Here and There #43

Red meat, evangelical eschatology and where it leads, alcohol, happiness, immigration, social media censorship, destroying Indiana's public schools, and incarcerated pay

First up: if you don’t click on any other link or read any of the other pieces in this “Here and There,” read this one by Clay Libolt. Clay is a graduate from the University of Michigan Dept. of Near Eastern Studies who was 1 or 2 years ahead of my cohort there in the 1970s. For many years, he’s pastored in the Christian Reformed Church, and this piece on how evangelical eschatology has prepared the way for Donald Trump is historically spot-on.

The U.S. surgeon general has noted that recent studies have shown that even relatively small amounts of alcohol consumption can be contributory to various forms of cancer. What to make of this news? How do we digest this information and take action on it? All of us wrestle with the latest on “what’s healthy” for us. In The Atlantic, Derek Thompson attempts to provide a balanced perspective, whatever that may mean. [Gift link]

What makes for happiness at work? It’s not a simple matter, to be sure, but when a nation seems in general to be a happy place, it’s worth evaluating what goes on there to make peoples’ work (and life) experience better. Denmark always ranks high on work-life happiness, unlike the U.S.

Immigration continues to be a very big issue, especially with the First Felon’s plans to deport great swaths of immigrants. The New York Times editorial board has a piece that describes what our nation’s attitude toward immigration could or should be, with suggestions for the steps necessary to get there. I don’t have much hope for anything happening; nonetheless, this article points in the right direction, in general. [Gift link]

You’ve heard the political right complain about the Biden administrations “censorship” of social media, most especially Facebook and Twitter. Mike Masnick, whom I follow on social media, points out that there is some serious misinformation about what’s happened in the past 4 years and points to what’s happening now between Zuckerberg/Facebook and the First Felon and shows that it’s much worse than anything that ever happened under Biden. Along the same lines, Masnick has more here and here on the same topic.

I’m not sure that I’ve seen any posts by fake/AI accounts on Facebook or Threads yet; but Meta is planning to unleash thousands of them and had begun the process already. This may well flood all Meta platforms with fake posts whose only goal is to keep you engaged so that you can see the ads. How soon will this fully play out? Well, it’s already happening.

Indiana residents, especially: the state legislature is in session and all manner of bad stuff is happening (and probably some good, though I’m a little skeptical, to be honest). One legislator has introduced a bill that essentially would completely wipe out public schools in some districts because it’s “unfair to require people who don’t have children in public schools to pay taxes to support public schools” (that’s a paraphrase). Peter Greene has the story (linked above) in the Wall Street Journal or here if that works better for you. It’s Indiana House bill 1136, and I urge Indiana peeps to contact your representative to oppose this terrible bit of legislation. (You can read the bill yourself easily on the Indiana House website.)

Jonathan V. Last is someone I read regularly, and a recent post on The Bulwark about Pete Hegseth’s nomination, “vice as a moat” (a notion that should intrigue you), and other things is worth reading in its entirety, so I’ve provided a PDF (to avoid the paywall; I’m a subscriber, and you could consider subscribing, too!).

Incarcerated people have often worked as a part of their incarceration. Sometimes, they’re paid. Some states require that they be paid at least minimum wage for their labor. In the case of Alabama, more than any other state, the government makes a profit off the work of prisoners, and the state does so in weird ways, as reflected in the title of this AP story, “Alabama profits off prisoners who work at McDonald’s but considers them too dangerous to consider for parole.” Our justice system is broken.

“Eating more plant-based foods titrates the risk of red meat intake, at least as reflected by the gut microbiome profile and the lowered risk of adverse clinical outcomes. That takes us back to Michael Pollan’s wise quote: ‘Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.’ ” This is the key takeaway from Eric Topol’s latest summary of how what we eat affects health outcomes, with a focus on what happens to our gut biome with various diets.