Is it terrorism or mental illness?

Yesterday I mentioned that I had been thinking about how we cover stories about suspected terrorism. A couple of weeks ago, a reader submitted a story about a disrupted flight that seemed to have a bit of a ghost. I thought I’d wait for more details to come out and revisit it. Here’s the original story from the Amarillo Globe-News:


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Wahhabis in short pants

I was writing a post about how we cover suspected or actual terrorism (which I’ll save for tomorrow) when word came that a gunman fired shots at the United States Embassy in the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo. As snippets of news came out about this on Twitter, I saw a picture of the gunman (seen here) and it appeared, because the picture wasn’t of great quality, that the man was wearing shorts. That seemed odd attire for a gunman in October. Sarah Schlesinger, a research fellow at the Center for Religious Freedom at Hudson Institute, explained:


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Jews as Christ Killers

Bishop Richard Williamson of the Society of St Pius X (SSPX) is up to his old tricks and has angered the European Council of Rabbis with his remarks about the Jews’ role in the crucifixion of Jesus. The bishop believes Jews are Christ-killers — and his latest words on the subject come as Pope Benedict XVI begins an inter-faith summit in Assisi. Among his many attributes, I must say Bishop Williamson has great timing.


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"Evangelical voters" march on in Iowa

During the past decade of so, pollsters have begun paying attention to an interesting phenomenon. A growing percentage of young Protestants who would ordinarily be called “evangelicals” have started running away from that word.


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Pod people: sharia comes to Wall Street?

For this week’s Crossroads podcast, host Todd Wilken and I discussed media coverage of the spirituality of Wall Street protestors. We’ve frequently noted the hostile posture that many news outlets have toward those religious activists who have conservative positions but in many ways the treatment received by religious activists who have liberal positions is even worse. That’s because they’re largely ignored. This was definitely a problem with early coverage, although it has improved, as we discussed in a recent post.


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