Weekend Coffee: March 28

by Adam Lee on March 28, 2015

Coffee

• GOP congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers asked her constituents for Obamacare horror stories. The response she got was rather different.

• “Shouldn’t you be having these same kind of prayer circles around divorce attorneys’ offices to ‘save’ people from acting on the sin of divorce?”

• According to federal investigators, a self-described American “patriot” named Michael Sibley was upset that Muslims weren’t committing enough acts of terrorism to make everyone see how evil they were, so he tried to commit one for them, leaving a pipe bomb in a national park along with a copy of the Qur’an. As false flags go, this one wasn’t very well-thought-out. Why would a Muslim terrorist blow up his own holy book?

• Remember thou art mortal.

• I’m fascinated by the working and failing of the human brain, so I enjoyed this longform article about an artist with permanent amnesia brought on by encephalitis, and the role she may play in helping us understand how the brain forms memories. What does life feel like when you can’t remember anything beyond the last few minutes?

• I’ve found Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s politics indigestible these last few years, so I was encouraged to see this interview which suggests that her views are moderating: “You can’t bomb bad ideas out of peopleโ€™s heads.”

• Indiana enacts a right-to-discriminate bill very similar to the one that was rejected in Arizona last year. As people pointed out on Twitter, if you want to see what theocracy looks like, just take a look at Gov. Mike Pence’s signing ceremony:

More on this to come.