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Anne is reading …

America Really Was That Great … but that doesn’t mean we are now. Thomas L Friedman, Michael Mandelbaum for Foreign Policy.

America’s Pacific Century … the future of politics will be decided in Asia, not Afghanistan or Iraq, and the United States will be right at the center of the action by Hillary Clinton for Foreign Policy.

Infinity pool in Singapore by Chia Ming Chien

The City Solution … Why cities are the best cure for our planet’s growing pains by Robert Kunzig for National Geographic.

Going Green … Every big scientific moment is also cultural. And going green is about much more than your lightbulbs by Robert Butler for More Intelligent Life.

The American-Western European Values Gap by Pew Research highlights America’s differences from Western Europe on these key issues: 1) use of military force; 2) isolationism vs engagement; 3) cultural superiority; 4) individualism and the role of the state; 5) importance of religion; 6) religious vs national identity; 7) homosexuality. Read the full report for more information.

More DFR

‘One Nation Under God’ by Utah artist Jon McNaughtonThe Pew Forum 2008 United States Religious Survey found that 88 percent of African-Americans believe in God with absolute certainty, compare with 71 percent of the total population. Take out the 13% of Americans who are African American, and 68 percent of the remainder believes with certainty. Note that among this group are intelligent design believers for whom God is the spiritual energy force of the universe and large numbers of whites who are agnostic, neither believing or not believing in God but saying that such a force can’t be understood by human reason. For certain, agnostics don’t embrace creationism.

Today’s NYTimes takes up growing numbers of young African Americans who are atheists. Included are Wrath James White, author of the blog ‘Words of Wrath’ in which he is relentless critic of Christianity and of African-Americans’ “zealous embracement of the God our kidnapper, murders, slave masters and oppressors.”

Artist McNaughton Fine Art website.

Brazil’s Evangelical Leader Silas Malafaia

Silas Malafaia by Mauricio Lima for The NYT

“I’m the public enemy No. 1 of the gay movement in Brazil,” Mr. Malafaia said in an interview this month here in Fortaleza, a city in Brazil’s northeast where he came to lead one of his self-described “crusades,” an event mixing scripture and song in front of about 200,000 people. Tears flowed down the faces of some of the impassioned attendees, while others danced to the performances that served as his opening act.

Lima is also against all abortion rights for women, writes the NYT. Read on: Silas Malafaia, TV Evangelist, Rises in Brazil’s Culture Wars.

Anne’s Essays

The Big Chill | Will God Govern America AOC News Musings