04.17.20

It’s Still Easter!
That’s true for liturgical Christians, for whom Easter is a season that lasts for weeks.  But really, it’s always Easter for any Christian, for every day (especially Sundays) is a day of resurrection as we rise from bed in gratitude for the knowledge that we too will rise to new life on a great and glorious day. To that end, here’s a link to the classic poem by John Updike, Seven Stanzas at Easter, that I ran across this week. It begins:

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells' dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

Coronavirus Package
Once again, the pandemic dominated the Internet.  Among those articles I found most interesting:

· Silence over Easter police raids captures ‘through the looking glass’ moment.  Who would have imagined that in a democracy police would raid church services and arrest priests—and the church hierarchy would side with the police? Yes, it’s complicated.

· Why Doesn’t [the] Flu Tank [the] Economy Like Covid-19? Not sure if you’ll be able to read this if you are not a subscriber. This is something I’ve been wondering about, especially since mortality numbers seem no different. The summary: The flu takes its toll over many, many months, not putting intense stress on the medical system. And it requires fewer hospitalizations and results in fewer deaths percentage wise.

· Why can't you go fishing during the pandemic?  We’re seeing early signs of rebellion against shelter-in-place, especially in Michigan, where the restrictions are draconian. A call for common sense.

· Baseball league restarts in Taiwan with robot and mannequin ‘fans’ in seats. Just watch the opening video and look at the one picture in the article—a sign of the times.

Breaking News: Men and Women Are Different
Most of us recognize this reality, even if it results in a few unfortunate stereotypes from time to time. But this reality has not found much purchase in academia and the elite circles of our culture. Well, maybe it will now that more and more studies are demonstrating the difference. This from Scientific American,with the subtitle “New approaches are shedding light on the magnitude of sex differences in personality, and the results are so strong and pervasive that they can no longer be ignored.”

(And just to be clear, gentlemen, this doesn’t mean you no longer have to do the dishes.)

How Quickly We Forget
Like many others, I’ve been saying that our culture is more divided than ever.  Maybe not. Or so argues William Rosenau in “The bloody decade: think America’s divided now? Try the 1970s: In 1974 alone, there were 2,044 bombings in America, with 24 people killed.”

If We Only Knew
Back to the coronavirus, with a sharp and humorous video on the strange place we find ourselves in: “Explaining the Pandemic to my Past Self.”

Grace and peace,

Mark Galli
markgalli.com