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POPSFundamentalism and history An article by TheRevealer.org's Jeff Sharlet on the relationship between American fundamentalist Christianity and the country's history. His trademark rambling, ethnographic, personal style.
9
POPSTorah Borntrager on "how I escaped the Amish" A young woman who was raised Amish, but who left the community at age 15, tells her story. This is an interview by Tim Ferris (the time-management guru) -- not what I expected to see at his blog at all, but I assume it's genuine.
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POPSA struggle for the heart of Islam? Sunni vs. Shiite tension heats up Fareed Zakaria remarks that al-Qaeda began as a pan-Islamic organization and has increasingly turned into an anti-Shiite one. He compares this internal conflict to the extraordinarily bloody struggles that decimated Europe following the Protestant Reformation. I'm a little skeptical ... but it's an interesting comparison.
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POPSThe Turner Diaries: "Bible of the racist right" I hate to give this site a link ... but for anyone who is interested in understanding the literature of "Racial Holy War," or the so-called "Christian Identity" movement (McVeigh was connected to this), this book is central.
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POPSReflections on James Dobson, child-rearing, and U.S. political discourse For some time, Dr. Dobson has been known for his insistence that a key component of parents' responsibility is the inflicting of controlled violence on their children in order to make them obedient, virtuous, and "God-fearing." Here a blogger considers links between Dobson's typical language of war, as pertinent to child-rearing, marriage and homosexuality, and foreign policy.
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POPS"Islam is of the devil": a Gainsville, FL church attracts controversy The photo and the pastor's comments pretty much speak for themselves. I probably wouldn't have clipped this except for the final paragraph in the clip -- "we are definitely trying to open up dialogue." This baffles me. I wonder what they're actually trying to accomplish -- presumably the primary purpose of the sign is illocutionary in nature. To the pastor, I would point out that "All things are lawful for me, but not all things are beneficial" (1 Cor. 6.12). Is this beneficial?
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POPSTezcatlipoca as an Aztec "trickster figure" An interesting, unusual perspective on Tezcatlipoca, the Aztec deity variously called "Lord of the Here and Now," "He Whose Slaves We Are," "Enemy on Both Sides," "Obsidian Blade," and "The Mirror's Smoke."
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POPSUSAF Counterproliferation Center Links from the USAF Air War College to white papers and research documents on terrorism. Includes work by some very widely known and respected researchers, both inside and outside the military, e.g. psychologist Jerrold Post.
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POPSBradley Burstyn, Haaretz: What 1967 did to Judaism Bradley Burstyn writes in Haaretz last week that 1967, in convincing rabbis that they could be generals and putting them in a position of providing spiritual sustenance to an occupying army, effectively destroyed Orthodox Judaism. A provocative claim.
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POPSA "celebration of guns" at a Kentucky church Some impressively paranoid quotations can be found in the article, suggesting (it seems to me) that the "parishioners" in this church expect that they will have to use their weapons against the government at some point in the not-too-distant future.
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POPSHuman sacrifice in nursery rhymes According to this commentator, the traditional rhyme "London Bridge is Falling Down" references the pagan custom of ritually sacrificing a young (human) victim at the occasion of building a bridge.
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POPSAn al-Qaeda "homegrown": Adam Gadahn The New Yorker profiles "Azzam al-Amriki" (Adam the American), a high-ranking media officer inside al-Qaeda. He's a Jewish convert to Islam from Orange County, CA.
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POPSChristianity Today on torture David Gushee for the evangelical Christian magazine Christianity Today on five theological grounds for the unequivocal and universal condemnation of torture by Christians, and why, from a Christian perspective, no exceptional circumstances can ever justify the use of torture. From February 2006.
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POPSOrange County mujaheddin? Both John Walker Lindh, the "American Taliban", and Adam Gadahn, now a high-ranking al-Qaeda operative, were white kids growing up in California not all that long ago. Julia Rabig looks at their past and the press coverage. From 2004.
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