I’ve caught most of Showtime’s Sleeper Cell. The 10-hour miniseries follows an Al Qaeda terrorist group in Los Angeles and the FBI agent who infiltrates it.
Muslim hero
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Why do they want to live long enough to take revenge?
Three cheers for the intelligent commenter who raises issues that journalists must consider in covering their beats, particularly involving a beat that is not sole dealing with religion. In this case, I’m thinking of terrorism.
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Osama's school days
In the Dec. 12 issue of The New Yorker, Steve Coll shows how it’s possible to write about the student years of Osama bin Laden without larding up one’s manuscript with cheap-shot adjectives. After all, when a reporter has uncovered enough troubling details, it’s best to let the details speak for themselves. Here’s what Coll turned up about a soccer and study club that met at the Al Thagher Model School in Jedda, which bin Laden graduated from in 1976:
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Tell the story
She was raised as Catholic and she died as what could be the first European Muslim suicide bomber. So starts the story, as written in The New York Times, that is so thick with religious issues that go deep into history, you could start writing a intriguing book tomorrow on the situation.
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The tolerant quote of the day
The following sort of reminds me of the story about Georgetown University debating the wisdom of removing crucifixes from its classrooms as a sign of that very hip Catholic school’s commitment to diversity. In the midst of the mini-media storm, it was the Muslims on campus who said the whole idea was nuts. In fact, a Muslim chaplain threatened to resign if the school took this step.
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How woman can shape the story in Europe
As a college student, I was often confused and frustrated that my university offered classes on women’s studies. I did not understand what the big deal was. But after a time, I learned that unique perspectives can be gained through a study of the history of women, a sociological study of women at a certain time and place or a study of female poets in the late 1800s. Such studies can lead to misperceptions if they are not properly balanced, but overall the knowledge contributed to furthering my education of how the world got to where it is now.
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Wanted: A Muslim voice for sanity
Here is one of the most terrifying stories I have read this year, a feature by Elaine Sciolino of The New York Times that ran under the headline “From Tapes, a Chilling Voice of Islamic Radicalism in Europe.”
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Who is shouting "God is great"?
For those of you who are interested, I have a very GetReligion-ish column up today at Poynter.org that deals with some of the themes we have wrestled with on this blog in recent weeks.
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Jews, Crusaders and beyond
Once again, an important issue in the Jordan coverage today is whether news organizations allow the al-Qaida (as always, the spellings are varied) statements to say what they say. A new Associated Press report is up at The New York Times contains some blunt passages.
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