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Lies, damned lies and 98 percent of Catholic women

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I’ve mentioned before that I once had to get a special dispensation to work at a newspaper because my degree was not in journalism but, rather, in economics. Have you ever been in a newsroom with a bunch of journalism grads who don’t know how to calculate anything meaningful about, say, the most recently released budget document because, well, their degrees are in journalism? I have. It’s not pretty. If you think some reporters have trouble getting religion, let me assure you that many reporters also have trouble getting statistics.


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To love and to cherish till WHEN?

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My wife, Tamie, has battled illness for about a year and a half. She hasn’t felt much like going to the movies. But my other sweetheart — my 12-year-old daughter, Kendall — joined me on a pre-Valentine’s Day date to see “The Vow.”


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Hey Times folks! Can you say "equal access"?

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On one level, the ongoing New York Times coverage of the church-state showdown over rental policies in city public schools has shown an admirable interest in the plight of specific churches that are struggling to find new homes.


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When blasphemy meets Twitter

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Have you heard about the plight of Hamza Kashgari? He’s a young Saudi journalist who fled his country to avoid being killed for a few things he tweeted about Muslim Prophet Muhammad. The video embedded here is of Saudi Sheikh Nasser al Omar calling on the King to enforce Islam’s death penalty for apostasy, which many Muslims believe Kashgari committed.


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Frame game: Mere politics? Just birth control?

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The frame game continues, with a coalition of conservative religious groups — the traditionalist wings of most major religious groups — insisting that their battle with the Obama White House is not essentially about birth control, but about religious liberty and the separation of church and state. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, of course, says the battle is about birth control and quality health care.


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Pod people: Media campaigns and civility

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Ben Smith reports that Democratic Senators were furious at MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” over how it covered the Obama Administration’s mandate affecting religious people and their organizations:


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Jeremy Lin, the Knicks' Tim Tebow?

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This morning I asked my sports reporter husband if he knew who Jeremy Lin was. He laughed and responded: “Do you know who Billy Graham is?” Feeling a little silly, I started reading up on the couch-surfing basketball star who is apparently taking the world by storm, or at least the NBA. “Forget Tebowing,” the Associated Press says. “Linsanity is the new sports sensation.”


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