A few links to kick off the long holiday weekend:
- Are Christian and Hindu villages in Pakistan being deliberately flooded? Some say water is being diverted from wealthy agricultural estates and wiping out the villages of poor people nearby.
- The Sarah Palin profile in Vanity Fair this week has been taking heavy fire for its inaccuracies (documented by Ben Smith at Politico). Even a liberal, anti-Palin source for the article has since criticized the author, Michael Gross, saying, “You’re not a writer, you’re a social climber.” Smith has an interesting theory as to how such a poorly sourced article could have been written in the first place.
- Christopher Hitchens responds to the offers of prayers during his battle with cancer: “Please do not trouble deaf heaven with your bootless cries. Unless, of course, it makes you feel better.” He seems unusually keen to contradict any reports of a deathbed conversion before it even happens.
- British researchers claim that a genetic predisposition to obesity isn’t the last word in dictating a person’s weight. “It goes to show we’re not complete slaves to our genetic make-up and really can make a big difference to our future health by changing our behaviour.” Cue Mark Shea and the inevitable Jolly backlash.
- I’m sorry, I appear to have something in my eye. It is completely unrelated to the couple discussing their 27-year marriage in the sweet video below.
Orthodox. Faithful. Free.
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Danny & Annie from StoryCorps on Vimeo.