The president of a media company recently told me that he goes to ESPN every day to unwind. Not this week, of course, with all the Joe Paterno coverage. Many fans like sports to be kept pure, to focus on the game of stats without the stickiness or drama.
The particulars of personhood
I kept meaning to read up on Mississippi’s “personhood” initiative before voters voted on it. We’d had readers mention some problems with the coverage, namely that stories were burying the fact that pro-life groups were divided on whether to vote for it. Now, maybe you’ve followed the “personhood” debate. Maybe you haven’t. But try to read this Associated Press story tabula rasa-style. Imagine you know nothing, or very little, about the debate and see what you can glean from this story.
False idols at Penn State and elsewhere
Those who doubt that sports play a pseudo-religious role in American life now have their answer. Whether we are talking high-school football, high-school hoops in Indiana, baseball in Boston, college football in Alabama or pro football in Green Bay, it should be clear to all that — at least in terms of sociology — the line between fans and believers has all but been erased.
Die Taz on Jews and Germany
âder Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland sein Auge ist blauer trifft dich mit bleierner Kugel er trifft dich genau”
Ghost in report on modern babushkas
Religion angles in recall elections
I haven’t really followed much of the news from election day, but one of the more intriguing stories was the first recall election ever mounted against a state legislator in Arizona. What’s more is that it was successful. Here’s the Christian Science Monitor:
Tebow wars march on
Another day, another article on the outrage over Tim Tebow’s publicly expressed faith and the backlash towards those who are outraged.
The biblical case for spanking
I’m not sure what to think of a front-page New York Times story Monday that tried to connect the deaths of three children with a self-published book by Tennessee preacher Michael Pearl and his wife, Debi.
A quarterback (no, not that one) and marriage
This has certainly been an interesting year for quarterbacks in the National Football League. Trust me, I know that journalists always pay close attention to quarterbacks (I worked in Denver during most of the John Elway era), but it seems to me that news people have been dissecting these guys to an unusual degree, as of late.
