Tikkun (https://www.tikkun.org/category/articles/page/27/)
On the other side of praise / it’s time to chop down the tall tree in the ear— / enough enough with the starlit promontories—/ a nervous condition traces itself/ in lightning in the clouds, / a little requiem rattles among Coke cans / and old vegetable tins
The outcome of the recent Academy Awards sweepstakes was a very mixed bag. Argo, the winner of the best-picture prize, is a nice little movie with a timely theme, a feel-good ending, and reminiscences of the 1997 comedy-drama Wag the Dog. Yet while it’s ably directed by Ben Affleck and engagingly acted by a talented cast, it doesn’t have the artistic or emotional heft that distinguishes the best best-picture winners.
City of gun shots, where Hartford Hospital on Jefferson Street employed my mother, a nurse, dressed in her white uniform with pearl buttons, and now employs me, forty five years later, a chaplain with a black shirt and a white clerical collar. Some nights when I sleep in the on-call room, I think I hear them page my mother’s elegant name, Loretta. “Trouble,” a nurse says, “Why is the city so troubled?”
Place matters. Even in this globalized, Internet era, I believe in making long-term commitments to specific places, and especially to the places where we live. Our communal social justice efforts should begin by choosing the places where we will make an impact.
Because of the U.S. history of slavery, assumptions about the sexuality of African American women in the United States differ from those made about European American women. The sexual stereotype of enslaved women as licentious extends far back into history; modern racism extended it to all Black women and also used the myth of Black hypersexuality as a reason to enslave Black people.
The world of higher education seems poised to enter a period of stark change: the onset of mass online education. Awash with excitement over this development, too many pundits are failing to discuss the cultural and ecological problems that the Internet revolution exacerbates.
Michael Lerner’s editorial is too critical of the Move to Amend Movement, when what is needed is strong support for it, while recognizing its limitations. In some circumstances a reform effort can be very close to a full embracing of the ideals.
The massacre of the Sandy Hook schoolchildren last month offered yet another painful proof that the creation of violent minds is big business and that, in its many aspects, the business of violence has become a far too accepted part of the fabric of contemporary life in the United States.
Both Israeli and foreign media have repeated the same prevailing narrative about Israel’s election—a narrative in which the Israeli center has returned to full strength and the Israeli right has taken a whipping. But in fact the right is in a comfortable position to forge a ruling coalition. The two current hard-right parties together won forty-two seats, a formation far more stable than the center-left parties with their forty-eight seats. Further, those hard-right parties have purged themselves of any vestige of center-right leaders of the past.
The “Rights of Nature” approach promotes a structure of law that recognizes that our living planet has rights of its own. If a Rights of Nature legal framework were implemented, activities that harm the ability of ecosystems and natural communities to thrive and naturally restore themselves, would be in legal violation of nature’s rights.
At the turn of the past century, Vienna—even more than Berlin, Paris, or London—stood out as the European city most friendly to radical innovation of every kind. Helping us to understand this era, which introduced the modern world that we inhabit today, is Eric Kandel’s book, The Age of Insight. Neuroscience, Kandel argues, can help to close the traditional gap between scientific and nonscientific forms of inquiry.
Lincoln comes from the cameras of Steven Spielberg, probably the most influential storyteller in modern cinema, and certainly one of the most vexing. But when the subjects aren’t pure make-believe, his movies tend to run aground on real-world complexities that flighty imagination can’t handle on its own.
Alison Greengard and Carol Racklin-Siegel’s series of Bible stories is a thoughtfully laid-out reading experience, but one that also comes with limitations. In contrast, The Bedtime Sh’ma: A Good Night Book and Modeh Ani: A Good Morning Book, both adapted by Sarah Gershman with illustrations by Kristina Swarner and also published by EKS, are lyrical and engaging books for both the youngest listeners and early readers.
The fact that the streets are not crowded with protest does not mean the peace movement has grown weary or gone to bed. I passionately believe that something far more dynamic is emerging. We are learning that peace is never a quick-fix.
Here we go again. “School Bans Santa over Religious Concerns.” “Christmas Concert Cancelled in Hawaii.” “Charlie Brown Violates U.S. Constitution?” The War on Christmas is afoot! Fox News is correct – there is a sustained effort under way to discredit the sacred truths of this holy day. The only problem is that they have fingered the wrong culprit.