At Tikkun Magazine, Harriet Fraad points to five sources that have "devastated the American moral, economic, psychological, and social landscape."
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Sportualism in America
by Todd KesselmanIn an article published this week in USA Today, Tom Krattenmaker explores the directed effort by religious groups to infiltrate the wide world of sports, in order to exert their influence.
February 8, 2010
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The “next door” jihadists
by Todd KesselmanEver since the capture of John Walker Lindh, the so-called “American Taliban,” the media has been on the lookout for overly enthusiastic high school students who convert to Islam and end up on the front lines of the war on terror.
February 8, 2010
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Super Bowl and religion roundup
by John SchmalzbauerWithout fail, the Super Bowl inspires a round of sports-and-religion stories. Dubbed a "high h0liday" of American society by Joseph Price, its cultural significance has been plumbed by journalists and scholars alike. While sociologist James Mathisen argues that the Super Bowl is all about the "gathering of the clan and the making of meaning," communications scholar Michael Butterworth calls it an "affirmation of American civil religion."
February 9, 2010
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Theological reflections on Big Love
by Ruth BraunsteinAt The Moth Chase, some insightful analysis of the theological issues at the heart of the fourth season of Big Love, America's favorite "polygamist melodrama."
February 9, 2010
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The power over life and death
by Todd KesselmanNobel laureate Wole Soyinka describes the desperate situation in his native Nigeria in an interview with The Daily Beast’s Tunku Varadarajan.
February 10, 2010
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Colin Dayan: “‘Civilizing’ Haiti”
by Charles GelmanIn the Boston Review, Colin Dayan argues that woefully little has changed since the colonial era with respect to Western perceptions of Haiti as a cretin backwater. Moreover, the institutionalized graft that the colonialist ideology underwrites remains in full effect.
February 10, 2010
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Bernard-Henri Lévy cites fake philosopher
by Charles GelmanBernard-Henri Lévy cites a fabulated philosopher in his latest book De la guerre en philosophie, reports The Irish Times.
February 11, 2010
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The right to “a good death”
by Todd KesselmanOn Tuesday the British Government granted Davender Ghai, a British Hindu, the right to "a good death"---defined as cremation on a funeral pyre open to the sky---reports the Telegraph.
February 11, 2010
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Awe and wonder
by Charles GelmanAt Trans/Missions, Diane Winston comments on an unusual and interesting new study, which finds that the most popular New York Times pieces tend to be "articles that elicit an emotional sense of awe."
February 11, 2010