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My flagship product is an in-depth monthly newsletter. My next one comes out Monday - a hard hitting take on the pro-life movement.
I also put up various shorter posts each week, plus this weekly digest that has a roundup of all my writings, podcasts, and media appearances, as well as the best links from around the web this week.
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The Three Worlds of Evangelicalism
If you missed it, my major essay on the three worlds of evangelicalism is online with the February issue of First Things. It’s an update of the most popular and influential piece I’ve written for this site to date.
I also sat down for a podcast with First Things editor R. R. Reno to discuss my piece.
And I’m gratified that Rod Dreher once again wrote a nice interaction with my essay.
Also, I’m delighted that my American Affairs essay on Indiana under Republican rule continues to resonate. The Federalist had another article related to it, discussing the GOP’s in-process breakup with big business. (Note: their discussion of the Chamber of Commerce seems to refer to the US Chamber. There are many different kinds of chambers, each with its own personality. I my post a guide to them or do a podcast about them soon).
More from Last Week
I had a Subscriber only post on how establishments respond to dissident upstarts.
On the podcast last week, I talk about why we need to think beyond “economic piety.”
Timon Cline has a great piece at American Reformer looking at the question of whether if Americans are Christian, is America Christian?
Also, Thea Autry looks at Thomas Wolfe.
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Best of the Web
Sociologist Brad Wilcox looks at the impact of Covid-19 on marriage in Chicago Magazine.
American Mind: China’s Sissy Problem - And Ours
The Times of London: Paulina Porizkova - The supermodel who dared to look her age
“I am now completely invisible,” Porizkova explains. “I walk into a party, I try to flirt with guys and they will just walk away from me mid-sentence to pursue someone 20 years younger. I’m very single, I’m dressed up, I’ve made an effort – nothing.” Some women say it kicks in at 40; others when they finally “let” themselves go grey. Virginia Woolf described the phenomenon in Mrs Dalloway in 1925, aged 43. In 2005, 47-year-old Kate Bush summed it up in How to be Invisible with the lyrics “hem of anorak/ stem of wallflower/ hair of doormat”. The actress whose roles dry up, the widows left off guest lists. Bar presence, network, social interactions diminished. The female invisibility cloak falls heaviest on those most used to being looked at as well as – or instead of – listened to, and the time before it smothers you speeds up with every child you have.
…
“It’s a slow fade,” agrees Porizkova. “Like the boiled frog, you don’t know until [you’re gone]. It was around the same time my marriage fell apart: my husband was no longer interested in me and, as I started looking around, I realised I was invisible to the population at large. It made me feel really terrible about myself.
“The only way to gain visibility in our society is to look younger. If you look your age, nobody will listen to you, and if you want to be heard you can’t look your age.”
"The only way to gain visibility in our society is to look younger. If you look your age, nobody will listen to you, and if you want to be heard you can’t look your age."
One could turn this around and say, "Young women have visibility." I understand why it is difficult for women to age and feel invisible, but that is really no injustice because the visibility they had before was unearned. Certainly, young men, and men in general, are invisible, unless they accomplish something that makes them visible.