Pick of the Week– The Sacred Mormon Penis (Gina Colvin, Kiwi Mormon)– All the more profound for its profanity.
Politics
Here’s what the Oregon Medicaid study really said (Ezra Klein, Wonkblog)
Low Taxes, Low Services– a Texas success story (Erica Grieder, Dallas Morning News)– A far too sanguine take in my opinion. Take away federal aid and federal requirements at midnight and Texas would be a failed state by noon. The reason Texas has been doing so well (and I mean the state, not all Texans, which is certainly not the case) has more to do with one industry (energy) specifically and its size, meaning abundant cheap land.
Emotion and Reason and the Gun Debate (Paul Waldman, The American Prospect)
The Frankenstein Foreign-Policy Crisis (Steve Erickson, The American Prospect)
West Blast Obliterates Safety Lie (Leo Gerard, In These Times)
May Day: Should We All Become Marxists? (Matthew Yglesias, Slate)
It’s a 401(k) World and it Basically Sucks (Matthew Yglesias, Slate)
The Idled Young Americans (David Leonhardt, NYT)
International
Why Iceland (Bill Hayes, Virginia Quarterly Review)
A young Yemeni writer on the impact and morality of drone-bombing his country (Glenn Greenwald, The Guardian)
Culture
E-Books and Democracy (Anthony W. Marx, NYT)
Deep Inside Taco Bell’s Doritos Locos Taco (Austin Carr, Fast Company)– An engineering marvel. I have to admit to being a little disappointed in the Cool Ranch variety, but the Nacho Cheese ones are just incredible.
Wikipedia’s Woman Problem (James Gleick, NYRB)
Mormonism
Who was the first LDS leader to pair priesthood and motherhood? What else has changed about priesthood over the course of LDS history? (Joanna Brooks, Ask Mormon Girl)
A time of war, a time of peace (Patrick Mason, Peculiar People)
Divine Quiescence in the Last Dispensation (Morgan, By Common Consent)
Put Your Mormon Where Your Mouth Is (Melissa Inouye, Peculiar People)
Priesthood, Women and Non-Agency (jupiterschild, Faith-Promoting Rumor)
The Nightstand @ Weightier Matters of the Law 