Here and There #11
Christian higher education is under significant stress these days. Trinity International University’s board has just decided to close the residential college and go on-line only. At Seattle Pacific University, some faculty contracts are being “bought out” and others are leaving in advance of downsizing, in the middle of ferment about gender culture war issues affecting both faculty and students. Here’s one professor’s anguish about the complicated decision to stay or not stay. Some some background on the LGBTQ+ issues on campus.
Perhaps some of those objects the US Air Force has shot down in the past 10 days or so are neither aliens nor spy devices from China.
Here’s a very interesting story how some Mexican nationals have been helping to fight fires in the U.S. for years—and now may not be able to for much longer.
There’s encouraging news (at least to me) on the electricity-generation front. In 2023, there will be more new battery-storage capacity than new natural-gas generation in the U.S. Here’s to progress!
Are there neo-Nazis in the U.S.? Well, yes, we hear about them and think “how crazy can it get”? It turns out that there’s a neo-Nazi home-school network just about two hours from where we live. It’s a disturbing article.
How big of a deal is “Christian nationalism”? Well, it’s not tiny, and it’s largest adherents are conservative Protestants. Recently, several academics whom I follow posted a “virtual round-table” discussion of the topic, and if you’ve not conversant with the topic, you ought to be: it’s a part of churches in your town or city, almost certainly. Part 1 by Robert P. Jones, the director of the Public Religion Research Institute; Part 2 is by Jemar Tisby; Part 3 is by Kristen Kobes Du Mez. Part 4 has just been released by Jones. Disturbing fact: more than half of Republicans believe that the U.S. should be a strictly Christian nation. Note: you don’t have to subscribe to any of these blogs; you can click through the invitation to subscribe and it works just fine.
“Within every income bracket, the typical Southerner has a lower credit score than someone who lives in the Northeast, Midwest or West.” Why would this be true? Well, it isn’t race (white vs. non-white). The authors of this article show a correlation between health (or lack thereof) and insurance/Medicaid expansion (or not) and poor credit ratings. The issue is probably quite complex; but the data is fascinating. (And the article is free to you; no paywall.)
Well, the government isn’t coming for your gas stove. Not yet, anyway. But perhaps you should consider getting an induction stove for your health’s sake: studies are increasingly showing that reduced pollution from electrically sourced stoves are healthier.
Apparently, the British publisher of Roald Dahl’s books is editing them for new editions, taking out language that is Dahl’s but is considered too extreme for modern readers. This has provoked a great screed from Alan Jacobs on how we must not destroy history in the interest of modern sensibilities. Salman Rushdie has now weighed in on the change.
If you haven’t heard about the H5N1 virus (aka “bird flu”), you will in the not-too-distant future. This article explains a good deal about why research on viruses is needed, despite all of the argument from some in some quarters against such research (see: “gain of function,” a dirty word in some quarters. Important stuff to know about.