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Politics and Religion

2021-06-21T07:31:33-06:00

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 does Juneteenth mean?

Last updated on: June 21, 2021 at 7:31 am By Jane the Actuary

Yeah, this is another one of my little blog posts in which I write based on memory rather than pulling up links, but here’s the question: what is Juneteenth about? Yes, the date commemorates the arrival of the Union Army in Texas proclaiming the liberation of the slaves, on June 19, 1865, some two months after the surrender of Lee and the end of the Civil War, and some two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. And I’ve been reading a... Read more

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Juneteenth

slavery

2021-04-10T12:17:17-06:00

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.

Remembering my father

Last updated on: April 10, 2021 at 12:17 pm By Jane the Actuary

I don’t write as much at this blog as I used to, with other things occupying my time and with other outlets for writing. But my father passed away yesterday (as I started writing this) and I wanted to share a little bit about him. He was a member of the so-called “silent generation,” born in 1939, on a small farm just outside Denver, Colorado, where his parents had moved from their own farms in Nebraska. His dad worked at... Read more

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2021-02-23T11:47:59-06:00

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.

Biden’s immigration bill will not “fix” illegal immigration

Last updated on: February 23, 2021 at 11:47 am By Jane the Actuary

Remember the George Bush immigration reform proposal in 2006, when he claimed that he would “solve” the issue of future illegal immigration by granting a new form of work visa, the “blue card”? Because, you see, people came to the US illegally because of our plentiful low-skill jobs which “Americans don’t want,” the idea was that employers would be allowed to recruit, legally, abroad, for any job at all, so long as they paid minimum wage. So there would still... Read more

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illegal immigration

2021-02-22T17:23:17-06:00

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.

Why the Equality Act is actually much worse than the Bostock Court ruling

Last updated on: February 22, 2021 at 5:23 pm By Jane the Actuary

Remember back last summer when the Supreme Court determined that, by parsing the Civil Rights Act as literally as possible, it protected homosexual and transgender workers? At the time I said, “hey, the sky is not falling, Gorsuch actually affirmed a biological definition of ‘sex,’ and the ruling is fairly narrow.” Indeed, the premise of finding that a transgender person’s employment rights are protected was, when it comes down to it (though he didn’t use this phrasing) “you can’t prohibit... Read more

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transgender

2021-02-01T14:28:49-06:00

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.

The Bee predicts the post-Trump GOP future

Last updated on: February 1, 2021 at 2:28 pm By Jane the Actuary

On January 6, the Babylon Bee posted an article with the headline: “Absolute Legend: Trump Walks Away From Republican Party Without Even Looking Back At Explosion.” Here’s as much of the article as seems appropriate to share without violating fair use norms: In an awesome display of action movie MAGA-greatness, Trump walked away from the exploding Republican Party like an absolute legend, without looking back or even flinching. Witnesses say they saw Trump power-walking in slow motion away from... Read more

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2021-01-20T20:11:17-06:00

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 we learn that Biden isn’t a moderate after all

Last updated on: January 20, 2021 at 8:11 pm By Jane the Actuary

Let’s start with immigration. Remember the “path to citizenship” and “earned legalization” promises? — that is, the claim that a mass legalization program would not be “amnesty” because there would be hoops to jump through rather than an automatic process and because the prospective new citizens would have to prove their worthiness? Turns out, the requirements for future residents will be few in the new Biden proposal. According to the Biden website, the only requirement for “undocumented individuals” to apply... Read more

2021-01-06T10:33:04-06:00

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 GRE postmortem

Last updated on: January 6, 2021 at 10:33 am By Jane the Actuary

No, not an election postmortem — I don’t believe there is appropriate data that could help identify whether, for instance, droves of Republicans really did stay home by getting suckered into the belief that this somehow made sense as a way of fighting against lizard people, at least not at this point in time. A GRE postmortem because one of my projects over the past month has been applying to graduate school. Yes, again. Readers who pay careful attention will... Read more

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personal

2020-12-14T13:54:04-06:00

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.

Let’s talk about ‘Dr.’ Biden

Last updated on: December 14, 2020 at 1:54 pm By Jane the Actuary

So there was a dust-up over the weekend about a Wall Street Journal opinion piece criticizing Jill Biden and her supporters for her/their wish/demand/insistence that she be called “Dr. Jill Biden,” because of her academic degree. Is Jill Biden a doctor? Not in the ordinary American usage of the term. Does she merit being addressed with the title, “Dr. Biden”? Under some circumstances, by some people, yes. Is that customary usage actually reasonable? No, not really. Let’s start from the... Read more

2020-11-21T22:04:01-06:00

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.

Actually, workers on Food Stamps is a good thing

Last updated on: November 21, 2020 at 10:04 pm By Jane the Actuary

In the news yesterday, the Government Accounting Office released its report on the number and percentage of individuals receiving federal aid such as Medicaid and food stamps who were employed by such major employers as Walmart and McDonald’s. The study was, as is the norm for such studies, not initiated by the GAO, but based on a request from Sen. Bernie Sanders, and, as the rhetoric and reporting on the study makes clear, aimed to criticize those employers for offering... Read more

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food stamps

poverty

2020-11-16T14:49:52-06:00

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.

Let’s talk about inflation

Last updated on: November 16, 2020 at 2:49 pm By Jane the Actuary

So if I were a credentialed economist, or even had any specialized education in the subject, I’d write this at Forbes. But I’m not/I don’t, so I won’t. But I have spent the greater part of the weekend working with my teen to catch him up in his AP Econ class, and we’ve been going over the various graphs and concepts and, in particular, the connection between monetary supply and inflation that appears to have vanished in the United States.... Read more

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inflation

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