The importance of girls
My friend Jennifer Goodson alerted me to this site. I think it’s a powerful illustration of the interdependence of all people and why 600 million girls matter.
The doctor is busy
This story from the New York Times discusses how dermatologists are increasingly more interested in their Botox clients than patients with real skin diseases. With a world health crisis and many here at home with no health insurance, it’s decadent for physicians to devote themselves to people’s vanity instead of real suffering. But I guess in a day of glitzy media, old and unattractive is its own form of suffering.
The ethics of consumption
I am currently reading Being Consumed:Economics and Christian Desire by William T. Cavanaugh. The author provides a theological and cultural analysis of our consumer society. He presents consumerism not as materialism, but as spirituality gone wrong. Consumerism has many of the elements associated with spirituality: the search for transcendence, detachment, community, and human solidarity. Cavanaugh provides an economic ethic based on the Eucharist in which the ultimate consumption of the body of Christ relativizes all other consumption. The economic belief in scarcity, because human desire is unquenchable, is met with the abundance of life in Christ. I believe this book provides important insights on how people of faith are to live in a world dominated by stuff. This might be a very good group discussion topic.
Here come the bridesmaids
Getting married? Wondering what to give your bridesmaids who have spent good money on a dress they will never wear again? How about a Botox party? See this story in the New York Times. Oh, the perils of affluency!
Dangerous motherhood
Read this story in The New York Times by medical missionary Sue Makin. This is one story, among many, that highlights the sad fact that childbirth is still a dangerous process for many women in the world.
Is biology destiny?
See this video at Salon.com about sex difference research. The question yet to be answered is how does learned behavior change our brain?