Religion Dispatches
…friendly donut vendor in New York, say, or an officer in the U.S. Army at Fort Hood—discards his apparent integration into American society and elects to vindicate his religion in an act of messianic violence against his fellow Americans.” That semester, a Muslim-American student in my course, Ebadur Rahman, had been writing thoughtfully about a seminary he’d attended after high school; the pilot program that was the precursor to the school, Zayt…
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…iginally from Colorado, served in the army from 1992 to 1998, stationed at Fort Bliss in Texas and Fort Bragg in North Carolina. Initially he was a sergeant as a repairman for the Hawk missile system. Then he became a specialist in “psyops”—psychological operations. Though it is not clear what Page did in this branch of the service, in general psyops attempts to influence an enemy or a foreign audience through propaganda or other means of influenc…
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…s, then offering an implicit threat. According to the Dallas Morning News, Fort Worth Bishop Michael Olson said that “It would be tragic if Catholic Charities were not able to provide this help, in accordance with the Gospel values and family, assistance that is so essential to these children who are vulnerable to being mistreated as meaningless in society.” In other words: Catholic Charities might rather go out of business than operate in a world…
Read More…s, then offering an implicit threat. According to the Dallas Morning News, Fort Worth Bishop Michael Olson said that “It would be tragic if Catholic Charities were not able to provide this help, in accordance with the Gospel values and family, assistance that is so essential to these children who are vulnerable to being mistreated as meaningless in society.” In other words: Catholic Charities might rather go out of business than operate in a world…
Read More…h of Christ congregation that I serve is not too far from the Army base at Fort Jackson in Columbia, South Carolina. Because of our proximity to the Air Force Chaplain Corps College housed there we often get chaplain students attending our services. It’s part of their training to get off the base and attend church services of denominations that they may not otherwise experience. A uniformed young man showed up at one of our services recently and,…
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…descendants of the Apache spiritual leader. Jeff Houser, Chairman of the Fort Sill Apache tribe, the place where Geronimo lived and died after 23 years as a prisoner of America’s Indian wars, sent a letter to President Obama immediately after details of the code name controversy were revealed. He wrote: Geronimo was a renowned Chiricahua Apache leader who personally fought to defend his people, territory, and way of life. Unlike the coward Osam…
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…romised to represent the “people who get up early in the morning,” in an effort to harness the support of Ireland’s rural farmers, the middle class and elderly — rhetoric that critics say both alienates and demonizes a large chunk of Ireland’s casual workforce, who have been hit by increased austerity measures. He has also pledged to hold a referendum on abortion in 2018. Varadkar’s father is an immigrant from India. Varadkar came out during the 2…
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…waste American money to buy their expensive oil when we could have our own cheap oil?” “Why is he trying to make rich people poor?” “How is it right to punish rich people for working hard and realizing the American Dream?” It was late on a Friday night and I was tired, so I half-heartedly responded by explaining that there are other factors to consider in every charged question she’d been armed with. But I wondered, “Why the hell was the Salvation…
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…llar annual budget is funded almost exclusively by ticket sales, and these tickets are not cheap (ranging this year, for example, from $210-$300 depending on time of purchase). This pays for the basic infrastructure as well as expenses like a hefty per-person/per-day use fee charged by the Bureau of Land Management. In addition, a significant portion of each year’s budget is set aside to fund many of the large-scale art installations various parti…
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…h buildings, starting right around the same time. Talk about luxury on the cheap; it’s hard to deny a feeling of similarity. (The tower is to the Burj as a certain toupee is to hair: might the Trump Tower inadvertently mimic an Islamic motif?) The regal twin palm trees in the foreground are the world’s tallest, at some 3,500 feet each. Recently a falling coconut crushed an entire apartment complex, punching a massive hole that has filled up with…
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