Religion Dispatches
…follow my meaning.) This year, Ramadan comes in August. A lot of my fellow New York Muslims dreaded the approach of Ramadan in the summer, to say nothing of this year’s unbearable humidity. But I was worried about Ramadan for months now, and for another reason. When the first sliver of a crescent moon is sighted, it marks the beginning of a new month (or a new year). Some Muslims have adopted calculation in advance, choosing to figure out the mont…
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…ive view of the news,” along with a conservative wire service and chain of newspapers. Rush Limbaugh stepped up to meet this need. Limbaugh rose to prominence after the 1987 repeal of the FCC’s Fairness Doctrine, which had mandated honest and equitable on-air treatment of controversial issues. The repeal ushered in the era of conservative talk radio, and Limbaugh’s bombastic style set the tone. The election of Bill Clinton in 1992 heightened Limba…
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…graphical is the feeling of alienation; of being Jewish when you’re not in New York. Because some of the things I experienced in different countries, like these characters did, where, when you leave your enclaves, like New York and L.A., and you go to places like London or Warsaw, it’s still kind of weird to be Jewish. It’s just not that big of a deal in a lot of cities in America. But when you go abroad, you realize it’s a different thing to be….
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…r taste of the austere Benedict XVI’s difficult pontificate. An insightful New York Times article in November highlighted how easily Pope Francis’s gains could be reversed, detailing the race against time he faces to ensure that his vision for the Church survives his death or resignation, by appointing enough liberal cardinals to elect a successor with priorities close to his own. Seventy-seven of the 121 cardinals currently eligible to vote in th…
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…d limits. Spoiler alert: Stephen Cave, author of Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How it Drives Civilization, ends his book on a similar note. Each of these authors, in other words, ends with a rousing round of feel-good immortality bashing, though Cave takes a distinctly different path than the others. Namely, Cave broadens the frame. He’s interested in the developing sciences of immortality, to be sure, but is more interested in survey…
Read More…s “common ground.” It only would be common ground if there were a genuine “live and let live” attitude on both sides, but there isn’t. Chambers and his cohorts are actively recruiting confused gays and lesbians to their “ministries.” They shamelessly prey on the fears of gays and lesbians who live in a society that discriminates against them and a church that demonizes them. It’s easier to believe the lie that being gay is a sin that needs to be s…
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…tory of Europe and the United States. So since the bell has been rung, and rung and rung, we can’t pretend to not have ever heard it.” This rebuttal, however, misses the difference between citationality—the ability to cite and discuss a given discourse without restating or reasserting its claims—and each new (oppressive) speech act. I’m not suggesting that we don’t talk about and discuss white supremacist ideology; I’m doing it now, and to do so r…
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…was the tweet that transformed the ever-simmering Mommy Wars into a holy crusade. First, on April 11, DNC advisor Hilary Rosen told Anderson Cooper: What you have is Mitt Romney running around the country saying, well, you know, my wife tells me that what women really care about are economic issues, and when I listen to my wife, that’s what I’m hearing. Guess what, his wife has actually never worked a day in her life. She’s never really dealt with…
Read More…celebrated the policy change but expressed limited disappointment that the new policy preserves a 24-month commitment for young men and an 18-month commitment for women missionaries. The missionary age change comes at a moment when the LDS Church is also preparing to roll out new curriculum that equalizes the emphasis on marriage and family in lessons taught to young men and young women. And it comes at a time when Mormon women are talking more op…
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…ocumentary, I Survived I Kissed Dating Goodbye, which forefronts his own struggles rather than the struggles of those he harmed. The film is framed around Harris’ moments of existential crisis, including “dear diary” interludes in which Harris’ voiceover makes admissions such as “I am afraid to face my critics but also afraid to disappoint my fans,” accompanied by tortured shots of him wistfully looking out a car window or sleeping on a plane afte…
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