Blogaround

A candy heart that says "Remember U R Dust" with caption "Ash Wednesday is on Valentine's Day. You can't spell Valentine without Lent. United Methodist Churches of Indiana." Image source.

1. Differing Weights And Differing Measures (January 31) "So if, for example, you’re trying to show that 'evangelical Christians' are a fearsome voting bloc that politicians are compelled to show deference to, then you want the largest, most expansive definition of 'evangelical Christians' that you can find. That’s going to include everybody you can plausibly toss into the category, including both Pentecostals and anti-Pentecostal fundamentalists, including every faith-healer and magician, snake-handler and tent-revival charlatan you can find. It’s even going to include evangelical Christians who aren’t even white." This is SPOT-ON.

2. ‘Rage’ abortion donations dry up, leaving funds struggling to meet demand (January 28, via) "But now, the fund needs to spend between $1000 to $1500 just for people who need an abortion before 12 weeks’ gestation. If they are further along, the costs are significantly higher."

There's a time and place for one-off donations because you see something in the news and have feelings about it. Yes, that should be part of one's donation budget. But more important is to give recurring donations- make a rational decision about which organizations you feel it's important to support, and then set up automatic monthly payments to them. This helps the charities plan their budgets much better.

Also from The Hill: The dangers of spotlighting the ‘perfect’ abortion patient (January 31, via) "Unfortunately, all too often only the most extreme stories with 'good' reasons for abortion — the horrific cases of sexual violence, life endangerment or fetal abnormalities — enter public discourse to highlight the 'perfect patient' whose story is easiest to sympathize with."

3. Florida barring gender changes on driver's license puts trans residents at risk, critics say (January 30) This is really bad.

4. Study: Abortion Bans Creating OBGYN Crisis (February 2) [content note: it's about the trauma that obgyn doctors are experiencing when they're not legally allowed to give patients the healthcare they need. This is hard to read.] "You have somebody hemorrhaging with an intrauterine pregnancy with a heartbeat…I [didn’t yet] have legal coverage for that, but there’s only so many times you can transfuse somebody and they’re begging for their life before you say, ‘This is unconscionable.’"

5. “It Was the Most Violent Thing I’ve Ever Seen” (February 1) [content note: death penalty] An interview with the Rev. Jeff Hood, spiritual advisor to Kenny Smith and other death row inmates.

6. Who is Alistair Begg, and why are American fundamentalists so upset with him? (February 1) A detailed article about why evangelicals want to "cancel" pastor Alistair Begg for not being mean enough to queer people.

7. Religious trauma still haunts millions of LGBTQ Americans (January 29)

8. Outdated Jackets Get a Second Life (February 5) 1-minute-37-second video. Making old down jackets into comforters in China.

Also from Sixth Tone: AI Game Mimicking Nosy Relatives Takes China by Storm (February 5)

9. An Ohio pastor was punished for opening his church to the homeless. He deserves it. (January 23) Okay so maybe this story is more nuanced than what I initially thought. "Imagine if there was an actual emergency in the building. A place like this would jeopardize the lives of the people inside because of these kinds of deficiencies. The Fire Chief gave Avell well over a month to fix the most serious of these problems, but follow-up checks on January 9 and 16 found '5 violations that had not been properly corrected.'"

10. Breaking bread: Houston tries to punish feeding the homeless—and fails (February 2, via) "So far, no matter how many tickets the city writes, they can’t find a jury willing to convict anyone over it."

11. Leonard Nimoy The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins FULL VERSION best quality (via) Wow, I can't believe I never knew this existed.

12. Relationship Advice (February 5) xkcd comic. !!!!! Oh my goodness, this is so real! I side-eye anyone who makes a big deal about "marriage is hard."

13. VeggieTales' cucumber star LarryBoy to get his own faith-based feature film in 2026 (February 6)

Here's what Phil Vischer has to say on it:

Apparently there's a new LarryBoy movie in development? Somewhere? By... someone? No idea who, where or how. https://t.co/62SRaYSoaL

— Phil Vischer (@philvischer) February 6, 2024

Not sure what to think of this- is it even real VeggieTales if Phil Vischer is not involved?

14. Tracy Chapman & Luke Combs Perform Fast Car at the Grammys (February 6) 

UPDATE: Here's the full video: Tracy Chapman & Luke Combs Deliver Gripping Performance Of "Fast Car" | 2024 GRAMMYs

Blogaround

1. AI-generated Valentine's Cards (posted February 4) "You're the snail's poise!"

2. Reliable sources and blogger ethics panels (posted February 2) "I know a lot of you have been asking yourselves, 'Why doesn’t LGM have more Fred Bonine content? Is one 2000-word post every 18 years really enough?'"

3. Washington selects Commanders as new NFL team name after two-season process (posted February 2) Awesome!

4. Former Dolphins head coach Brian Flores sues NFL, three teams alleging racist hiring practices (posted February 1) "The lawsuit alleges that one team, the New York Giants, engaged in a 'sham interview' process with Flores for their vacancy. The suit alleges that Patriots head coach Bill Belichick 'mistakenly disclosed' to Flores in a text message exchange on Jan. 24 -- three days before Flores was set to interview with the Giants -- that the organization intended to hire Bills offensive coordinator Brian Daboll, who is white."

5. Discovery of what ailed Dolly the dinosaur is a first, researchers say (posted February 10) "About 150 million years ago, a young long-necked dinosaur fell ill, likely coughing and suffering from a fever as it wandered what is now southwest Montana."

6. What happened to the nonbelief channel at Patheos? (posted January 4) "Bloggers were advised they could stay at Patheos so long as they stopped writing negative or critical posts on religion or politics and instead focused on how to live a good life within their own worldview."

Blogaround

"Roses are red, alt-facts aren't true, I want to destroy white supremacy with you." Image source.

Links related to the orange antichrist:

1. These Conservative Christians Are Opposed to Trump—and Suffering the Consequences (posted February 11) "On November 18, Smith’s bosses told her they didn’t think she could be a good spokesperson for Focus on the Family, according to Smith."

2. OK, so we’re talking about Frederick Douglass today (posted February 1) "So let us highlight some of those contributions with Douglass’ own words — words that live on in much the same way that Trump and Spicer believe that Douglass himself does."

3. How a Photo of Jewish and Muslim Kids Protesting President Trump Went Viral (posted February 1)

4. Histories for the Trump Era, Part 1 (posted February 3) "That brings me to the Fugitive Slave Act and the inability to implement it in Boston."

5. SNL: Melissa McCarthy’s Sean Spicer Is Back and Better Than Ever (posted February 12) lololol

6. We would have taken part with them (posted February 9) "This is something we’ve been telling ourselves for thousands of years. For his part, Jesus wasn’t buying it."

----------------------------------------------

Links about other things:

1. Why this choir is a huge hit with China's stressed out millennials (posted February 9) Hendrix loves this choir. Their songs are so funny!

2. Star Wars Theory [about Han Solo] (posted February 9) [spoilers for "Star Wars: The Force Awakens"] Wow, now this is quite the fan theory.

3. Watch Matt Dillahunty Talk About How Atheists Should Respond to Biblical Contradictions (posted February 3) "Do you have such a strong belief that there is no god or that this bible is crap or that this scripture cannot possibly be perfect that you're not willing to engage in reasoned discussion but instead you have a prejudice that is encouraging you to find fault where there may not be any?" This is a really good video, from an atheist, about why it's not helpful to search for giant lists of "bible contradictions" on the internet and naively rush into an argument with a Christian as if you're obviously right. For one thing, not all Christians even believe the bible has no errors. And many of those supposed contradictions turn out to not really be contradictions if you actually research the context and culture those passages came from.

4. Ezra isn’t the Good Guy in this story (posted February 6) "The preachers who love to cite Malachi 2:16 in their own rants about the evils of divorce never seem to notice the earlier biblical passage Malachi is reacting against."

5. No, Trans Women Are NOT ‘Biologically Male’ (posted February 10)

6. Godly messages: You’ve got mail! (posted 2013) "Keeping a victim dancing depends upon keeping that victim off-balance and off-kilter, uncertain how to please the captor(s) and even more uncertain of how to avoid punishment. If that’s how these Christians’ god operates, then he’s an asshole who doesn’t deserve love or worship."

7. Top 10 Most Romantic Moments In Pixar (posted February 14) Awwww <3