Religion Dispatches
…ny, then, like hijabi and niqabi girls trying to be less nerdy (stereotype number one) and go off to an important college sports event (stereotype two) in search of a place to pray at halftime which they were reasonably confident was not wet with vomit, pee, or the rain. No, it really did have some funny parts. But it was just that all the college girls were too squeaky-clean—all advanced-placement honor students from middle class suburban familie…
Read More…bic, the sun is feminine and the moon is masculine. Think about that for a minute. We tend to think in opposite gender terms about the sun and the moon in English. But it is not literal; it’s a metaphor. It’s true the Qur’an only uses the Arabic masculine (singular) pronoun and not the feminine. But that’s not literal either. You know how I know? the Qur’an uses the first-person singular, ‘I’ and ‘Me’ for Allah, and also uses the first-person plur…
Read More…e times during your day.” In a document [pdf], entitled “Tips for the Last Minute Organizer of Those Whose Administrators Said ‘No,’” students are explicitly told that if a teacher asks them to speak they “do NOT have a right to remain silent during class time.” In schools where permission is denied, students are encouraged to remain silent at lunch, wear a button or a ribbon, or write a letter to the editor. According to promotional materials, “t…
Read More…a 30-year-old conservative radio and television commentator with more microphone than sense. As part of a four-segment series on Mormonism, Ferguson developed a rambling, virtually content-free six-minute segment featuring man-on-the street interviews with local Memphis residents about, well, how very “fruity” Mormonism is. (There are 45,000 Mormons in Tennessee, about .7% of the population. Mormons left the state en masse in the 1880s due to anti…
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…968 Folsom Prison shows. Transfixed, I sat and listened to the whole seven-minute song, which tells the story of a man who, after winning a heart-pounding spike-driving competition against a machine, lays down his hammer and dies. It is a great story that may be read as a warning to those who equate scientific and technological advance with human progress. What I’d like to ask is this: do stories point us, in even the smallest of ways, toward any…
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…ned with a banner that read, “Less Waste More Education.” At the very last minute two school buses pulled up and the bandstand was filled with students from The Villages Charter School. The governor’s staffers handed the students signs that read, “No to Earmarks” and “Thank You Governor Scott” that were designed to appear handmade. When the mayor of The Villages opened the ceremony and welcomed everyone saying, “the signing of the budget is an exe…
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…some of the things that we were saying or doing, and saying, “Well, wait a minute, that’s not really the right thing to do.” Louis, I find that a lot of people think that if a person confronts long-held beliefs, and then changes some of those beliefs, that indicates a weak person. I don’t believe that, and obviously I don’t think you do either. What do you say to a person who says, “Well, you’re just wishy-washy about this”? Well, I would say to…
Read More…with a target across is face,” Smith said. “My secretary has received telephone calls that have been so vulgar until she has had to hang up.” On Monday, Hannity played a clip of Smith speaking at Palmer Theological Seminary, where he had served as president, about the prevalence of racism. According to the Post: “It may not be Jim Crow anymore,” Smith says in the videotape. “Now, Jim Crow wears blue pinstripes, goes to law school and carries fanc…
Read More…le. The KJV, he added, “speaks to issues today if we would all pause for a minute, it would give us answers.” “The resolution is completely outside the realm of Congressional expertise or interest,” said the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. “It’s mind- numbing to think that anyone would think about passing this at a time when we have fiscal, foreign policy and other matters of greater…
Read More…d the formation of his exploratory committee yesterday, with a low-key two-minute video aimed to connect with deep anxiety (especially among younger voters) about joblessness and the future of the American economy. Poised against the background of a misty football field at the University of New Hampshire, Mitt continued to act like a front-runner, focusing on the economy while leaving burn-ups over homosexuality, abortion, and other hot-button “va…
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