Joss Whedon’s Equality Now speech

Stand By Me

From Playing for Change:

Patagonia: end of the trail

Patagonia: end of the trail

by Luis Sepúlveda

WE WERE in southern Argentina, not far from El Bolsón, a picturesque town on the border between the provinces of Río Negro and El Chubut. The giant poplars sheltering the cemetery bent in the wind. Their foliage formed a huge dome over all who rested there, people who had come to this southern tip of the world with their dreams, ambitions, hopes, plans, loves and hates – the basic ingredients of our brief passage on earth. These polyglot people in their different costumes had come from all over the world only to end up in this forsaken, windswept cemetery, united through eternity in the universal language of death.

via Patagonia: end of the trail – Le Monde diplomatique – English edition.

Hitchens vs. Sharpton

Author Christopher Hitchens debates the Reverend Al Sharpton on the question of whether morality can exist in the absence of God.

A.J. Jacobs’ year of living biblically

Hand of god

In recent decades, more than 10,000 children were reportedly sexually abused by Catholic priests in the United States. In “Hand of God,” filmmaker Joe Cultrera explores just one of those cases, that of his own brother Paul.

Paul Cultrera was molested in the 1960s by Father Joseph Birmingham, who allegedly abused nearly 100 other children. “Hand of God” tells the story of faith betrayed, and how Paul and the rest of the Cultrera family fought back against a scandal that continues to afflict scores of churches across the country.

via FRONTLINE: hand of god: watch the full program online | PBS.

When kids get life

The United States is one of the only countries in the world that allows children under 18 to be sentenced to life without parole. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International report that more than 2,000 inmates are currently serving life without parole in the United States for crimes committed when they were juveniles; in the rest of the world, there are only 12 juveniles serving the same sentence, according to figures reported to the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child.

via FRONTLINE: when kids get life: watch the full program online | PBS.