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Becoming Forever Lonesome: How Violence Changes Us

By Amanda Robb

…knew it was over. I got a phone call. It was about midnight on October 23, 1998. I thought it was my husband calling to say he would be late. It was my stepfather saying, “I have some bad news.” I thought, “My mother or my sister?” He said, “Your uncle Bart has been shot and killed.” For a brief, bright moment, all I was, was relieved. A mother of an 18-year-old girl who died in the massacre at Columbine got her news by radio. She was pulling int…

The Sacred and the Dead: The Trouble with Sugar Magnolia

By Kaya Oakes

…ire American Beauty album. Steve passed away in June of this year. That was 15 years after our “Ripple” conversation, and today, there are hundreds of Dead songs on my phone and dozens of live recordings in playlists, even a nod when I see a Deadhead sticker on a car. I am a relapsed Catholic, and thanks to my friend, I am also a repentant Deadhead. Dear Jesus, let me confess: I even wear Birkenstocks. Shannon. Deadshow, Deadhead. Dominquez Hills,…

Star Trek: Politics Anti-Matters

By Nathan Schneider

…onged meditations on repression. It began, actually, in the show’s original 1966 pilot, in which the character Number One (played by creator Gene Roddenberry’s wife, Majel Barrett) showed none of the emotional hysteria expected of onscreen women at the time. Deemed too racy by the network, her demeanor was given to Spock, the half-Vulcan who spent the next three years’ worth of episodes struggling to stay logical amid the raging passions of his fr…

ACLU and Thomas More Law Center Rush to Terry Jones Defense

By Lauri Lebo

…nty, thought crime, much?) The ACLU submitted an amicus curiae brief to the 19th District Court in defense of Jones’ right to protest, which says, “If the First Amendment has any meaning, it is that the government cannot suppress the free speech because it — or anyone else — disagrees with the speech.” The Thomas More Law Center has pledged to file a suit on Jones’ behalf. By the way, I’ve seen TMLC in action. Its lawyers defended the Dover school…

White House Position
on Exemption from Contraception Coverage
“Not a Done Deal”?

By Sarah Posner

…” 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…

The Many, Not the Few: An Anthem for Occupy

By Elizabeth Drescher

…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…

Meet the “New Age” Stephen Colbert

By Andrew Aghapour

…w are you going to announce it over social media if you don’t have a smart phone? And smartphones: they are helpful, but they are also limited. I’m working with some of my guides to develop what’s called a WisePhone, and it’s smarter than a smartphone. What are some of the features of the WisePhone? You won’t lose it anymore because it won’t be influenced by gravity, so it won’t fall down the cracks of your couch. It will also be able to tweet or…

Confessions of a Hater

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…a, Kansas, hospice after being excommunicated from the church he founded in 1955. But I remain a hater. The student who asked me this question had revealed a lot about himself the first day he wheeled into class. He was what we community college types call a “non-traditional student,” an older, grizzled, white-bearded Vietnam veteran in a wheelchair (I later learned his amputations came after a round of neglected diabetes, not enemy bombs). On tha…

Suicide Leads to Calls for Improved Treatment of LGBT Mormons

By Joanna Brooks

…look after the family home. Back in North Carolina, on Saturday, September 10, Bryan bought a gun at Wal-Mart. He fed the family’s animals, cleaned the house, handed the keys to a neighbor, sent a message to a family member that they needed to come to the house, and then went on the front lawn and shot himself. News of Bryan’s suicide immediately circulated on the LGBT Mormon grapevine, where some voices expressed concern that publicizing the dea…

Can You Make a Comedy About UFO Cult Mass Suicide?

By Joseph Laycock

…ip. But Jones was told the money was actually a sort of inside joke. Before 1997 Heaven’s Gate members had spent decades travelling and living “off the grid.” They had run afoul of local laws claiming that anyone without at least five dollars could be defined as a vagrant. So members always carried five dollars and money for a phone call. Benjamin Zeller, author of Heaven’s Gate: America’s UFO Religion, has also noted that Heaven’s Gate members en…