Religion Dispatches
…o (and 1-9, too), spread to Europe. This is why, in the Arab world, Arabic numbers are called ‘Indian numbers,’ and why, in the West, ‘Indian numbers’ are called ‘Arabic numbers.’ In India they’re just known as numbers. No matter what they’re called, I think we can all agree they make life a lot easier. 2. Coffee Muslims invented coffee, and coffee is a good thing, and no good thing ever dies. At best it goes cold. In fact, one of the reasons coff…
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…me Minister Netanyahu’s retort to Obama about the administration’s call to freeze settlement activity in Jerusalem? Palin’s love affair with Israel is nothing new. In June of this year, she told a large Norfolk, Virginia audience that Obama’s criticism of the raid on the Gaza Flotilla, in which nine activists were killed, “sold out our ally Israel.” Yediot Aharonot, Israel’s largest circulation daily, reported in a mid-November article titled “Y…
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…hat, amid her self-professed busy schedule, Sarah Palin spends her copious free time perusing Alexis de Tocqueville, J. Hector St. John Crèvecoeur, Abigail Adams’ correspondence, Frederick Jackson Turner’s “Frontier Thesis,” back issues of The Freeman from the 1940s, and Booker T. Washington’s Up from Slavery, all the while keeping abreast of Antonin Scalia’s dissenting opinions and the latest from University of Chicago economist Luigi Zingales? (…
Read More…libel comments were intended as a dog whistle for evangelicals: The former Alaska governor was likely trying to send a signal to her evangelical Christian supporters who are, in fact, deeply pro-Israel (although many Jews are wary of their support for the Zionist state, seeing them as more interested in the Rapture than a healthy Jewish nation). Palin was likely aligning herself with pro-Israel evangelicals by identifying with Jews, not by insulti…
Read More…asic Life Principles. DeMint’s money has gone to (among others) Sharron Angle of Nevada, Ken Buck of Colorado, Marco Rubio of Florida, Mike Lee of Utah, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Joe Miller of Alaska, and Christine O’Donnell of Delaware. You can bet that no matter how the numbers finally shake out in next month’s election, Barton and DeMint, and their views on “Judeo-Christian heritage” and “bibli…
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…n 1969. This would be some kind of socialist and Third-Worldist bastion of freedom, or so the rhetoric went. It is perhaps not too horrific to imagine that, if America were Libya, we would still be ruled by Richard Nixon. What exactly Qaddafi wants out of his country is unclear. It is not just money, power, and vanity. In a sane world, he would be classified insane, and some kind of universal health care would provide for his comfort in a mental h…
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…ity community.” But even these plausibly apolitical points were clearly in service of a political agenda. The speech began by emphasizing policy goals and candidates and ended with an exhortation to work for “change in Washington” and to “send a message to Washington that every life is precious… every life is valuable.” In fact, across the board the speakers emphasized electoral politics: the need to win enough seats to overturn the health care bi…
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…orters at the Machine Shed Restaurant in Urbandale, the former governor of Alaska mingled freely and listened to an impassioned speech about her fitness to run for president of the United States. Though greeted with the chant Run, Sarah, Run! she remained mum, signing books and Bibles, shaking hands and taking pictures, openly enjoying the chance to be close to her fans. Palin may do many things poorly, but she is a great retail politician who kno…
Read More…in the purest sense, but a testimony to her accomplishments as governor of Alaska. Replete with scenes of liberals trashing her, animals eating each other, and shots of Palin taking on big oil and big government, Palin’s testimony seems like another washed out politician on the big screen. Reviews of the movie have been scathing from most critics. When the film screened in Pella, Iowa in June, Palin came dressed like a miniature Ronald Reagan in j…
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…ergy, Rick Perry. Perhaps an even nearer comparison can be found in former Alaska Governor and 2008 Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, whose videotaped “deliverance prayer” with an African exorcist drew media scrutiny at the time. Third Wave spiritual warfare, with its firm conviction that the world is profoundly influenced by demonic forces, has, in real social and material ways, been traversing the halls of powers for more than a decade. T…
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