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Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama gave a noteworthy speech on Saturday before 10,000 members of the United Church of Christ in Hartford, Conn., and every media account I’ve seen has ignored what I see as being the most significant part.
After Christianity Today published a lengthy Q&A with Evan Almighty director Tom Shadyac, there was no excuse for those writing about the movie studio’s attempt to appeal to religious audiences to exclude the fact that Shadyac is in fact a self-described “Jesus freak.”
In reading news articles about the decision by Great Britain to bestow knighthood on Salman Rushdie, one can’t help but wonder why in the world the British would decide to do this. I mean, all they are doing is upsetting a substantial minority of Britain’s population and inflaming Islamic sentiment around the world by honoring a man who is just a novelist. Since when should we honor people who are attacked and threatened with death for what they say or write?
In a most unusual but welcome story deep on the inside of The Washington Post‘s Metro section, Michelle Boorstein reported on how an earthquake set back a project to create a written version of a local language spoken by 5,000 people and to translate the Bible for the people on the small Solomon Island in the South Pacific. (Lost, anyone?)
Monday morning’s popular-with-journalists Romenesko linked to an item about a local high school graduate heading off to the Big Apple to work for the website operated by the Fox News Channel.
Audrey Hudson’s very long story in Tuesday’s Washington Times takes the Council on American-Islamic Relations to task for its alleged falling membership. The civil liberties organization struck back in a strongly worded press release the same day that says the Times is a “right-wing” newspaper that publishes “agenda-driven reporting.”
Thanks to reader Jerry for pointing out this tremendous read in The New York Times about the religious pronouncements, or fatwas, being issued in Egypt that govern the daily lives of the millions who live there. Reporter Michael Slackman highlights the scandalous, sensational edicts, but he does not merely highligh fatwas about women breast-feeding grown men and drinking Muhammad’s urine.
Matt Stearns of the McClatchy Washington Bureau has a nice piece in the The Sacramento Bee that deals with the religious faith of presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. The essence of the story is that McCain, while known to have professed a Christian faith, is not that vocal about it, and some say this is hurting him at the most and a missed opportunity at the least.
Two of the nation’s leading newspapers, theLos Angeles Times and The Washington Post, ran stories within days of each other that deal with the apparent recent crackup in the pro-life movement. The news is not an earthshaking development but another note in the history of the abortion wars in the United States.
