{"id":5135,"date":"2018-08-24T17:02:49","date_gmt":"2018-08-25T01:02:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/?p=5135"},"modified":"2018-08-24T17:02:49","modified_gmt":"2018-08-25T01:02:49","slug":"things-glen-found-interesting-volume-166","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2018\/08\/24\/things-glen-found-interesting-volume-166","title":{"rendered":"Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 166"},"content":{"rendered":"

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On Fridays I share articles\/resources about broad cultural, societal and theological issues. Be sure to see the explanation and disclaimers at the bottom. I welcome your suggestions. If you read something fascinating please pass it my way.<\/p>\n

Things Glen Found Interesting<\/h3>\n
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  1. God\u2019s Mayor in Guatemala<\/a> (Dale Hanson Bourke, Christianity Today): \u201cIn the so-called Northern Triangle of Central America, the countries of Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala form a violent triad. The murder rate is higher in this region than in most active war zones. Gangs, cartels, and vigilantes impose their will, taking over or co-opting legitimate police forces and routinely terrorizing average citizens\u2026. In the middle of this violence sits the town of San Crist\u00f3bal Acasaguastl\u00e1n, a picturesque oasis of calm with a population of about 6,000 people. What sets this place apart are the efforts of Jeaneth Ordo\u00f1ez, the Christian mayor who has united the townspeople in their quest to keep the municipality free of the violence and upheaval that surrounds them.\u201d<\/li>\n
  2. No alcohol safe to drink, global study confirms<\/a> (Laurel Ives, BBC): \u201cA large new global study published in the Lancet has confirmed previous research which has shown that there is no safe level of alcohol consumption. The researchers admit moderate drinking may protect against heart disease but found that the risk of cancer and other diseases outweighs these protections.\u201d The underlying research: Alcohol use and burden for 195 countries and territories, 1990\u20132016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016<\/a> (The Lancet. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/S0140-6736(18)31310\u20132<\/a>)<\/li>\n
  3. Christians to Science: Leave Animals the Way God Designed Them\u2014Except Mosquitoes<\/a> (Rebecca Randall, Christianity Today): \u201cMessing with nature or God\u2019s plan was a top concern for those opposed to engineering animal meat to be more nutritious (22%), bringing back an extinct species (23%), or making aquarium fish glow (18%). The reason cited most often to oppose creating glowing fish was simply that it is unnecessary and frivolous (48%).\u201d Apparently I am an outlier. Make the fish glow, make meat more nutritious, and deal with mosquito-borne disease. I really like the way the Kenyan researcher quoted in the article encourages us to target the parasite and not the carrier. We are made in the image of God so that we can exercise dominion over Creation!<\/li>\n
  4. The Peter Principle is a joke taken seriously. Is it true?<\/a> (Tim Harford, Financial Times): \u201cThe authors of the paper discovered that the best salespeople were more likely to be promoted, and that they were then terrible managers. The better they had been in sales, the worse their teams performed once they arrived in a managerial role. What\u2019s more, people were not promoted for behaviour that might seem correlated with managerial ability \u2014 in particular, those who collaborated with others were not rewarded for doing so. What mattered were sales, pure and simple.\u201d It may be the case that you should dress for the job you want, but if you want to get promoted you had better rock the job you have.<\/li>\n
  5. Gay Men Are Different, Says Gay Male Reader<\/a> (Rod Dreher, The American Conservative): \u201cWell-meaning straight liberals just do not get it, and lots of gay men will not criticize anything gay men collectively do because they think it will result in both lots of anger from other gay men as well as the empowerment of ideological enemies who want to, say, ban gay marriage. Men and women are fundamentally different and a male-female sexual culture is not going to be the same as a male-male sexual culture.\u201d I suspect this will considered controversial by one set of readers and common sense by another, and that the groups will not break down along predictable lines.<\/li>\n
  6. How the internet has changed dating<\/a> (The Economist): \u201c\u2026a 2013 study researchers from Harvard University and the University of Chicago showed that marriages that started online were less likely to end in break-up and were associated with higher levels of satisfaction than marriages of the same vintage between similar couples who had met offline: the difference was not huge, but it was statistically significant.\u201d<\/li>\n
  7. What Trump Knew and Voters Didn\u2019t<\/a> (Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic): \u201c\u2026Trump voters went to the polls unaware that a sum exceeding most of their annual salaries was expended to keep that [Trump paid off a porn star] from them. Even if the payment had been totally legal, it would\u2019ve constituted a deliberate, immoral, classically politician-like effort to mislead voters about the choice before them. But the payment was not legal. It violated campaign-finance laws\u2014and it was not a merely accidental and technical violation of an overly complicated or controversial provision.\u201d This article is a pretty good and succinct summary of the current debate about Trump.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Less Serious Things Which Also Interested\/Amused Glen<\/h3>\n