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For some, apocalyptic anxiety is in the air (along with a fall chill). Washington Post writer Joel Achenbach set out to explore the latest doom and gloom in “2012: Eh, It’s Not the End Of the World: Film & Internet Rumors Fuel Doomsday Babble.”
Near-death experiences, phenomena that cross national, gender, age and religious lines, are a subject of great fascination to many here and around the world. The Amazon.com website has 15,908 possible links for books, starting with the “Big Book of Near-Death Experiences.” Little wonder if, as the International Association for Near-Death Studies (IANDS) says on its website, studies in the United States, Australia and Germany appear to suggest four to fifteen percent of the general population has had an NDE.
Anyone concerned about America’s fertility industry should ponder “21st Century Babies” being posted in installlments on the the New York Times website. Writer Stephanie Saul is doing an excellent job of revealing the moral dilemmas and, frankly, distress and suffering that may occur when potential parents decide to try in-vitro and intrauterine insemination.
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:
In what I think was my first GetReligion post, I mentioned coverage of the solstice get-downs at Stonehenge. Lacking from that AP article was much of a connection between the ancient circle of massive stones and the religious meaning given to it.
Lots of people are good at getting favorable press, but Gunther von Hagens is really good. He’s the guy behind the “Body Worlds” exhibits that show dead, flayed, dissected human beings preserved in plastic. He’s been on the road with this for years and it’s surprising how favorable the press is considering the topic of his show.
The New York Times started its nearly 2,2,00-word obituary of the “Green Revolution” pioneer on A1, and the first graf of the obit explains the prominent placement:
