A report about Delta airlines refusing to fly Jews to Saudi Arabia lit up the internet yesterday. But within hours, some of the stories were altered or pulled and I’m still trying to sort out not just what happened but what it all means. I’m going to try to reconstruct things as best I can and then ask some questions at the end. You may not need all this reconstruction, so feel free to skip to the end.
Closet therapy
The latest cover of the New York Times Magazine looks at religion, gay orientation/identity, and therapy, and the reporting from Mimi Swartz is pretty straight forward.
Define 'New Age;' give three examples
I freely confess that I am, as a rule, not a big Wikipedia fan. However, I must reluctantly tip my hat to the brave souls who attempted the all-but-impossible task of writing a brief summary of the history and contents of the “New Age” movement.
So is he Muslim or not? (UPDATED)
Last week, I woke up to news reports that someone was taken into custody near the Pentagon after a suspicious device was found in his car. Three major thoroughfares were shut down as police investigated. The initial reports included plenty of errors. For instance, no suspicious device was found in a car! Reports that others fled the scene also washed out. The device that “looks like a bomb”? Who knows. The “controlled explosion” they were going to do with the car? It didn’t happen.
A Mormon ticket
I love it when reporters look for religion angles in political stories, I really do. Sometimes, though, a reporter tries too hard to see a faith angle. Consider Joshua Green’s post for The Atlantic on Jon Huntsman’s new website, www.Jon2012.com, and whether it has any biblical implications, referring to the New Testament passage John 20:12.
Generic story about the growing convent
There is this famous, historic Catholic school in Catonsville, Md., which is an old suburb of Baltimore, called Mount de Sales Academy.
Purporting to report the news
Hellish 'Arab' violence in Sudan (again)
Anyone who knows anything about the decades of bloody conflict in Sudan knows that it is impossible to take religion out of the mix — especially the conflicts between Muslims in the north and the Christians and animists of South Sudan.
Fundamentalists and other S.O.B.s
Benoid Denizet-Lewis had yet another a fascinating story in the New York Times this past weekend. This time it was about Michael Glatze, a former gay rights activist who has since renounced his past. The two used to be friends and colleagues at XY, a San-Francisco-based national magazine for young gay men.
