Elsewhere: Toys for Girls, Pat Robertson, The End of Men, Tea Party Zombies, Apple, etc.

Drew
Alisa Harris brings up some excellent points about protecting your children in light of the launch of PastorMark.tv

Michael Thomson of Slate wrote an article titled, “Shooting Gallery: Why aren’t their civilians in military videogames?” which spawned my article this week on When Games Matter.

Cathy Lynn Grossman reports for USA Today, citing research from George Barna, that more Americans are tailoring religion to fit their needs.

Sadly few people know who Eugene Nida is. I love Think Christian for recognizing him this week and his contribution to Bible translation as he died last month.

The trailer for Dead Island was one of the most talked about game trailers I can remember for some of its rather daring choices. Now that the game is actually out Kirk Hamilton reflects on the spectacle and whether the game pays homage to the trailer’s emotional resonance.

The Huffington Post has compiled a list of the 14 Worst Toys for Girls.

Jason M.
In Pat Robertson’s latest bit of ugliness, he says it’s OK to divorce your spouse if they have Alzheimer’s, and Russell Moore responds forcefully, yet thoughtfully: “Pat Robertson’s cruel marriage statement is no anomaly. He and his cohorts have given us for years a prosperity gospel with more in common with an Asherah pole than a cross.”

The Atlantic has compiled a gallery of photos marking the six-month anniversary of the earthquake that struck Japan in early March. The “before/after” photos are especially stunning, both in terms of the amount of damage that was done and the amount of recovery that has occurred since. But there’s obviously still a lot of work left to be done.

Tom Junod’s wonderful profile of Fred Rogers, originally written in 1998 for Esquire, has been making the rounds lately. Put simply, Mister Rogers was awesome.

Erin N.
Andrea Lucado of Christianity Today provides a thoughtful response to the misguided new children’s book Maggie Goes on a Diet.

The Atlantic’s Hanna Rosin imagines the rise of a matriarchal society and the fall of a patriarchal one–and raises a lot of questions about social clout and economic power in “The End of Men”.

Sunita Puri exposes the ethically and economically fraught realities of sex selection in the United States.

Adam Carrington:
Congressman Paul Ryan speaks at Hillsdale College in honor of Constitution Day. Fine thoughts as usual.

Study conducted of University of Wisconsin-Madison’s admissions program:  Odds favoring African-Americans over whites in being admitted is 576-1, 504-1 when comparing Hispanics to whites. If there are no kinks in the study, then it does ask how far even supporters of Affirmative Action would agree to discriminate to counter other forms of discrimination.

Feel-good story from last week’s Notre Dame-Michigan game. And being from Ohio, I have to try really hard to give a positive comment for “that team up north.”

Adding to our political discourse:  the new “Tea Party Zombies Must Die” video game, where you can bludgeon, shoot, and otherwise murder Republican politicians, Fox News personalities, and caricatures of conservative supporters.

Another in a series of thoughtful letters to Congress called Letters from an Ohio Farmer, written in the style of The Federalist Papers. This one discusses the relationship of Congress to the Constitution. I suggest all of the series. Raises the level of political discourse significantly without going into obtuse academic terminology.

Rick Perry’s lead in the GOP primaries has decreased. Probably because he has shown little ability to debate and not a very good message beyond his jobs record. So far very unimpressed.

This New York Times article on how annoying–and ugly–the plethora of new college football uniforms is. Chief offender:  University of Maryland…yikes.

Kirk
This is a weird article on how online avatars can make your life better.

This is a really weird article that wonders if “visions of cosmological knowledge once stored by archaic societies [have been] rediscovered by modern science”.  You will never be able to get back the time you spend reading it.  You have been warned.

Enjoyed this brief, thorough, well-written hermeneutics primer written by an Anglican, titled “How Everyone’s A Theologian”.

Getting meta about Apple products.

Erin S. 

Mark your calendars: Monday, September 19, is International Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Just in case NPR comes calling and offers you a show, get your NPR name ready. Mine is Emrin Vaitape.

We don’t know what Jesus looked like, but Christians were offended enough by this billboard that the company pulled it and apologized. Funny, that’s not how I pictured Him.