Did ya ever notice that, for all the fuss about Supreme Court justices appointed by Republicans, Roe vs. Wade still stands?
Old Atlantic beats fresh Newsweek
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Not your father's FBI series
Today’s New York Times includes this report about Sleeper Cell, a 10-part Showtime series about a faithful Muslim named Darwyn (yes, we get it) who infiltrates a terrorist group. The Times mentions the producers’ goal of high realism, but also must grant that, while some Muslim FBI agents exist, there’s no way to know if any such agent has infiltrated a terrorist cell.
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Midway between homeschools and Capitol Hill
I’ve been too slow to praise Hanna Rosin’s profile of Patrick Henry College in the June 27 New Yorker, but it’s still available online.
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No complexity, please, we're Americans
Based on the previews ABC already had shown for Welcome to the Neighborhood, it was going to be a touchy-feely and maybe even pleasant version of a marathon course in cultural diversity. Sure, the premise had a creepy whiff of exploitation, which set people of various cultural backgrounds in competition for a house in a white suburb near Austin, Texas. Still, it held out the promise of crumbling stereotypes and group hugs and, well, at least a few hours of transcending the culture wars that even some of us culture-war-vultures sometimes find wearying.
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The creeping menace of diverse voices
Sometimes you know you’re doing the right thing simply because it’s the right thing to do. Other times, you know it’s right because you’re ticking off the right people.
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Did Cruise go OT-VII on Lauer?
As Tom Cruise makes the media rounds to talk up both War of the Worlds and Scientology, it’s beginning to feel as though he’s reprising his role as Frank T.J. Mackey, the strutting rooster of a motivational speaker in Magnolia. By now it would be unremarkable for Cruise to order that his next befuddled interviewer “respect the Thetan.”
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Another victory for Anglican nuance
Gene Robinson, the bishop of the Episcopal Church’s Diocese of New Hampshire, said at his consecration that the church could not buy the sort of publicity that his election and approval had attracted.
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You say Namaste, I say yoga-blessing-thank-you hands
Toward the end of the 2004 presidential election, I grew more curious about John Kerry’s habit of clasping his hands together and bowing to his audience. I’d seen the gesture before, mostly among Episcopal women who would say “Namaste” (which, they said, means “The God [or god] in me bows to the God in you”).
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The Sunday Times visits the pro-family petting zoo
Despite its patronizing “Well, duh” headline — “What’s Their Real Problem With Gay Marriage? (It’s the Gay Part)” — Russell Shorto’s 8,000-word essay for The New York Times Magazine strives to understand conservatives who oppose gay marriage. But just as these conservatives speak of gay couples as exotic and baffling people, Shorto treats the conservatives with a sense of bewilderment.
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