo sees poetry everywhere. "It is in every encounter with my patients. I think healing really in a very profound way is about poetry. When we read a poem, we participate in another narrative. We really get inside another person's head, under their skin and medicine and medical interactions are very very similar you know."

Rafael Campo uses his stethoscope to explore rhythms of poetry | Art Beat | PBS NewsHour | PBS

A 'Beautiful' tapestry of Carole King's life - latimes.com

The jukebox musical uses hits by King and others to tell her remarkable life story. The show is bookended with scenes of King, in her signature unruly curls and a flowing bohemian dress, preparing to take the stage at Carnegie Hall after the massive success of her 1971 album "Tapestry." In between, it charts her transformation from a sweet Brooklyn girl with precocious musical talents into a young wife and mother and bestselling solo artist.

The drama centers on her troubled marriage to first husband and songwriting partner Gerry Goffin (Jake Epstein), the man who brought some of her most indelible melodies to life with tender, sophisticated lyrics ("Will You Love Me Tomorrow," "Up on the Roof").

But the title tells only part of the "Beautiful" story, which also focuses on Goffin and King's friendly rivalry with the songwriting duo of Cynthia Weil (Anika Larsen) and Barry Mann (Jarrod Spector). Weil and Mann worked in the same legendary hit factory at 1650 Broadway as Goffin and King, were likewise romantically involved, and their equally memorable songs ("On Broadway," "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'") make up nearly half the numbers in the musical.

In this way, "Beautiful" also provides a glimpse into a bygone era of songwriting. As Weil put it in a telephone interview, "Back in the '60s, there was no Auto-Tune. It was simply the piano and the writer and the ashtray."


A 'Beautiful' tapestry of Carole King's life - latimes.com

How We Teach Our Kids That Women Are Liars

A bit edgy and I'm still pondering. I do agree that religion, specifically the Abrahamic religions, do perpetuate the misogynistic rhetoric so prevalent in society. It doesn't help when the likes of Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, or Phyllis Schlafly (to name a few) help perpetuate it which totally baffles my mind. The cognitive dissonance within their minds must be overbearing, that or they are totally oblivious/brainwashed that they just don't see it.

So how exactly are we teaching children that women lie and can’t be trusted to be as competent or truthful as men? I mean, clearly, most people aren’t saying “girls and women lie, kids, that’s just the way God built them.”

First, lessons about women’s untrustworthiness are in our words, pictures, art, and memory. It’s simple enough to see how we are overwhelmingly portrayed as flawed, supplemental, ornamental, or unattainably perfect. It’s also easy to find examples of girls and women routinely, entertainingly cast as liars and schemers. For example, on TV we have Pretty Little Liars, Gossip Girl, Don't Trust The Bitch in Apartment 23, Devious Maids, and, because its serpent imagery is so basic to feminized evil, American Horror Story: Coven.

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While most religious leaders aren’t going around spouting overtly denigrating opinions about women, many, through default and tradition, casually and uncritically expose children to religious texts that are fundamentally misogynistic. I have to believe that most Sunday school lessons are not concerned with deconstructing, say, the creation story, a seminal text in our culture whether you are religious or not. Religious misogyny is tied to institutional power that ends up in children and women being impoverished and dying.

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Why focus on these musty, long dead theologians and philosophers? These thoughts are alive and well and have a super long tail outside of religion—think: domestic work, pay discrimination, and sex segregation in the workplace. Every time a young girl can’t serve at an altar, or play in a game, or dress as she pleases; every time she’s assaulted and told to prove it, it’s because she cannot, in the end, be trusted. Controlling her—her clothes, her will, her physical freedom, her reputation—is a perk.

Conventional Abrahamic religious thought cannot escape the idea that we have to pay, as women, with lifelong suffering and labor and be subject to the authority of men lest our irrationality and desires result in more evil and suffering. Until religious hierarchies renounce beliefs and practices based on these theologies, these long-dead men, creatures of their time, might as well be the ones repeatedly showing up in Congress to give their massively ill-informed opinions on women’s health and lives.

Especially in our political lives.

How We Teach Our Kids That Women Are Liars

Why Millennials Are Ditching Cars And Redefining Ownership : NPR

"As we've talked to consumers in this age group about how they feel about owning the car, the car companies kind of think about this as, 'Well, that's sort of a silly question because of course everybody wants to own a car,' " says Jill Hennessy, clinical professor at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. She studied the attitudes of millennials toward the car-buying process. The short answer: They're a lot different from baby boomers and Gen Xers.

"When we've talked to millennials, they actually answer that question quite thoughtfully," Hennessy says. "While they do still want to own a car — not as much as they want to own a smartphone, by the way, that's the physical possession they're most attached to — they are thinking about, 'Do I need a car or not?' in a way that I think five years ago or 10 years ago we wouldn't have seen to the same extent."

It's not just cars that millennials question owning. Nearly any possession you can think of stopped being an "of course" and became a "hmmmm" for millennials. Hennessy says they're wondering whether "it's not so great to own everything anyway." She says the economy has been a big part of that shift. Millennials have witnessed the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. They've watched their parents struggle with financial insecurity no matter their education level.

For someone born before Ronald Reagan was in office, this sounds like a nightmare. But Hennessy says that millennials are so gosh-darn optimistic that they put a positive spin on it. "They're much more likely to find value in experiences than they are to find value in things," she says.

Why Millennials Are Ditching Cars And Redefining Ownership : NPR

Going Solo: A Brief History of Living Alone and the Enduring Social Stigma Around Singletons | Brain Pickings

An interesting piece Personally I am enjoying living alone as I am enjoying being "single." For the first time I am not with someone and only have myself to answer too which has given me freedom explore aspects of my self that for too long laid dormant. Altho I have become a bit lazy, which I'm enjoying too. Only thing I would change, is where I live. I would have more anonymity in the urban setting and more chances at socialization if I so choose,,,

In the 4th century BC, Aristotle admonished:

"The man who is isolated, who is unable to share in the benefits of political association, or has no need to share because he is already self-sufficient, is no part of the polis, and must therefore be either a beast or a god."

Indeed, the ancient world held exile as the most formidable form of punishment, second only to execution, though in Greek tragedies it was often regarded as a fate worse than death. For more than two millennia, this fear and loathing of solitary life endured and permeated the fabric of society. In 1949, Yale anthropologist George Peter Murdock surveyed some 250 “representative cultures” across history and geography, and concluded:

"The nuclear family is a universal human social grouping. Either as the sole prevailing form of the family or as the basic unit from which more complex familial forms are compounded, it exists as a distinct and strongly functional group in every known society. No exception, at least, has come to light."

Yet our relationship with solitary life has undergone a radical shift in the recent past. So argues NYU sociology, public policy, and media professor Eric Klinenberg in Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone — an ambitious exploration of what Klinenberg calls the “remarkable social experiment” that our species has embarked upon over the past half-century, juxtaposing the numbers with the enduring social stigma around singleness.

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Klinenberg goes on to explore the forces and factors that have sparked the transformative social experience of living alone, which has in turn changed not only the way we understand ourselves and our most intimate relationships, but also the way we structure our cities and orchestrate our economies, demonstrating that solo living affects the lives of nearly everyone in the social ecosystem. He points to four key developments driving this cult of individualism, championed by Emerson and Thoreau: (1) The wealth generated by economic growth and the social security provided by the modern welfare state (“Put simply, one reason that more people live alone than ever before is that today more people can afford to do so.”); (2) the communications revolution (“For those who want to live alone, the Internet affords rich new ways to stay connected.”); (3) mass urbanization (“Subcultures thrive in cities, which tend to attract nonconformists who are able to find others like themselves in the dense variety of urban life.”); (4) increased longevity (“Because people are living longer than ever before — or, more specifically, because women often outlive their spouses by decades rather than years — aging alone has become an increasingly common experience.”).

Going Solo: A Brief History of Living Alone and the Enduring Social Stigma Around Singletons | Brain Pickings

George Takei Takes Story Of Internment To The Stage : NPR

Today, George Takei is best known for his role as Hikaru Sulu on the original Star Trek series and, more recently, his hugely popular Facebook and Twitter feeds.

But his latest project aims to bring a different kind of story to the stage, one with personal and historical resonance. The actor was born in Los Angeles to a Japanese-American family just a few years before Japan's bombing of Pearl Harbor. After that 1941 attack, he and his family were among the tens of thousands of U.S. citizens of Japanese descent who were forced to move to internment camps.

George Takei Takes Story Of Internment To The Stage : NPR