Monday Links for 6.22.2015

A quick round up of some of the stories I found interesting over the past week...

The last week was marred by mass shooting in Charleston, and much of what I've read in the past week dealt with that tragedy.  I don't have much to say that would add anything new to a necessary conversation, but each of the following pieces  were the best I read, and are worth the time, I think - America's Sordid History of Attacking Sacred Black Spaces, Take Down the Confederate Flag Now, and Black America is Under Attack.

In the realm of politics, I have written before over my intrigue and curiosity with Bernie Sanders's campaign for President.  As the following two pieces suggest, while still a longshot, he is gaining momentum, and I think it speaks less to a left/right, liberal/conservative issue, but anti-money, anti-establishment sentiment (there is a reason, after all, its the 99% - most everyone is in it).  The campaign, the issues it raises, and how it can possibly move the presumptive Democratic favorite, Hillary Clinton, will be fascinating to observe - Sanders surge is becoming a bigger problem for Clinton and Turn Left on Main Street.

Read some interesting science related stories this week, starting with a piece on how we are living during the period of the sixth mass extinction.  You can't read a piece like that without thinking of mankind's impact on the planet, and the other species with whom we share the planet.  As such, reading about Pope Francis's new encyclical addressing environmental concerns (192 pages worth!), is both humbling and encouraging.  These pieces from The Atlantic and Bill Moyers website do a good job summarizing.  I think this has the potential, a potential which may never be realized, but a potential nonetheless to change how we think not of climate change, but our interdependence with the planet (likely the only we will ever have) and with our fellow humans.  I particularly like the following passage - “Society as a whole, and the state in particular, are obliged to defend and promote the common good. In the present condition of global society, where injustices abound and growing numbers of people are deprived of basic human rights and considered expendable, the principle of the common good immediately becomes, logically and inevitably, a summons to solidarity and a preferential option for the poorest of our brothers and sisters.”