Christianity

Thou Shalt Not Employ a Transgender Professor? It’s Not a Verse in the Bible

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Reflecting on her own coming-out experience at Yeshiva University, Joy Ladin speaks out in support of Professor Adam Ackley, the theologian who was just fired from Christian Azusa Pacific University after coming out as transgender. There is no verse in the Bible in which God says, “Thou shalt not employ a transgender professor,” and religious organization who act against such people only do so out of fear: fear of difference, fear of the unknown, and fear of losing money.

Culture

Holistic Healing — Embracing the Practical and the Radical

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“Holistic healing” typically refers mind, body, and spirit, an approach that focuses on mastering what is going on within the four walls of our body. Operating in a world in which compete and win, dominate and control are so dominant, the author offers a broader definition that includes “the practical” – effectively negotiating your place in the world, as it is – and “the radical” – being an active agent in molding the environments within which you exist.

Culture

PTSD Relief in Israel Through MDMA and Cannabis Research

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Doctors come up with many reasons to avoid prescribing cannabis to their patients, including but not limited to lack of education, fear, or lack of funds. But Mimi Peleg gives examples that would have doctors giving it a second thought, mostly through her work with PTSD patients in Israel.

Culture

Russell Brand Exposes the Anti-Semitic Hugo Boss

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After receiving a GQ award from Hugo Boss, Russell Brand spoke out against the company honoring him and mentioned their history of utilizing Jews for forced labor in the creation of Nazi uniforms. Brand was reprimanded via social media, bringing to question the power we have to criticize those who run things.

Non-Violent Communication (NVC)

The Powerless Are Not Necessarily Pure

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A difficulty that I see stemming from associating power with badness is the corollary move of associating powerlessness with purity… [But] If powerlessness is associated with purity, then those without power are, by necessity, better in some sense. This absence of humility is one of the reasons I see for why when previously oppressed people come into power they often recreate what was done to them.

Culture

Belonging

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I’m going through one of those bumpy passages on the journey to belonging.I moved a couple of months ago, and while the reason was love and I feel the opposite of regret, the adjustment to a new community is pushing some ancient buttons. As with many children of immigrants, I know what it’s like to feel in it but not of it. By now, the catalog of my own complaints is intensely boring to me: I don’t know how to meet the people who might belong to my own quirky tribe if only I knew who they were; I’m always getting a little lost; the relatively short distance to my old neighborhood and old friends seems much longer now that I’m on the other side of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. I imagine that this too shall pass, and probably pretty quickly. I’ve moved more than 25 times in my life, so I know the dance.