This past weekend, as happens every summer solstice, something special reportedly happened at Stonehenge. As the Associated Press reported:
Why pagans party at Stonehenge on solstice
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Mumbai remains a haunted story
A week ago, I returned from a long, fast trip that ended up in Bangalore and New Delhi, where I had the sobering opportunity to discuss religion writing in the context of modern India with several audiences of journalists, old and young, and a collection of academics and politicos.
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Reigns of terror
Say what you will about the Church of Scientology, but its members are tenacious. I have some friends who left the church probably 25 years ago and they are still routinely contacted by members who, shall we say, encourage them to be careful with what they say about the church. And what’s interesting about that is that my friends actually have quite a few positive things to say about the church and what they got out of it.
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One voice in Afghanistan
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Reading sacred tea leaves in Iran
The two voices that matter the most right now in Iran are using words that will be very hard to take back. Here’s the latest from the New York Times:
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What would the Mahdi do?
Every now and then, editors really need to bite the bullet and tell their troops, “OK, this is just getting too complicated. We are going to have to make room for a sidebar that lets our readers know what in the heckfire we are talking about.”
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More SSPX men in black?
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Define religious programming
Washington Post reporter Paul Farhi had a solid story about a new PBS ban on religious programming. Basically the board decided to forbid member stations from airing new religious programs but permitted those that already carry “sectarian” shows to continue to do so. It was a compromise from a proposed ban on all religious programming such as local church services or religious lectures.
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Red Iran, blue Iran
Talk about a byline and a dateline that raised some eyebrows! The online folks at New York Magazine asked the obvious question in this headline: “Why Is Times Executive Editor Bill Keller in Iran?”
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