A new issue of Church and State is out. Michael Rich (Elon): A Snitch, Not a Hero: Philosophical Lessons of Loyalty and Disloyalty in the World of Criminal Informants. An Open Letter from El Diario: Ciudad Juarez's daily newspaper explains Mexico's conflict, beseeches the United States to change its policy, and mourns the deaths of its own. Earth’s oceans are in trouble, but the 2010 Census of Marine Life — the first ever attempt to document all that lives in the sea — will kick-start the recovery effort. In the popular imagination, gifted ones are a breed apart, capable of insights or artistic creations that no amount of training and effort could produce in ordinary folk — you either have it at birth or you don't. How male oil rig staff learned to lose their machismo. From First Things, Joe Carter writes in defense of disgust. The Town That Went Mad: Pont St. Esprit is a small town in southern France — in 1951 it became famous as the site of one of the most mysterious medical outbreaks of modern times. Confederate flag activates racist mindset: White college students exposed to images of a Confederate flag judged a black person more harshly and expressed less willingness to vote for Barack Obama in 2008. A lost civilization may have existed beneath the Persian Gulf (and more). Human beings are little meaning machines who cannot help but create and then leave meanings on everything that pertains to a human world.
