Is there actually a biblical case for abortion? — Reproductive rights in the United States are likely to suffer a significant blow. Leaked documents show that the Supreme Court is now poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, making abortion and even some contraception nearly impossible to access for many people. Conservatives hold an extremist position on abortion — that…

Work should help us thrive, but our jobs leave us hopeless, exhausted, and deflated. Where did we go wrong? — Economist and mathematician John Maynard Keynes made a bold prediction about the future of work. Back in 1930, he said that within 100 years — by 2030 — we’d be working a 15-hour workweek. We’ve still got time, but things aren’t looking too good. Keynes’ prediction isn’t as silly as…

The poisonous online spectacle of hustle and grind threatens our mental health and forecloses the possibility of real change. — “The Spectacle cannot be understood as a mere visual deception produced by mass-media technologies. It’s a worldview that has actually been materialized, a view of a world that has become objective.” — Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle In theory, Facebook made it easier to connect with friends, family, and…

Can a filmmaker self-consciously set out to make a cult classic, or are the best bad movies just born that way? — There are movies that blur the boundaries between good taste, bad taste, and absolute nonsense — those with plots as intelligible as a fever dream, and bargain-basement production values and filmmaking competence — and they can sometimes be a real treat. …

The public good? Sounds like Marxism. — The current breathless and apoplectic fury over parents’ rights is deeply familiar. In the vitriol spewed at school board meetings and the talking points dripping from the mouths of TV’s talking heads are unmistakable echoes and rhymes from America’s not too distant past. The contemporary pushback carried out under the…

Regular mass shootings in public spaces are the price we pay for the right to bear arms. — When you think of the kind of gun violence that gets a lot of media attention, it’s a very specific kind of event: A rampage killing in public space. Generally — paradigmatically — it’s a white guy with a rifle aiming to express his grievance as a body count. Each…

Instead of repairing roads and bridges, we spend money on police and military budgets. Imperialist priorities are to blame for America’s… — President Joe Biden was recently scheduled to speak in Pittsburgh about the need to repair the country’s infrastructure. That morning, almost as if on queue, the city’s Fern Hollow Bridge collapsed, injuring 10 people. Pictures of a bright red bus hanging from a sloped section of the collapsed bridge made…

DEVO took aim at consumer culture in their music, but as the nature of freedom changed, capitalism commodified their dissent and seduced… — The most fundamentally American freedom in the 21st century is our freedom of choice. We can choose between Pepsi and Coke, Snickers and Baby Ruth, a Ford and a Chevy, a Republican and a Democrat — we vote with our feet and our dollars. We prize our freedom of choices…

President Biden campaigned on humane immigration reforms but continues harsh, Trump-era enforcement policies at the border. — “If you stick a knife in my back nine inches and pull it out six inches, there’s no progress. If you pull it all the way out that’s not progress. Progress is healing the wound that the blow made.” ~ Malcolm X For years, Democrats called out the very real…