I head off next week to the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion in lovely San Antonio. Which presentations should I see while I'm there? Check out the program and offer suggestions. If you can't go and want to get the notes on a presentation, let me know and I'll see if I... Continue Reading →
Until We Get a Direct Democracy, Try Direct Pressure
Trump did not win a majority of votes in 25% of the states where he won the popular vote. If you live in one of those states--Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Utah, or Wisconsin--consider contacting your state's Republican electors and encourage them to withhold their vote from the Republican candidate on December 19. Remember that you will... Continue Reading →
Teaching in a Time of Trumpism
What books/articles/films/exhibits/images/music/skills/strategies will you be teaching this semester or next to help your students address the rise and presidency of Donald Trump? What I've been teaching this fall in my senior research course: Predisposed: Liberals, Conservatives, and the Biology of Political Differences, Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism & Wrecked the Middle Class, and The... Continue Reading →
A Little Electoral College Contest
If you're a fellow FiveThirtyEight junkie (or hater), you have probably been looking at a lot of electoral maps lately. I thought that, rather than worrying about it (or maybe in addition to worrying about it), it would be fun to have a little contest. Let's see if any of/how many of us can beat... Continue Reading →
John Prine on Lincoln and Eisenhower, and me and Taylor Swift on the GOP
Of the many wonderful lyrics John Prine has written, one of my favorites comes from “Grandpa was a Carpenter,” from Sweet Revenge. In the autobiographical recollection of his grandfather, Prine remembers that the great man “voted for Eisenhower/ ’Cause Lincoln won the war.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blW9AWIP8ZU John Prine performs "Grandpa was a Carpenter," 1983 As a lover... Continue Reading →
Reading Round Up, Presidential Edition, November 5, 2016
Petula Dvorak gets right down to it in “The Epic Failure of the American Electorate” in the Washington Post. You can find out if you are an informed voter with this PBS quiz. Bill Clinton gets specific in “I am a White Southerner. I know what Make America Great Again Means.” In a speech in... Continue Reading →
Kansas Republicans Stoke Anti-Muslim Fear so You Don’t Notice Them Turning the State into a Place Where You’d Rather Not Live
On mid-October, three militia members attempted to blow up a housing complex in Garden City, Kansas. Their hope was to destroy the complex, which houses many Muslim Somali immigrants, on November 9, the day after the election, the same day former Representative and general deadbeat Joe Walsh said loser Republicans should “grab a musket” to... Continue Reading →
Foul Mouths v. Purity Culture: Which Leads to Sexual Violence?
For Every Mom writer and future Zondervan author Shauna Shanks* has recently published a piece on her blog that really does a fine job of capturing the thinking of many evangelical women who are sticking by Donald Trump. And I don’t mean that as a compliment. (Though I do mean it as a compliment when... Continue Reading →