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Auspicious start to Ramadan coverage

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Ramadan, the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, began yesterday. During the month, participating Muslims refrain from eating or drinking during daylight hours. Muslims believe Ramadan was the month during which the first verses of the Koran were revealed to the Islamic prophet Mohammed. The month is based on the Islamic lunar calendar and moves back about 11 days each year. So I guess that’s why it seems to come earlier each year.


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Breivik, Bin Laden and moral equivalency

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Normally we like to look at news treatment, as opposed to opinion pieces, related to religion. But there were two analysis items from this weekend that were worth considering. The first came from the New York Times and was written by Thomas Hegghammer, a Norwegian expert on Islamist violence. It’s helpful for those of us trying to analyze how to define this rather idiosyncratic terrorist.


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Bachmann's vague faith appeal

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I’m not a huge fan of news stories about advertisements because it seems a little lazy on the media end for not finding more original stories and it often just fuels the ad even more. Some outlets do a nice job of fact checking the ads to make sure the claims are accurate, but there’s a lot of wasted energy on “X releases ad targeting opponent.”


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