From First Things, Richard John Neuhaus reviews with God’s Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe’s Religious Crisis by Philip Jenkins; and Grooving on Jesus: An article on the Jesus Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Religion is the nicotinate of the masses: Until the population can replace "god willing" with "people willing" we are all in big trouble. An interview with W. Bradford Wilcox, author of Religion, Race, and Relationships in Urban America. The NAACP's sad decline: The venerable advocacy group changed history with its civil rights leadership — so why does it seem to have lost its way?
From ARPA, a review of The Flight of the Creative Class: The New Global Competition for Talent by Richard Florida. From The Nation, Zyklon B on the US Border: A grim history lesson of what happened in the 1920s when fears of alien infection inflamed American eugenicists; and history is full of examples showing that policies designed to exclude immigrants are doomed to fail. From Radical Middle, an article on liberal vs. conservative vs. holistic immigration reform. The 1.8 Million Solution Jonathan Rauch on a simpler, better immigration plan. Speaking of Tongues: Bilingualism is a huge advantage in today's world. But as a policy goal, it is unrealistic.
Wealth of experience: US business is coming to terms with a world in which international know-how is increasingly important. It's one of those vast social upheavals that everyone understands but that hardly anyone notices, because it seems too ordinary: the long-predicted "cashless society" has quietly arrived. Slaves to the office: Technology promised to bring an end to the daily grind, but it has only extended the office's reach to the commuter train and the home. Now that work is supposed to be "fulfilling", it is potentially endless.
Katha Pollitt reviews The Dangerous Book for Boys: The book does no boy a favor by resuscitating the Anglo-imperial manly ideals. And what about girls? A review of Medicalized Masculinities. Elusive, but not always unstoppable: People end their own lives for many reasons, only some of which are well understood—but governments should not simply shrug their shoulders. Can the dreaded "quarterlife crisis" be conquered? Actually — does it even exist? Flak mounts a five-day investigation into the angst of being young.
From Psychology Today, an article on The Art of Trash Talk; do young minds and civil society really crumble from four-letter words? Or does cursing play an important role in our language?; and a look at how slang helps soldiers bond and cope with the frustrations of war.
