Monday's News & Ideas - 8/14/2023
- Lahaina church keeps worshipping
- AI app lets you text with Jesus
- Native Hawaiian sacred sites
- Memorial for exhumed British Jews
- SCOTUS & establishment clause
- Real estate policy & segregation
Its building destroyed, a Lahaina church finds sanctuary in a cafe*
The New York Times: Members of Grace Baptist Church, many of them now homeless, gathered on Sunday and described daring escapes from the fire.
A new AI app lets users ‘text’ with Jesus. Some call it blasphemy.*
The Washington Post: Text With Jesus, launched in July, replicates an instant messaging platform, with biblical figures impersonated by the artificial intelligence program ChatGPT.
Native Hawaiian sacred sites have been damaged in the Lahaina wildfires – but, as an Indigenous scholar writes, their stories will live on
The Conversation: It is not just the historic buildings and landmarks that are important to Native Hawaiians. This region of Maui has a longer history.
Call for memorial for British Jews whose remains were moved to mass grave in 1970s
The Guardian: The bones were moved from a cemetery in Mile End, east London, after it was bought by the forerunner of Queen Mary University London in 1973.
The Supreme Court is taking a wrecking ball to the wall between church and state
Vox: The Court’s Republican majority has ground the Constitution’s establishment clause down to a nub.
The Spark
How the real estate industry engineered American segregation
While policies like redlining helped entrench housing discrimination, it was real estate agents* who laid its foundations — and they should be held accountable, CityLab says.
*access is limited for nonsubscribers
