The Dish

The American Bible Society has deemed Chattanooga the most “bible-minded city” in America:

Along with ranking the most and least Bible-minded cities, the study also found that an inverse relationship exists between population size and Bible friendliness. Of the top 25 Bible-minded markets, only three have a population of greater than 1 million households: Charlotte, N.C.; Nashville, Tenn.; and Dallas.

But Religion Dispatches’ S. Brent Plate takes issue with the concept of ”bible-mindedness”:

The first sentence of the Barna article explains that the poll was about “the role of the Bible in U.S. Society.” The fine print in the survey suggests something slightly different: “Respondents who report reading the Bible within the past seven days and who agree strongly in the accuracy of the Bible are classified as ‘Bible-minded.’” No suggestions are given that someone might act anything scriptural out, put the Bible to use, or otherwise engage it in real life. What we are left with is the idea that people read the Bible and call it accurate, and thus we know something about society.

The logical leaps here are vast. In reality, the survey is not telling us about any “role” of the Bible. It’s all just a mind game. The assumptions of the pollsters betray a larger misconception concerning who religious people are and what they do. Questionnaires are still mired in the mostly-Protestant notion that religious people read holy books and have “beliefs” in their heads. It makes for good fodder on the religion news circuits but necessarily leaves out the lived realities of religious existence.

Nicholas Johnson, the author of Negroes And The Gun, explains what motivated him to write the book:

The black tradition of arms has been submerged because it seems hard to reconcile with the dominant narrative of nonviolence in the modern civil-rights movement. But that superficial tension is resolved by the long-standing distinction that was vividly evoked by movement stalwart Fannie Lou Hamer. Hamer’s approach to segregationists who dominated Mississippi politics was, “Baby you just got to love ’em. Hating just makes you sick and weak.” But, asked how she survived the threats from midnight terrorists, Hamer responded, “I’ll tell you why. I keep a shotgun in every corner of my bedroom and the first cracker even look like he wants to throw some dynamite on my porch won’t write his mama again.”

Like Hartman Turnbow, Fannie Lou Hamer embraced private self-defense and political nonviolence without any sense of contradiction. In this she channeled a more-than-century-old practice and philosophy that evolved through every generation, sharpened by icons like Ida B. Wells, W. E. B. Du Bois and Daisy Bates, pressed by the burgeoning NAACP, and crystalized by Martin Luther King Jr.

Contemplating the question, novelist Tim Parks points to examples:

[S]ome writers do change their stories and their style quite decisively: Dickens shifted abruptly from optimism to pessimism, T.S. Eliot from a grumbling gloom to something approaching serenity, Joyce from relative simplicity to unspeakable complexity, Beckett from baroque English to the sparest French, Hardy from novels to poetry, or indeed, in the case of one of my favorite writers, Henry Green, from regular writing to silence.

In each case, if one examines the life of the author, it becomes clear that the earlier approach no longer “worked” for the writer, no longer contained the tensions that need to be contained in order to go on living in a certain way. Some other story was necessary. Or alternatively, change had happened, had been achieved, for better or worse, and the previous story was simply no longer appropriate, because no longer required.

I recall in this regard a recent conversation with a young novelist who was in some distress about his private life, in particular his obviously conflicted behavior with women. I encouraged him to see an analyst and hopefully sort things out. He said he had thought about this but was concerned that a successful analysis would alter the way he wrote, his ability to write tense, distraught stories about conflicted behavior with women, etc. I laughed. When despair brings home the bacon and self-esteem with it, it’s hard to let it go.

Catherine Rampell wonders why employers’ hiring processes are getting longer and longer:

Some economists have argued that there is a growing “skills gap” between what workers have and what employees need. If that were true, though, we’d expect to see wages being bid up, and so far wages have remained relatively stagnant across the economy.

Another theory is that in an uncertain economy, companies are really, really worried about making a mistake and do not feel pressure to fill openings right away so long as they can still dump more work onto their existing staff members. As a result, employers exercise more exhaustive screening and vetting processes until they’re confident they’ve found their “purple squirrel,” H.R. jargon for an impossibly perfect, overqualified candidate usually willing to work for peanuts. Meanwhile, the costs that companies incur by making the hiring process more involved remain relatively hidden.

Copyranter chronicles the storied history of Apple commercials and their sudden crappiness over the past few years.