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Gas For Two Bucks a Gallon? Bachmann Taps a Pipeline to the American Sacred

By Rosamond C. Rodman

…larger, truer, more apt than the events they were coined to describe—in Eliadian terms, they were profane events positioned within a sacred reality, namely the invocation of a biblical reference to Har Megiddo or Mount Megiddo (in the Hebrew Bible), a strategic hill upon which armed guards could protect (or conscript) valuables being transported along a major ancient near-eastern thoroughfare from Mesopotamia to Egypt. The one mention in the New…

Fear of a Catholic Ghetto

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…ls. And what’s one thing that has come to be seen in some quarters as especially emblematic of authentic Catholic identity? Say it with me, class: No artificial contraception! Most Protestant church bodies in the United States have come to approve of contraception under some circumstances. The Roman Catholic Church has not. I mean, not officially. If you are inclined to think of the Catholic Church as the church which has stayed faithful while oth…

Why Taxing the Rich is the Godly Thing

By Peter Laarman

…failing to know the things that we ought to know. But more often, and especially in regard to social sins, the transgression comes from knowing full well what we need to know and still pretending that we don’t know. In this case we do know full well how the Bush tax giveaways to the rich have burdened future generations with horrendous debt and have greatly accelerated the “secession of the successful” that was already surging in the Clinton year…

Prophets of the Environmental Apocalypse

By Peter Laarman

…there will be some kind of clearing or deliverance in the way that millenarian Christians believe. A third difference has to do with human agency. Most environmental prophets think it’s still possible—barely—that humans might just rise to the occasion and significantly change their destructive behavior. Most religious doomsayers do not seriously believe that any radical repentance will occur; and they rather hope that it won’t, because they so re…

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

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…y to fund religious-based organizations. The National Organization for Marriage’s Brian Brown applauded the selection of Clement: At last we have a legal eagle on this case who actually wants to win in court! Thanks to Speaker Boehner’s actions, President Obama’s attempt to sabotage the legal defense of DOMA is not going to work. Speaker Boehner is also quite right that the money to defend DOMA should be deducted from the Justice Department’s budg…

The Social Science Animal: Brooks Argues for Emotion over Reason

By Beatrice Marovich

…rom Brooks’ 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 characte…

Possible Heir to Dalai Lama Cleared of Corruption Charges

By Tsering Namgyal

…or not following the “law of the land.” And at least on this issue, the Indian news media failed disastrously by acting as stenographers, indiscriminately taking in whatever was fed to them by intelligence officials, police, and local politicians. Journalists seemed to become the medium through which any analyst and former official with a view on Tibet and China could fire a cheap shot. The Indian government’s assertiveness vis-à-vis China is refr…

Four Reasons Why Egypt’s Revolution Is Islamic

By Zaid Hassan

…time has come to redefine what politics means? Realpolitik, the Kissingerian-Nixonian view of international relations, has dominated US foreign policy for decades. It ensures that the US makes public proclamations about democracy and freedom, while in reality, democracy is subsumed and sacrificed every day to self-interest, be that oil or domestic support for Israel. Realpolitik ideologues fear the unleashing of Arab democracy, because in the…

Sarah Palin and the Politics of Victimization

By Randall Balmer

…ia beast,” she derives both fortune and fame from that “beast,” which includes the fawning downstream media. The appeal derives, in part at least, from her effectiveness at claiming the mantle of victimhood and assuring the adoring crowds that they, too, are victims. And the ultimate advantage of being a victim lies in the fact that, because of the outpouring of sympathy, no one holds you accountable. It’s something that Sarah Palin—or Jessica Gav…

“Hey You! Anti-Semite!”: A Jewish Krewe does Mardi Gras

By Barbra Barnett

…bauchery, but the parade tradition is about more than drunken tourists and cheap plastic beads. New Orleans’ Mardi Gras parades began in 1857, with the Mistick Krewe of Comus, a secret society that wanted to emulate the Mardi Gras parades of Mobile, Alabama. From the start, Mardi Gras krewes were exclusive, elite clubs. Such organizations can be important networking opportunities in a small community like New Orleans, where people are used to doin…