Quick Hits of the Week

• Quick, but substantive article about how debts are handled after death, and how banks and credit card companies try to recoup losses through guilt. Some basic rules to remember. 1.) Anything the deceased owned will stand for what they owed. 2.) If you didn’t sign for it, you (generally) don’t have to pay for it. 3.) Some creditors are more interested in getting paid than being human regarding your pain (so don’t do business with them).

• Last year, the Women’s Funding Network released a study showing juvenile prostitution had risen to epidemic levels in America. USA Today and other major media outlets picked it up and ran with it. Some church leaders held it up as an example of the broken and sinful world we are living in. And… it was crap. The numbers were all guesses, based on browsing online advertisements for prostitutes and counting the ones that were ‘young looking.’ Really.

• Mark Goldblatt has written a fascinating philosophical piece over at Reason magazine regarding the nature of infinity and how it can speak to the infinite nature of God. This has nothing to do with how Christians should approach the Gospel, but it reminds us how difficult it is for our minds to do anything but get a glimpse of what the word infinite really means (as in ‘God is infinitely powerful), and I’ve always experienced a strange sense of calm when I’ve considered the infinite nature of God.

• We might not like to make mistakes, but we absolutely fear and loathe failing. No matter what drummed that into our heads (our culture, our education, or whatever) it’s wrong. We have it exactly backwards. It’s actually alright to fail, but we should avoid making mistakes.

• It turns out that you can make Barbie and Ken into beautiful things, if you’re willing to cut them into pieces first. You can peruse the entire collection here.