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Romney Goes to Bat Against Reid in Nevada

By Joanna Brooks

…rcome concerns among Mormons (who make up 7% of Nevada’s population) about comments by Angle’s pastor deriding the LDS Church as a “kooky” “cult.” More likely, it’s a move by Romney to appear relevant in the context of a Tea Party-infused, mortgage-meltdown-fueled voter backlash in Nevada. Nevada is about as volatile a place as you’ll find in the American West right now. It has the highest rate of mortgage foreclosures, mortgage fraud, unemploymen…

Note for Today

By Amina Wadud

…he preparations go along. I also hear from friends that they’ve had better communications before departure; so the right company goes a long way for the ‘before’ part. I’ll ket you know about during and after. White I just folded all my clothes for the hajj. Most of them are new, a few gifts came of late, so I have pants and long tops, dresses, and scarves. I feel like I need one more scarf. Not for sheer number, but for style; there are so many s…

Hajj Journal: Tawaf: How I Fell in Love…

By Amina Wadud

…and to do zhikr. I chose to do so out loud instead of the silent version recommended for women. Wonder who came up with that? In the thick of the stream of people making tawaf, this dhikr was really my saving grace. I almost never got overcome with anger or frustration. I was NOT focused on what the person, singular, was doing next to me. We were all a part of this mighty river, rushing round and around the Ka’abah, the House of God. Nothing else…

Sarah Palin and the Politics of Victimization

By Randall Balmer

…with Down Syndrome, a grandson, and a husband. But if Palin’s schedule is complicated, her cosmos is not at all complicated. The world of Sarah Palin can be divided neatly into good and bad. The latter category includes Hollywood, John Kerry, Michael Moore, “left-wing professors and journalists,” Nancy Pelosi, the Ninth Circuit Court, liberals, MSNBC, the American Civil Liberties Union, the New York Times, Barack Obama, health care, and “all the…

Crowdsourced Catholicism: New iPhone App Lets Users Forgive Sins

By Vincent Gonzalez

…of my survey, it seemed the trolls had not yet discovered Penance. Still uncomplicated by tales of murder and rape, nor even confessions denigrating other Saints by name or mocking the application, Penance feels still untried, a community yet to crystalize around substantial moral challenges, a larval church which may or may not ever mature. In this still-innocent new church, maybe it is unsurprising that gluttons seem only to regret single instan…

Four Reasons Why Egypt’s Revolution Is Islamic

By Zaid Hassan

…on-Muslims to support those ideals while transcending easy stereotypes and cheap fear-mongering. We should therefore pause in our reactions and ask ourselves; perhaps an Islamic revolution in Egypt is not de facto a bad thing. Finally, I’m reminded of Karen Armstrong’s description of the historical mission Muslims are tasked with: “In Islam, Muslims have looked for God in history. Their sacred scripture, the Quran, gave them a historical missio…

The Social Science Animal: Brooks Argues for Emotion over Reason

By Beatrice Marovich

…’ Times column). But instead of inspiring figures of human potential, they come off more as cheap foils that Brooks is using to market his theories to the wealthy, literate class of policy wonks that he hopes will take his ideas seriously. More, Brooks is no Rousseau. And no novelist. If there is something mildly, warmly inspiring about his theoretical claims, they fall flat when explored through the medium of these sadly hollow characters. Brooks…

House GOP Hires Lawyer to Prevent Federal Recognition of Same-Sex Marriage

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…couple who had been together 44 years before Thea Spyer died. Edie Windsor complained that DOMA makes her a second class citizen and criticized Boehner for seeking to keep her one: “I am very disappointed that the House of Representatives has decided to intervene in my case in order to try to prevent me from obtaining a refund of the $363,000 in estate taxes that I should never have had to pay in the first place.” The Human Rights Campaign agreed:…

Prophets of the Environmental Apocalypse

By Peter Laarman

…tive tone of his was the clincher. I mention this merely to illustrate how compelling and seductive apocalyptic thinking can be clearly a point of commonality between our religious and our non-religious apocalypticists. Both are talking about very grand and hair-raising events that are spinning out of control. Some other commonalities: • Each version has its insiders, its lead prophets, who reveal or unveil End Time scenarios. This perfectly fits…

On Eve of Sudan Split Clashes Continue

By Ashley Makar

…ater, he was handed over to an Israeli employment agency to be a source of cheap labor in Eilat—the bottom tip of the country, where the Negev meets the Red Sea, and where Sudanese and Eritrean refugees do the service jobs that support the tourism industry. William’s people are no strangers to exploitation. He told me that much of Northern Sudan was built by the Southern Sudanese. To illustrate the system of forced labor practiced in the North, Wi…