Afternoon roundup …

… Watch Katie Couric's Offensive Attempt to Interview 2 Transgender TV Stars | Mother Jones.

… Not my views: 7 Movies That Changed Your Political Views, According to Science.

If "your faith in the American political system" has been destroyed, on what grounds do you continue to participate in  politics?

… The scathing slurs of my fellow atheists make me despair.

… how could anyone believe in the monotheistic God despite all the scientific evidence to disprove his existence? How could religious people think contraception, gay rights or women’s reproductive rights were issues worth fighting against?

This is a nice piece, actually, but the above passage assumes that a good deal more is demonstrably true than is. It also ignores the fact that some pretty sharp cookies are theists — John Polkinghorne, Owen Gingerich, Francis Collins, to name just three who have made some considerable contributions to our scientific understanding of things.

… Alas, Poor Shakespeare.

No literature, if it’s any good, is timeless. Ever. It is of its time—and, in order for students to be at all interested in reading it, it is of ours as well. That does not make it “timeless.” That makes it nuanced.

This is disingenuous. In claiming that a work is "timeless" one is hardly denying that it was made at a certain time in a certain place, etc. But if that were all it was, it would be a period piece.

(Hat tip, Dave Lull.)