Did democracy die the week of July 16?

This Slate article says yes. Yascha Mounk writes: The week of July 11, 2016, has every chance of being remembered as one of those rare flurries of jumbled, inchoate, concentrated significance. The centrifugal forces that are threatening to break political systems across the world may have started to register a decade ago; they may have …

Fear works

This Slate article says that conservative politicians play on fear, and historically, that’s a successful tactic. (I get that this article was in advance of Halloween, but even though my local CVS aisles have moved on to the next holiday, the topic bears a little exploration, I think.) Fear is a successful motivator in theology, as well. I …

How is fat-shaming different from poor-shaming?

It really isn’t, if you use the same logic that shaming people is a fruitful exercise. Read this by Alan Levinovitz, at Slate. He writes: …poverty is more of a threat to public health than obesity. Fortunately, there’s good news! Nicole Arbour—and the Harvard epidemiologists—emphasize that losing weight boils down to a simple formula: Eat …

Mothers, let your babies grow up to play video games

But most especially, let your daughters do that. It just might lessen the gender gap in technology, says Dana Goldstein at Slate. Goldstein writes: The tech gap begins at home, where boys get their first computers and video game consoles at a younger age than girls and are more likely to play with toys that …