Category Archives: culture

Belly Dancing and Magic Spells

Posted on July 3, 2013 by Andrew Stuttaford

Florida.newszap.com reports: PAHOKEE—Pahokee residents, church members, and pastors are outraged over an upcoming event at the Lake Okeechobee Resort and Marina. The marina will be hosting its first Lake Okeechobee Summer Solstice Festival – a program that organizers hope will … Continue reading →

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Of Monks and Monetary Union

Posted on June 23, 2013 by Andrew Stuttaford

Cross-posted on the Corner: The New York Times ran this oddly revealing story a day or so back: [L]ate last year, the National Bank of Slovakia announced that the European Commission, the union’s executive arm, had ordered it to remove … Continue reading →

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Rick Perry’s “Merry Christmas”

Posted on June 16, 2013 by Andrew Stuttaford

MSN reports: AUSTIN, Texas — Texas Gov. Rick Perry on Thursday signed a law protecting Christmas and other holiday celebrations in Texas public schools from legal challenges — but also stressed that freedom of religion is not the same thing … Continue reading →

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Awe Shucks

Posted on June 11, 2013 by Andrew Stuttaford

There’s quite a bit of vitriol splashed around in this new post by Sam Harris, and, as so often with his work, there’s also much that’s worth discussing at length, but for now let’s just note that the point that … Continue reading →

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The Empty Church

Posted on June 3, 2013 by Andrew Stuttaford

The Welsh poet R.S. Thomas was an Anglophobic Anglican vicar with a hatred of modernity, but he can be forgiven a lot for the first four lines of his poem, The Empty Church, singled out in this recent article in … Continue reading →

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About That First Amendment Thing

Posted on May 3, 2013 by Andrew Stuttaford

CBS Pittsburgh: PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – Students at Carnegie Mellon say it’s freedom of expression, but the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh calls it inappropriate and disrespectful. At an annual art school parade, a female student dressed up as the pope, and … Continue reading →

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Bird Brain

Posted on April 14, 2013 by Andrew Stuttaford

The Wall Street Journal reports: CARACAS—Nicolás Maduro, the one-time bus driver widely expected to become Venezuela’s next president in Sunday’s elections, has resorted to an unusual campaign gimmick in the past week: At nearly every stop, he has suddenly broken … Continue reading →

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“Islamophobia”

Posted on April 7, 2013 by Andrew Stuttaford

In an earlier post here, Mr. Hume and Jackson Doughart, reacting to an exchange between Glenn Greenwald and Sam Harris, discuss (amongst many things) the way that the notion of ‘Islamophobia’ has been used to try to stifle those who … Continue reading →

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What Americans ‘Believe’

Posted on April 7, 2013 by Andrew Stuttaford

Here’s the Guardian in full “wacky Americans” mode: About one in four Americans suspect that President Barack Obama might be the antichrist, more than a third believe that global warming is a hoax and more than half suspect that a … Continue reading →

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In the 21st Century

Posted on February 10, 2013 by Andrew Stuttaford

A hideous story from NBC: Assailants stripped, tortured and bound a woman accused of witchcraft, then burned her alive in front of hundreds of witnesses in a Papua New Guinea town, police said Friday after one of the highest profile … Continue reading →

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