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Dog days in the promised land

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There’s a story about a book publisher being asked how to write a best seller. He said the title of it would be “Lincoln’s Doctor’s Dog.” But I can’t help but thinking “The Conspiracy of Jesus’ Dog” would also rank high. (Memo to self: get on it.) Or maybe I could combine Jesus, Lincoln, dogs and conspiracy theories. Lincoln is reported to have said, after all, “I care not much for a man’s religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.”


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Pod people: Little dogs at New York Times

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Exaggeration of every kind is as essential to journalism as it is to the dramatic art; for the object of journalism is to make events go as far as possible. Thus it is that all journalists are, in the very nature of their calling, alarmists; and this is their way of giving interest to what they write. Herein they are like little dogs; if anything stirs, they immediately set up a shrill bark.


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Define "Islamist;" give three examples

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It is hard to read the recent Washington Post story about the rising power of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egyptian political life without concluding that the most important word in it is “Islamist.” After all, this term shows up 11 times in the text — including in the lede.


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What a religious freedom rally looks like

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We’ve been talking quite a bit about how the public outcry over religious freedom issues has been portrayed in the press. When the Obama administration created a new requirement that religious employers fully fund abortion drugs, contraception and sterilization, many religious employers and their supporters cried foul. The people who support the mandate argue that free contraception is a fundamental right that the government must force employers to provide. Further, failing to force employers to provide these things constitutes a war on women.


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Whatever Vandy wants, Vandy gets

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When the experts start talking about elite private universities — non-Atlantic Coast division — Vanderbilt is always near the top of the list. The school is so prominent, especially as a member of a major sports conference, that people often forget that it is, in fact, a private school.


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Report: Tim Tebow isn't all that controversial, actually

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Nearly every week during the last NFL season, I thought the Tim Tebow news would go away. Tebow is not the first athlete to offer public expressions of faith, nor will he be the last. But almost every week offered some new media approach on Tebow where someone would express frustration over the attention he was getting while others would rush to defend him.


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How to cover a hate crime

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I’ve been mildly obsessed with the horrific beating of an Iraqi-American woman in Southern California. Shaima Al Awadhi succumbed to her injuries on Sunday. She was 32 years old and a mother of five children. Her oldest daughter is 17.


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Pod people: Dolan's Newsweek debut

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As the Supreme Court hears arguments on the health care law this week, religious groups will be among those watching closely. Leading some of the response to the Health and Human Services ruling employers providing contraception, Timothy Dolan is likely to be among those particularly interested in the outcome. Last week, we looked at Newsweek‘s profile of the archbishop of New York, one that I thought did a nice job . After some less than ideal coverage of Dolan, it’s nice to see someone take a more thorough look from more sides, including historical and political. Read it again.


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