UnHerd: Can you be trans and Christian?

The Catholic document goes further: it argues that ideas of gender as non-binary, fluid, distinct from biological birth sex, or influenced by personal choice or social construction are all part of a “gender theory” that emerged in the mid-20thcentury. While Gender Theory may sound like a course one takes at university, the Vatican’s phrasing here is reminiscent of creationists’ labelling of evolution as “only a theory.” But whereas the creationists placed science in opposition to faith, the Vatican has flipped this argument on its head, claiming that the Church has science on its side – an assertion that might be contested by many scientists themselves – and that LGBT advocates are the ones being driven by ideology. [...]

The Anglican document is in many ways the antithesis of the Catholic statement; it’s no accident that whereas the Catholic Church harkened back to the first mention of gender categories in the Bible, the Anglican bishops quote the last mention, from Saint Paul’s letter to the church of the Galatians. [...]

This document has evoked a new controversy, because it proposes to establish an Anglican ceremony to celebrate gender transitions. The House of Bishops, having previously considered creating a new ritual to mark gender transitions, ultimately decides in this document that the Church could utilise its preexisting rituals such as Confirmation, Baptism, or Affirmation of Baptismal Faith (a sort of renewal ceremony for the already-baptised) to celebrate these transitions. [...]

The Vatican’s statement ostensibly calls for identifying common ground between the Church and LGBT advocates, such as combating “bullying, violence, insults or unjust discrimination” (leaving the door open, not so subtly, for “just” discrimination). But such calls for unity are sandwiched between much more extensive rhetoric declaring that those who disagree with the Vatican are “confused” and “provocative” ideologues who seek to “annihilate the concept of ‘nature.’”

read the article

The Atlantic: The Day Denuclearization Died

There were many remarkable aspects of the U.S. president’s surprise meeting with the North Korean leader at the border, but perhaps the most notable was the absence of the issue that brought Trump and Kim together in the first place one year ago: Pyongyang’s development of a nuclear-weapons arsenal that directly threatens the United States and its allies, and which Trump’s advisers once vowed to remove by 2021. [...]

As Adam Mount of the Federation of American Scientists pointed out, Trump repeatedly described the personal connection he has established with North Korea’s dictator not as a means to denuclearization, but as an end in itself. “The relationship that we’ve developed has meant so much to so many people,” Trump says in a highlight reel from his trip to the demilitarized zone that contains no reference to Kim’s nuclear program. [...]

Theatrics aside, the third Trump-Kim meeting was the product of deflated ambition. Trump and Kim initially agreed on something general, then disagreed on the specifics, and now were essentially agreeing to disagree. While the first summit, in Singapore, yielded a vague North Korean commitment in writing to “work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula,” and the second summit, in Vietnam, ended with no agreement when U.S. demands for denuclearization and North Korean demands for sanctions relief couldn’t be reconciled, the third appears to have featured little substantive discussion altogether. [...]

Yesterday, National Security Adviser John Bolton denied a New York Times report that the Trump administration is now aiming to verifiably freeze North Korea’s production of nuclear-weapons material, and thus prevent Kim’s arsenal from becoming more dangerous than it already is. (Bolton specifically said the National Security Council is not working on such a plan, leaving open the possibility that the effort could be under way elsewhere in the government.)

read the article

The New York Review of Books: An Open Letter to the Director of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum

Scholars in the humanities and social sciences rely on careful and responsible analysis, contextualization, comparison, and argumentation to answer questions about the past and the present. By “unequivocally rejecting efforts to create analogies between the Holocaust and other events, whether historical or contemporary,” the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is taking a radical position that is far removed from mainstream scholarship on the Holocaust and genocide. And it makes learning from the past almost impossible.

The Museum’s decision to completely reject drawing any possible analogies to the Holocaust, or to the events leading up to it, is fundamentally ahistorical. It has the potential to inflict severe damage on the Museum’s ability to continue its role as a credible, leading global institution dedicated to Holocaust memory, Holocaust education, and research in the field of Holocaust and genocide studies. The very core of Holocaust education is to alert the public to dangerous developments that facilitate human rights violations and pain and suffering; pointing to similarities across time and space is essential for this task.

Looking beyond the academic context, we are well aware of the many distortions and inaccuracies, intentional or not, that frame contemporary discussions of the Holocaust. We are not only scholars. We are global citizens who participate in public discourse, as does the Museum as an institution, and its staff. We therefore consider it essential that the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum reverse its position on careful historical analysis and comparison. We hope the Museum continues to help scholars establish the Holocaust’s significance as an event from which the world must continue to learn.

read the article

Wendover Productions: The World's Shortcut: How the Panama Canal Works

The Atlantic: Is This Video a Deepfake?

“We are crossing over into an era where we have to be skeptical of what we see on video,” says John Villasenor, a Senior Fellow at The Brookings Institution. Villasenor is talking about deepfakes—videos that are digitally altered in imperceptible ways, often using a machine-learning technique that superimposes existing images onto source images. The technology's verisimilitude is alarming, Villasenor argues, because it undermines our perception of truth, and could have disastrous consequences for the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

The New York Times: Why America Is Just Okay

America is the greatest country on earth. It’s a phrase, a slogan, a dogma for patriots. And as we stare down the barrel of an upcoming election, we’re prepared to hear this refrain echo.

In the video Op-Ed above, we argue that the myth of America as the greatest nation on earth is at best outdated and at worst, wildly inaccurate. Comparing the United States of America on global indicators reveals we have fallen well behind Europe — and share more in common with “developing countries” than we’d like to admit.

Forbes: Foreign Spies Hunt For Angela Merkel's Medical Records After Shaking Fits, Reports

The world stage is no place for secrets. And this has been made abundantly clear by suggestions in the German media that foreign intelligence agencies are now attempting to access Merkel's health records to discover whether the recent bouts of televised shaking are indeed something more serious, with reports that "one western intelligence agency believed that the German leader was suffering from a 'neurological problem'." Those health records are reportedly locked within a secure military facility. [...]

Despite that speculation, Bild also acknowledged that Merkel's schedule would trouble the fittest of leaders—"seven hours time difference, 32 hours in Osaka on site, plus a total of 22 hours on the plane... four working sessions and ten appointments for two-person talks, as well as meetings with US President Donald Trump, China's President Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin." [...]

The German public is usually more respectful of the privacy of their country's politicians than we are used to seeing in the U.S. or U.K., but even they are "now demanding answers." Speculation is mounting as to whether the Chancellor will see out her final term in office. She is set to be replaced—sooner or later—by Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, who replaced her as leader of her Christian Democratic Union Party late last year.

read the article

Reuters: Former Turkish PM Davutoglu slams Erdogan's AKP after Istanbul defeat

Ahmet Davutoglu, who served as prime minister between 2014 and 2016 before falling out with Erdogan, has criticized the president and his policies before.

But his latest comments come as former deputy prime minister Ali Babacan and former president Abdullah Gul, both founding members of the AKP, plan to launch a new rival party this year. [...]

“If we lose an election that we first lost by 13,000 votes again by 800,000 votes, as was the case in Istanbul, the one responsible for this is not a prime minister who delivered a clear parliamentary majority (in last year’s general election), but rather those who have caused a serious slide in rhetoric, actions, morals and politics.” [...]

Davutoglu had been rumored to be joining the breakaway party. Last week, a source close to him said he was planning a ‘new step’, but did not plan to join Gul and Babacan for now.

read the article

Associated Press: Racist, anti-gay student flyers challenge Wyoming district

In the capital of the state known for the 1998 murder of gay college student Matthew Shepard, school officials have worked to respond to the spring incident. They’re holding community meetings and plan to hire a “diversity and cultural awareness” counselor while providing additional employee training. [...]

Others aren’t so confident the Cheyenne school district is up to the challenge. The new approach to student bullying and harassment sounds good, but “only time will tell if it’s upheld,” said parent Abby Kercher. [...]

Parents and students report a long history of anti-gay and racist harassment at McCormick that continued through the rest of the school year. Some students kept violating a ban on Confederate flags by displaying the images on their computers, said Kercher’s daughter, 14-year-old Ashlynn Kercher.

read the article