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☆ How evangelical leader Jim Wallis uses the Bible to expose the ‘False White Gospel’
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-28 | by ( John Blake | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +14 min

Some may already be tired of the debate over White Christian nationalism, whose followers blend sexism, racism and hostility to non-White immigrants in a quest to create a White Christian America. But Wallis has been warning people about the dangers of White Christian nationalist beliefs long before the term became popular. You write that White Christian nationalism is not new, and that it’s a form of heresy. This [White Christian nationalism] is an old idea from the Doctrine of Discovery, which says that this country was for people who were White Americans. Tom Brenner/ReutersWhat’s the difference between patriotism — believing that the US is an exceptional country — and White Christian nationalism?

Persons: Jim Wallis, Marx, Wallis, ” Wallis, “, Obama, White, ” Wallis ’, Jesus, You’ve, Donald Trump, Tom Brenner, Pete Seeger’s, It’s, Trump, that’s, it’s, don’t, they’re, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Adolf Hitler, Michael Gonzalez, haven’t, Let’s, I’ve, Martin Luther, King didn’t, he’s, King, Michael Nigro, Mark Twain, Hitler, —, didn’t, you’ll, John Blake, ” Organizations: CNN, ”, White, Christian America, New York Times, Macmillan “, MAGA, Faith, Justice, Georgetown University, Commission, White Americans, Reuters, Pastors, Candler, Emory University’s Candler, of Theology, Cornerstone, Justice Department Locations: Vietnam, Detroit, America, Washington, Circleville , Ohio, Atlanta , Georgia, German, Germany, Quemado , Texas, Southern, That’s, Pittsburgh, Blacks, White, Hungary, Turkey, Black

☆ As Graffiti Moves From Eyesore to Amenity, Landlords Try to Cash In
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-31 | by ( Isabella Kwai | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Julian Phethean’s first canvas in London was a shed in his backyard where he covered the walls with bold lettering in spray paint. When he moved his art to the city’s streets in the 1980s, it was largely unwelcome — and he was even arrested a few times. “It was just seen as vandalism.”These days, the canvases come to Mr. Phethean, better known as the muralist Mr Cenz. Landlords wanting to attract young professionals once scrubbed off the rebellious scrawls. That was before graffiti moved from countercultural to mainstream.

Persons: Julian Phethean’s, “, ”, Phethean, Mr Cenz, Biggie Smalls, Pepsi Max, I’d Organizations: Pepsi Locations: London, countercultural, Berlin, Miami, hipper

☆ Opinion | Marilynne Robinson on Biblical Beauty, Human Evil and the Idea of Israel
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-05 | by ( The Ezra Klein Show | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Marilynne Robinson is one of the great living novelists. She has won a Pulitzer Prize and a National Humanities Medal, and Barack Obama took time out of his presidency to interview her at length. In recent years, Robinson has tightened the links between her literary pursuits and her Christianity, writing essays about Calvinism and other theological traditions. Her forthcoming work of nonfiction is “Reading Genesis,” a close reading of the first book of the Old Testament (or the Torah, as I grew up knowing it). No matter one’s faith, Robinson unearths wisdom in this core text that applies to many questions we wrestle with today.

Persons: Marilynne Robinson, Barack Obama, “, Ezra Klein, Robinson, ” Organizations: Humanities, Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Locations: “ Gilead, Idaho, Israel

☆ When Zines Walked the Earth
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-21 | by ( Martha Schwendener | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Before the internet, before the spicy comments sections on Instagram and Twitter or the outré subcultures on TikTok, like-minded strangers connected through zines. The curators of “Copy Machine Manifestos: Artists Who Make Zines” at the Brooklyn Museum, the art historians Branden Joseph and Drew Sawyer, define them as low-budget, limited-circulation publications (short for “magazine” or “fanzine”) that are not political pamphlets or countercultural newspapers. The show’s territory starts in 1969, coinciding with the widening availability of photocopy machines, and runs to the present. The selection of zines, posters, films, videos, paintings, garments and other curios is pretty great, and you see many repeat visitors (like myself) wandering the galleries. There is an enormous amount of material to take in.

Persons: Branden Joseph, Drew Sawyer Organizations: Twitter, Brooklyn Museum

☆ Lolita style, explained: Why the Japanese-born, Victorian-inspired street style enchants women around the world
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-25 | by ( Scottie Andrew | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +10 min

Her youthful obsession realized in front of her, Ella was inspired to buy her first piece of Lolita fashion in 2015, from the popular Lolita e-tailer Angel Pretty. While Lolita style is named after Vladimir Nabokov’s eponymous teen in the controversial 1955 novel, the overlap ends there. Even 1950s-style American prom dresses, with their extravagant skirts and bodices, influence contemporary Lolita fashion, he said. The skirt's fullness, achieved through the use of a petticoat, is a key characteristic of Lolita fashion. Ella says her personal Lolita style is a blend of classic and sweet, with a healthy dose of prints and patterns.

Persons: Ella hadn’t, waltzed, ”, Ella, Lauren, Shelby Knowles, Pretty, ” —, She’s, it’s, Michelle Liu Carriger, Bianca, Kandace, Vladimir Nabokov’s, Masafumi, Monden, accessorized, Lolitas, Marie Antoinette, Brigitte Bardot, Jane Birkin, ” Monden, ” Liu Carriger, lacy Lolita, Kei, don’t, Liu Carriger, Nghi, Mary, Jane heels, substyles Organizations: CNN, American, UCLA’s School of Theater, Film, Television, University of Sydney, New, Asahi Shimbun, Pink House Locations: California’s Bay, Japan, America, San Francisco , California, US, Oakland , California, Australia, British, Otaru, Hokkaido, Tokyo, Lolitas, California

☆ Our Merch, Ourselves
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-11 | by ( Melissa Kirsch | More About Melissa Kirsch | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

Why do we buy merch, or shy away from it? What does the merch you wear say about who you are, what you believe in? Carrying the bag in your own city seemed too boosterish, too earnest for a New Yorker, whereas outside the city, the local merch telegraphs your hometown pride and N.Y.C. Once you leave the place, the merch becomes a souvenir, a nostalgic keepsake. Debating the laws of merch is a diversion, an amusing exercise in questioning our own pieties.

Persons: Spaeny, “ Priscilla, ”, It’s, Hannah, Priscilla, Priscilla Presley, Priscilla ”, Sofia Coppola, ” “, it’s, leashes, I’d, Justin Bieber Organizations: tote, telegraphs, Los Angeles Dodgers, American Locations: rhinestones, New York, Brooklyn, New, L.A

☆ Fox News host and Trump supporter Sean Hannity suggests GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is 'not qualified to be president' because he's never held public office
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-13 | by ( Madison Hall | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Hannity said he wondered if "people that never held public office" were fit to lead the country. AdvertisementAdvertisementFollowing a heated exchange between Fox News host Sean Hannity and Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, the television host suggested that people without any public office experience aren't fit to be president. The back-and-forth between Hannity and Ramaswamy continued, leading Hannity to question if anybody who hasn't held public office before should ever lead the country. "I think people that never held public office like you," Hannity said to Ramaswamy, "maybe they're not qualified to be president." AdvertisementAdvertisementHannity's comments are notable given his ties to former President Donald Trump, who famously never held public office before moving into the White House.

Persons: Sean Hannity, Vivek Ramaswamy isn't, Hannity, Ramaswamy, —, Vivek Ramaswamy, Tucker Carlson, Carlson, Nikki Haley, hasn't, Donald Trump, Trump Organizations: Fox News, Service, Republican, New York Magazine Locations: Israel

☆ Erwin Olaf, Photographer With an Eye for the Theatrical, Dies at 64
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-22 | by ( Nina Siegal | More About Nina Siegal | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Erwin Olaf, a contemporary Dutch photographer known for the precision of his staged photographs of both countercultural figures and Dutch royalty, died on Wednesday in Groningen, the Netherlands. Shirley den Hartog, his business partner, said the death, in a hospital, was caused by complications of a recent lung transplant. Mr. Olaf had struggled for years with hereditary emphysema, she said. Mr. Olaf began his career as a photojournalist documenting the gay liberation movement in the 1980s before becoming one of the first photographers in the Netherlands to stage photos using theatrical costuming and sets. “He made explicit images or very suggestive images that became iconic,” said Taco Dibbits, director of the Rijksmuseum, which owns and displays Mr. Olaf’s work.

Persons: Erwin Olaf, Shirley den Hartog, Olaf, ”, Taco Dibbits, Olaf’s, “ Locations: Dutch, Groningen, Netherlands

☆ How the ultra-wealthy infiltrated anti-capitalist Burning Man
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-05 | by ( Allison Morrow | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

New York CNN —Burning Man, the desert confab that descended into chaos over the weekend, isn’t quite the scrappy, free-spirited revelry that it once was. For many watching the disarray of Burning Man from afar, the rain and mud that left 70,000 people stranded quickly became a symbol of the festival’s departure from its roots. Or, more simply: how the billionaires ruined Burning Man. Going to Burning Man is, in some elite circles, akin to having climbed Everest or taken ayahuasca on a meditation retreat — a spiritually transformative experience, undertaken with a considerable safety net of privilege. “Burning Man is the perfect example of how many rich White people recreationally manufacture hardship because they are immune from it systematically,” wrote one user on X, formerly Twitter, this weekend.

Persons: isn’t, Elon Musk, Recode, ” Mark Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz, Elizabeth Holmes, ”, Andrew Hyde, Holly Yan Organizations: New, New York CNN, Facebook, New York Times, New York Post, CNN Locations: New York, San Francisco, There’s

☆ What Is Burning Man, and Why Have Paris Hilton and Elon Musk Shown Up?
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-03 | by ( Callie Holtermann | More About Callie Holtermann | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

“Imagine a hallucinogenic state fair,” the reporter Rick Marin wrote about Burning Man in The New York Times in 2000. The article described an environment of countercultural revelry, where hippies and Silicon Valley types cut loose in surroundings reminiscent of both “Mad Max” and Cirque du Soleil. The event was pummeled by rain that began on Friday night, leaving thousands of attendees trapped and dealing with thick sludge. With limited access to the site, attendees have been told to conserve food and water. The extreme conditions have challenged the free-spirited atmosphere that has long been central to Burning Man’s allure.

Persons: Rick Marin, Max ” Organizations: The New York Times, du Locations: The, Nevada

Thousands of attendees of the Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert faced the prospect of more rain on Sunday after a stretch of heavy precipitation that has tested the resolve of its free-spirited participants as most have been stuck at the site and forced to conserve food and water. The police on Sunday were investigating the death of one person at the event, although it was unclear what the cause was. The Pershing County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement that the family of the victim had been notified, but that no further information was available. Burning Man, a weeklong festival that has been around since the 1980s, is a self-described “community and global cultural movement” that is premised on countercultural principles, such as radical self-expression. It features art installations and culminates with the burning of a giant sculpture of a man, giving it its name.

Organizations: Sunday, Sheriff’s, Black Rock City Locations: Pershing, Black Rock, Nevada, ”

Here are the meanings of the least-found words that were used in (mostly) recent Times articles. — Ireland’s Medieval Beacon (April 16, 1995)2. natant — swimming or floating (and a frequent guest on this list):I love the word natant. — Mexico’s Last Countercultural Coast (Feb. 3, 2020)6. tali — plural of talus, an ankle bone:T.I.L. (Today I Learned) that tali is another word for “anklebones.” — Long Story Short (Jan. 3, 2022)7. atilt — askew:The facade is atilt, the S.U.V. Wrestler Taps In Against Concussion Deniers (Oct. 26, 2022)The list of the week’s easiest words:

Persons: abbacy, Norman Leinster, —, peplum, hegemon, tali —, tali, ” —, atilt — askew, Stacey Abrams, ’, ”, Alessio Mortelliti, tallit — Organizations: Sun, —, University of Maine, National Science Foundation, Dolphins Locations: Glendalough, abbacy, China, Beijing, lantana, California, tatters, Ukraine

☆ Overlooked No More: Lou Sullivan, Author and Transgender Activist
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-09 | by ( Megan Milks | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

He also published his first article, “A Transvestite Answers a Feminist,” in the group’s newsletter — a kind of coming out. Sullivan moved to San Francisco in 1975 with his longtime partner, a cisgender man who encouraged Sullivan’s gay identity but did not see himself as gay. Sullivan’s first few years in San Francisco were difficult: He found the L.G.B.T.Q. community much larger and more diffuse than Milwaukee’s, and his relationship was collapsing amid tensions around his desire to medically transition. Walker came to rely on Sullivan’s knowledge and often sent clients to him for peer counseling.

Persons: Milwaukee’s, ”, Sullivan, Sullivan’s, “, Steve Dain, Paul Walker, Walker Organizations: Milwaukee’s Gay People’s Union, Stanford, Dysphoria Clinic, Institute for, Janus Information Locations: San Francisco

☆ What College Students Need Is a Taste of the Monk’s Life - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-25 | by ( Molly Worthen | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +4 min

“On college campuses, these students think they’re all being individuals, going out and being wild,” he said. Undergraduates at Belmont Abbey College outside Charlotte, N.C., share their quadrangles, sidewalks and even their chess clubs with Benedictine monks who live in an abbey in the middle of campus. Their presence compels even non-Christians on campus to think seriously about vocation and the meaning of life. “Either what the monks are doing is valuable and based on something true, or it’s completely ridiculous,” Mr. Lutz said. The point is not to take away the phone for its own sake but to take away our primary sources of distraction.

☆ Burning Man Becomes Latest Adversary in Geothermal Feud
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-17 | by ( Arielle Paul | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

One of the darkest towns in America lies roughly 100 miles north of Reno, where the lights are few and rarely lit until one week each summer when pyrotechnics and LEDs set the sky and mountains aglow. In tiny Gerlach, just outside the Black Rock Desert in Nevada, residents have watched the Burning Man festival grow over the last 30 years to a spectacle of nearly 80,000 countercultural hippies and tech billionaires, offering an economic lifeline for the unincorporated town. Now, Burning Man and Gerlach are more tightly aligned, joining conservationists and a Native American tribe in an alliance against a powerful adversary: Ormat Technology, the largest geothermal power company in the country. Both Burning Man and Ormat share a vision for a greener future, yet neither can agree on the road to get there. The festival promotes self-reliance and leaving no trace of its ephemeral metropolis, yet it contributes an enormous carbon footprint; the power company is vested in the future by battling climate change, but its clean energy facilities pose a threat to local habitats while reaping a sizable profit.

☆ Opinion | ‘Christianity’s Got a Branding Problem’
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-10 | by ( Jessica Grose | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +4 min

“Virtually every major theme in the sixties’ controversies would divide Americans for the rest of the century, setting the fuse for the so-called culture wars,” they note. The “aftershock” was the backlash in the 1970s and ’80s against what were thought of as countercultural values. As these subjects were surveyed into the earlier 2000s, the pew gap only widened. The connection between political conservatism and religiosity has kept many Republicans in the pews, while it’s pushed scores of Democrats away from religion entirely. While moderate and liberal boomers did move away from religion as they got older, the percentage of American nones really began to increase in the late 1990s.

☆ A 62-year old engineer alleges he was sidelined at SpaceX over fears that he might 'retire or die'
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-01 | by ( Sam Tabahriti | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

An engineer alleges he was sidelined at SpaceX over fears he might "retire or die." John Johnson, 62, made the allegations in an essay published on Wednesday on whistleblower site Lioness. John Johnson said he had been the victim of age discrimination at Elon Musk's rocket company in an essay published on Wednesday on the whistleblower website Lioness. In his essay, Johnson wrote that one engineer was asked to shadow him because there were fears he might "retire or die." In his essay Johnson wrote: "As an older white male, I hadn't confronted the impediments to success that many people face—until I started at SpaceX."

☆ Mountain Girl’s heartbreaking memoir: An icon of the Sixties opens up about Jerry Garcia, Ken Kesey, and what the age of free love was really like
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-09 | by ( David Kushner | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +40 min

Now 76 and living in Oregon, Mountain Girl has gave us an exclusive look at her memoir. Altamont, the free concert that Mountain Girl and Jerry Garcia helped organized, was meant to revive the spirit of the Sixties. Today, 60 years since she took that ride with Neal Cassady, Mountain Girl is still forging her own path. Before I leave Kesey's farm, Mountain Girl and I walk outside to the old brown barn where Furthur now rests. But for Mountain Girl, it lives forever, an emblem of everything her generation believed in, and all that they achieved.

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