Check out these recent articles from around the web:

America’s working families: Divided we fall by Michael Stafford: “More than six years have passed since the financial crisis, but its effects are still being felt. For most Americans, the economy remains a grim and frightening place — a source of anxiety, instead of hope.”

The Torture Party by Jonathan Chait: “Officials covered up their own mistakes; soldiers carried out practices haphazardly—some subjects were tortured for weeks before being interrogated. These are all acts of cruelty that Republicans would surely find terrifying—evil, even—if enacted by foreign governments, or Democratic administrations.”

Detention taking ‘devastating toll’ on Post reporter locked up in Iran: “Almost five months after Rezaian’s still-unexplained arrest, family members say conditions in Iran’s Evin prison are taking a fearsome toll on the 38-year-old Tehran correspondent for The Washington Post. But even worse than the physical discomforts, they say, are the psychological effects from near-total isolation and uncertainty over how long the ordeal will last. The uncertainty deepened further Sunday with Iran’s announcement that formal charges — still unspecified — have been filed.”

How Not to Argue about Abortion by Ramesh Ponnuru: “Every pro-lifer who has ever given any thought to the matter or expressed a view on it acknowledges, indeed proclaims, the difference between a human organism and a human cell that is not a human organism. And the fact that what Gopnik calls ‘fertilized eggs’ often die naturally does not have any logical bearing on whether it is morally permissible to act with the intention of bringing about their deaths, any more than the fact that many 90-year-olds die naturally implies that it is all right to kill them.”

Is Pope Francis Right about the Synod? by Michael Sean Winters: “It is not just the relationship of wealth to moral and spiritual health that is distorted in our experience of American Catholicism, it is the neo-Pelagianism that sees grace as a commodity, one evidenced by the accumulation of wealth when, if memory serves, it is the accumulation of suffering that brings us closest to Christ.”

The Libertarian Default by David Cloutier: “The default tends to cut across political lines and issues, and what is most striking to me is an inability to argue for what we call in the class ‘big-picture beliefs’ – that is, substantive claims about real justice, dignity, social solidarity, and meaning – other than appeals to free-standing claims about rights and freedoms. The rights are no longer really ‘for’ anything; freedom of speech and of the press is not ‘for’ vigorous democratic debate, or even ‘for’ entrepreneurial exchange of ideas. It’s just there. The only relationships that matter are ones of personal affection, and these are ultimately elective and sentimental.”

Discovering What Matters Most by Jo McGowan: “Fully Alive chronicles the remarkable story of the Special Olympics from its humble beginnings as a one-day event in Chicago in 1968 to its present-day status as the world’s leading athletic organization for people with developmental disabilities. It does this through the stories of individuals who believed in its unlikely premise: that sports could be a tool for changing the way we think about disability. Even more affecting are the stories of some of the athletes who have participated in the event.”

What Do Employers Owe Pregnant Employees? by Melissa Langsam Braunstein: “It seems absurd that employers wouldn’t accommodate pregnant employees, if they already accommodate others, especially since pregnancy’s temporary changes culminate in a societal benefit: children.”

With Pope Francis to name new cardinals in February, what’s at stake? by John Allen: “If the pope bypasses the United States, it may be seen as a snub ahead of his American trip, since this will almost certainly be the only consistory between now and then. On the other hand, it could also be spun as an education for Americans in the realities of living in a global Church.”

Four ‘awesome’ facts about Our Lady of Guadalupe by Matthew Sewell: “But this post isn’t about the whole apparition story so much as it is about the tilma, Juan Diego’s cloak, on which the image of the Blessed Mother was imprinted. In the centuries following the event, some amazing and unexplainable qualities have been discovered about it.”