The Nightstand (Oct 22nd)-- Election Fatigue Edition

Politics

'This Chamber Reeks of Blood' (Raymond J. Haberski, US Intellectual History blog)

The Grit and Grace of George McGovern (Tom Daschle, The American Prospect)

The lame rules for presidential debates: a perfect microcosm of American democracy (Glenn Greenwald, The Guardian)

Blue states are from Scandanavia, red states are from Guatemala (Jonathan Cohn, The New Republic)-- Seems insulting to Guatemala

Giving children the right to vote (Seymon Dukach, WaPo)

The opiate of exceptionalism (Scott Shane, NYT)

Bill & Hillary Forever (John Heilemann, New York)

Reaping the Whirlwind (Linda Greenhouse, NYT)

Growing Up Romney (Noam Scheiber, The New Republic)-- The Romney family myth of self-reliance.

More Speech is Better (David Cole, NYRB)

Are Capitalism and Democracy Failing Us? (Raghu Rajan, Fault Lines)

The Arizonification of America (Jeff Biggers, NYT)- Arizona, the "meth lab of democracy"

Mormonism

Mormon feminists? Yes, they exist and they're for Obama (Peter Henderson, Reuters)

As Partners, Mormons and Scouts Turn Boys into Men (Erik Eckholm, NYT)

Economy

Map shows the worst states for women to make money (Chris Kirk, Slate)

No More Industrial Revolutions (Thomas Edsall, NYT)

Buyology (Jerry DeNuccio, The Smart Set)

What will replace the globalization model? (David Smick, WaPo)

The self-destruction of the 1 percent (Chrystia Freeland, NYT Sunday Review)

Sympathy for the Plutocrat (Nick Hanauer, Reuters)

The brashness and bravado of big deals (John Kay)

Income Inequality May Take Toll on Growth (Annie Lowrey, NYT)

Foreign Affairs

China's other power struggle (Charlie Zhu, David Lague, Reuters)

The billionaires next door (Chrystia Freeland, Reuters)

Arts

George Lucas' Force (Camille Paglia, The Chronicle of Higher Education)

The Nightstand (Oct 14th)

The campaign's moral hole (E.J. Dionne, WaPo)

One Blogger's Response to Elder Holland's Conference Talk (Sophia, Feminist Mormon Housewives)

Martha Raddatz and the faux objectivity of journalists (Glenn Greenwald, The Guardian)

Shut up and play nice: How the Western World is limiting free speech (Jonathan Turley, WaPo)

'Your Women Are Oppressed but Ours Are Awesome': How Nicholas Kristof and Half the Sky Use Women Against Each Other (Sayantani DasGupta, Racialicious)

The Wrong Way to Help the Poor (Gary MacDougal, NYT)

Romney is Unwise to Believe in the Wisdom of Markets (Mark Buchanan, Bloomberg View)

The International Church and the 'Gospel Culture' (Ryan Tobler, Peculiar People)

Policy to Theology (Let's Get this Right) (Elisothel, Feminist Mormon Housewives)

Pragmatism and Progress: An Overview of LDS Sister Missionary Service in the Twentieth Century (andrearm, Juvenile Instructor)

GD Pedagogy (Kevin Barney, By Common Consent)

A real class war may be on its way (Harold Meyerson, WaPo)

What the recent missionary announcement should teach us about structural inequality (rah, Feminist Mormon Housewives)

The issues they won't talk about (Eric Ruder, Socialist Worker)

Long Live Paper (Justin Hollander, NYT)

The Nightstand (October 7th)

International


Waiting for an Arab Spring of Ideas (Tariq Ramadan, NYT)

The Reality of Anti-Blasphemy Laws (Hussein Ibish, Open Zion)

Economics

Life-Span Gap Skews Entitlements Toward the Well-Off (Peter Orszag, Bloomberg View)


Corporate Welfare Queens (James Surowiecki, The New Yorker)

Inequality and Its Perils (Jonathan Rauch, National Journal)

I am a job creator: a manifesto for the entitled (Steven Pearlstein, WaPo)-- Now's who the entitled one?

Are Women Better Off Than They Were Four Years Ago? (E.J. Graff, The American Prospect)

Conservatism and Extreme Inequality (Andrew Sullivan, The Dish)

Legal

Moving Beyond Affirmative Action (Thomas Espenshade, NYT)

Justice Kennedy is Back for More Torture (Noah Feldman, Bloomberg View)

Mormonism


Mormon Sister Missionaries: Progress with an Asterisk (Jana Riess, Flunking Sainthood), (Re)Conceptualizing Our Gendered Missionary Image (Ben Park, By Common Consent) & Missionary Service and Mormon Femininities (Rosalynde Welch, Times & Seasons)-- The only thing that Mormons will be talking about this week.  I could have linked any of three dozen articles, commentaries, etc. on this, but these three seem to fit best.

New Youth Curriculum, and the Digital Facilitation of New Revelation (David Tayman, Worlds Without End)

Mocking Romney's Mormon Self-Sufficiency and What that Misses (Russell Arben Fox, By Common Consent)

Profits of Zion (Matt Bowman, Slate)

Election

The US Presidential debates' illusion of political choice (Glenn Greenwald, The Guardian)

Express yourself, but vote (Joel Bleifuss, In These Times)

We're all values voters (Nathaniel Frank, The American Prospect)

Other


We're Here, We're Queer, Ya'll (Karen Cox, NYT)-- Clearly this wins the award for best article title of the week, if not the year.

The Nightstand (September 30th)

Politics and the 2012 Election

The American Dream's Empty Promise (Robert Samuelson, WaPo)-- This seems like an appropriate time to reiterate that my listing an article on the Nightstand does not necessarily (though sometimes) imply either endorsement or agreement.  I think that Samuelson makes some solid points here and I am in agreement with the overall thrust that the "American Dream" is, and always has been, largely a fiction, never truly available to everybody (no matter how hard-working) at any given time.

Brown v. Warren: Choosing Between Automatons and Leaders (David Sirota, In These Times)

The Unraveling of Government (Mickey Edwards, NYT)

This Presidential Race Should Never Have Been This Close (Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone)-- I think Taibbi's estimate that most Americans share the politics of the 99 vs. 1 percent dynamic pushed by the Occupiers is wrong, but that's mostly the fault of the lies put forward as the American Dream.

Legislate First, Ask Questions Never (Leonard Goodman, In These Times)

The League of Dangerous Mapmakers (Robert Draper, The Atlantic)

We Never Liked You Anyway (Paul Waldman, The American Prospect)-- Since a couple of weeks ago, when the race started turning in a significant way for Obama, this is the scenario that I have envisioned.  Consider the following: Romney was the choice of his party only because the other candidates seemed to be refugees from the Island of Misfit Children, they have never fully trusted him, he has no current political position to fall back on (e.g. Senator) if he loses, and he has no natural constituency within the party.  Not to mention the empirical fact that he has run a disastrous general election campaign, at least up until this point.  The blame for this will fall completely on his shoulders and he will be tossed to the wolves at a moment's notice.  I mean, don't feel too sorry for the guy, he has $250 million in the bank, and all the potential in the world to make a great deal more during the rest of his life.  He'll be fine.

Mitt's Stake (Benjamin Wallace-Wells, New York)-- I have read a couple of stories like this, with genuinely moving and admirable vignettes about Mitt Romney's service as an LDS church leader.  And I have zero, ZERO doubt that they are factually accurate.  But what I cannot escape is the bewilderment of, "If Mitt Romney did those things, who the hell is this guy that keeps showing up on my TV saying these ridiculous and callous things?"

The Decay of American Democracy (Shadia B. Drury, Council for Secular Humanism)

Mormon Issues

Romney, Mormonism, and a Concern for the Poor (David Bokovoy, Worlds without End)

Gender and Priesthood (Nate Oman, Times & Seasons)

DC Third Ward Mormons would welcome Romney, even if most are Democrats (Michelle Borrstein, WaPo)

The Veil: Thick and Thin? (Dave Banack, Worlds without End)- "My suspicion is that, most of the time, we are on our own."

Mormon Modesty: We have to do better (Lisa Butterworth, Feminist Mormon Housewives)-- This is so important, I could repost it every week until my daughters leaves YW (which is approximately 18 years from now).

Sex


Spreading the Word (and Pictures) on 'Real' Sex (Cara Buckley, NYT)

The moral case for sex before marriage (Jill Filipovic, The Guardian)-- This seems like the appropriate time to reiterate (for the second time in the same week) that a link does not imply either endorsement or agreement.

Other

Reinventing Ethics (Howard Gardner, NYT)

The Myths of Muslim Rage (Kenan Malik, Pandemonium)

Is Sweden awesome because it mooches off the US? (Dylan Mathews, Wonkblog)

Fighting Over God's Image (Edward Blum and Paul Harvey, NYT)

The Roberts Court Takes on Racial Justice (David Cole, NYRB)

End of Summer Mega Update (September 23rd)

I promised myself that I would not do this again, but I am combining multiple weeks' worth of posts into one.    I have had a couple of weeks' vacation and did not spend that extra free time reading.  Time to play catch-up.  Again, stars mean they are the top 10.

Election 2012-- "Good heavens, Mitt Romney is terrible" edition

Extremism in defense of Gilded Age privilege (Katrina vanden Heuvel, WaPo)

***Greed and Debt: The True Story of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital (Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone)-- I love the way that Taibbi pulls no punches.  I am really surprised that the precise dynamics of how Mitt acquired his fortune have not become a bigger issue.  Probably too complicated for the average voter.

Ghosts of Ballots Past (Rick Valelly, The American Prospect)

Voting Wrongs (Elizabeth Drew, NYRB)

Election 2012 and the media: a vast right-wing conspiracy of stupid (Glenn Greenwald, The Guardian)

Romney's theory of the "taker class" and why it matters (Ezra Klein, Wonkblog)

Mitt Romney is NOT the Face of Mormonism (Greg Prince, Huffington Post)

***The Political Education of Elizabeth Warren (Monica Potts, The American Prospect)-- Elizabeth Warran, along with Julian Castro (from my own state of Texas) are the two up-and-coming Democrats that I am most excited about.

***The Projection Party (Paul Waldman, The American Prospect)

Mitt Romney's Fair Share (Joseph Stiglitz, Project Syndicate)

***Mitt Romney's Best-Known Mormon Critic Tells It All.  One Last Time (Joanna Brooks, Religion Dispatches)-- Really important interview with Judith Dushku.

How Not to Govern (Jared Bernstein, On The Economy)

A Good Ole Boys' Family Feud (Theo Anderson, In These Times)

Praying for the White House (Paul Waldman, The American Prospect)

The Election and the Future (Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein, Democracy Journal)

The Crying Game (Charles Simic, NYRB)

Revolt of the Rich (Mike Lofgren, The American Conservative)

In the Twilight of Empire (Jeff Faux, In These Times)

The System That Wasn't There; Ayn Rand's Failed Philosophy (and why it matters) (Nicholas McGinnis, Engaging Science)

Mormons-- "60 days till the Mormon Moment is over" edition


***Why I Love Mormonism (Simon Critcheley, NYT)

***Why Mormon Men Love 'Church Ball' and are Scared of Homosexuality (Kristine Haglund, Religion & Politics)

And now for something completely different...nonviolence (christopherpdavey, The Mormon Worker)

Holy Rollers (Clare Malone, The American Prospect)-- And for a Mormon reflection on the same, see Joanna Brooks at Religion Dispatches.

Women's issues

A Never-Ending Story (Linda Greenhouse, NYT)

***The Legitimate Children of Rape (Andrew Solomon, The New Yorker)-- Just heartbreaking.

***To the Religious Right, I Am No Longer a Woman (Robin Marty, RH Reality Check)

Health care

Public Health versus Private Freedom (Peter Singer, Project Syndicate)

America's Health Worker Mismatch (Kate Tulenko, NYT)

The Fraying Hospital Safety Net (Pauline W. Chen, M.D., NYT)

How Much Health-Care Spending is Wasted? Lots. (Peter Orzsag, Bloomberg View)


Economics

Our alternative to the madness of the market (Eric Ruder, Socialist Worker)

***Is poverty a kind of robbery? (Thomas B. Edsall, NYT)

Wall Street's War on the Cities (Michael Hudson, CounterPunch)

The great transformation in the global labour market (Philip Brown, Hugh Lauder, Eurozine)

Capitalism and Government Are Friends After All (Alex Marshall, Bloomberg View)

***We're Winning the War on Poverty (Matthew Yglesias, Slate)

If Labor Dies, What's Next? (Harold Meyerson, The American Prospect)

Other

Everything You Think You Know About China is Wrong (Minxin Pei, Foreign Policy)

Our Romance with Guns (David Cole, NYRB)

Learning as Freedom (Michael S. Roth, NYT)

The Throwaways (Sarah Stillman, The New Yorker)

An orgy of cynicism (Hussein Ibish, Now Lebanon!)

The drugs don't work: a modern medical scandal (Ben Goldacre, The Guardian)

Film is Dead? Long Live Movies (A.O. Scott, Manohla Dargis, NYT)

Where is Cuba Going (John Jeremiah Sullivan, NYT)

The Siege of Academe (Kevin Carey, Washington Monthly)-- It still feels like the missing piece of the puzzle here is the credentialing aspect.  You may know a ton, but how do you prove it?  Degrees from fancy universities have a signaling function and it seems that like will be the biggest hurdle for online education.