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So much of the debate over Indiana’s new religious freedom law revolves around the gap between the letter of the law and the politics behind it. Supporters note that the law doesn’t mention gays and lesbians, and that similar laws (though not identical ones) have been on the books in other jurisdictions for years. Opponents point to the fact that the law’s advocates organized support for it with arguments about protecting business owners who object to being vendors for same-sex weddings. They're both right, just about different things.

My review of Steven Brill's Obamacare book is up today:

My daughter spent the first six weeks of her life in intensive care. She finally came home, trailed by a long series of bills. The hospitals also sent letters announcing, “This is not a bill,” then detailing what we would owe them if it were—that is, if we didn’t have insurance. The total: more than $250,000. What would we have done with such a bill? Borrowed from every family member and friend we have? Filmed a heartstrings-tugging fund-raising video? Gone bankrupt?

"When I boohooed about being light-skinned he emptied his shoeshine kit on my dresser and offered to paint me whatever color I wanted to be. Then he cussed me out for disrespecting my white mother."

"They could not avoid the conclusion that they were losing on all of the issues they care about."

The recent conversation around University of Michigan student Jesse Klein’s column on being middle class has been fascinating. Klein’s family makes $250k a year and lives in a $2 million house. But it’s not an enormo-house, because that’s $2 million in Silicon Valley.

“What’s desperately needed in American Protestantism today is for someone to engineer the confluence of these two streams of Protestantism so that the faith can reclaim its prophetic voice.”

Our impoverished spirituality around death and burial has been well documented in the Century, among other places. From the corpseless memorial service to the private lowering of embalmed bodies into concrete vaults, we are forever distancing ourselves from the realities of death and decay.

"I hope in they can find a way to keep themselves safe but to also keep the protesters safe. We're not the ones out here with the guns."

"Two-and-a-half years after he lost his arm, Whedbee is still fighting with North Dakota’s insurance agency."

"Critique drift is a way that good political arguments go bad."

As an optimistic romance on network, The West Wing's advantages are obvious: more feels, less murder. What’s weird is that House of Cards doesn’t really deliver on the other side of the ledger.

In Romans 7, sin seems to have at least as much agency as Paul does.

"Darren Wilson is not the first gang member to be publicly accused of a crime he did not commit. But Darren Wilson was given the kind of due process that those of us who are often presumed to be gang members rarely enjoy."

"Maybe this is a good episode of Scandal. I’m not the guy to ask."