Blogaround

1. 40-year ban on gay clergy struck down (May 1) "Without debate, General Conference has removed The United Methodist Church’s ban on the ordination of clergy who are 'self-avowed practicing homosexuals' — a prohibition that dates to 1984." Good news!

2. The Protest Derangement Class: A Response to John McWhorter (April 30) "We're back to just calling loud people violent. I truly don't understand how one person can milk a truly meaningless talking point for this long. I don't know how to keep responding to it, it's too dumb." (18-minute video)

3. How a beloved worship song became the theme song of Christian nationalism (May 1, via) The song is "How Great Is Our God" (youtube link) and I actually still really like this song, even though I'm ex-evangelical and I don't go to church. But yeah really gross to find out Christian nationalists are using this song.

4. China launches historic mission to retrieve samples from far side of the moon (May 4) Cool!

5. Alphabetical Cartogram (May 1) Very useful map from xkcd.

6. Man or Bear Discourse Might Feel Familiar to Atheists (May 4) "Being calm, rational people, the atheist community received this message thoughtfully, in its intended spirit, and took Rebecca's words into consideration during future interactions with-- I'M KIDDING, obviously that's not what happened at all." (12-minute video)

7. No, Paul Won’t Teach Seminaries of the Future through the Miracle of AI (April 29) "It’s Paul plus an imaginative recreations of what Paul might be like. If we take that part out, we just have the letters, and ChatGPT is not necessary for an encounter with Paul. If we add it in, we’re not engaging with Paul anymore."

8. The Supreme Court is breaking America’s faith in the law (April 29) "I truly believed that at least seven members of the court would take the potential failure of democracy as a proposition seriously enough that the partisan valence of this case went away. That didn’t happen."

9. Mr. Yuk (April 30) "He saw first-hand the impact of the lack of information on poisonings and decided to do something about it. He started collecting information on poisonous substances and filling it on these little index cards. He ended up accumulating information on roughly 9000 different substances, and by the 1950s he was the go-to poison expert."

10. All the time (May 6) "Holiness was distinct from goodness, distinct from love, or mercy, or justice, or patience, or presence. And it often seems to be — for my dad as for so many of his fellow Calvinist believers — something almost opposed to those other attributes."

11. Is China Ready for Hospice Care? (May 1) "Questions like how to broach the topic, with whom, and how to hold family meetings are all issues that require a soft touch. If family members are concealing a condition from the patient — a not uncommon practice in China — it is even more difficult to have these conversations."

12. 'Dance Your Ph.D.' winner on science, art, and embracing his identity (May 4, via) "'It means the time I did my kangaroo research,' says Menário Costa. 'But [it] also means the first time I lived as a gay man. It's the first time I lived as an immigrant, five years without going home. The time of reconnection to myself, of exploring my sexuality, of bridging these beautiful communit[ies].'"

13. Our Campus. Our Crisis. Inside the encampments and crackdowns that shook American politics. A report by the staff of the Columbia Daily Spectator. (May 4, via) "We had been briefed on what to do if we got swept by the police. The plan was to form two concentric circles: people of color on the inside, white people on the outside. We were informed that it’s harder for cops to arrest you if you’re sitting. So the plan was, once we knew cops were coming, to sit in your circle."