1. Lots to chew on this weekend, including this genuinely positive (and daring!) review of a book we mentioned last week—Tom Holland’s Dominion—by one Mockingbird’s favorite atheists, John Gray, in the New Statesman. As DZ mentioned in his earlier post, Holland’s new book discusses how, despite the decline of Christendom in the West, Christianity is […]
Another Week Ends: Smashed Pottery, Broken People, the Laws of Beauty, Celebrity Workaholics, Moral Licensing, and Watermelon Zombies
First, if you haven’t seen our latest newsletter, check it out here–some very exciting things in store for the year ahead! And click here to listen to this week’s episode of The Mockingcast (“The Ecumenical Apocalypse”), featuring an interview with writer/scholar Liel Liebowitz. 1. Let’s start off with this lovely piece from The Wall Street Journal: There […]
Another Week Ends: The Geel System, Secular Happiness, GMOs, the Faith of Malcolm Gladwell, and Bobby Petrino (Again)
1) Aeon covers the small, “half-crazy” Belgian town of Geel, where the mentally ill have taken refuge and been given a family for over seven centuries. Given its reputation in the 1300s after the martyr Dymphna was killed by her mentally ill father, the town has become well-known by Belgians as a place of respite […]
Another Week Ends: Francis I and God as Love, Llewyn Davis Is a Failure, More Brene Brown, Questing Against the Wind, the Horror of Breakfast Meetings, Christmas Is Alright, and the Death of the Funeral
1. Reflections on Pope Francis continue, with the increasingly-familiar tension between acclamation for the Pope’s compassionate, grace-focused tone and suspicion, from another camp, concerning his lack of doctrinal rigidity. Enter Rod Dreher, the prolific ex-Catholic writer, who published a while back in Time an essay saying the following: I fear his merciful words will be received not as […]
Another Week Ends: Biker Church, Wrens Resurrection, Deadend Cool, Helicopter Fans, Lady Susan, Superficial Updike, and Daily Show Grace
1. Right off the bat, an amazing video (on multiple levels), which happens to feature the coolest pulpit I’ve ever seen. We need more of this: Biker Church from Lucid Inc. on Vimeo. 2. All evidence above to the contrary, “coolness” can be a very cruel mistress. In fact, in terms of identity markers, I […]
How to Succeed in Business Without Really Meaning To
And here we have this morning’s second reflection on Malcolm Gladwell’s must-read “The Gift of Doubt”. Malcolm Gladwell recently wrote a piece for The New Yorker on the quirky but charismatic economist Albert O. Hirschman and his unorthodox ideas about creativity and success. Despite being a “planner” himself, Hirschman thought that creativity can only be […]
The Paralysis of Analysis vs. the Gift of Bad Planning
This one comes to us from Sam Bush: I cringe to think of how much time I’ve wasted making decisions. The hours I waste paralyzed in the cereal aisle easily match the time I spend eating cereal (and I always end up choosing Oatmeal Crisp anyways). Personally speaking, the ratio of time spent agonizing over a decision to […]
Another Week Ends: Poptropica Love, Retrospective Bullies, Foolish Proof, Colbert Logs, Lucille Bluth, and the Nabokov-Anderson Connection
1) Club Penguin is one of several multimedia and game sites geared towards tweens from the ages of seven to twelve. Club Penguin itself has over 200 million registered users worldwide, and was purchased by Disney not long ago. And there are plenty of others: Poptropica, Wee World, Moshi Monsters, Fantage. Alongside the sheer breadth […]
Cracked Actors, Self-Propulsion, and the Will of God
The second preview from our publication Grace in Addiction: The Good News of Alcoholics Anonymous for Everybody. This one comes from the chapter on Step 3 (“made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him”), pgs 64-69: “Let me give you a truth that […]
Malcolm Gladwell on the Limits of Social Media
An enlightening look at the power, and the lack thereof, of social media technology in The New Yorker entitled, “Small Change: Why The Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted”. As per usual, Gladwell mixes in some provocative nuggets about the human condition: The platforms of social media are built around weak ties. Twitter is a way […]
Gladwell and Pink on Motivation
Malcolm Gladwell provides a great little write-up of Dan Pink’s recent book “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us” over at the New Yorker: “[Pink’s] jumping-off point is the academic work done over the past few decades that consistently shows that financial rewards hinder creativity. These studies have been around for a while. But […]
Another Week Ends: Mad Men, Glee, Gladwell on Xmas, Atheists, The Rodfather, Supermodels, TK and One Step Beyond
1. In Television. Part 2 of The Daily Beast’s interview with Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner contained another smattering of gems, including [Spoiler alert, ht Ron Flowers]: The Daily Beast: Is the [JFK] assassination the event that finally pushes Betty away and into the arms of Henry Francis (Christopher Stanley)? Weiner: Henry was the only […]
