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On August 21, Vice President Joe Biden was giving remarks on U.S. China relations to people gathered at Sichuan University in Chengdu, China. Here’s a portion of what he said:
We sometimes reference our guilt files and my guilt file is reaching epic levels so I’m going to try to unload three recent stories into one post. I’m grouping them together under what I’ll call The Wild Hunt banner — they’re all stories that would or could be covered over at that blog that deals with Pagan and Heathen communities. The Wild Hunt, for what it’s worth, is now appearing over at Patheos so it’s interesting to see how Patheos is landing various bloggers across the religious spectrum.
It’s been well over a week since the New York Times published a provocative piece where women are interviewed who, after using fertility drugs and procedures, become pregnant with twins and decide to undergo “selective reduction” for lifestyle reasons. That’s a euphemism for the killing in utero of one perfectly healthy twin in a pregnancy. It’s an unbelievably difficult read if you’re of the mind that ending these lives is a major human rights crisis. But I can’t help but think it’s a difficult read even if you support the right of people to abort any child for any reason at any time in the pregnancy. I wanted to write about it all week but found it too difficult to broach.
Anyone who closely followed the events of the Arab spring knows that the demonstrations that rocked Egypt and other lands drew a unique and highly complex mix of people into the streets in opposition to the regime of President Hosni Mubarak.
Someone please tell me to stop reading articles about Michele Bachmann. Really, the Republican race is much bigger than her campaign and there are so many other candidates and issues to consider. But I cannot wrap my head around some of the strange coverage of her faith as these articles have become my recent guilty pleasure for some reason.
On this week’s Crossroads, host Todd Wilken and I talked about media coverage of Rick Perry’s appeal to evangelicals, the role of religion in the U.K. riots and World Youth Day.
Long-term GetReligion readers probably know that I am a conservative Democrat with Texas roots (so that makes me pro-life and willing to raise taxes, I guess). Tea parties? I like my tea iced, with lemon.
The Roman Catholic Church is having its World Youth Day in Madrid, an event geared toward young people and held in celebration of the Catholic faith. These events are held locally every year and internationally every two to three years. They attract hundreds of thousands of youth from all over the globe and they’ve been credited with helping young people get more involved in the church. This marks the world’s largest gathering of young people. This year is no exception. As many as 1.5 million people are expected for Saturday’s vigil and Sunday’s Papal Mass outside the city.
The death and destruction caused by rioters in the U.K. has been difficult to watch. I’ve followed the stories and wondered about how well the religion angles have been covered. One tragic story sticks out for how well a victim’s family religion was highlighted. That story is about the death of Haroon Jahan, one of three Muslim men to die after being hit by a car during riots in Birmingham. Reuters reported how his father Tariq Jahan rushed to aid the men, only to find out that one of the victims was his own son:
