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An Open Letter to CEO Jeff Smisek On United Airlines’ Blasphemous Safety Video

…ual recompense. In the video message that was played before my last United Airlines flight, you expressed your desire to greet each and every passenger; you invited us to sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight. If I could greet you now, I would want to know: were you unaware of the monstrosity that was about to follow? There, rising above the hiss of the pressurized air, as the video monitors snapped to the image of an engorged sun bursting from be…

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Pricey Tickets, Cranky Citizens, and Priests Behind Bars as Philadelphia Prepares For Papal Visit

…to continue to shrink into the insularity and disorganization that caused the Philadelphia Archdiocese to decline so precipitously? It remains to be seen. Meanwhile, faithful Catholics and others who want to see the Pope may be losing heart. 10,000 tickets for the Pope’s Speech at Independence Mall sold out in two minutes on Tuesday, with 394k people trying their best to get a few. Tickets are already being scalped at $100 and up on craigslist. I…

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Mile-High Identity Politics: What We Can Learn From the Same-Sex Seating Controversy

…as citizens and lower dignity as human beings. Other readers proposed that airlines set aside special seating for men requiring such accommodations—in the back of the airplane. I fly frequently and while I have never witnessed the above situation I have seen many circumstances in which people have moved to accommodate others. I have seen people give up their aisle seat to a senior citizen and take his middle. I have watched passengers with first c…

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McCain’s VP Courts Conservative Evangelicals

…es not consider herself a Pentecostal, but attends “different churches” in Alaska. Among them is the nondenominational evangelical church, Juneau Christian Center. The campaign hesitated to identify her as Pentecostal, perhaps envisioning the easy target that a charismatic church attendee would make (cue the Borat clips). Nevertheless, Palin is still closely affiliated with the denomination, appearing as the special banquet guest of the 2008 Alask…

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The Key to Understanding the Federalist Society Isn’t Originalism — It’s This 800-Year Old Tradition

…notions of “human dignity” and “human flourishing,” Catholic natural law—an 800-year-old tradition dating back to Thomas Aquinas—is a lens that offers utter clarity to conservative Catholic jurists, activists, policymakers, and scholars as they observe, describe, and engage the world. The power and sharpness of this lens allow them to confidently snap every human movement—every human desire and motive and act—into its divinely appointed and proper…

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What Does a Moral Economy Look Like for the 99 Percent?

…and in the community, coaxing them to take on an improbable battle against Alaska Airlines, the Port of Seattle, and the airport corporate establishment. The April rally was our first big campaign test. Would people turn out? They did–850 of them. And the boisterous march, the chants in different languages, the flags of many nations, and the auspicious April sunshine all boosted the community’s confidence and set us on a course to make history. Is…

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What’s More Frightening Than Snakes on a Plane?

…hat’s even more frightening than snakes on a plane? Apparently, women on a plane, as recent reports of flights being delayed due to ultra-Orthodox Jewish men refusing to sit in their assigned seats next to women, indicate. Here on RD, Kara Loewentheil recently argued that the airplane demonstration but that it “replicates the broader social and political movement strategies we’ve seen on a personal scale,” and highlighted the similarities between…

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Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Men “Stand Up” for “Religious Freedom”… On a Plane

…entire flight and refusing to occupy their seats].” Obviously a congested plane aisle isn’t the end of the world (although one can imagine it might be a safety issue in some situations), and the news reports have treated it as a kind of amusing oddity. But what’s interesting here is the pattern of behavior, which replicates the broader social and political movement strategies we’ve seen on a personal scale. First, you try to convince people to do…

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6 Reservations About U.S. Intervention in Libya

…onboard. While Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have loaned out fighter planes, they’re probably going to make, at best, a miniscule contribution; and neither are democracies that, theoretically, have to consult their people about their entanglements. And, while the Arab League has endorsed the Security Council resolution, let us not confuse the Arab League for a democratic body that speaks for the majority of its peoples. In fact, the majority…

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Atheist Nazis? The Pope’s Cheap Atonement

Adam Clayton Powell called it “cheap grace,” but we might call it “cheap atonement”: the effort by sinners to select which sins to acknowledge and repent. Pope Benedict XVI ended his heavily protested visit to England with a heartfelt apology for German bombings of England during the Battle of Britain; though he refused to accept Christian responsibility for the Holocaust, blaming it instead on pagans and atheists. Given that Cardinal Walter Kasp…

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