The Nightstand (Dec 9th)

The Economy


What If We Made Fewer Ph.Ds? (Leonard Cassuto, Chronicle of Higher Education)

Free Market Fairness (Martin O'Neill and Thad Williamson, Boston Review)

Raise the Economy's Speed Limit (Jared Bernstein, NYT)

The Measure of All Things (Jennifer Burns, The American Prospect)

Special Report: Amazon's Billion-Dollar Tax Shield (Tom Bergin, Reuters)- Few days go by when I don't feel worse about shopping at Amazon.

The Future of Shopping (Megan McArdle, The Daily Beast)

Politics

School Prayer (Rachel Whipple, Times & Seasons)-- This is about in line with my own thinking on the subject.  Also, let it be known that Raymond Takeshi Swenson has no idea what he is talking about on this issue, but let's at least all be grateful that, for once, he was able to keep his comment brief and to the point.


Babies, Nickled and Dimed (Amanda Marcotte, The American Prospect)

How to Talk about a Changing America (Paul Waldman, The American Prospect)


Greedy Geezers, Reconsidered (Robert Kuttner, The American Prospect)

Laws Not Fit to be Defended (David Cole, New York Review of Books)

Paying for charitable giving (Fred Hiatt, WaPo)

How racism lives on in a 'color-blind' society (Brian Jones, Socialist Worker)

Global Issues

What is Peace? (Margaret Paxson, Aeon)

Save Your Kisses for Me (Adam Curtis, BBC The Medium and the Message)-- Great video/photo essay.


Aleppo: How Syria is Being Destroyed (Charles Glass, NYRB)

Feminism

The Plight of the Alpha Female (Kay S. Hymowitz, City Journal)


I Am, It Turns Out (C. Jane Kendrick)-- A more personal take on a Mormon feminist "coming out"

Mormonism


Tentative Notes Toward a Theory of Liberal Mormonism (Matt Bowman, Peculiar People)

How Mormonism Changes and Managing Liberal Expectations (Nate Oman, Times & Seasons)-- THE big Bloggernacle post of the week, prompting comment all over the place, including Oman's own Facebook wall.  As others point out, I suspect that Oman is right about the way that the Church actually works (i.e. leaders following the mass opinion of the members rather than determining it) but his ascribing a misunderstanding of this primarily or exclusively to "liberals" (theological, political, or both) seems way off base to me.  Reactions from BCC here and by TT at FPR here (with Nate's reply here)


Previewing 2013: A Look Forward to Exciting Books in Mormon History (Ben Park, Juvenile Instructor)

2012 in Retrospect: An Overview of Noteworthy Articles and Books in Mormon History (Ben Park, Juvenile Instructor)-- I look forward to these posts from Ben and others every year.  It is always a huge help updating my Amazon wish list.


LDS Church Launches New Website Calling for Greater Openness and Understanding on LGBT Issues (Joanna Brooks, Religion Dispatches)-- Definitely the biggest news in Mormon world for this week, excluding the extensive navel-gazing prompted among the Bloggernaclerati by Nate Oman's post at Times & Seasons (see below).

Shunning Your Fellow Saints: You're Doing it Wrong (Jacob, By Common Consent)