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cheap airline tickets from washington dc to sudan phone number 1-800-299-7264

The Sacred and the Dead: The Trouble with Sugar Magnolia

…omething-year-old Deadhead guys hit on my teenage friends by offering them tickets to shows. Deadheads were anathema to my chosen subculture of socially conscious punks. East Bay punks were aggro and in your face about social justice, feminism, human rights; Deadheads, in our eyes, were too stoned and obsessed with their god Jerry to care. Sometimes, I’d be out in Berkeley at night, coming out of a punk show in some basement or garage, and I’d hea…

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Religion and Reality TV: Is God Watching?

…before the winner was announced—in the final 60 seconds of a two-hour broadcast—Probst and the contestants revisited, retold, repeated all of the important moments from an immediately preceding season of television, details with which the audience was arguably already familiar. While I’m sure the executives at CBS intended for this to be an easy way to sell more installments of ad time, I was blown away by the adherence to a set formula. My initi…

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An Architect Reimagines the Synagogue as Ark, Shelter, Floating Fortress

…icipation in the City Council of Glen Cove at the time of the 1990 Avianca airline crash in the nearby Long Island town of Cove Neck—a flight from Columbia to New York that ran out of fuel as it was held circling JFK airport awaiting permission to land, killing 73. In the midst of a subsequent council meeting, the mayor of Glen Cove sequentially cited the heroics of local emergency workers for responding to the crash, and then lamented the presenc…

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The Religious Implications of Nudity

…ance-enhancing drugs. The sense of freedom and fun (and free food, even if airline food) was exhilarating. The airport has now become a place of horror. Do they have full-body scanners? I wonder as I’m herded into a long, bovine line. Abattoir or boudoir? Why is this bothering me so much? Don’t Touch Me There Even cursory reflection reveals my embodiment issues are buried deep in my religious upbringing. I was a teenage fundamentalist. That remark…

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Penn Jillette’s Signs You May Already Be an Atheist

…rust I have in the TSA before, Jillette’s rant in “Penn’s Bacon and a Kiss Airline” was like finding a long-lost brother; another guy who feels it is criminal to be viewed naked by strangers—involuntarily—is a true freedom fighter. This is a comedian with a conscience. He may come down on the wrong side of many traditional issues (global warming and sexual mores, e.g.), but he is keenly aware that too many people suffer. Theodicy in motion. In the…

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

…h ultra-Orthodox men interfering in your travel, you can just take another airline. If only it were as easy for female employees affected by the numerous lawsuits against the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive coverage requirement to find a better job. *Correction: This post originally indicated that gender separation was due to concerns about women’s menstrual cycles. To read more about gender separation among Haredi Jews in Israel and in the U….

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‘Have a Blessed Day’ May Not Be a Sign of Christian Nationalism, But it’s Not Innocuous Either

…ngers with “salaam aleikum” rather than “have a blessed day,” we’d be having a very different discussion now—one most likely involving threats of Islamophobic violence and perhaps violence itself, as well as severe backlash against the airline. Christians, in other words, retain a highly privileged place in the American social hierarchy, and it seems to be that our best option for achieving a functional democratic future is to call out and work to…

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God Makes an Independent Film

…ginning of a journey that will have them owning a Christian theme park, an airline, a series of television stations; they will be the first to colonize another planet. Each new revelation is greeted with enthusiastic shouts and frenzied applause. Throughout it all, Jacobs’ camera captures, with stark verité detachment, the trials of the small community making the film, and dwells on the character of its leader. Who is Pastor Richard Gazowsky? Is h…

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What’s More Frightening Than Snakes on a Plane?

…an ad in a local shop or community center. Last minute emergency? Call the airline right away to see about possibilities for accommodating your needs. Likewise, if one is ardently anti-abortion for moral reasons, rather than only focus on making it illegal, prevent it by limiting unwanted pregnancies: help ensure adequate, healthy sex education and contraception are available to those who need or want them. Work to make affordable, quality prenata…

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Can’t Get Away

…n the workers all around us. Unfortunately, many aren’t doing well. Record numbers are employed in jobs offering no health insurance, pension, vacation days or sick days. Millions of workers are having billions of dollars in unpaid wages stolen illegally by unethical employers. Millions are misclassified as independent contractors when they really should be employees. Some workers have their tips stolen. Although we should all attempt to support e…

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