Research & Rescue

How religious are Americans really?

Two in five Americans say they regularly attend religious services. Upward of 90 percent of all Americans believe in God, pollsters report, and more than 70 percent have absolutely no doubt that God exists. The patron saint of Christmas, Americans insist, is the emaciated hero on the Cross, not the obese fellow in the overstuffed costume.

There is only one conclusion to draw from these numbers: Americans are significantly more religious than the citizens of other industrialized nations.

Except they are not.

 

Read the rest at www.slate.com

RIP Blake Edwards

RIP Blake Edwards, Director of The Pink Panther Films.

Action Alert: Combat Sex Trafficking in the U.S.

Received this action alert via e-mail:

The FBI estimates that more than 100,000 underage girls are exploited for sex in the Unites States each year. Sex trafficking is a modern form of slavery, yet all too often victims are difficult to identify and trafficked persons are often prosecuted as prostitutes or deported as undocumented immigrants.

The Senate has already passed a bill by unanimous consent that would call victims of sex trafficking what they are -- victims -- and establish pilot programs which would provide counseling, education, and basic support for these young women. This bill, the Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking Deterrence and Victims Support Act (S. 2925/H.R. 5575), would also mandate participation at all levels of law enforcement and educate officers and prosecutors in how to identify, investigate, and prosecute traffickers.

With just days remaining in the lame duck session, we cannot allow the House to fail to take action to support young women exploited by sex traffickers in our very own country. To act now is to make a real difference in the lives of thousands of women and girls.

Combat Sex Trafficking in the U.S.

Help out Bread for the World, please

I just signed the pledge to end hunger and a generous Bread for the World member donated $1 in my name to help fight hunger. For every person who signs the pledge, an additional $1 will be donated to Bread for the World. Will you join me? Your voice can make a difference in the lives of hungry kids.

Stephan Wolff on Ending Ethnic Conflicts

Can leadership, diplomacy and institutional design be used to wage peace? Seems like a no-brainer. Historically, there's been a gap between power and leadership. Hopefully a global change in thought will result in a change in the trend.

Congratulations to the Silly Party

Moderation In The Defense Of Sanity

via andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com

Andrew Sullivan has a wonderful piece on this past weekend's Rally to Restore Sanity: Moderation In The Defense Of Sanity Is No Vice. Most Of The Time.. Excerpt:

If the ghost of Richard Nixon will allow me, Stewart and Colbert have sensed a silent plurality, alienated by both parties, still hoping for Obama's success, and yet unwilling to worship any politician or even take themselves too seriously for fear of falling into the same foul-smelling bullshit that already covers far too much of our political culture.

I felt with the Obama campaign, as I had with the Clinton campaign, that Dems tended to put him up on some sort of pedestal. I felt as if the were saying: if you're not frenetic enough, you must be supporting the other side or something. For me, it is not that at all.

I support Obama as much as I did before he got elected. There were two candidates (OK, there's the Green Party but that would have just swayed the vote) and Obama represented more of my core values than did that other candidate - and I did bother listening to what the opposition candidate had to say, even if he didn't have a (D) after his name. I never expected Obama to come flying in like Superman and change everything in the first year or even his first term. Get a grip, people, he is a president, not a king and he can't necessarily decree the changes we want to see. If you want the presidential office to have that kind of power, then remember it holds for the other party when they take office.

So, you didn't get everything you wanted, come midterm elections. Are you seriously saying that you're going to punish the Dems for that by not going to polls or voting for the opposition candidates because you're disappointed? OK. Well, I hope you're considering the alternative because you know what? It can be worse than this.

Happy Halloween - Keep it Real

In The Know: Has Halloween Become Overcommercialized?

“E-Mail Auto-Response” : The New Yorker

In case you weren't aware, yesterday was Information Overload Awareness Day - as if we needed to be made aware that we are overloaded....

This piece in The New Yorker does a great job at how many of us are [not] handling the deluge of e-mail we receive each day. Funny and brilliant.

Dear Friend, Family Member, Loved One, and/or Business Associate:

Thank you for your e-mail, which, if it is under three (3) sentences long, I have read. Owing to the large volume of e-mails I’m receiving at this time, please note that it will sometimes take up to fourteen (14) calendar days, though sometimes longer (and sometimes much longer), to respond to your e-mail; in the interim, please rest assured that I am attempting to address, resolve, or think about the matter you have described, unless, of course, I’m avoiding the matter entirely. Some possible reasons for this include:

—Thinking about the matter gives me a headache.

—Thinking about the matter takes longer than forty-five (45) seconds.

—Thinking about the matter is simple enough, and takes less than forty-five (45) seconds, but, when combined with all the other e-mails in my in-box, it creates a synergy of matterdom, exacerbating the headaches mentioned at the beginning of this list.

Please note that if your e-mail is more than three (3) sentences in length I have read the first three (3) sentences, skimmed the opening paragraph, and sort of eyeballed the rest of it. Please do not expect a response to your e-mail anytime soon, if at all, for I am not a mind reader, and therefore cannot guess the nature of anything beyond the first three (3) sentences. For those of you who continue to insist on sending e-mails longer than three (3) sentences, here is a Wikipedia entry on haiku. Reformat your e-mails accordingly, as in this example:

 

               I am busy now;
               The Internet has stolen
               So much precious time.

 

Under certain circumstances, you may feel as though you cannot express the matter at hand in less than three (3) sentences. Below, please find some possible reasons for this, and their solutions:

continued in full at www.newyorker.com

Deliberately uninformed, relentlessly so [a rant]

Many people in the United States purchase one or fewer books every year.

via sethgodin.typepad.com

Sometimes I dislike Seth's posts but this one's spot on.