we meet no ordinary people

"Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors." - C.S. Lewis Christian. Feminist. Oly lifter. MD. Desi. Nerd.

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The gender wars of household chores: a feminist comic

French comic artist Emma introduces the concept of the mental load. When a man expects his partner to ask him to do things, he is viewing her as the manager of their household chores

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And so I didn’t really convert. Convert is to change and I didn’t change. I simply discovered the continuity that had been there all along.

Jaroslav Pelikan, when talking with Krista Tippett

I love this.

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WHY DO I DO THIS TO MYSELF.

I need a place on the internet where I can be completely myself, which, unfortunately, is anonymously so.

I’m applying to fellowship in PEM and I’m kind of losing my shit. 2nd year has been relatively rough. I love peds, but am also completely exhausted. I spent the past 2 hours freaking out about my research and about my personal statement for fellowship. Not least because the CIRA had excellent advice. Sigh. Exhaustion.

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By treating violence as if it were a communicable disease and changing the environment in which it propagates, the United States has not only helped to make these places safer, but has also reduced the strain on our own country.

Sonia Nazario in How the Most Dangerous Place on Earth Got Safer

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I cried because it’s not fair, and I’m so tired, and every woman I know is so tired. I cried because I don’t even know what it feels like to be taken seriously—not fully, not in that whole, unequivocal, confident way that’s native to handshakes between men. I cried because it does things to you to always come second.

Lindy West in Her Loss

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Andrew Moravcsik (husband of the amazing Anne-Marie Slaughter) on Why I Put My Wife’s Career First

I’ve literally been meaning to post this for a year.

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I cannot overemphasize the importance of this fundamental flaw in poverty policy, i.e., the assumption that there is an ample supply of perfectly good jobs out there that poor people could tap if they just wanted to do so. To this day, this misguided notion underlies the conservative policy agenda that views anti-poverty policy as a narcotic that weans people away from the jobs awaiting them. Kill the programs, and they’ll get out of their hammocks (Rep. Paul Ryan’s term for the safety net) and get to work.

Jared Bernstein in How Welfare Reform Ruined Public Assistance for the Very Poor

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I haven’t been writing much (and I’m not planning on really editing this one) but one of the things I’m doing right now is a weekly mindfulness task (in addition to my regular weightlifting programming) because my coach is awesome. This lecture is from L’abri, and is about the impact of a MBSR on a Christian practitioner. I wish I had taken notes while listening because I had so many thoughts, but I will try and summarize them. 

First, I really appreciate her thoughts on all of it. She clearly found MBSR helpful and was able to integrate it with her Christian worldview. I think, however, that her argument breaks down when she tries to summarize what is intrinsically different between Buddhism and Christianity. I think there are differences - but not the ones she finds. Her understanding of Buddhism is definitely limited - she can’t seem to find a reason why a Buddhist would be compassionate if, at the deepest level, they believe that all is one.

Having grown up in an Eastern household and become a Christian as an adult, I find monism quite attractive, and I don’t think Christianity has to be in opposition to it. I find especially lovely the ideas that God is trying to reconcile the world to himself and that real prayer is truly a soliloquy (God the Spirit speaking through me to God the Father, a la C.S. Lewis). To me, this is monism. Yes, there is a distinction between creator and created - for now. But the idea of perichoresis is the ultimate goal, and it is much more “real” than the separation we experience as humans. 

I know that many Christians find the idea of good and evil being one very difficult to stomach - and it should be! We should not sit idly aside as bad things happen to our physical selves. However, that doesn’t mean that reality is truly a duality. That would mean thinking that God and Satan (or, good and evil) are equal, and I don’t think think that’s true. I think that, at the end of things, God still prevails and even evil has been subdued and reconciled to God. 

To me, if all generosity is merely a “rearranging of molecules within the whole,” then it is still a worthy pursuit. One can be both wave and particle, and changing the makeup of the particles within yourself and around you is not a bad thing!

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The penalty for violating the individual mandate has not been very effective. If it were effective, we would have higher enrollment, and the population buying policies in the insurance exchange would be healthier and younger.

Joseph J. Thorndike, the director of the tax history project at Tax Analysts, a nonprofit publisher of tax information, in Health Law Tax Penalty? I’ll Take It, Millions Say

Why the individual mandate isn’t working like we want it to.

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When we’re notified a patient we discharged has been readmitted, it’s generally a mark of shame, generating a sense that we failed to do enough to restore our patients to good health. But discharging a patient from the hospital is among the most difficult and dangerous aspects of providing medical care. It’s a tumultuous time, when the results of many lab tests may still be pending, medication regimens have been disrupted, and the doctors in charge are often left speculating about whether a patient is truly ready to leave. In the meantime, most patients who are feeling better just want to go home – and they let us know.

Most Dangerous Time at the Hospital? It May Be When You Leave

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Embedded in the right side of her flank is a small metallic object only a little bit larger than a grain of rice. But it's there. It's unequivocally there. She has a tracker in her. And no one was speaking for like five seconds.

Dr. A, the doctor mentioned in Health care takes on the fight against trafficking

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Heme/Onc nights mantra

Vacation in 6 days. Vacation in 6 days. Vacation in 6 days. Vacation in 6 days. Rinse. Repeat.

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When your attending promises you lunch if you can get the feeding tube post-pyloric. Oh ye of little faith!

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But a few years after I left Wall Street, when my wife was pregnant with our first child, and we learned that it was going to be a girl, I burst into tears. My daughter would soon enter a world not just of unequal pay and unequal opportunity, but one in which almost 20 percent of women are raped, and a quarter of girls are sexually abused. If you think that this violence has nothing to do with bro talk, you’re wrong. When we dehumanize people in conversation, we give permission for them to be degraded in other ways as well. And even if we don’t participate, our silence condones this language. I deeply regret remaining quiet while women were being disparaged during my eight years as a trader.

How Wall Street Bro Talk Keeps Women Down

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I met a 15-year-old boy, Alex, a lawyer’s son from a well-off family, who came to Mexico on his own after a gang tried to recruit him as he went to and from school. Alex was a good student — his favorite subject was English — and he politely tried to decline, because the last thing he aspired to become was a gangster. That’s when the gang knifed him in the stomach and broke his nose. After that, Alex didn’t dare attend school any more, and he quickly arranged to take a bus north to safety in Mexico. Except that Mexico may not be safe, because the U.S. is trying to solve a political crisis on our border in ways that only increase the risk to children like Alex.

We’re Helping Deport Kids to Die

This is terrifying. We’re damning them.

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It’s particularly dispiriting because much of the extremist funding seems to come from charity: One of the most admirable aspects of Islam is its emphasis on charity, yet in countries like Saudi Arabia this money is directed not to fight malnutrition or child mortality, but to brainwash children and sow conflict in poor and unstable countries.

The Terrorists the Saudis Cultivate in Peaceful Countries

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Instead, as with Syria, Obama has been disengaged. The U.S. could also do more to encourage Mexico to screen refugees rigorously and provide asylum to those who deserve it; instead, according to Human Rights Watch, less than 1 percent of Central American children in Mexico receive refugee status or formal protection.

Obama’s Death Sentence for Young Refugees

UGH.