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Most people thinking about the Netherlands today are wondering whether the Oranje can survive Spain to win their first World Cup. While I’ll certainly be watching, I thought I’d take this pre-game to get a Dutch story out of my guilt file.
I have been on the road all week so I must confess that I am way behind on my Summer of Sex readings, which is that annual wave of mainstream-media coverage of debates in the oldline Protestant denominations about you know what.
Does anyone out there remember that recent post about that bizarre and very powerful narcotics gang down in Mexico that calls itself La Familia Michoacana? If that doesn’t ring a bell, you may remember the following memorable headline about this bunch in Time magazine: “Mexico’s Meth Warriors: Fueled by Evangelical zeal and America’s appetite for meth, a provincial Mexican gang breaks into the big time.”
Far and away the best defense of the New York Times article we’ve been discussing comes from Mark Silk, Trinity College professor of religion and public life. Over at Beliefnet, he writes:
Media attention following the Hawaiian governor’s veto of a same-sex civil unions bill has been on whether tourists and businesses should boycott the beautiful island chain, a la the LA response to Arizona’s anti-undocumented-alien law.
Between Twitter, Facebook, e-mail and text messaging, I’m always a bit terrified that a fleeting opinion will come back to come back to haunt me. For instance, I once was appropriately chastised for making fun of an organization that I covered in my private Gmail chat status. So half of me reacted to Octavia Nasr’s CNN firing over a tweet with a twinge of sympathy while the other half of me said, “What was she thinking?”
As we look into other defenses of the New York Times attack on Pope Benedict XVI, I want to acknowledge at the outset that we’re getting a bit more into the weeds. In fact, some of these discussions might be more technical or murky than we normally encourage. I still think it’s important to have the discussion because the public record is important. But if you are a normal person, you might just want to skip to the next post!
