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New Study: Jews More “Spiritual” Less Ancestral

…t kinds of programs they should create for the former slaves, based on the latest survey data. And the wilderness wouldn’t be made out of desert sand and sagebrush, but of Yoga studios, rock clubs, and intermarriage: all of the temptations of the American cultural marketplace. The leaders, on some level, would have long ago realized that they had to lead by following, or be left behind. If nothing else, this “spirituality” survey indicates that Je…

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Joe the Plumber: Horatio Alger with Plumber’s Crack

…of the way” so that he can thrive. In this regard, Joe the Plumber is the latest reincarnation of the ahistorical, decontextualized protagonist of America’s myth of success. The narrative is so neat, compelling and manipulative. Present Joe as the self-made man who heroically pulls himself up by his bootstraps, taking the reins of his own destiny to navigate through the rough terrain of those who wish to derail his rags to riches destiny. It matt…

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RDNews: Oct 20, 2008

…arnival, several thousand Christian evangelicals from all over the world marched through the streets of Jerusalem honoring the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, or Feast of the Tabernacles, which began Monday and ends Oct. 21. The parade, which the Associated Press called “the latest display of the growing alliance between evangelical Christians and the Jewish state,” was sponsored by The International Christian Embassy of Jerusalem, which was founded in…

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RDBook: Is Nothing Secular? A Review of Jewel of Medina

…for publication by Ballantine Books. The novel is now at the center of the latest round of controversy about fictionalizing the history of Islam and the lives of Muhammad and his relatives. Media reaction was minimal until the Wall Street Journal picked up the story under the head, “You Still Can’t Write About Muhammad.” The refusal of the publisher to go ahead with the publication of the book, which also involved a contract for a second book, has…

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By the Way: Revolting Evangelicals

…t: Driving is a privilege, not a right. That same principle applies to the latest stunt from the Religious Right. An organization called the Alliance Defense Fund, a coalition of right-wing evangelicals with ties to James Dobson of Focus on the Family, proposed a mass protest of sorts for Sunday, September 28. This group claims that the Internal Revenue Service ban on partisan political activity for tax-exempt organizations represents a denial of…

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The Theodicy of George Carlin

…igious banger among comedians during his post-Sixties ascent. Instead, his latest specials and interviews were knit with remorse. “I think the human race has squandered its gift,” he said, “and I think this country has squandered its promise. I think people in America sold out very cheaply, for sneakers and cheeseburgers.” Another time he paralleled the product with piety. “I think this species had great, great promise, with this great upper brain…

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American Idol(atry): McCain-as-Jesus

As David Cook prepared for his victory on the latest season of American Idol, the Republican state chairwoman of Georgia was engaged in paying reverence to a different type of American idol. In a bizarre moment in the world of mixing religion and politics, Sue Everhart compared Republican presidential candidate John McCain to Jesus and America to God. Addressing McCain’s patriotism and devotion to America even while being tortured as a prisoner o…

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Its the Spiritual Economy, Stupid: Why the Gay Marriage Fracas Isn’t About Either

…of words—as thoroughly test-marketed as a Viagra commercial—represents the latest in a decades-long series of efforts by religious conservatives to thwart the steady advance of public acceptance of gays and lesbians into the mainstream of American life. According to an analysis of polling data published by CBS News, Americans are becoming more “gay friendly” at a rate of about one percent a year. Still, that means that only 45 percent of Californi…

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Swiftboating Obama: The Brown Blob of Black Radicalism

…ed as “uppity” according to the rules of the racial lexicon. Moreover, the latest media frenzy seems to prove that Senator Obama is in a no-win situation in terms of Rev. Wright. Despite Senator Obama’s public denouncements of his former pastor, many argued that the senator’s protestations were little more than a smokescreen. But now Rev. Wright has made it clear that the pastor/parishioner relationship ends in the church vestibule. Wright even de…

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Why David Brooks Doesn’t Get the Outrage Over AIG

…ng time. It is the very interest of this analysis that made David Brooks’s latest column so unsettling. Just before the election, when he was defending the Greenspan legacy, Brooks suggested that Greenspan was a gifted number cruncher but that we had entered a strange and more volatile and more challenging psychological crisis of confidence to which he could not speak. My rejoinder was that there was nothing psychological about the crisis at all;…

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