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Something very sobering and terrible is sinking in for Western journalists who are covering the uprising in the Middle East. They are beginning to wonder if the outcomes of these revolutions will automatically be good or, at least, “good” as defined in terms of civil liberties and human rights as they are promoted at, let’s say, the United Nations.
An excellent Kansas City Star news story puts a new twist on the old saying that “if it bleeds, it leads.”
This week marked the 12th anniversary of the Columbine High School shooting. Two senior students killed 12 students and one teacher. Many others were injured. I grew up not far from there and have spent many years trying to understand what happened. A few weeks ago, Wellington Menezes de Oliveira embarked on a massacre in a Brazilian school. Twelve students were killed. I’d actually been meaning to look into the coverage more since early reports mentioned both that he was raised as a Jehovah Witness and that he, at the very least, expressed an interest in Islam. But the coverage was so weak on those angles (here, here, here).
The photographic image accompanying this post is not the work of Andres Serrano with which newspaper readers would almost certainly be familiar. However, I cannot seem to convince myself that I need to put a copy of that infamous work of modern religious or anti-religious art on this website on Good Friday. Sue me.
Maybe it’s my mood today — read: brain a bit mushy after a draining week — but a New York Times feature on a Passion play at a Florida rodeo arena kept me chuckling.
A few months ago, we moved out of Washington, D.C., to be closer to where we’ll be sending our children to school. That decision wasn’t just made because it’s our parish school or because many DC public schools have serious problems. Prior to getting married, my husband and I separately served on the school board that oversaw the change in our parish school’s curriculum to a Classical approach. It was a large undertaking but we couldn’t be more pleased with the results.
When I attended the National Prayer Breakfast back in February, I was struck by the clear confession of faith President Barack Obama gave. There were many speakers and every single one of them was talking about their faith. But while many speakers were opaque, Obama said things I wouldn’t be surprised to hear in my own church on Sunday morning. I left the country a few hours later so I never saw how the media covered that speech.
The tornadoes ripped through the heart of the Bible belt, so you knew what was coming in the mainstream coverage — Godtalk. There simply isn’t a way for reporters, even elite reporters, to talk to ordinary Americans under tragic circumstances without eternal issues coming up.
Last week, Palestinian activist Vittorio Arrigoni was abducted by Jama’at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad members in Gaza. They posted a video online saying he’d be killed unless their rival Hamas, the Islamist group that controls Gaza, released Salafis in prison. Within hours, though, he was dead. The group, sometimes called Tawhid and Jihad, later denied kidnapping and killing Arrigoni, who was originally from Italy.
