November 1, 2013
It’s autumn. The leaves are changing, or maybe they have already changed where you live. (I live in the South, and they change later here.)
The clocks are changing, too, as daylight saving time begins this weekend (unless you’re in one of those few locations where clocks don’t “fall backward” in the fall and “spring forward” in the spring).
And the Link of the Day blog is changing as well. Beginning next week, the first full week of November, it will have a new name, “Letha’s Links and Commentary” and will no longer be published daily but instead on a less regular schedule. I’ll still publish links that I think you’ll want to know about and will comment on them and add related material as always.
The archives will still be available. You’ll still be able to review past posts from Link of the Day (which began in 2012 as one continuous page, and then became a blog in January 2013, making it easier to find past posts). The blog will remain, but just be published under the new name and with a bit less frequency.
A Link for Today and This Weekend
But for now, I know you came to this post expecting to find a link, and I don’t want to disappoint you. So for today’s link, I recommend a post from Cathleen Falsani’s blog, God Grrl, at the Religion News Service website. Under the title, “No turning away, or back, after seeing ‘12 years a slave,’” Falsani shares her reaction to the movie, 12 Years a Slave, and its portrayal of the indescribably horrible and shameful institution of slavery that is such a blot on our U.S. history. She describes the way the Bible was used to control enslaved people as well as attempting to justify this inhumane, evil practice of treating human beings as commodities to be bought and sold. And she raises the issue of how the Bible continues to be used today as a “deadly weapon” against whole categories of people who are considered “the other.”
Related: If you have a chance to see the movie this weekend, be sure to go. I’m hoping to see it soon. Here’s the trailer. And you might want to read this article from the BBC. I’ve also been learning a lot about slavery from Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr.’s PBS documentary series, “ The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross.” For an introduction, watch Tavis Smiley ‘s interview with Dr. Gates as the two discuss the documentary series. And watch videos from the actual program on the PBS website. Here’s the episode that shows what happened when cotton became king.
