LIKE ALL OF THE LEFT’S BRIGHT IDEAS, THEY’RE DYING IN A FIRE: Deadly E-Bikes: Four Explosions in New York Every Week.
Articles of Note
"He’s going to live." Andrew Wylie on Rushdie, the book business, and loathing Stephen King »
New Books
Everyone has a story, sure, but don’t be seduced by the “mindless valorization of storytelling,” warns Peter Brooks »
Essays & Opinions
“What harm is done by letting conductors into our chamber music? More than you’d suspect »
What Is Usenet, How Do You Use It, and What Is an NZB File? Ars Technica: “Usenet has been around for a while; the first version was released in 1979 and was primarily used for transferring information. Also known as Unix Users Network, Usenet had the potential to be the modern internet as we know it. Today, Usenet has evolved considerably and is used for very different purposes than originally intended.
It’s slowly decreasing in usership, but a dedicated community of users still use it. But many people today have never heard of Usenet and don’t know about its role in internet history—it’s time to change that now..Usenet…holds more than 30,000 petabytes of data, mainly articles, images, announcements, and emails. The articles found on Usenet are classified into different categories, known as newsgroups. It’s somewhat similar to conventional online discussion platforms like Reddit, with discussions appearing as threads…”
45% of Americans Say U.S. Should Be a ‘Christian Nation’
But they hold differing opinions about what that phrase means, and two-thirds of U.S. adults say churches should keep out of politics – “Growing numbers of religious and political leaders are embracing the “Christian nationalist” label, and some dispute the idea that the country’s founders wanted a separation of church and state.
On the other side of the debate, however, many Americans – including the leaders of many Christian churches – have pushed back against Christian nationalism, calling it a “danger” to the country. Most U.S. adults believe America’s founders intended the country to be a Christian nation, and many say they think it should be a Christian nation today, according to a new Pew Research Center survey designed to explore Americans’ views on the topic.
But the survey also finds widely differing opinions about what it means to be a “Christian nation” and to support “Christian nationalism.” For instance, many supporters of Christian nationhood define the concept in broad terms, as the idea that the country is guided by Christian values. Those who say the United States should not be a Christian nation, on the other hand, are much more inclined to define a Christian nation as one where the laws explicitly enshrine religious teachings.
Overall, six-in-ten U.S. adults – including nearly seven-in-ten Christians – say they believe the founders “originally intended” for the U.S. to be a Christian nation. And 45% of U.S. adults – including about six-in-ten Christians – say they think the country “should be” a Christian nation. A third say the U.S. “is now” a Christian nation. At the same time, a large majority of the public expresses some reservations about intermingling religion and government. For example, about three-quarters of U.S. adults (77%) say that churches and other houses of worship should not endorse candidates for political offices.
Two-thirds (67%) say that religious institutions should keep out of political matters rather than expressing their views on day-to-day social or political questions. And the new survey – along with other recent Center research – makes clear that there is far more support for the idea of separation of church and state than opposition to it among Americans overall…”