Posts tagged "kathryn joyce"
Kathryn Joyce on Mormons and the Religious Right’s “Common Ground”
"Glenn Beck’s efforts to transform himself from Fox News demagogue into a religious leader for Tea Party America has a lot of commentators discussing the feasibility of a Mormon convert leading a wary evangelical and Catholic right in a faith-driven cause. While there are significant roadblocks hindering Beck’s quest for leadership in the Christian Right,...
More Babies
In a recent article for AlterNet Bill Berkowitz describes the fear of European population decline -- so-called "birth dearth" or, as used to evoke the horrors of nuclear winter, "demographic winter" -- "as a catchphrase for turning the discussion [about declining birth rates and rising population age in the West] into another battle...
Theocracy, Eh?
23 January 2006 Pilgrim Harper brings the culture wars north. By Kathryn Joyce From Le Cornichon A smart and serious fundamentalist runs for his nation’s top leadership position, and the paper of record, The New York Times, responds with a 100% religion-free story? Can it be? Well, it’s not without precedent. When George W. Bush ran for...
Subjective Fluff and the BBC
When the God-Beat-beat goes parliamentary, do the same standards of criticism apply? Do the same subjective questions religion-beat critics use to evaluate religion coverage — questions about the selection or reporting of religion stories, about the reporter’s tone and level of respect or understanding of the subject matter, or just one critic’s personal sense of...
We See Empire
America finds a new all-purpose metaphor for discontent. By Kathryn Joyce Pat Buchanan sees the dusty ghost of the Roman Empire reincarnating itself in America today, and fears that it’s led us — by way of Iraq — to “the cusp of a perhaps inevitable decline.” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham (SC) sees waning glory too,...
What God Gap? Part 4
TV News to Believers: Behave! By Kathryn Joyce Tuesday night, August 31st — the well-publicized A31 day of civil disobedience; when the police pre-emptively swooped down on protest groups, or what looked like protest groups, on reporters and observers and hapless shoppers passing by, arresting them before they starting protesting, reporting, watching, or shopping; when...
L’il Ol’ Me
When White House appointees claim impotence, why doesn’t the press do more than giggle? By Kathryn Joyce The appointment of anti-abortion and anti-birth control advocate Dr. W. David Hager to the FDA’s Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee apparently seems like such an oxymoron that, two years later, people still can’t believe it happened. Emails urging...
The Prodigal Press Sins No More
Since when is the press this polite? by Kathryn Joyce All of the usual mud was thrown, partisan guns drawn and pseudo-”larger questions” raised after the Deal Hudson scandal broke several days ago. The story of how Bush’s top Catholic adviser resigned in anticipation of the publication of a report detailing his sexual abuse of an intoxicated...
The Last Man on Earth: A Romance
By Kathryn Joyce “Back in 1985 [Margaret Atwood] was highly amused by the initial reactions to her Orwellian novel. In Britian they said, ‘Jolly good yarn.’ In Canada, ‘Could it happen here?’ In America, ‘How long have we got?’” –Paul Bentley, A Handmaid’s Diary In my father’s favorite dark fantasy he is Mr. Mead...
Civil Rights, 40 Years On
By Kathryn Joyce Nationwide, the media today marked the 40th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, which outlawed discrimination in public places on the basis of race, color, religion or national origin. Earlier this week NPR aired Barbara Bradley Hagerty’s three-part series on religion in the workplace, exploring the increasingly common implementation of “faith-friendly” corporations; the coercive effect felt by some...
Re-Branding Revolution
Are media misconceptions of evangelicals about to start working in their political favor? By Kathryn Joyce After The Los Angeles Times reported on the draft of new Christian-political guidelines being considered by the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), the blogosphere buzzed about Larry Stammer’s “expose” of the “top-secret document“—intended for “private circulation” among NAE members, but cunningly...
Godzilla, Born Again
The original Godzilla, a parable of atomic hubris, is playing in America for the first time. Is its hero — a suicide bomber — even scarier than the monster? By Kathryn Joyce “I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.” –1 Corinthians 9:22 “I am...
