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Is the meaning of hajj being lost?

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - By Syed Neaz Ahmad - Nov. 22 (Opinion) - Hajj is meant to bring Muslims together in brotherhood. But in 2009, more than ever, security is getting in the way "The hajj is one of the great cultural and spiritual events on earth, but one which most of us know far less about than we do about things that happen in outer space and under the sea", says Taran Davies co-producer of Journey to Mecca a new Imax film about the hajj. The hajj, of course, is nothing new. Muslims have been performing this once in a lifetime act of worship for 1430 years. The institution is as old as the Ka?bah itself which according to traditions was established some 4000 years ago in the barren lands of central Arabia. The ceremony is commemorative of Prophet Abraham?s acts of devotion. However, over the centuries perceptions and expectations have changed. This change presents new challenges every year. What with the threat of security, accidents, fire and terrorists, the House of Saud finds every hajj season a bit unnerving and it is not surprising that – ...

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Whose Team Is It, Anyway?

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Nation - By Katha Pollitt - Nov. 20 (Opinion) - Pro-choice voters have been taking one for the team for too long now. Enough already.

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Church Of Scientology Accused Of Torture And Forced Abortions In Australia

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 23:30:08 -0800

Huffington Post - Nov. 18 -

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Colbert Destroys R.I. Governor For Denying Gay Couples Death Rights (VIDEO)

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Colbert Report - By Stephen Colbert - Nov. 17 (Comedy News) - Rhode Island Governor Don Carcieri vetoed legislation last week that would give same-sex couples the rights to claim the bodies of and make funeral arrangements for their deceased partners. He said such legislation was a "disturbing trend" signifying the erosion of traditional marriage.

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Temple Mount, also known as Noble Sanctuary, is a Jerusalem flash point

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Howard Schneider - Nov. 17 (Special Report) - It is one of the most watched pieces of real estate in the world, 35 acres where an under-the-breath prayer or a whiff of a rumor can rouse warnings of war.

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Renouncing Islamism: To the brink and back again

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Independent - By Johann Hari - Nov. 16 (Opinion) - In the mosques across the city, I hear a fringe of young men talk dreamily of flocking to Afghanistan to "resist". Yet this whisper never has an immigrant accent. It shares my pronunciations, my cultural references, and my national anthem. Beneath the beards and the burqas, there is an English voice.

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The Missing Link From Killeen to Kabul

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Frank Rich - Nov. 15 (Opinion) - THE dead at Fort Hood had not even been laid to rest when their massacre became yet another political battle cry for the self-proclaimed patriots of the American right. Their verdict was unambiguous: Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, an American-born psychiatrist of Palestinian parentage who sent e-mail to a radical imam, was a terrorist.

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Did Christianity Cause the Crash?

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Atlantic Monthly - By Hanna Rosin - Nov. 15 (Special Report) - "America's mainstream religious denominations used to teach the faithful that they would be rewarded in the afterlife. But over the past generation, a different strain of Christian faith has proliferated- one that promises to make believers rich in the here and now."Hair-raising and horrifying, truly scary, and truly sad. Jesus wept.

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Why Hillary Clinton babies Indonesia and bullies Pakistan

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Christian Science Monitor - By John Hughes - Nov. 14 (Opinion) - When Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton visited Indonesia earlier this year, she said: "If you want to know whether Islam, democracy, modernity, and women's rights can coexist, go to Indonesia." When she visited Pakistan recently, she was polite but much more critical in her words, basically accusing some government officials of sheltering Taliban and Al Qaeda terrorists.

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Does Obama need to speak more harshly about Islam?

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Slate - By Jacob Weisberg - Nov. 14 (Opinion) - Obama's olive-branch strategy may make America safer over the long term. In the short term, there's no empirical evidence that it has done so.

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Feds move to seize 4 mosques, skyscraper

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Seattle Times - By Adam Goldman - Nov. 13 (News) - Federal prosecutors took steps Thursday to seize four U.S. mosques and a Fifth Avenue skyscraper owned by a nonprofit Muslim organization long suspected of being secretly controlled by the Iranian government.

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Priest Attack in Florida Worries Muslim Leaders | Not in Our Town

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Not In Our Town - By Suefish - Nov. 13 (News Report) - Muslim leaders in Tampa, Fla., are concerned they might be seeing a backlash from last week’s attacks at Fort Hood. On Nov. 9, a Marine reservist attacked a Greek Orthodox priest who was visiting Tampa from Crete because he thought the clergyman was a Muslim “terrorist.” According to the police report, the priest followed the reservist into a parking garage to ask for directions. The reservist hit the priest with a tire iron, and called 911 to report a “terrorist” had attacked him after shouting “Allahu Akhbar,” "God is great" in Arabic. The priest does not speak Arabic. The reservist’s attorney countered that the priest had followed his client into the garage to sexually assault him. Tampa police spokeswoman Laura McElroy disputed that, telling reporters that Bruce did not mention a sexual attack when he called 911, and later changed his story several times.

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Catholic Church gives D.C. ultimatum on same-sex marriage issue

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Tim Craig, Michelle Boorstein - Nov. 12 (News Report) - The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington said Wednesday that it will be unable to continue the social service programs it runs for the District if the city doesn't change a proposed same-sex marriage law, a threat that could affect tens of thousands of people the church helps with adoption, homelessness and health care.

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Media, Money and Sun Myung Moon

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Media is a Plural - By Rory O'Connor - Nov. 12 (News Analysis) - “Moon looked on the media as almost the nervous system for a global empire. Moon was the brain, and the media are to be, or were to be, the communications vehicle for his body politic surrounding the globe.”

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Lobbyists for God

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Niv Elis - Nov. 12 (Special Report) - Businesses looking to have an impact on policy issues like health care and energy are teaming up with groups claiming to represent a powerful, well-known, but surprising figure: God. Faith-based lobbying groups, the likes of which played an important role in the civil rights movements, are resurgent in Washington, and savvy businesses are taking notice.

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God, the Army, and PTSD

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Boston Review - By Tara McKelvey - Nov. 11 (Special Report) - During the Iraq war, however, the great difficulty veterans experienced in getting psychiatric care—greater than before—was not a product of cost-cutting, but of conviction: many Bush administration officials believed that soldiers who supported the war would not face psychological problems, and if they did, they would find comfort in faith. In a resigned tone, one prominent researcher who worked for the VA, and asked that he not be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the press, explained that high-ranking officials believed that “Jesus fixes everything.” Benimoff and the others who returned with devastating psychological injuries found a faith-based bureau within the VA. At veterans’ hospitals, chaplains were conducting spirituality assessments of patients.

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Anti-Statism In America

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

New Republic - By John B. Judis - Nov. 11 (News Analysis) - Liberals and progressives have fared poorly in the face of this staunch anti-statist tradition, but there have still been periods when they have broken through and enacted major reforms--during Woodrow Wilson’s first term, Franklin Roosevelt’s first term, Lyndon Johnson’s first two years, and Richard Nixon’s first term. They succeeded for different reasons at different times, but several conditions recur.

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Israeli Rabbi's Guide to Killing Causes Firestorm

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

themedialine.org - By Benjamin Joffe-Wait - Nov. 10 (Review) - The book further states that Jews are permitted to kill children "If it is clear they will grow up to harm us." "If hurting an evil leader's children will pressure him to stop acting maliciously," Rabbi Shapira wrote, "you can hurt them."

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The Rush to Therapy

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By David Brooks - Nov. 10 (Opinion) - The well-intentioned public commentary that followed Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan’s rampage at Fort Hood shrouded the role militant Islam played in his actions.

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When God is Watching, People Are More Generous.

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Psychology Today - By Gad Saad - Nov. 09 (Opinion) - One argument in support of religiosity is that it makes people more moral. I am not particularly moved by this premise, as I find it a lot more impressive to be ethical, moral, kind, honest, and decent for reasons other than the fact that a "celestial dictator" (to borrow Christopher Hitchens' brilliant term) is watching over me. Moral and immoral acts are committed both by atheists and believers so neither group holds a monopoly over either form of behaviors.

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'Going Muslim'

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Forbes - By Tunku Varadarajan - Nov. 09 (Opinion) - "Going postal" is a piquant American phrase that describes the phenomenon of violent rage in which a worker--archetypically a postal worker--"snaps" and guns down his colleagues. As the enormity of the actions of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan sinks in, we

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Tears, tempers fly in Nancy Pelosi's campaign

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Politico - By Patrick O'Connor, John Bresnahan - Nov. 08 (News) - By Thursday, Ellsworth, who was working closely with Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) realized the church wouldn’t accept anything less than a version of Hyde, so he and his staff started working on a version the bishops could accept, aides said.

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Who Is a Jew? Court Ruling in Britain Raises Question

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Sarah Lyall - Nov. 08 (Special Report) - A case involving the admissions policy of a Jewish high school in London has potential repercussions for thousands of other parochial schools across Britain.

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Ft. Hood shooting suspect endured work pressure and ethnic taunts, his uncle says

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Los Angeles Times - By Richard Bourdeaux - Nov. 07 (News Report) - When Rafik Ismail Hamad last traveled from the West Bank to visit relatives in America, he was struck by the pressures one of his nephews was facing. The younger man, an American-born Muslim of Palestinian descent, spoke to his uncle of ethnic taunts by Army colleagues. He was haunted by the wartime disabilities of soldiers he treated as an Army psychiatrist, Hamad recalled, and was overwhelmed by a growing caseload he felt unable to manage.

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Bishops' backing may get bill to 218

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Politico - By Patrick O'Connor - Nov. 07 (News Report) - When Rafik Ismail Hamad last traveled from the West Bank to visit relatives in America, he was struck by the pressures one of his nephews was facing. The younger man, an American-born Muslim of Palestinian descent, spoke to his uncle of ethnic taunts by Army colleagues. He was haunted by the wartime disabilities of soldiers he treated as an Army psychiatrist, Hamad recalled, and was overwhelmed by a growing caseload he felt unable to manage.

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