Religion Dispatches
…powers that be. Finally, an Afro-Eccentric perspective provides a line of flight from the totalitarian blackness that often characterizes Afrocentric perspectives. Anything you had to leave out? A reader of the book in manuscript form suggested that I shorten the text by removing a substantial amount of material that dealt with scholarly/theoretical deviations from the Standard Narrative of Black Religion. I plan to publish that material separate…
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…lot longer,” said Rev. McBride after a moment of silence. “It started here 1000 years ago when these people were just living their way of life, not knowing they were about to be ‘disappeared.’ Remember you aren’t standing on your own ground, this is red ground.” As we climbed the 154 steps to the summit of the central mound, Dr. Vince Bantu, a professor at St. Louis’ Covenant Theological Seminary, related the ground we were standing on to the gro…
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…is about one animal metamorphosing into another animal. Lin titles it “The Flight of the Peng Bird.” This is his version: In the Northern Sea, there is a giant fish. Its name is Kun. Its size is incredibly large. No one knows how many thousands of miles its length measures. The Kun fish is able to transform into a bird, known as Peng. The Peng bird is also incredibly large. No one knows how many thousands of miles its wingspan measures. Peng chang…
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…e, Levittown outside New York City. They were built, as I mentioned, in the 1940s and 1950s with federal government guaranteed loans and the stipulation that no homes be sold to African Americans. At the time, those suburban single family homes were sold to white families for about two and a half times national mediate income, or in today’s dollars, about $125,000. That’s a home price that was affordable with an FHA or VA mortgage to working class…
Read More…this week from his job as creative director of the country’s largest cell phone retailer after more than 15 LGBT organizations teamed up to urge Apple CEO Tim Cook to cut ties with Euroset. He did so defiantly, saying he would never change his position that “Sodom and Gomorrah must be destroyed!” Journalist and LGBT activist Masha Gessen, who has dual Russian and American citizenship, has left Russia with her partner and three children under the…
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…d inside the mosque one day, I came across Bab raqm tis’wa thamanin, “door number 89,” literally. The door with no name. Facing the mosque at door number one, bab maalik ’abd-al-’Aziz, this door is off to the left. Looking at the mosque floor plan, this is where the building structure of the mosque is deepest. This is “the women’s section.” I noticed as I was walking through the first floor toward door number one, the kings’ door, on my way out af…
Read More…ong after, the former acquaintance called to threaten Subhi from a Turkish phone number. Power noted that Subhi spoke at a recent UN Security Council Session, the first-ever dedicated to LGBT rights, which she said was an important precedent to set: But also, it allowed us to convey, in a single voice, and with the authority of the Security Council – which is the premiere global enforcement body for peace and security – it allowed us to convey tha…
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…n 2008. “Seven of those executed had been convicted in Dallas County.” The number of executions nationwide dropped to 37 in 2008, a 14-year low. According to USA Today, “The Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes capital punishment and compiles annual statistics, reports that for the most part only Southern states resumed executions. Ohio, which carried out two, was the only state outside the South to impose the death penalty in 2008.” (S…
Read More…nts than their quota allows. Most Muslim countries have a quota; a limited number of hajjis permitted from that country in any one year. This number is set by hajj authorities in Saudi Arabia, because, in all fairness, there has to be a cap on how many Muslims converge on the place. Right now, it stands at around 3 million! Countries with large populations of Muslims have many more applicants than their allotted number of pilgrims. This means you…
Read More…requirements: It can’t cost more than $20, and it must be used that night. Number 10: Find-My-Heart treasure hunt. Cut out some paper hearts and hide them around your home. On each heart write an endearing statement about your spouse plus a clue to the next heart. At the end enjoy a heartfelt treat together. Other ideas include: midnight bowling, spiritual sharing, picnicking, and doing a home spa treatment. What isn’t included in any of these dat…
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