Posts tagged "Jeff Dean"
Food / Law / Politics

The Futility of "Out-Educating" Fat

by Ethan on Mar 30, 2011 • No Comments

Another insightful blurb on the failure of Pelagian-minded methodologies to solve the American obesity issue. According to Clotaire Rapaille, the “If Americans just knew more…” mentality seems to fly in the face of what’s actually happening. Cited by Ramit Sethi (ht JD):

“Years ago, Tufts University invited me to lecture during a symposium on obesity…

Lecturer after lecturer offered solutions for America’s obesity problem, all of which revolved around education. Americans would be thinner if only they knew about good nutrition and the benefits of exercise, they told us. Slimming down the entire country was possible through an…

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Women Are More Forgiving Than Men?
Forgiveness / Gender

Women Are More Forgiving Than Men?

by David Zahl on Feb 21, 2011 • No Comments

At long last, the truth is out! A brief and very interesting but – let’s face it – pretty inconsequential report from Medical News Today, concerning a study from The University of the Basque Country, ht JD:

According to the study, parents forgive more than children, while women are better at forgiving than men… “A decisive factor in the capacity to forgive is empathy, and women have a greater empathetic capacity than males”, Carmen Maganto, co-author of the study and a tenured professor at the Psychology Faculty of the UPV, tells SINC.

What drives forgiveness? Children believe that “one…

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Sweden’s Ongoing War Against Sexism
Gender / Law / News

Sweden’s Ongoing War Against Sexism

by Stampdawg on Feb 7, 2011 • 1 Comment

The last time Mockingbird looked, Swedish clerics were deeply worried about girls there who wanted their fathers to “give them away” in the marriage ceremony. Swedish concern most recently has extended to men, brutally victimized by boxer shorts. Here’s our latest update (thanks again to JD).

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A Swedish advertisement featuring a muscular man clad only in a pair of boxer shorts has been condemned as offensive to men as it portrays them as “mere sex objects”. Sweden’s advertising ombudsman upheld a complaint against the advertisement, promoting a television operator called Boxer, in which a photo shop character called Robert stretches out on…

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Another Week Ends: Brooks on the Subconscious and Failure, DFW Studies, Coldplay, Todd Marinovich, Coptic Drama, and Jail for the 99th Time
Children / Forgiveness / Grace in Practice / Humor / Literature / Music / News / Politics / Psychology / Week In Review

Another Week Ends: Brooks on the Subconscious and Failure, DFW Studies, Coldplay, Todd Marinovich, Coptic Drama, and Jail for the 99th Time

by David Zahl on Jan 14, 2011 • 1 Comment

1. A fascinating article by David Brooks in The New Yorker about “What the Science of Human Nature Can Teach Us.” Bottomline appears to be that people are not the free agents they think they are, the inner life always trumps the outer, and that the subconscious ultimately calls the most important shots in our lives. Also, we are happiest when we are least self-focused:

“…we are not primarily the products of our conscious thinking. The conscious mind gives us one way of making sense of our environment. But the unconscious mind gives us other, more supple ways. The cognitive revolution…

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Winston Churchill on Appeasement
Politics

Winston Churchill on Appeasement

by David Zahl on Jan 4, 2011 • 4 Comments

From Adam Gopnik’s write-up of the latest crop of Churchill literature in one of this past summer’s New Yorkers, a pretty radical departure from the rhetoric Winnie normally gets credit for (ht JD:

What is Churchill’s true legacy? Surely not that one should stand foursquare on all occasions and at all moments against something called appeasement. “The word ‘appeasement’ is not popular, but appeasement has its place in all policy,” he said in 1950. “Make sure you put it in the right place. Appease the weak, defy the strong.” He argued that “appeasement from strength…

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This Will (Hopefully) Be Our Year: Top Four New Year’s Songs
Music / Playlist

This Will (Hopefully) Be Our Year: Top Four New Year’s Songs

by David Zahl on Jan 3, 2011 • No Comments

Lest all the anti-New-Years-resolutions sentiment come across as pure party-poopery, I give you four songs in keeping with the holiday, two of which are downright joyful:

1. The best of all-time, without question – sorry, Bono – is The Zombies’ “This Will Be Our Year”, covered here by The Avett Brothers:

2. I didn’t think it was possible, but Slaid Cleaves’ prayerful (and considerably more Mbird-friendly) “One Good Year” gives The Zombies a run for their money, sort of the peccator to their justus:

3. Let’s face it though – the aforementioned “New Years Day” from U2 is pretty darn great. Great…

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Another Christmas Arrives: DFW on Federer, Pinsky on Donne, Gervais on Atheism, The National Bible Bee, Backfiring (!) Smoking Bans, and Troubled Childhoods
Bible / Christmas / Humor / Law / Literature / Poetry / Psychology / Relationships / Religion / Sports / Week In Review

Another Christmas Arrives: DFW on Federer, Pinsky on Donne, Gervais on Atheism, The National Bible Bee, Backfiring (!) Smoking Bans, and Troubled Childhoods

by David Zahl on Dec 24, 2010 • No Comments

Just the links this time, for some holiday reading:

1. On Slate, if you have time for a mind-bender, The Philosophical Underpinnings of David Foster Wallace’s Fiction (hint: rhymes with Littgenstein). For some prime DFW himself, check out his renowned profile for the NY Times, “Roger Federer as Religious Experience.” For all of our posts on DFW, click here.

2. Also on Slate, in a column entitled “Nearer, my God, to Thee”, former poet laureate Robert Pinksy takes a look at man’s relationship to the divine via two Jeremiah 12-based sonnets, one from John Donne and one from Gerald…

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Another Week Ends: Self-Evangelism, Jay-Z, Paradoxes, Susan Boyle, NASA, Friday Night Lights
Church / Music / Philosophy / Science / Sermons / TV / Week In Review

Another Week Ends: Self-Evangelism, Jay-Z, Paradoxes, Susan Boyle, NASA, Friday Night Lights

by David Zahl on Dec 3, 2010 • 1 Comment

1. Another scorcher from our 2011 NYC conference speaker Mark Galli entitled “Evangelizing Ourselves”, in which he unwittingly sums up much of our operating philosophy:

How do we talk about our faith without making others feel denigrated or angry? For one, we can talk about our faith so that everyone feels equally denigrated and equally inflamed!… So that everyone—even the Christian—recognizes his or her sinfulness…[and his or her] desperate need of a savior. If we can do that, a couple of remarkable things will happen. First, we will recognize afresh that we’re not talking about our religion versus…

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Comics / Religion

Another Provocative Venn Diagram

by David Zahl on Nov 15, 2010 • No Comments

via indexed. Discuss (ht JD):

When Is A Steak Not A Steak?
Law / News / Relationships

When Is A Steak Not A Steak?

by David Zahl on Nov 2, 2010 • 1 Comment

When it’s a value judgment! A news story of Old Testament (and Luke 15) proportions, via Nothing To Do With Abroath (ht JD):

It was a bizarre case of sibling rivalry on Monday night, when Victoria B.C. police had to break up two brothers fighting over who got the bigger piece of steak. At around 11 p.m. that night, the 17-year-old brother “went berserk” and began smashing things in their Craigflower Road apartment with a hockey stick because, despite him doing the cooking, his 22-year-old brother got the larger piece of steak for dinner, according to deputy police chief John Ducker,…

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Film

Search Your Feelings (You Know It To Be True)

by David Zahl on Oct 18, 2010 • 1 Comment

Two particularly awesome shots from Vanity Fair’s behind-the-scenes look at Episode 5 (ht JD):

Must-See TV, The Fourth Wall and Narcissism
TV

Must-See TV, The Fourth Wall and Narcissism

by Mockingbird on Sep 27, 2010 • No Comments

From Mockingbird behind-the-scenes guru Jeff Dean:

It’s official: the fourth wall no longer exists in NBC’s Thursday night’s “must-see” line-up. The returning shows are the most flagrant examples. On Community, Abed constantly references what it means to be a sitcom. Thursday he critiqued the episode as a season premiere. 30 Rock is already a TV show about a TV show, and Thursday’s episode started with Tina Fey welcoming us to the fifth season. The Office is filmed like a documentary. The first episode this season takes this even further when…

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Another Week Ends: American Dreams, Van Halen, Hereditary Sin, Netflix, Control Freaks & Hipsters
Church / Grace in Practice / Music / News / Psychology / Week In Review

Another Week Ends: American Dreams, Van Halen, Hereditary Sin, Netflix, Control Freaks & Hipsters

by David Zahl on Sep 10, 2010 • 2 Comments

1. Old news by now, but David Brooks’ editorial about “The Gospel of Wealth” had some interesting tidbits about the intersection of affluence and Christianity in America, highlighting the efforts of one pastor in Birmingham, AL:

The tension between good and plenty, God and mammon, became the central tension in American life, propelling ferocious energies and explaining why the U.S. is at once so religious and so materialist. Americans are moral materialists, spiritualists working on matter.

[Birmingham pastor David] Platt is in the tradition of those who don’t believe these two spheres can be reconciled. The material world…

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Another Week Ends: Parenting, Katy Perry, New Weezer, U2 and "God Told me to…"
Children / Music / Psychology / Religion / Week In Review

Another Week Ends: Parenting, Katy Perry, New Weezer, U2 and "God Told me to…"

by Todd Brewer on Aug 27, 2010 • 1 Comment

Filling in for DZ this week…

1. A great article from Chris Gottlieb for any parent who has ever been given unsolicited advice on their parenting skills ( I suppose that includes everyone?).

The author laments: I marvel at how comfortable people feel telling complete strangers about their purported parenting flaws…No infraction is too small or too strange to elicit comment. (The newspaper was too close to the baby’s eyes?) All my parent friends have experienced this no-win culture of judging parenting. Depending on their personalities, they have cowered, gotten angry or been demoralized by…

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Emerging Adulthood and The Age 30 Deadline
Children / Law / Psychology / Relationships / Theology

Emerging Adulthood and The Age 30 Deadline

by David Zahl on Aug 18, 2010 • 6 Comments

An interesting look at the extended adolescence phenomenon in the NY Times Magazine. Much of the article is devoted to brain development and the current debate as to whether 20-somethings constitute a new stage in human development, etc. But the crux of the matter boils down to two questions: Why are people growing up later than they used to? And is that a good or bad thing?

This blogger might argue that it’s both: the retreat from conventional responsibilities and commitments can unleash tremendous creativity and self-expression in young people, giving them room and freedom to be changed by external forces…

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