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No room at the White House

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Reporters and editors have been deluging viewers and readers with Christmas culture war stories. And who can blame them? Stories abound throughout the country of public school principals secularizing lyrics to Christmas carols, retail outlets forbidding employees from wishing Christmas shoppers a Merry Christmas, and members of Congress having to fight over what to call Christmas trees. And then on the other side you have folks who see nothing wrong with cancelling church on Christmas Sunday vilifying those on the other side.


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Osama's school days

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In the Dec. 12 issue of The New Yorker, Steve Coll shows how it’s possible to write about the student years of Osama bin Laden without larding up one’s manuscript with cheap-shot adjectives. After all, when a reporter has uncovered enough troubling details, it’s best to let the details speak for themselves. Here’s what Coll turned up about a soccer and study club that met at the Al Thagher Model School in Jedda, which bin Laden graduated from in 1976:


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Three cheers for consistency

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A group best known for its defense of the free-speech rights of traditional religious believers has decided — acting in a totally consistent manner — to get involved in the defense of a protestor for a case that most would consider “on the left,” in terms of politics. The group to which I am referring is the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.


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Can anyone out there speak "British"?

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Is there anyone out there in GetReligionLand who speaks the English dialect called “British” well enough to help me break the code in the following story by John Daniszewski (God bless you) of the Los Angeles Times? It concerns the rise of the ever-so-slightly modish David Cameron as the new leader of the Tory Party at the ripe old age of 39, which is even younger than a TV cyberanchor here in the USA.


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Tell the story

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She was raised as Catholic and she died as what could be the first European Muslim suicide bomber. So starts the story, as written in The New York Times, that is so thick with religious issues that go deep into history, you could start writing a intriguing book tomorrow on the situation.


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On the virtue of skepticism

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Oh to be a reporter in Kansas these days. In early November, the Board of Education there modified state science standards to include critiques of evolutionary theory. Later in the month, a controversial Kansas University professor — the chair of the religious studies department, no less — announced he would offer a class that attacked intelligent design theory.


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The tolerant quote of the day

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The following sort of reminds me of the story about Georgetown University debating the wisdom of removing crucifixes from its classrooms as a sign of that very hip Catholic school’s commitment to diversity. In the midst of the mini-media storm, it was the Muslims on campus who said the whole idea was nuts. In fact, a Muslim chaplain threatened to resign if the school took this step.


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Moving beyond the North Pole

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Most of my friends recall the moment they figured out that Santa Claus wasn’t real. They would joke about the psychological harm the revelation had on their fragile 8-year-old psyches. I never experienced this because for some odd reason my wonderful parents never taught me about him. This matters not at all to me but apparently harmed my mother who now has made up for lost time with a bit of a Santa obsession. Her conception of the jolly old man is based on the Clement Moore version, of course.


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How woman can shape the story in Europe

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As a college student, I was often confused and frustrated that my university offered classes on women’s studies. I did not understand what the big deal was. But after a time, I learned that unique perspectives can be gained through a study of the history of women, a sociological study of women at a certain time and place or a study of female poets in the late 1800s. Such studies can lead to misperceptions if they are not properly balanced, but overall the knowledge contributed to furthering my education of how the world got to where it is now.


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