Anasagasti List - Unequal Time, Aida Anasagasti, Aidita Anasagasti


 

 

 

 

\

 

 

 


INQUISITORIAL NEWS
LIGHT OF THE WORLD
Documenting the Folly of Faith,
the Aberrations of Belief,
the Ruse of Religion

VOLUME I
2009


VOLUME I ~ 2009

noose coverage

< YOU ARE HERE


VOLUME II ~ 2010

to view vatican venom
GO
DIRECT
.
PRESS, ESSAYS AND EDITORIALS
Clickon Images at LEFT for full texts

DAVID
BROOKS

The Hanukkah Story
By DAVID BROOKS
The New York Times, Op-Ed: December 11, 2009


Tonight Jewish kids will light the menorah, spin their dreidels and get their presents, but Hanukkah is the most adult of holidays. It commemorates an event in which the good guys did horrible things, the bad guys did good things and in which everybody is flummoxed by insoluble conflicts that remain with us today

Rabbis later added the lamp miracle to give God at least a bit part in the proceedings.


MINARET IN
ZURICH

Swiss Ban Building of Minarets on Mosques
By NICK CUMMING-BRUCE and STEVEN ERLANGER
The New York Times: November 29, 2009

GENEVA — In a vote that displayed a widespread anxiety about Islam and undermined the country’s reputation for religious tolerance, the Swiss on Sunday overwhelmingly imposed a national ban on the construction of minarets, the prayer towers of mosques,

GODDESS
GADHIMAI

Hindus at Festival to Sacrifice 200,000 Animals, Despite Protests
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
November 24, 2009

Nepal: Hundreds of thousands of Hindus gathered Tuesday in Bariyapur in southern Nepal, where they began to ritually slaughter more than 200,000 animals by slitting their throats with swords.

 




SHLOMO
SAND

Book Calls Jewish People an ‘Invention’
By PATRICIA COHEN
The New York Times: November 23, 2009


Despite the fragmented and incomplete historical record, experts pretty much agree that some popular beliefs about Jewish history simply don’t hold up: there was no sudden expulsion of all Jews from Jerusalem in A.D. 70, for instance. What’s more, modern Jews owe their ancestry as much to converts from the first millennium and early Middle Ages as to the Jews of antiquity.


WASHINGTON D.C.
ARCHBISHOP
DONALD W.
WUERL

The Church and the Capital
Editorial
New York Times: November 22, 2009


Gay people will eventually win full civil rights — including the right to marry — throughout the United States. Between now and then, there will be many more disputes like the one unfolding between the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington and the District of Columbia City Council over a bill recognizing same-sex marriages that could be voted on as soon as next week.

CHARLES COLSON

ROBERT P. GEORGE

TIMOTHY GEORGE
Christian Leaders Unite on Political Issues
"A Call of Christian Conscience"
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
The New York Times: November 20, 2009


Citing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. ’s call to civil disobedience, 145 evangelical, Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christian leaders have signed a declaration saying they will not cooperate with laws that they say could be used to compel their institutions to participate in abortions, or to bless or in any way recognize same-sex couples.

“We pledge to each other, and to our fellow believers, that no power on earth, be it cultural or political, will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence,” it says.

CATHOLIC
BUDDHIST
VOODOO
The Evolution of the God Gene
By NICHOLAS WADE
The New York Times: November 14, 2009


IN the Oaxaca Valley of Mexico, the archaeologists Joyce Marcus and Kent Flannery have gained a remarkable insight into the origin of religion.

During 15 years of excavation they have uncovered not some monumental temple but evidence of a critical transition in religious behavior. The record begins with a simple dancing floor, the arena for the communal religious dances held by hunter-gatherers in about 7,000 B.C. It moves to the ancestor-cult shrines that appeared after the beginning of corn-based agriculture around 1,500 B.C., and ends in A.D. 30 with the sophisticated, astronomically oriented temples of an early archaic state.

This and other research is pointing to a new perspective on religion, one that seeks to explain why religious behavior has occurred in societies at every stage of development and in every region of the world. Religion has the hallmarks of an evolved behavior, meaning that it exists because it was favored by natural selection.

For atheists , it is not a particularly welcome thought that religion evolved because it conferred essential benefits on early human societies and their successors. If religion is a lifebelt, it is hard to portray it as useless.
For believers, it may seem threatening to think that the mind has been shaped to believe in gods, since the actual existence of the divine may then seem less likely.


PATRICK
MAISONNEUVE

French Branch of Scientology Convicted of Fraud
By STEVEN ERLANGER
The New York Times: October 27, 2009


PARIS — The French branch of the Church of Scientology was convicted of fraud and fined nearly $900,000 on Tuesday by a Paris court. But the judges did not ban the church entirely, as the prosecution had demanded, saying that a change in the law prevented such an action for fraud.

Patrick Maisonneuve, the lawyer of the French branch of the Church of Scientology, spoke to the media after the sentence at a Paris court on Friday. The church said it would appeal.

The verdict was among the most important in several years to involve the group, which is regarded by the Internal Revenue Service as a religion in the United States but has no similar legal protection in France.


A MEMBER OF BANDA ACEH'S ALL-FEMALE SHARIAH POLICE SQUAD reprimanded Acehnese men for eating during the time for Friday prayer

Extremism Spreads Across Indonesian Penal Code
By NORIMITSU ONISHI
The New York Times: October 27, 2009


BANDA ACEH, Indonesia — Under Islamic law, or Shariah, the religious police have administered public canings for such things as gambling, prostitution and illicit affairs. But under a new Islamic criminal code that goes into effect this month, the Shariah police will be wielding a new and more potent threat: death by stoning for adulterers.

Members of the Shariah police, standing, reprimanded women in Banda Aceh for wearing clothing they judged to be too tight.

Most of Indonesia still lives up to its reputation for a moderate, easygoing brand of Islam, and Islamist parties suffered heavy losses in this year’s national elections. But how Aceh went from basic Islamic law to endorsing stoning in a few short years shows how a small, radical minority has successfully pushed its agenda, locally and nationally, by cowing political and religious moderates.


MARÍA LIONZA
MEN IN TRANCE ASKING FOR HELP
In Venezuela, Adoration Meets Blend of Traditions
By SIMON ROMERO
The New York Times: October 27, 2009


SORTE MOUNTAIN, Venezuela — A medium lit the candles around him. The pounding of drums filled the air. A crowd of pilgrims repeatedly shouted “fuerza” — strength — with such fervor that beads of sweat dropped from their brows. Even his tipple was ready: a helper poured Johnnie Walker Swing whisky into a hollowed
bull’s horn.



LAKEVIEW -
FORT OGLETHORPE HIGH SCHOOL

Barred From Field, Religious Signs Move to Stands
By ROBBIE BROWN
The New York Times: October 26, 2009


FORT OGLETHORPE, Ga. — In response to the Sept. 11 attacks, the football cheerleaders at a public high school here wanted to make the Bible a bigger part of Friday night games. So, to the delight of fans, they painted messages like “Commit to the Lord” on giant paper banners that the players charged through onto the field.

That eight-year-old tradition ended last month after a parent expressed concern that it could prompt a First Amendment lawsuit. Church and state were not sufficiently separate, the school district agreed, and the banners came down.

Now, a month later, the new policy has produced an unexpected result: more biblical verses than ever at football games, displayed not by cheerleaders but by fans sitting in the stands.


MAUREEN
DOWD

The Nuns’ Story
By MAUREEN DOWD
The New York Times: October 24, 2009

In 2004, the cardinal who would become Pope Benedict XVI wrote a Vatican document urging women to be submissive partners, resisting any adversarial roles with men and cultivating “feminine values” like “listening, welcoming, humility, faithfulness, praise and waiting.”

Nuns need to be even more sepia-toned for the über-conservative pope, who was christened “God’s Rottweiler” for his enforcement of orthodoxy. Once a conscripted member of the Hitler Youth, Benedict pardoned a schismatic bishop who claimed that there was no Nazi gas chamber. He also argued on a trip to Africa that distributing condoms could make the AIDS crisis worse.

The Vatican is now conducting two inquisitions into the “quality of life” of American nuns, a dwindling group with an average age of about 70, hoping to herd them back into their old-fashioned habits and convents and curb any speck of modernity or independence.


MAZEN ABDUL
JAWAD
60 Lashes Ordered for Saudi Woman
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS: October 24, 2009

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — A Saudi court sentenced a journalist on Saturday to 60 lashes after she was charged with involvement in a television show in which a Saudi man talked about sex.

The journalist, Rozanna al-Yami, 22, is believed to be the first female Saudi journalist to be given such a punishment.


ARTHUR RAY

For Some Seeking Rebirth, Sweat Lodge Was End
By JOHN DOUGHERTY
The New York Times: October 21, 2009

SEDONA, Ariz. — Midway through a two-hour sweat lodge ceremony intended to be a rebirthing experience, participants say, some people began to fall desperately ill from the heat, even as their leader, James Arthur Ray, a nationally known New Age guru, urged them to press on.
But by the end of the ordeal on Oct. 8, emergency crews had taken 21 people to hospitals. Three have since died.
Mr. Ray’s company, James Ray International, made $9.4 million in 2008 from events including weekend seminars with titles like “World Wealth Summit,” videos and books, including the 2008 best-seller “Harmonic Wealth: The Secret of Attracting the Life You Want.”
On a conference call Mr. Ray held last week for sweat lodge participants, Dr. Bunn was shocked to hear one recount the comments of a self-described “channeler” who visited Angel Valley after the retreat. Claiming to have communicated with the dead, the channeler said they had left their bodies in the sweat lodge and chosen not to come back because “they were having so much fun.”
Dr. Bunn had a less charitable view: “They couldn’t re-enter their bodies because they were dead.”


Photo: Yana Paskova for The New York Times

Rowan Williams
Anglican archbishop of Canterbury


VINCENT NICHOLS
Catholic archbishop of Westminster

Vatican Bidding to Get Anglicans to Join Its Fold
By RACHEL DONADIO and LAURIE GOODSTEIN
The New York Times: October 20, 2009

VATICAN CITY — In an extraordinary bid to lure traditionalist Anglicans en masse, the Vatican said Tuesday that it would make it easier for Anglicans uncomfortable with their church’s acceptance of female priests and openly gay bishops to join the Roman Catholic Church while retaining many of their traditions.

Anglicans would be able “to enter full communion with the Catholic Church while preserving elements of the distinctive Anglican spiritual and liturgical patrimony,” Cardinal William J. Levada , the prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith , said at a news conference here.

It was unclear why the Vatican made the announcement now. But it seemed a rare opportunity, audaciously executed, to capitalize on deep divisions within the Anglican Church to attract new members at a time when the Catholic Church has been trying to reinvigorate itself in Europe.

Photo: Matt Dunham/Associated Press


JOSHUA DuBOIS,
Director of
Faith Based
Initiatives,
and
PRESIDENT
OBAMA

Faith-Based Discrimination
Editorial
The New York Times: October 14, 2009


President Obama promised in his campaign to preserve President George W. Bush’s faith-based initiative aimed at helping social service programs sponsored by religious organizations win federal grants and contracts. He also promised a vitally important change: groups receiving federal money would no longer be allowed to hire employees on the basis of their religion.

The idea was to prevent discrimination and preserve the boundary between church and state. But Mr. Obama has not made good on the promise.

CROSS
at
MOJAVE
NATIONAL
PRESERVE
The Constitution and the Cross
EDITORIAL
The New York Times: October 6, 2009

When the Supreme Court takes up a religion case, it often prompts overheated charges: There is a war against Christianity under way; or civil liberties groups are trying to turn this into a secular nation. The court is scheduled to hear arguments on Wednesday in a case that raises none of these issues — even though Americans may well be treated to another round of scare stories.

The narrow question is whether a large cross that has been placed on federal land violates the establishment clause of the First Amendment, the founders’ direction that there must be a wall of separation between church and state. The court should rule that it does.

BENEDICT XVI
Pope Ends Czech Visit With Warning About Power
Max Rossi/Reuters
The New York Times: September 28, 2009

PRAGUE — Ending a three-day trip here aimed at fighting secularism, Pope Benedict XVI told about 40,000 of the faithful on Monday that the collapse of the Communist system had shown the price paid by those who chase power and deny God.

The pope came to this decidedly skeptical nation as part of a Continentwide mission to urge the unbelieving out of their collective apathy.
But while Benedict’s visit has been warmly received by the country’s Roman Catholics, the pope has been faced with the overwhelming indifference of a nation unmoved by religion.

During his visit to the Czech Republic, where civil unions between gay men and lesbians have been legal since 2006 and abortion has been permissible for decades, the pope avoided delicate social issues.

Yet many Czechs said his mission here had been futile. “Catholicism is not going to catch on here where cynicism and ‘What’s the point?’ are the national ideology,” said Dominik Jun, 31, a filmmaker. “More Czechs believe in infomercials on television than they do in religion.”


Max Rossi/Reuters

PASTOR
MAZOLA
MAFFE
Fight Nights and Reggae Pack Brazilian Churches
By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO
The New York Times: September 14, 2009

SÃO PAULO, Brazil — The atmosphere was electric at Reborn in Christ Church on “Extreme Fight” night. Churchgoers dressed in jeans and sneakers, many with ball caps turned backward, lined a makeshift boxing ring to cheer on bare-chested jujitsu fighters.

They screamed when a fan favorite, Fabio Buca, outlasted his opponent after several minutes. They went wild when Pastor Dogão Meira, 26, took his man down, pinning him with an armlock just 10 seconds into the fight.

With the crowd still buzzing, Pastor Mazola Maffei, dressed in army pants and a T-shirt, grabbed a microphone. Pastor Maffei, who is also Pastor Meira’s fight trainer, then held the crowd rapt with a sermon about the connection between sports and spirituality.

PAUL R.
SHANLEY
Ex-Priest Challenges Abuse Conviction on Repressed Memories
By KATIE ZEZIMA and BENEDICT CAREY
The New York Times: September 10, 2009


BOSTON — Paul R. Shanley, 78, a defrocked Roman Catholic priest at the center of the clergy abuse crisis here, was convicted in 2005 of raping and assaulting a 6-year-old boy while serving as a priest in suburban Boston, in a case that hinged on memories of abuse the accuser said he had repressed and recovered decades later.

Mr. Shanley, a controversial street priest who worked with runaways, troubled youth and denounced the Roman Catholic Church’s stance on homosexuality, was accused of abuse by about 24 people. But only the case of the accuser, now a 32-year-old suburban Boston firefighter, made it to trial.

HIJACKED
OVER
MEXICO

Mexican Police Secure Hijacked Plane
By MARC LACEY

The New York Times: September 9, 2009


MEXICO CITY — Federal police raided a Boeing 737 at Mexico City airport and freed more than 100 passengers on Wednesday afternoon ....

... there was only a single hijacker, José Mar Flores Pereira, 44, a Bolivian citizen who has lived in Mexico for 17 years and identified himself as a Christian pastor who had spoken to God.

Mr. Flores told authorities that he had a divine intervention that the date — Sept. 9, 2009, or 9/09/09 — had a connection to 666 and that Mexico might suffer a devastating earthquake as a result.

He said he had seen the devil in the Mexican flag and he called on [Mexican president Felipe] Calderon to assemble the population in the Zocalo, Mexico City’s enormous central square. “Awful things are coming,” he said

Mr. Flores, who initially told the authorities that he had had three accomplices, later explained that he had been helped by the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.


SISTER
LAUREN
HANLEY
L.I. Nun Charged with DWI after nearly Running over Kids
Mona Rivera reports
1010WINS: 03 September 2009


Sister Lauren Hanley, 68, of the St. Frances de Chantal Church in Wantagh, was arrested Tuesday evening and charged with misdemeanor drunken driving after she allegedly drank a half a bottle of gin at church, got behind the wheel, and crashed into a tree, authorities  said.

A bottle of liquor was found in the car and she had a blood alcohol level of more than twice the legal limit, prosecutors said.

The "spiritual development director" reportedly told investigators that she began drinking earlier in the afternoon.

KARTIKA SARI
DEWI SHUKARNO

Malaysian Court Puts Caning of Woman Who Drank Beer on Hold
(Until after Ramadan)
By THOMAS FULLER
The New York Times: August 25, 2009


BANGKOK — Malaysian authorities gave a last-minute, temporary reprieve on Monday to a Muslim woman sentenced to whipping for drinking alcohol in a case that has stirred passions over the increasingly strict enforcement of Islamic law in recent years in the multicultural country.

Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno, a 32-year-old nurse who confessed to violating Islamic laws by drinking beer in a hotel lobby last year, was detained by prison authorities on Monday but was then quickly released. The authorities said Ms. Kartika’s punishment — which would be the first whipping for a woman under the country’s Islamic laws — would be carried out in September, after the Muslim holy month of Ramadan was over.

“The sentence remains,” said Mohamed Sahfri Abdul Aziz, the chief of religious affairs in Pahang State, according to Malaysian media. “She has been released but only temporarily.”

“We’ve allowed this huge Islamic bureaucracy to grow over the last three decades,” Amir Muhammad, an author and filmmaker, said in a telephone interview from Kuala Lumpur, the capital. “The laws were there to show that this is something we disapprove of. But people did not expect them to be enforced that rigidly.

FOLLOWUP
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times: August 25, 2009

Malaysia's home minister indicated the caning -- which had been expected to be administered this week -- was unlikely to be carried out, arguing the prisons department did not have staff with the expertise to administer the caning according to Shariah laws.


CENTRAL ASIA
Central Asia Sounds Alarm on Islamic Radicalism
By CLIFFORD J. LEVY
The New York Times: August 17, 2009

KOSH-KORGON, Kyrgyzstan — The three men were locals who were said to have once crossed into nearby Afghanistan to wage war alongside the Taliban. They then returned, militant wayfarers apparently bent on inciting an Afghan-style insurgency in this tinderbox of a valley in Central Asia. By late June, they were holed up in a house here, stockpiling Kalashnikov rifles and watching pirated DVDs of martial arts movies....

The fervency of some in the Fergana Valley (Afghanistan) was evident in Friday Prayer in a recent visit to a nearby mosque, whose imam was killed in 2006 by security forces after being accused of extremism. The mosque is a meeting place for followers of Hizb ut-Tahrir, a worldwide Islamist group that wants to establish a pan-national Muslim state, called a caliphate, albeit nonviolently.

“The people in Afghanistan who are helping the Americans have sold out their faith, sold out their consciences,” said Noomanjan Turgunov, 60, one of the worshipers. “We support the Taliban because they are upholding and fighting for our faith — it is for Islam,” he said. “Only God knows for sure whether the Taliban will come here or not. But if you ask me, I think that they will come. Our president has sold out our faith for a little money from the Americans.”


GLORIA
&
KENNETH
COPELAND

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Believers Invest in the Gospel of Getting Rich
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
The New York Times: August 15, 2009


FORT WORTH — Onstage before thousands of believers weighed down by debt and economic insecurity, Kenneth and Gloria Copeland and their all-star lineup of “prosperity gospel” preachers delighted the crowd with anecdotes about the luxurious lives they had attained by following the Word of God.

Private airplanes and boats. A motorcycle sent by an anonymous supporter. Vacations in Hawaii and cruises in Alaska. Designer handbags. A ring of emeralds and diamonds.

“God knows where the money is, and he knows how to get the money to you,” preached Mrs. Copeland, dressed in a crisp pants ensemble like those worn by C.E.O.’s.


MUHAMMED
CARTOON
by
KURT
WESTERGAARD
Yale Press Bans Images of Muhammad in New Book
By PATRICIA COHEN
The New York Times: August 12, 2009


Reza Aslan, a religion scholar and the author of “No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam,” ... decided to withdraw his supportive blurb that was to appear in the book after Yale University Press dropped the pictures. The book is “a definitive account of the entire controversy,” he said, “but to not include the actual cartoons is to me, frankly, idiotic.”

GOLD TEETH
FORCIBLY
EXTRACTED

Somalia: Teeth Are Removed by Force on Religious Grounds
Reuters: August 10, 2009

“I am afraid they want to make money from taking all this precious metal,” said one victim.


LUBNA
AHMED
AL-HUSSEIN

Woman Threatened With Lashes for Wearing Pants
Journalist Fights Charges in Sudanese Court
By DANA HUGHES

ABC News: July 29, 2009

Sudanese journalist Lubna Ahmed al-Hussein was arrested along with 12 other women, accused of indecency and threatened with 40 lashes for wearing trousers to a restaurant. Not hot pants. Not shorts. Rather long dress pants, which the police said ran afoul of the largely Muslim country's strict sharia law.

Several of the women took their punishment, 10 lashes and a $100 fine, on the spot.


DR. FRANCIS
COLLINS
with
GEORGE W.
BUSH
Science Is in the Details
By SAM HARRIS
The New York Times: July 26, 2009


There is an epidemic of scientific ignorance in the United States. This isn’t surprising, as very few scientific truths are self-evident, and many are counterintuitive. It is by no means obvious that empty space has structure or that we share a common ancestor with both the housefly and the banana. It can be difficult to think like a scientist. But few things make thinking like a scientist more difficult than religion.

Dr. Collins has written that “science offers no answers to the most pressing questions of human existence” and that “the claims of atheistic materialism must be steadfastly resisted.”

...Francis Collins is an accomplished scientist and a man who is sincere in his beliefs. And that is precisely what makes me so uncomfortable about his nomination. Must we really entrust the future of biomedical research in the United States to a man who sincerely believes that a scientific understanding of human nature is impossible?

MOTHER
MARY CLARE
MILLEA

U.S. Nuns Facing Vatican Scrutiny
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
The New York Times: July 2, 2009

The Vatican is quietly conducting two sweeping investigations of American nuns, a development that has startled and dismayed nuns who fear they are the targets of a doctrinal Inquisition.

“Next time, let’s have our women religious study the quality of life of our male clerics.”
~ TOM FOX
Editor of The National Catholic Reporter


PASTOR
KEN
PAGANO
Pastor Urges His Flock to Bring Guns to Church
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
The New York Times: June 25, 2009


LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Ken Pagano, the pastor of the New Bethel Church here, is passionate about gun rights. He shoots regularly at the local firing range, and his sermon two weeks ago was on “God, Guns, Gospel and Geometry.” And on Saturday night, he is inviting his congregation of 150 and others to wear or carry their firearms into the sanctuary to “celebrate our rights as Americans!” as a promotional flier for the “open carry celebration” puts it.

“God and guns were part of the foundation of this country. I don’t see any contradiction in this. Not every Christian denomination is pacifist.”

HOMOSEXUAL
EXORCISM
Video of 'Gay Exorcism' at Conn. Church Sparks Outrage
1010WINS/AP: June 23, 2009

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (AP)  -- The video shows the 16-year-old boy lying on the floor, his body convulsing, as elders of a small Connecticut church cast a "homosexual demon'' from his body.

"Rip it from his throat!'' a woman yells. "Come on, you homosexual demon! You homosexual spirit, we call you out right now! Loose your grip, Lucifer!''

SEEKING
ISLAM'S
BANNER
IN IRAN
In Iran, Both Sides Seek to Carry Islam’s Banner
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
The New York Times: June 21, 2009

In the battle to control Iran’s streets, both the government and the opposition are deploying religious symbols and parables to portray themselves as pursing the ideal of a just Islamic state.

“If either the reformists or the conservatives can make reference to Islamic values in a way that the majority of citizens understand, they will win,” said Mohsen Kadivar, a senior Iranian religious scholar teaching Islamic studies at Duke University .

Perhaps most important, the outcome may determine the support the government enjoys among the ideological zealots who form the backbone of the security forces. Some Iran experts see the level of violence in the week ahead as crucial in the tug of war over Islam.

DANOK
PAGODA
in Yangon
Myanmar
An Ancient Pagoda’s Collapse Turns Myanmar’s Gaze to the Stars
By SETH MYDANS

The New York Times: June 17, 2009

BANGKOK — It cannot have pleased Myanmar’s ruling family: the collapse of a 2,300-year-old gold-domed pagoda into a pile of timbers just three weeks after the wife of the junta’s top general helped rededicate it.

There is no country in Asia more superstitious than Myanmar, and the crumbling of the temple was seen widely as something more portentous than shoddy construction work.

RELIGIOUS
FREEDOM
Religious Freedom vs. Sanitation Rules
By SEAN D. HAMILL
The New York Times: June 13, 2009


NICKTOWN, Pa. — In 29 years of enforcing sewage laws in Pennsylvania, Jack E. Crislip has never faced violators more adamant...than members of the ultraconservative Swartzentruber Amish sect.

...“If you don’t do the correct sewage things,” Mr. Dumm added, “we all get sick.”

Told of his neighbor’s feelings, Mr. Yoder, 54, was polite but resolute. “You hear people say that we have to live the way they do, but we can’t do that,” he said. “Our forefathers, that’s why they came across the sea, for religious freedom.”

DOCTOR
GEORGE
TILLER


SCOTT
ROEDER

CHRISTIAN KILLS CHRISTIAN OVER CHRISTIAN VALUES IN CHURCH

A
bortion Doctor Shot to Death in Kansas Church
By JOE STUMPE and MONICA DAVEY
The New York Times: May 31, 2009


WICHITA, Kan. — George Tiller, one of only a few doctors in the nation who performed abortions late in pregnancy, was shot to death here Sunday in the foyer of his longtime church as he handed out the church bulletin.

“God Sent the Shooter”


Abortions, Bibles and Bullets, And the Making of a Militant
By DIRK JOHNSON,
New York Times: August 28, 1993

Rachelle Renae Shannon


BISHOP
NICHOLAS
DiMARZIO
Bishop Avidly Opposes Bill Extending Time to File Child-Abuse Suits
By PAUL VITELLO
The New York Times: June 4, 2009

Bishop Nicholas A. DiMarzio of Brooklyn repeated a warning this week that he has leveled at lawmakers for months: If the statute of limitations on child sex-abuse lawsuits is temporarily lifted, as pending state legislation proposes, a cascade of very bad things will happen.

His Roman Catholic diocese and others will go bankrupt. Bishops like him will be forced to close churches and schools. And wrathful constituents will punish the politicians who, in his view, will have made this all happen.

HIS
EXCELLENCY
PRESIDENT
PROFESSOR
DR. AL-HAJI
YAHYA
JAMMEH
Witch Hunts and Foul Potions Heighten Fear of Leader in Gambia
By ADAM NOSSITER
The New York Times: May 21, 2009

JAMBUR, Gambia — This tiny West African nation’s citizens have grown familiar with the unpredictable exploits of its absolute ruler, who insists on being called His Excellency President Professor Dr. Al-Haji Yahya Jammeh: his herbs-and-banana cure for AIDS, his threat to behead gays.... But then came a campaign so confounding and strange that the citizens are still reeling and sickened from it.... The president, it seems, had become concerned about witches in this country....

To the accompaniment of drums, and directed by men in red tunics bedecked with mirrors and cowrie shells, dozens, perhaps hundreds, of Gambians were taken from their villages and driven by bus to secret locations. There they were forced to drink a foul-smelling concoction that made them hallucinate ... and in some cases killed them....

The objective was to root out witches, evil sorcerers who were harming the country....

ARCHBISHOP
VINCENT
NICHOLS
Catholic Archbishop Explains Remarks on ‘Courage’ of Abusers
By Robert Mackey
The New York Times: May 21, 2009


The new head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, Archbishop Vincent Nichols — who said on Wednesday that it “TAKES COURAGE” for members of the clergy in Ireland who abused children “to face these facts from their past, which instinctively and quite naturally they’d rather not look at.”


ST. JOSEPH’S
INDUSTRIAL
SCHOOL

 

 


JOHN
BANVILLE

Report Details Abuses in Irish Reformatories
By SARAH LYALL
The New York Times: May 21, 2009


LONDON — Tens of thousands of Irish children were sexually, physically and emotionally abused by nuns, priests and others over 60 years in a network of church-run residential schools meant to care for the poor, the vulnerable and the unwanted, according to a report released in Dublin on Wednesday.

The Vatican had no response.

FOLLOW-UP / OP-ED
A Century of Looking the Other Way
By JOHN BANVILLE
May 22, 2009

DUBLIN -- EVERYONE knew. When the Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse issued its report this week, after nine years of investigation, the Irish collectively threw up their hands in horror, asking that question we have heard so often, from so many parts of the world, throughout the past century: How could it happen?


DONALD
RUMSFELD

Biblical Quotes Said to Adorn Pentagon Reports
By DAVID E. SANGER
The New York Times: May 18, 2009

WASHINGTON — A series of cover sheets for intelligence reports written for Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and other senior Pentagon officials during the early days of the war in Iraq in 2003 were adorned with biblical quotations....

...photographs of soldiers praying or in action on the sands of Iraq were overlaid with quotations like this one from Isaiah: ”Their arrows are sharp, all their bows are strung; their horses’ hoofs seem like flint, their chariot wheels are like a whirlwind.” Another, showing a tank at sunset, had this quotation from Ephesians: “Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.”


CHILD
WITCHES
OF NIGERIA
Abuse of child 'witches' on rise
By Faith Karimi
CNN: May 18, 2009


Nigerian boy called a witch: "They would take my clothes off, tie me up and beat me" Children with unusual markings, stubbornness or epilepsy make frequent targets Director of nonprofit says accused often incarcerated in churches for weeks on end Pastors have been accused of worsening the problem, aid workers say.

"I beat him severely with canes until they broke, yet he never shed a tear," said Eshiett Nelson Eshiett, 76. "One day, I took a broom to hit him and he started crying. Then I knew he was possessed by demons. ... Nigerian witches are terrified of brooms." From that day two years ago, Christian, now 14, was branded a witch. The abuse intensified.

REMBERT G.
WEAKLAND
Ex-Archbishop Speaks About Catholic Church and Homosexuality
The New York Times: May 15, 2009


In spring 2002, as the scandal over sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests was escalating, the long career of Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland of Milwaukee, one of the church’s most venerable voices for change, went up in flames one May morning.

CHARLES M.
BLOW
Defecting to Faith
By CHARLES M. BLOW
The New York Times: May 1, 2009

“Most people are religious because they’re raised to be. They’re indoctrinated by their parents.” So goes the rationale of my nonreligious friends.
...

While science, logic and reason are on the side of the nonreligious, the cold, hard facts are just so cold and hard. Yes, the evidence for evolution is irrefutable. Yes, there is a plethora of Biblical contradictions. Yes, there is mounting evidence from neuroscientists that suggests that God may be a product of the mind.
Yes, yes, yes. But when is the choir going to sing? And when is the picnic? And is my child going to get a part in the holiday play?

More Atheists Shout It From the Rooftops
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
The New York Times: April 26, 2009

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Two months after the local atheist organization here put up a billboard saying “Don’t Believe in God? You Are Not Alone,” the group’s 13 board members met in Laura and Alex Kasman’s living room to grapple with the fallout.

The problem was not that the group, the Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry, had attracted an outpouring of hostility. It was the opposite.


Bo
One Obama Search Ends With a Puppy Named Bo
By HELENE COOPER
The New York Times: April 12, 2009
In spite of its title, what is this article about, Dog or God?

SAMUEL G.
FREEDMAN
A Man’s Existentialism,
Construed as Blasphemy
By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN
The New York Times: On Religion, March 20, 2009

FRANK RICH
The Culture Warriors Get Laid Off
By FRANK RICH
The New York Times: March 14, 2009


Suddenly, Sand Bags and Potshots at Post 1
By DEXTER FILKINS
Published: July 2, 2006

RAMADI, Iraq, July 1 — It is a lonely night on the rooftop of the government center in this rubble-strewn town, and Lance Cpl. Joseph Hamlin is talking about his life.

"I'm 19; I'll be 20 in September," he says, his face shrouded in the darkness. "I'm from western Georgia, on the Alabama line. LaGrange. They say it's the biggest little city in Georgia. It means 'the farm' in French. Lafayette was there."

Corporal Hamlin is at Post 1, overlooking downtown Ramadi from the northwest corner of the government center. His post is a concrete-block hut covered in sand bags. It has just enough room for two people....

Every few minutes or so, Corporal Hamlin picks up his night-vision scope and peers down the alley that juts out directly north from his post....

"Jeff Foxworthy, he bought some land in LaGrange," Corporal Hamlin says.... He bought some land down there to hunt on. It's good hunting."

He peers into the scope of his rifle.

"I'm a decent shot. Pretty good," he says. "Not like the snipers...."

"What do I hunt? Whatever is in season: deer, squirrel, turkey, dove. I love to hunt. If could have a job where money didn't matter, I'd be a hunter."

Corporal Hamlin has laid out four weapons: an M-240 belt-fed machine gun, an M-16 rifle, an M-79 grenade launcher and a rifle called a Sam-R that he especially likes.

"It's like my .308 Remington — it's got a free-floating barrel, too," he says. "That's my favorite."
...
Cradling the Sam-R, he looks into the blackness. ... "It's not like all you have to do is be quiet and still and just shoot whatever comes by. Like a duck blind. These guys will play. A turkey don't play. A turkey don't shoot back. He just turns around and runs. They shoot back."

The night wears on....

Midnight nears. Corporal Hamlin turns back to his favorite subject. "Oh yeah, they got pigs down there. They like to play. You shoot one of them with a .357 right in the head and they keep running. My dad got gored by one of them once. That's some cool hunting.

"I want to kill some bear.
I want to go with a bow. A long bow. Not even a compound bow," he says. "You know the difference? A compound bow has the pulleys. Long bow is just the bow. I want to go with a long bow. Kill a big-ass bear."
...
I lived [in China]. I learned martial arts. Aikido, which is Japanese. Tae kwon do, which is Korean. I'm a second-degree black belt."

"If I had a choice between this, martial arts and hunting, I'd take hunting easy. No alcohol, womens or anything like that, like some guys...."

"I shot a couple of guys," he says. "When you're young, seeing movies and everything, you're brought up to think killing is wrong. That's what people do in gangs. Weird. You just shoot. They attack you. Either you are going to shoot and go back to your family or they are going to kill you and keep on killing everyone else. I don't really know what to think of it."

"If I shoot, I get to go back to my family, my girl," he says.

He scans the streets through his rifle scope.

"I'm a Christian. East Vernon Baptist Church."

Corporal Hamlin is silent for a time. "I asked other people before what it was like to kill somebody. I wasn't sure I could kill somebody. I didn't know what it would be like. Now, I don't know if I feel that much...."

Another young voice enters from outside Post 1. It is Corporal Hamlin's relief. He's been six hours on post. It's midnight, time for bed.

"Good talking to you," he says.

The corporal picks up his rifle and walks downstairs.



THE ANASAGASTI LIST
UNEQUAL TIME





ROBERT COANE 2010 © All rights reserved