Search for "american airlines cheap flight tickets phone number 1-800-299-7264"

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

By Haroon Moghul

…of course, if you’re in Dubai, you’re here to shop. Or you, as per typical American geographic know-how, meant to fly to Duluth and arrived somewhere else entirely. Considering how unaffordable Dubai is for folks like me, you’d need a credit card. But, of course, you have to know your audience. This oversize sample inadvertently gives away the credit card number of some eight-five million men, most of whom live in Egypt. ⬆ Earlier on this day, I…

‘Anti-Romeo’ Vigilante Squads Target Men Suspected Of Being Gay; More in the Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…married in first month; Lutheran priests barred from officiating More than 800 same-sex couples were married in March after marriage equality went into effect on the first of the month; 770 had already been in civil partnerships. The Lutheran Evangelical Church has decreed that priests are not permitted to marry same-sex couples and some bishops warned that those who do would face “consequences.” From a March 1 story: In spite of the church rulin…

Oh Say, Can You See?: 9/11 Flag Displays and the Flag’s Symbolic Power

By Spencer Dew

…’s “supreme being” and another’s “Queen,” even. As Marc Leepson’s Flag: An American Biography tells the story, the American flag, while approved in 1777 largely for the protection of American ships at sea, was not widely displayed by civilians until the Civil War. Once the flag was lowered over Fort Sumter, flags rose over houses and wagons and even hats. The next major watershed in civilian relations to flags was 9/11. Gardella writes that “Accor…

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

By Carolyn S. Briggs

…says with her hands on her hips. According to Bey, being an outed African-American woman atheist is the same as committing cultural suicide. You’re rejecting a long history and everything your ancestors believed and stood for. You are telling your mothers and sisters that you think they’re stupid. For African-American women, identity comes first. “Because of us, you are.” Enjoy Being an Atheist At last, the speaker I had waited for is introduced….

Rage Against the New Age Machine: Three Days at the Osho International Meditation Resort

By Diane Winston

…nstitutions and spiritual movements need money. I’ve paid for High Holiday tickets, passed the plate at church, and dropped bills into the basket at yoga class. But Osho’s opacity and its denial of the obvious (robes and shampoos, wine and brownies, books and videos were all moneymakers) bothered me. My fuming was worthless. Orientation still started 45 minutes late. My students and I, packed into a classroom with 20 other guests, were led through…

Is Joel Osteen, Success Mag Cover Boy, Really “God’s Best”?

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…reduced to a kind of majordomo or personal assistant. He fixeth my parking tickets, he secureth me a good table in the restaurant, he leadeth me to book contracts. Even in these minor tasks, the invocation of God seems more of a courtesy than a necessity.” Gone, too, from Osteen’s theology is any mention of topics that might intrude on happy thoughts: Osteen avoids using current events in his messages so he doesn’t get sidetracked in controversy….

“Tell Me What You Believe About Ferguson, and I’ll Tell You What You Believe About God”: A Missouri Pilgrimage

By Anita Little

…. Louis skyline from where our group stood on the mounds, was a “symbol of American terrorism” to the black communities that its construction displaced. Through eminent domain, 37 blocks of homes and businesses in the thriving black St. Louis community were razed to make room for a monument to the United States’ western expansion. To add insult to injury, discriminatory hiring policies made many of the promised construction jobs unavailable to non…

Are American Christians “Persecuted”?

By Eric C. Miller

…hey don’t have it as bad as gays in ISIS-held territory. So let’s put that cheap argument to bed. At Patheos, Benjamin Corey shakes that cheap argument awake: Can we stop complaining about this bogus idea that American Christians are persecuted now? I mean, really. Can we stop? The world needs us to turn from ourselves and focus on this real persecution, because it’s evil and must be exposed and stopped. However, our own self-centeredness as Ameri…

The Sacred and the Dead: Three Ways to American Beauty

By Aaron K. Kerr

…s duplicity. The letters (signs) can be read two ways: they represent both American Beauty and American Reality. In western thought, beauty and reality are of a piece since the good, the true, and the beautiful inform and form each other. But beauty can deceive, money talks, and power attracts. The Dead understand and critique this duplicity. In order to understand it they conjure American figures who exemplify this contradiction, a sort of courag…

Welcome to the Shari’ah Conspiracy Theory Industry

By Sarah Posner

…onstitution.” Based on the “explanatory memorandum” document identifying a number of American Muslim organizations as allies in its author’s aspirations, prosecutors in the Holy Land Foundation trial publicly labeled over 200 American Muslim organizations “unindicted co-conspirators,” a highly controversial move derided at the time by legal experts as contrary to Justice Department policy and in violation of the groups’ constitutional rights. Even…