Religion Dispatches
…d by himself. It is a good thing he is gone, but all the same a thing to reflect on. For those who rage at dictators should also tremble at any tendency in their direction. I felt uneasy by the way Saddam was executed, at the rushed trial, the incompleteness of the charges he faced, the willingness to use violence to end the rule of a very violent man. And, of course, at the vulgar, unnecessary, and unacceptable spectacle of a hanging captured on…
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…people to this moment in time. Some players will have seen the shaky cell phone videos of Qaddafi’s discovery now circulating, with all the bumps and blurs you’d expect from someone filming a violent attack close up. The horrifying footage shows the dictator’s last moments, complete with flashes of faces splattered with blood, punctuated with off-screen shouts of “Allahu Akbar,” and revealing glimpses of Qaddafi’s pummeled and resigned visage blu…
Read More…” The Washington Post reports this morning that Democratic Senators, on a phone call yesterday with White House senior advisor David Plouffe, argued against adopting the Bishops’ position. My source says it’s “not a done deal” yet, but expected action from the White House within a week. UPDATE: Another womens’ rights advocate tells me that she has “no reason to think” that the Obama administration feels it “owes” the Bishops for health care refo…
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…e a video of the performance, despite a Secret Service prohibition on cell phones, because Makana’s guitar is tuned with a smartphone app. Or, reporters are interested in how Obama, his guests, and security detail responded—or didn’t, as it turned out. But this misses the heart of the story, as Makana’s set at the APEC dinner was less dissenting performance than performative utterance—the songs he played, the protest t-shirt hidden beneath the com…
Read More…especially, race. This matrix of associations is evident in the example of phone psychics like “Miss Cleo,” who uses an affected Caribbean accent. We also saw it in Pat Robertson’s gaffe following the earthquake that devastated Haiti in 2010, when he claimed that the nation of Haiti had made a pact with the Devil. Glassman conforms to no stereotypes about Vodou. Born in Maine, her parents were of Ukrainian Jewish heritage but were not religious. S…
Read More…sday, to every registered Republican or non-aligned Iowa voter with a cell phone on record. . . . The video’s star is Molotov Mitchell, whom Cary K. Gordon, president of PeaceMakers Institute and pastor of Sioux City’s Cornerstone Church, calls “the guerilla warrior of Judeo-Christian political commentary.” Mitchell is an edgy independent filmmaker whose Illuminati Pictures delivers something akin to an animated political cartoon weekly at WorldN…
Read More…d to hide his failings. Ginger White’s claims, backed up with receipts and phone records, are compelling. Besides, who would willingly admit that they had sex with THEHermanCain, besides Gloria, his wife, unless it was true. I sincerely hope that Cain gets a clue this week and drops out of the race for the sake of his family. I could care less who he decides to 999. Allowing his private dalliances to become a public spectacle while pretending to t…
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…him inside. The church was lovely and old, paintings on the walls, mosaic floors, an altar with fresh flowers. It was a real church, not a tourist site, and we sat quietly in a sanctuary where others worshipped. A woman crossed herself finally and stood up. She was my mother’s age, stooped and limping, wearing a headscarf. As she left the church, she began to sing. “Emmanuel,” singing that word over and over, her voice strong and unapologetic. Ev…
Read More…have been a helpful tidbit for Wills’s column. But if there’s no time for phone calls or web searches, well, at the very least, there are fact-checkers. And here’s a modest proposal for the editors at the New York Review of Books and the New York Times and every other publication that will be running a lot of Mormon content this campaign season but has no Mormons on its editorial staff: Hire a Mormon fact checker. There are a number of advanced g…
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…od stories did not say anything about “rain” as the Bible described Noah’s flood. Their floods came from the sea in giant waves. In Africa, flood myths are somewhat more scarce, because floods themselves are rare, and they can be life-giving events. The Chinese flood stories are more about control of nature… the point is not “which one of these stories is true.” The point is to connect the stories to actual facts on the ground. One of my favorite…
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