Religion Dispatches
…ng of the country.” In 2010, the White House refused to comment on DuBois’ phone call to religious right ideologue David Jeremiah after the latter called the president “a dangerous person” moving the country toward “socialism.” It was obviously an incident the White House would have preferred DuBois just let go. Boorstein’s piece suggests that some critics believe that the office would have performed better had DuBois been more experienced and the…
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…rs—but religion is doubtless part of the story. You can’t kill tens of thousands and rape thousands on the basis of their religion, and claim religion has nothing to do with it. One does not slaughter a people until one has hated them sufficiently to go from seeing them as individuals to seeing them as a mass to be done away with. And that hate is Islamophobia. Fears of “creeping Shari’ah”—the manufactured fear Islamophobes haunt America with, too…
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…hing of what the victims and the parents of the victims of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School now have. Every horror is utterly, terribly unique, but there are universals. In a super white, super loud flash… or a DJ’s croon… or a telephone’s brrng brrng, when you become forever lonesome. Because you know the real secret. Anything can happen. Aliens could land. *** Among the outrages of living in a time of violence is that victims feel t…
Read More…r thing to… do whatever Rep. Kelly thinks he’s doing. I give up. Here, have a video about Basenjis freaking out when a phone rings:…
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…ld. In the past decade, the Roman Catholic clergy abuse, News of the World phone-hacking, and Wikileaks scandals have marked new, and only very incompletely explored, ethical territory as we sort out the best ways to balance personal privacy and public safety as these are impacted by our engagement with new media. But even given difficulties defining necessary and appropriate boundaries of personal, professional, and institutional transparency, we…
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…ceration. I’m calling for a Christianity that no longer provides religious sanction or the cloak of righteousness to the political project of U.S. sovereignty and its vision of who is normal (and in the right place) and who is abnormal (and thus out of place). I’m calling for a Christianity whose animating logic is no longer tied to that false “god-man.” The “god” of (or that is) whiteness is a god toward which we must be thoroughgoing atheists an…
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…ing up. The narrow stairway of our fifth story walk-up is pitch black. Our phones have no signal, which means no AP alerts, no Facebook, no Twitter—and no way to contact friends and family. Except for the radio, we’re cut off. And so is everyone else in the mass of humanity that lives and works below 39th Street. In the afternoon, after the worst of Sandy has departed for the north, I walk across Avenue B again into the Red zone. Some time during…
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…illing to talk about science as a human endeavor. I spoke to Montgomery by phone to find out more about these surprising aspects of his story. ______________ BWL: You write in your introduction that you started out to write a more traditional debunking of creationism’s flood geology, from your perspective as a geologist. And you ended up with something different. What happened? DM: I learned a lot writing this book. And I like it much better than…
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…And nobody can deny the convenience of ready access to information, maps, phone numbers, calendars, and social satisfaction that our reliance on technology provides. Technology is a tool, right? It doesn’t change who we are, right? It doesn’t blind us—it reveals reality by connecting us and showing us the world via our screens… right? Look, I know that our new imaginative, mediated work is doing good. I know people can feel a real sense of empowe…
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…y.” Would Chuck be proud of his successor, Eric Metaxas, who defended the “sanctity of life” by making fun of the liberals and government while peoples’ lives, homes, and livelihoods were destroyed in Sandy? On Monday, Metaxas tweeted “jokes” like “Manhattan is now TOTALLY surrounded by water. #stormhype”; “If George W. Bush had signed the Kyoto Treaty, none of this would be happening. #allDubyasfault” (since deleted); and “I can’t get a 64 oz. so…
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