Goodbye Andrew Jackson, and hello Harriet Tubman!
Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew is expected to announce April 20 that Tubman, the iconic Underground Railroad conductor, Civil War armed scout, and woman’s suffragist Harriet Tubman will replace President Jackson on the $20 bill, reports Politico.
Before his death at 62, Christopher Hitchens, the uber-atheist and best-selling author of God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, considered becoming a Christian. That is the provocative claim of The Faith of Christopher Hitchens: The Restless Soul of the World’s Most Notorious Atheist, a controversial new book winning both applause and scorn while underscoring, again, the divide between believers and atheists Hitchens’ own life and work often displayed.
Emergency teams from U.S. faith-based humanitarian relief agencies are on the ground in northwest Ecuador after the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that took the lives of at least 413 people. The April 16 quake destroyed more than 300 buildings, buckling overpasses and trapping drivers. More than 2,500 people were injured.
A year ago, when the death of Freddie Gray and resulting unrest in Baltimore filled the news, the Rev. Kathy Dwyer felt she had to do something.
“Every time I turned on the TV, I just felt like I was getting punched in the gut from watching the issue of racism just escalate in our country,” said the white pastor of a predominantly white United Church of Christ congregation in Arlington, Va.
Up to four people may face felony and misdemeanor charges from Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette for their role in the Flint water crisis, according to the Detroit Free Press.
"I love the desert fathers. They are so neat. Especially because my life is all about maximizing comfort — like, my house is cozy, my dog and I have little spots on the couch that’s just shaped like our butts cause we just love being on the couch. And these guys are like, 'Well, I spend a lot of time not eating, and weaving baskets until my fingers bleed, but could I spend more time not weaving baskets until my fingers bleed?'"
"Look, say what you will about Christianity, but the Bible teaches little girls that they can grow up to drive spikes into the heads of Canaanite generals, and there’s huge value in that. Cause there’s sometimes that really goofy straightforward talk about what you can do, or not, “because the Bible and women.” And I really like kind of playing with that and going “Fine, then the lesson I got from this is that you can drive spikes in people’s heads.”
I don’t remember who it was now who wrote this, but I loved how someone talked about how, for an hour and a half, the entire church was Mary Magdalene. In between when she goes to the tomb and has to go find the disciples, she is the entire church. And I love that. I love that for an hour and a half, a woman was the church."
I was reading The Infinity of Hours, which is about the last order of Carthusian monks before the order was changed in the sixties, and one of the monks wrote a letter home and was just bitching about Thomas Merton. I was like, “Of course other monks had opinions!” It did not occur to me, but of course he was this huge, famous monk in the sixties — of course other monks are going to be like, “Well, he needs to spend more time monkin’, and less time writing his famous books.” And [the monk] was like, “I’ve never thought too much about Thomas Merton, I think he needs to decide if he’s a celebrity or a monk.” And it’s just so charming, this little monkish bitchery.
Tennessee's House of Representatives voted 69 — 25 on April 18 to authorize the state's attorney general to sue the federal government for not consulting with the state on the placement of refugees.
The state similar efforts in Texas and Alabama, but becomes the first state that would sue on the grounds of the 10th amendment, which dictates that all powers not explicitly delegated to the federal government in the Constitution belong to the states.
The true purpose of the dinner party, and the reality behind Will’s suspicions, is a slow-burning, tense tale that works best the less the viewer knows going in. Suffice it to say that several characters come to the film with emotional baggage, and while Eden and David’s apparent bliss seems to have cured them of their problems, the source of that bliss — and its results — aren’t exactly as advertised.
The Invitation presents audiences with characters trying to move on from terrible experiences. It also presents two different ways of approaching the healing process, and the failing of a community to support those in pain.