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A few weeks ago I started reading stories about how Germany had banned circumcision. Because of Germany’s historical treatment of Jews, and what that country has gone through to rid itself of its past, the story almost seemed hard to believe. But it was real and there was limited coverage of the move.
We heard a few comments last week about NPR’s coverage of various nun issues. Some thought it was one-sided or too shallow but I was intrigued by this report claiming that NPR devoted 14 minutes on Friday to support of nuns who’ve been criticized by the Vatican for failing to uphold Catholic teaching. I wondered how many minutes were devoted to religious freedom rallies that were held nationwide on Friday. And while I’m not sure if I’m doing the Google thing correctly, I think it looks like zero minutes. NPR did throw an Associated Press story up on the web site, but I can’t find anything else.
The former newspaper copy editor in me has been watching the development of the whole “Polish death camp” debate this week, which led, of course, to a political resolution of this rather small-scale media storm.
It’s amazing how much news and information one misses when attempting to follow hot stories in the online versions of major newspapers.
I’m mildly unsure if I should mention this, but I am not the world’s biggest Maurice Sendak fan. I like his work, certainly, but it didn’t transform or influence me in the same way it did so many of my peers. I’m even a big fan of the general genre he worked in — I just favor Czech or German tales such as Struwwelpeter. It’s kind of like Bruce Springsteen. I like him, and the live show I saw back in the late 1990s remains one of the best concerts I’ve ever attended. And yet I know that I don’t appreciate him in the way so many friends do.
A story with a strong religious element showed up today in The Baltimore Sun business pages, of all places. This is precisely where this religion-news story should have been, methinks, but this does not mean that the editorial team needed to leave out a few highly relevant religious facts.
What would your GetReligionistas do without the many faithful readers who constantly send us URLs for stories that raise issues relevant our work here?
A reader sent in this story about Rick Santorum taking a mysterious four day break from his presidential campaign. There was a reference by Santorum himself to a “holiday weekend,” the story didn’t explore whether maybe the break had anything to do with the Triduum.
