Times readers offer reasons.… Read the rest
Religious Right Shapes US Foreign Aid
Oct 9th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonSecular groups are losing funding.… Read the rest
Bush Injects Religion into Foreign Aid
Oct 9th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonHas systematically eliminated or weakened rules designed to enforce separation of church and state.… Read the rest
BBC Analyst Remembers Anna Politkovskaya
Oct 9th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonDespite huge pressures on Russia’s media to submit and conform, she investigated and reported abuses.… Read the rest
Custodians of their own morals
Oct 8th, 2006 6:54 pm | By Ophelia BensonI usually disagree with Cristina Odone, but she makes a reasonable point here.
… Read the restIn our romantic vision, these bearded men and apron-clad women offer the possibility of etching out a distinct path, removed from the ugly materialist world of big business and commercialism. The families’ tragedies is unbearably moving, yet the way this community is dealing with a gunman killing five young schoolgirls (and then himself) is disturbing…It’s not just TV and iPods they reject: it is schooling beyond 14, the emancipation of women and scholarship that questions a single interpretation of the sacred texts…Given their uncompromising ways, the Amish live in an apartheid of their own choosing. This can be dangerous, as we have seen with Catholic paedophile
Anna Politkovskaya 1958-2006
Oct 8th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonHer reporting won international recognition for exposing human rights abuses in Chechnya.… Read the rest
Russians Mourn Anna Politkovskaya
Oct 8th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonPolitkovskaya was due to publish an article on torture and kidnappings in Chechnya on Monday.… Read the rest
The Sunlight Foundation on Dennis Hastert
Oct 8th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe Prairie Parkway will run right past his new property. How handy.… Read the rest
Dennis Hastert’s Real Estate Deals
Oct 8th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonSpeaker’s net worth went from c. $300,000 to $6.2 million, partly thanks to an earmark he authored. … Read the rest
Domestic Violence Among the Amish
Oct 8th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘One person came to me for protection, but she can’t go to court because they don’t believe in it.’… Read the rest
Cristina Odone on the Amish
Oct 8th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIt’s not just TV and iPods they reject: it is schooling beyond 14 and the emancipation of women.… Read the rest
Jack Straw was Right to Lift the Veil on a Taboo
Oct 8th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonA symbol of women’s oppression which stretches back to the times of classical Greece.… Read the rest
The Goldilocks Problem
Oct 8th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonWhy is the universe ‘just right’?… Read the rest
Infallible cannoli
Oct 7th, 2006 5:43 pm | By Ophelia BensonWe’ve been hearing something lately about the expertise and, how shall I say, the best-mindedness (in the sense of being among the greatest minds of the past thousand years) of theologians. I’m not convinced. Actually I could put it more strongly than that, but I’ll just say I’m not convinced. No one has ever accused me of not being tactful. Okay lots of people have accused me of exactly that, but it was always a misunderstanding.
There are several reasons I’m not convinced; this article in the Times illustrates one or two.
… Read the restThe Pope will cast aside centuries of Catholic belief later this week by abolishing formally the concept of limbo…This week a 30-strong Vatican international commission of theologians, which
Students Flee Iraq’s Schools and Universities
Oct 7th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonAcademics, especially scientists, have been targeted for assassination. … Read the rest
Theologians Tweak Limbo Hypothesis
Oct 7th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonExperts find God’s ways of ensuring salvation cannot be known, ergo all are saved.… Read the rest
Cardinal Protests BBC ‘Attack’ on Pope
Oct 7th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonArchbish says viewers will recognize ‘a deeply prejudiced attack on a revered world religious leader.’… Read the rest
Infallible Pope Undecided on Limbo Question
Oct 7th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonSo for now limbo is neither here nor there.… Read the rest
Fanatiques sans Frontières Are on the March
Oct 7th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonTimothy Garton Ash says enemies of freedom are manifold and ubiquitous.… Read the rest
Read David Luban Instead
Oct 6th, 2006 8:08 pm | By Ophelia BensonA reader wondered in comments why B&W hasn’t done more to protest Bush’s torture bill. There are items on it in News, I pointed out. It’s also true that if you type ‘torture’ into B&W’s ‘Search’ you’ll get a lot of items, some of which are about FGM or ‘witchcraft’-related torture in Africa or India, but many of which are about Bush & co. Then there’s the fact that I only have two hands, as the saying goes, and I’m a bit pressed for time right now, and there are a lot of subjects to cover. But having said all that, I have been wanting to mutter something (but have also felt inadequate to the task), or rather squawk something … Read the rest