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Politics and Religion

2026-09-10T21:15:53-06:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

A September 11th Reflection

Last updated on: September 10, 2026 at 9:15 pm By Jane the Actuary

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Cross-posted from my “campaign” website due to general interest. Back in August, in looking at special events, I was surprised that there were no events announced to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks, so I made some calls and decided to hold an “unofficial” event in lieu of official events. When official events began to appear, I cancelled and encouraged attendance at other events. In the meantime, I had been thinking about what I wanted my... Read more

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2026-08-14T19:53:01-06:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Illinois’ Assisted Suicide Law is, yes, literally deadly

Last updated on: August 14, 2026 at 7:53 pm By Jane the Actuary

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Cross-posted, with edits, from my “campaign” website due to the general nature of the topic. When, last December, Governor Pritzker signed Rep. Grasse’s bill legalizing assisted suicide in Illinois, this is what the press release said: To ensure the highest safeguards for patients, the law is effective in September of 2026, which affords participating health care providers and the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) significant lead time to implement stringent processes and protections as outlined in the law. ... Read more

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assisted suicide

2026-07-12T16:56:46-06:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Revising the “Disability [Pride] Flag”

Last updated on: July 12, 2026 at 4:56 pm By Jane the Actuary

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It’s Disability Pride Month, as declared by various disability activist organizations, such as The Arc Nation Council of Self-Advocates, Access Living of Chicago, and ADAPT, and with it comes various posts on social media promoting the Disability Pride Flag, a design originally created in 2016 by Ann Magill, an American woman with cerebral palsy, but promoted as if it’s somehow “official” and it seems to have gained traction simply because it filled a need, what with all the variations of... Read more

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2026-06-30T20:30:35-06:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

In which I comment on the Supreme Court decisions

Last updated on: June 30, 2026 at 8:30 pm By Jane the Actuary

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Lots of big Supreme Court decisions issued in the past couple days, and, yes, for convenience, I cheated and asked Grok for a quick summary, which it provided with references. I have not read all the details, and the purpose of this post is a quick review, as much for myself as for readers. Trump v. Barbara, birthright citizenship. The court ruled that, yes, the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause is to be interpreted expansively. Was this a given? I wasn’t... Read more

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Supreme Court

2026-04-30T06:38:20-06:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Is there a fix for gerrymandering?

Last updated on: April 30, 2026 at 6:38 am By Jane the Actuary

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Right now, there’s an escalating tit-for-tat battle, with each of Republicans and Democrats accusing the other of being the instigator, over gerrymandering. As far as I can tell, Democrats used the excuse of a moderate increase in the number of GOP seats in Texas to produce extremely unrepresentative gerrymanders in California and now in Virginia, where the new map will . Before that, Illinois’s gerrymander was particularly egregious. I’m sure Democrats could point to bad examples from the Republican side,... Read more

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gerrymandering

2026-04-05T21:35:43-06:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Are 28% of Americans truly functionally illiterate?

Last updated on: April 5, 2026 at 9:35 pm By Jane the Actuary

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That’s the quickie headline for a long read-through of the 2023 PIAAC report. This study, the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, sponsored by OECD, is similar to the PISA report, but it measures adults’ education. It does not define its results in terms of “grade level” but instead is more complicated than that, so I’m going back to my old practice of using the blog as a means of working through information. The labels: Let’s start with... Read more

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education

2026-03-08T21:37:46-06:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

About Amelia Wittkoetter (for Women’s History Month)

Last updated on: March 8, 2026 at 9:37 pm By Jane the Actuary

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The photograph you see here has no date on it. On the back is written, “Amelia Wittkoetter[‘s] mother and sister Anne”; that’s my grandmother’s handwriting, and the photo is of her grandmother, also named Amelia Wittkoetter, and aunt. It’s clear that they are not well-off; the girl’s dress is ill-fitting, the woman’s hands are gnarled well beyond her years. Her crossed eyes suggest lack of money for eyeglasses. On the supposition that the girl is about age 11, the photograph... Read more

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family history

2026-02-28T22:28:13-06:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

RIP, newspapers. RIP, Facebook. What next?

Last updated on: February 28, 2026 at 10:28 pm By Jane the Actuary

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For most of my adult life, I was a subscriber to the Chicago Tribune. That ended in November, or a couple months prior, depending on how you measure, since I cancelled but didn’t demand a pro-rate refund for the prepaid portion, and it finally ran out in November. Funny thing is, though, that I can still access Trib content through the app, since I was a subscriber when I first downloaded and logged on. Maybe eventually it’ll catch on, but... Read more

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campaign ads

newspapers

2026-01-24T10:56:59-06:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

What about the Holocaust-denying Republicans?

Last updated on: January 24, 2026 at 10:56 am By Jane the Actuary

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The numbers are concerning, to say the least, in a poll released last month by the Manhattan Institute on the differences in beliefs between the GOP “old guard” and the New Entrant Republicans, who voted for the GOP for the first time only recently. Many of the questions are fairly ordinary but there are several which most decidedly are not. When asked whether they think it is definitely or probably true, or definitely or probably false, that “The Holocaust of... Read more

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Holocaust

2025-12-31T10:34:05-06:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

“Heritage Americans”? No, WEIRD people.

Last updated on: December 31, 2025 at 10:34 am By Jane the Actuary

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There’s been a whole debate raging on twitter recently, in which one side says, “anyone with American citizenship is just as American as anyone else,” and the other side saying, “people whose ancestors have been in America for longer are more American than new arrivals,” and the first side countering, “you’re just being racist!” But the issue isn’t race: it’s WEIRDness. And unfortunately, Joseph Henrich’s The WEIRDest People in the World didn’t become a part of the mainstream understanding of... Read more

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American culture

WEIRD people

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