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My husband and I went to see Milk, the film about the first openly gay man elected to public office in California, a few months ago. We enjoyed the movie, with some exceptions, and I predicted Sean Penn would win the Oscar for best actor — he was just that transcendentally good. And the supporting cast was also amazing.
Nia-Malika Henderson had a great and illuminating piece in the Politico. Headlined “Blacks, whites hear Obama differently,” she looks at how President Barack Obama is able to speak in a manner that solidifies his support among blacks while at the same time not alienating non-blacks who speak in a different manner. Here’s how it begins:
We’ve been covering such fluff this week — abortion, environmentalism, statistical analysis — that it’s time we get to something really serious. I write, of course, about screen legend Lindsay Lohan (star of the Oscar-worthy I Know Who Killed Me).
A few months ago we looked at media coverage of the promulgation of a Bush administration rule dealing with the legal right of health care professionals to practice according to their consciences. Health care professionals who work at organizations that receive funding from the federal government have been protected from being forced to perform abortions since the 1970s. This rule — which costs “only” $44 million to implement — is about making sure those protections are enforced since some medical organizations and societies have penalized or were planning to penalize medical professionals who objected to various abortion-related procedures.
Because my background is in economics and not religion or media, the media malpractice that gets me worked up the most usually involves numbers. No matter which newsroom I’ve worked in, the presence of numbers or numerical analysis seems to make journalists lose any brainpower. You should see what it’s like when reporters try to analyze polling data or governmental budgets. It’s just not pretty.
One of the things I wish we saw more were casual inclusions of religion in stories about general life. It seems that there’s a lot of compartmentalizing of religion — as if stories are completely secular or they’re pigeonholed as religion news.
Dan Gilgoff, who runs the God & Country blog over at U.S. News & World Report, picked up on a little noticed but terribly interesting development in civil religion. Apparently President Obama’s public events are now being launched with prayers from local leaders.
Let’s look at a few more Ash Wednesday stories. Ann Rodgers of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette explores the meaning of Lenten discipline by focusing on a group of Presbyterians who are fasting. The story features the Rev. Elizabeth McCormick of First Presbyterian Church of Frostburg, Md., who is encouraging her congregation to fast. McCormick and her husband used to be missionaries in Sudan. She taught at a seminary in Khartoum and he was a financial adviser for the Presbyterian Church of Sudan:
Today is Ash Wednesday. In the Western Christian calendar, it is the first day of Lent. It occurs 40 days (not counting Sundays) before Easter and begins the most sacred part of the Christian year. It’s probably known mostly for the imposition of ashes on the forehead, a custom that aims to remind Christians of their complete sinfulness and mortality. They’re made in the sign of the cross to direct Christians to the necessity of Christ’s suffering and death for their salvation.
