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Two people died and 21 people were injured — some quite seriously — during an incident at a sweat lodge at an Arizona resort. There is a spiritual component to this story. It turns out that self-help expert and author James Arthur Ray rented the facility as part of a “Spiritual Warrior” retreat that promised to “absolutely change your life.”
Much to my parents’ chagrin, I resisted early bedtimes from a very young age. So they would let me stay up and watch Johnny Carson. When Carson retired, I moved to Letterman. Somewhere along the line he lost me. He’s just seemed off for, well, a decade. And now I have Craig Ferguson, who I greatly enjoy. Here’s a sample.
There are cities and regions in these here United States that, when you mention the name, certain foods instantly zoom into your mind.
Over the past few days, I’ve been wondering about the significance of religious or quasi-religious words in a culture in which a shared understanding of these words appears to be disappearing. My curiosity was first piqued by a column by Gene Lyons in Salon. The critic argues that an interview (not so much the act?) sex offender Roman Polanski (here’s Mollie’s take from last week) gave should get a “special place in hell.” His column is sprinkled with words like “holy writ”, “sins” and the most definitely not complimentary “professional Christian” (applied to Nevada Senator John Ensign.
The New York Times published a fascinating and deeply troubling story about the plight of Korean women who become pregnant. It begins with the story of Choi Hyong-sook. When she found out she was pregnant by her former boyfriend four years ago, she considered abortion. But when she saw her child’s heartbeat, she couldn’t do it. She put her baby up for adoption but felt so bad about it that she persuaded the adoption agency to let her reclaim the baby five days later:
If you read the New York Times profile Monday of Dr. Francis Collins — and based on reader e-mails, I know at least a few of you did — than there was probably one paragraph about the evangelical Christian at the head of the National Institutes of Health that jumped out at you. This sound familiar:
I thought that I was done with the Mohave Desert cross story until I started digging a bit deeper into the Washington Post. That’s when I ran into an interesting collision between two different accounts of the same pivotal statement by the ever quotable Justice Antonin Scalia.
One thing everyone can agree on is that Glenn Beck–the conservative star of TV, radio publishing and occasional live events–is hot. He’s also controversial, as a Beck-friendly columnist recently acknowledged in USA Today:
