Each Friday we compile a list of interesting links and articles our editors find from across the web. Here’s what’s catching our eye this week.
What would Pope Francis say about Planned Parenthood?
Much of the public discussion in editorials and social media has focused on whether she and other Planned Parenthood employees sold such organs, and in the process committed a felony. There is a legitimate and murky legal argument to be had here because of a gray area between selling organs and recouping costs. But Stem Express, a company to which Planned Parenthood abortion clinics often give their organs, claimed that such clinics get “financial profits” and “fiscal growth” from these transactions.
Whiskey experts share their secrets for enjoying the barrel-aged spirit:
The climate varies drastically throughout the year, which also causes a shift in the aging of the brand’s whiskey. “We don’t have any electricity in our warehouses,” Don Livermore, Master Blender at Pike Creek, explains. “So whatever’s going on in the external environment is going to affect what’s going on in the barrel. You have these cold/warm temperature swings and the barrel expands and contracts.” The effect is more air going in and out of the barrel. With Pike Creek, which is aged slightly longer than many Canadian whiskeys, this creates a green apple nuance in the flavor.
A profile of Ariel Bradley, or Ehmara bint Aljon, and her journey from home-schooled evangelical to ISIS bride.
More than anything else, however, friends described Ariel as being a deeply caring person. She was “really good at quietly sitting and listening with people,” said the female friend who lived with Ariel in 2010. “Listening to people and making them feel like they were being listened to.” Travis Upton, a friend who met Ariel as part of Chattanooga’s “hipster scene” and would debate theological issues with her, remembers that she “spent an hour getting a mouse out of a glue trap once. She took an hour and this mouse just sat completely still because he knew she was helping.”
How a dearth of diapers can effect a mother’s ability to parent:
I learned more about this study during a week-long training with the California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowships, where I am a grantee this year. Smith presented her work to the fellows and described what she’s done to help these mothers. The women told Smith things like, “My self-esteem plummets. I can’t soothe my baby because I can’t put a clean diaper on my baby,” she recalled.
As ISIS expands, the Middle East hemorrhages Christians:
For more than a decade, extremists have targeted Christians and other minorities, who often serve as stand-ins for the West. This was especially true in Iraq after the U.S. invasion, which caused hundreds of thousands to flee. ‘‘Since 2003, we’ve lost priests, bishops and more than 60 churches were bombed,’’ Bashar Warda, the Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Erbil, said. With the fall of Saddam Hussein, Christians began to leave Iraq in large numbers, and the population shrank to less than 500,000 today from as many as 1.5 million in 2003.
In which Calvin and Hobbes taught Joe Krall the beauty of communal reading:
Pretty soon, I was laughing too – in fact, we were both laughing together, and running around, beat-up copies of comic collections in our hands, showing cartoons to our friends and siblings and bothering our parents with “Look! Read this!” (and proceeding to read the comic strip out loud).
#BlackLivesMatter indicts too much of American society to be comfortably populist:
The thesis of populism is that if the voice of the people were heard loud and clear in the corridors of power, we could achieve justice for everyone. Describing what’s wrong with American politics to Jon Stewart, Elizabeth Warren said that “the wind only blows from one direction … from the direction of those who have money,” whose interests wind up reflected in “every rule that’s written, in every conversation, in every discussion.”
Pastoral evaluations hold ministers to standards worthy of their calling:
Woody Allen’s old adage about “showing up being 80 percent of life” doesn’t serve a pastor well, at least not as one’s highest work principle. Where showing up is the extent of a pastor’s vocational depth, a congregation can expect to flounder.
Jon Stewart, on Donald Trump’s recent comments about Senator McCain’s military service:
After a showing clips of the actual comments, he played follow-up interviews that Trump gave, reversing course. “Does calling someone a war hero count if you’re doing it sarcastically?” Stewart asked.
Stewart’s last day as host of “The Daily Show” is Aug. 6, and he is clearly self-aware about clinging on to Trump for bits. Or, as he described it: “Donald Trump: the patron saint of topical comedians who are just running out the clock.”
And finally, a video from chef extraordinaire, Alton Brown.