Religion Dispatches
On Christmas Day, 2009, as a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam prepared to land in Detroit, passengers smelled smoke and heard a series of bangs or popping noises. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old man from a prominent Nigerian family, was attempting to ignite an explosive device sewn into his underwear. He succeeded only in igniting himself—after his arrest, he had to be treated for second-degree burns on his hands and crotch. Inst…
Read More…help find the missing airliner by using the power of remote viewing, a form of ESP….
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…ther-than-terrified descriptions of the dog, and the kids asking for their pet’s whereabouts after the murder—all undermine her attempt at fascist storytelling. Without this reframing, the cruelty stands out as what it is: Violence enacted against someone (or in this case, a dog) whom the perpetrator sees as not worthy of life, safety or basic respect. Marcotte lists examples: The scared migrants fleeing political violence are recast as “invaders”…
Read More…“Hundreds of ultra-orthodox Jewish men delayed takeoff of a transatlantic flight by refusing to sit next to women, and then caused chaos once it was airborne [by standing in the aisles for the 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…
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…he Washington Post reports. “Because, you know, it’s been banned.” Finland: 800+ same-sex couples married in first month; Lutheran priests barred from officiating More than 800 same-sex couples were married in March after marriage equality went into effect on the first of the month; 770 had already been in civil partnerships. The Lutheran Evangelical Church has decreed that priests are not permitted to marry same-sex couples and some bishops warne…
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…e sentimental process which transformed dogs from work animals into family pets. (For more on this, see my essay on Lassie in The Wow Climax) Of course, my ever practical wife suggests another explanation—that Zoe has been playing with the dog in her search for human contact and so he turns to her with the ball, not knowing that he risks blowing her cover. I suppose this would suggest a dog owner who can’t resist their attachments to the pet, anot…
Read More…immigrants and the environment. While he did talk about the U.S. bishops’ pet issue of protecting “religious liberty,” for those not keyed into the ongoing culture war battles over access to contraception and discrimination against LGBT individuals, it just sounded like Francis was speaking of the traditional, all-American meaning in terms of the right to worship freely. In fact, Francis’ unannounced visit to the Little Sisters of the Poor at the…
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…d creates a space that is very profound and spiritual for me.” France: Gay Flight Attendants Seek Opt Out From Flights to Iran Earlier this month, gay flights attendants for Air France sought the ability to opt out of working flights on a new route to Tehran; female flight attendants were previously given that option after some objected to the requirement that they wear a head scarf when deplaning in Iran. Malaysia: Top Cop Says LGBT People Cannot…
Read More…him to do. But he’s a pragmatist not a visionary, and in this his foreign policy resembles his economic policy: it’s designed in its public presentation to appeal to key voting demographics, but essentially values-neutral and centered on defending and promoting the interests of large institutions that reward loyalty. We’ve seen this institutional loyalty-centered approach to foreign policy from LDS people in decision-making positions before. It w…
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…call that came through went something like this: “Can you connect me to C. Peter Wagner’s Church Growth Institute? I’d like to buy some materials.” No one was happier than I was when he retired from Fuller and moved to Colorado Springs! I felt like I worked at a catalog call-in center. Seriously. I would never have expected to be talking about Wagner in conjunction with the 2012 election cycle, but here goes: C. Peter Wagner was the Donald McGavra…
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