Weekend Reads 2/27/16

That Dragon, Cancer: A game that wrestles with grief, hope, and faith

Video games have the unique power to put players in control of a narrative and then steal that control away, and That Dragon, Cancer employs that power to incredible emotional effect—after all, what can render a parent as powerless as facing an unkillable cancer in your infant child?

The best idea in a long time: Covering parking lots with solar panels

What if there were a way to cut down on that heat, cool down the cars that park in these lots, power up those parked cars that are electric vehicles (like Teslas), and generate a lot of energy to boot?

Climate science denial could hurt Republicans in unexpected ways

But these GOP operatives might be thinking too narrowly. Working-class voters are not the only possible swing voters. There are also college-educated, usually more affluent, swing voters. Concentrated in the suburbs of major cities, they used to constitute the moderate wing of the Republican Party. Now there is no moderate wing, and those voters are either Democrats or independents.

Sanders: Pope Francis Is a Socialist Like Me

"[W]hat it means to be a socialist, in the sense of what the pope is talking about, what I’m talking about, is to say that we have got to do our best and live our lives in a way that alleviates human suffering, that does not accelerate the disparities of income and wealth," Sanders tells the Rev. Thomas Rosica, head of the Toronto-based Catholic network Salt and Light in an interview to be broadcast the evening of Feb. 23.