Politics

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Discovering a conservative giant

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David Kirkpatrick had a fascinating profile of Robert P. George in the Sunday New York Times magazine. George is a Catholic public intellectual — a professor at Princeton who writes about policy and politics. The first thing to say about the piece is that it’s a great idea. I’ve been reading George for years but, then again, I’m the type of person who reads First Things and The Public Discourse. The average Sunday New York Times magazine reader probably doesn’t. Considering the influence George has on conservatives, a profile makes perfect sense.


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Search: 'Obama' and 'baby Jesus'

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I know that I do, especially when I am trying to read about a subject that (a) the mainstream press doesn’t care that much about and (b) hot-headed partisans in the media care too much about. Thus, you get these short incomplete reports about subjects that “aren’t really news,” only that to some people the events are symbolic and, thus, transcend news (so they tend to scream about them at advocacy sites online).


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Nightmare on Capitol Hill

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Despite polls showing a majority of Americans do not support the current legislative proposals being voted on in Congress, the Senate took us one step closer to passage this weekend. One of the interesting subplots to this unfolding national drama is the role that abortion has played in shaping the bills. Over on the House side, Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., managed to insert language prohibiting taxpayer funding of abortion under the proposed plan — either directly or through subsidies of the planned exchange.


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Is yoga religious?

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At the beginning of November, Missouri began a sales tax on yoga studios. The only state in the nation to do so, the move is controversial because many folks in the Show Me State’s yoga community believe yoga is not just exercise but, rather, a spiritual practice.


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On the banks of the Yamuna

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The Washington Post foreign service — which thankfully still exists – sent out this story on Thursday: “New Delhi’s filth continues to choke once-sacred Yamuna River.” It’s a very interesting and well-timed piece in light of all the talk this week at the U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen about getting better environmental controls in rapidly industrializing countries, particularly in China and India. The story does an excellent job illustrating the environmental problems and challenges in contemporary India. Can’t fault it there:


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Cooler temperatures at Air Force Academy

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Four years ago, a battle over religion at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs seemed intractable. Now tempers are cooler, according to an Associated Press story by Dan Elliott. Interestingly, the story, “Air Force Academy says religious climate improving,” says one solution to the problem was more religion, not less:


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When "specifically" needs specificity

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It’s a cliche for a reason — sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. Suffice to say, I quickly understood what this Washington Post story was about before I even read it thanks to the picture included with the story (and reproduced here to the right). It’s about a poster produced by the National Association of Latino Elected Officials (NALEO) and distributed to some 7,000 churches in an effort to get Hispanics to increase participation. As you can see, the poster has stirred a bit of controversy.


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The universal problem of religious freedom

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We’ve looked at a bit of the coverage of the Swiss ban on the construction of minarets — the spires on mosques that are sometimes used for the call to prayer. Earlier this month, I noted a single story that looked at how religious freedom is handled in some Muslim countries. Many stories didn’t bother to mention the issue even while they covered the outrage toward the Swiss ban from various leaders in these Muslim countries. Reader Mike Hickerson asked:


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