Search for "cheap o airline tickets phone number 1-800-299-7264"

An American Muslim Abroad, Or, Things I Saw in Dubai

By Haroon Moghul

…of how America was derided in the 19th and early 20th centuries. (There’s good and bad there, as any new capitalist conglomeration would feature.) Dubai is the biggest city in the UAE, with 2.1 million people. Recently I heard that some 13,000 people move to the city each month, which can be best described as clumps of skyscrapers along massive highways, some 6-8 lanes in each direction. But though it’s called the United Arab Emirates, the popul…

Religious Affiliation, ‘Mankind’: India’s Anti-Corruption Activist Leads Second Freedom Struggle

By April L. Bogle

…gure in her own country, and has lent her considerable status to the grassroots India Against Corruption campaign as the movement evolves. What some are calling India’s Arab Spring has been more like a summer of discontent, complete with demonstrations and arrests, all in support of this epic fight against government corruption—what Anna Hazare, whose hunger strike made headlines, has named “India’s second freedom struggle.” I was glad to have the…

What’s More Frightening Than Snakes on a Plane?

By Devin Kuhn-Choi

…ut getting one’s way–and making sure everyone else has to do it your way, too–than about genuine claims to religious freedom. Further, wouldn’t standing in the aisles nearly guarantee an encounter with women? Because anyone who has ever had to navigate around another person in an airplane aisle knows there will be some sort of contact as you move past; the space just isn’t big enough for most people to avoid that. If your goal is sincerely to avoi…

Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Men “Stand Up” for “Religious Freedom”… On a Plane

By Kara Loewentheil

…emption regime would lead to chaos, but I didn’t think it would happen so soon. Apparently I underestimated myself. The Economist reports that ultra-orthodox Jews have been disrupting flights when they’re seated next to women, which, they say, their religion forbids.* According to the report, the men will sometimes even attempt to bribe the women to move. Ok, so no huge deal there—it’s annoying, perhaps, but hey, that’s the free market economy at…

Penn Jillette’s Signs You May Already Be an Atheist

By Steve A. Wiggins

…was published, to great acclaim. As of October it ranked #273 in Amazon’s book sales category. (Those of us whose books are ranked down in the millions can’t help but feel a little pang of jealousy; it does tell us, however, who is getting read!) Jillette is the vocal member of Penn & Teller, the bad-boy magician duo, and a noted iconoclast. Largely a ramble through his inner monologue, God, No! is the first book to cause me to laugh out loud in y…

What the Lost Finale is Really About

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

…of the soul) damned.” To be lost is not merely a geographic problem for marooned airline passengers, or for men unwilling to stop and ask for directions—it’s a spiritual and moral condition. These days a google search turns up over 500,000,000 hits (that’s half a billion); not too surprising for a basic and often-used term. Similar numerical results come from google searches on terms like “run” and “hide.” Meanwhile, “found” yields over 1.3 trilli…

The Religious Implications of Nudity

By Steve A. Wiggins

A TSA pat-down—security never felt so good! Or so bad. “But it’s against my religion,” I explain to the stern-looking officer who is directing me to the full-body scanner with a gaze that would stop Superman. I feel as if I have been profiled. A man traveling alone, looking like he has nothing to lose (people tell me I should smile more). It is a lazy weekday morning in the Raleigh-Durham Airport and I am returning from a business trip I didn’t r…

Waiting for Lightning to Strike: A Wobbly Agnostic among the Atheists

By Carolyn S. Briggs

…valent of 30 pieces of silver. There is no place to park. I circle blocks looking for a space and in so doing pass the protesters pacing the sidewalks in front of the Embassy Suites. My heart sinks. Des Moines is a relatively small city with a gold-domed capitol overshadowing buildings of varying sizes and architectural styles—it looks like a child upended his collection of blocks and called it a city. A nice farmers’ market on Saturday mornings i…

More Mixed Signals from Pope Francis; Church of England Wrestles with Rifts; Faith Groups Lobby Pro & Con on Irish Referendum; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…ideological colonization” by funders he said were tying funding for new schools to the teaching of gender theory, and compared it with the spread of fascist propaganda: “It is not new, this,” he continued. “The same was done by the dictators of the last century. They came with their own doctrine — think of the Balilla [youth groups of Fascist Italy], think of the Hitler Youth.” We mentioned last week that a group of pilgrims from New Ways Ministry…

The Sacred and the Dead: The Trouble with Sugar Magnolia

By Kaya Oakes

…she’s got everything I need, A breeze in the pines and the sun and bright moonlight, lazing in the sunshine yes indeed. ~ “Sugar Magnolia” My childhood home was equidistant between two of the Grateful Dead’s regular Bay Area venues: Berkeley’s Greek Theater and Oakland’s Kaiser Convention Center. When the Deadheads came to Berkeley, they camped in the parking lot behind my high school, and when they came to Oakland, they camped behind my mother’s…