Rap Sheet
Links on R&P from around the web
Iran’s President, in New York, Says Israelis Have No Mideast Roots
posted on September 25, 2012At The New York Times, Rick Gladstone and Neil MacFarquar report on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s comments at a breakfast meeting at the United Nations. Ahmadinejad said that Israelis do not have the same claim to land in the Middle East as Iranians because the Israeli state has only existed for 70 years. “They have no roots there in history … They do not even enter the equation for Iran,” Ahmadinejad reportedly said.
Our New Iran Plan Is to Help a Cult Gain Power. What Could Go Wrong?
posted on September 25, 2012At The New Republic, Owen-Bennett Jones reports that the U.S. State Department has recently decided to remove the MEK, an opposition group in Iran, from its list of international terrorist organizations. Jones acknowledges that this decision “changes little” in terms of Iranian domestic politics. But what the move does signal is a change in American perception of the MEK. “The MEK’s new squeaky-clean image stands in contrast to its history, much of which, ironically, is documented in State Department reports,” Jones writes. “As successive U.S. administrations have recorded, the MEK once killed American service personnel and businessmen and enthusiastically supported the kidnapping of U.S. diplomats in the 1979 Iran U.S. embassy siege.”
Should We Abandon Idea of Hell?
posted on September 25, 2012At CNN, Frank Schaeffer argues that the idea of hell, and who is doomed to spend eternity there, leads to conflict, war, and loss of life here on earth. “So whether you’re an atheist or not,” writes Schaeffer, “the issue of who’s going to hell or not matters because there are a lot of folks on this planet–many of them extraordinarily well-armed–from born-again American military personnel to Muslim fanatics, who seriously believe that God smiles upon them when they send their enemies to hell.”
Os Guinness on “A Free People’s Suicide”
posted on September 25, 2012At Values & Capitalism, Julia Thompson writes about Os Guinness’ recent speech before the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Citing Augustine, Guinness said that a people are defined by their love of the “thing held in common.” “Without a doubt, America’s supreme love is freedom,” Thompson writes. “And the health of a nation can be diagnosed through the health of its object of affection.”
GOP Rising Star Mia Love: “Anchor Baby”?
posted on September 25, 2012At Mother Jones, Stephanie Mencimer profiles Utah congressional candidate Mia Love and her history with American immigration policy. Today Love is running the Tea Party principles of fiscal discipline and a restrictive immigration policy. “Love doesn’t talk about this aspect of her family’s immigration story now that she’s running for Congress,” writes Mencimer. “[B]ut she once said in a little-noticed interview that her birth on US soil helped bring her siblings to America.”
For Voters It’s Still the Economy
posted on September 25, 2012A new survey conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found that for most American voters, the economy remains the most important issue this election year. Of the Americans polled, 87 percent said that the economy will be very a important factor in how they vote on election day. “Terrorism also has declined as a voting priority. Currently, 60% of voters say the issue of terrorism will be very important to their vote, down from 72% in August 2008.”
Read at Pew Research Center for the People & the Press
Victory Christian Center Sued over Alleged Rape of 13-Year-Old Girl
posted on September 25, 2012The Associated Press reports that the mother of a13-year-old girl has filed a lawsuit against Victory Christian Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, claiming that her daughter was raped by a former employee of the megachurch. “[The suit] seeks more than $75,000 and alleges that Victory Christian Center officials tried to conceal the allegation in an effort at ‘damage control,'” reports the Associated Press.
Dorothy Day’s Dynamic Orthodoxy
posted on September 25, 2012At Frist Things, William Doino Jr. writes about Dorothy Day’s continued influence on American Catholic thought. Father Malcolm Kennedy, a New York-based priest, recently spoke about Day’s devotion to her political and social goals, which included efforts to reform Catholic views on war and economics: “She was utterly faithful to her vocation,” said Kennedy. “There was nothing at all inauthentic about her.”
An Evangelical Is Back from Exile, Lifting Romney
posted on September 24, 2012At The New York Times, Jo Becker profiles Ralph Reed. The former head of the Christian Coalition, Reed is now working to get evangelicals to vote for Mitt Romney on election day. “White evangelicals are a crucial voting constituency, 26 percent of the 2008 electorate and overwhelmingly Republican in recent presidential cycles, exit polls show,” writes Becker. “With so few truly undecided voters left, bumping up evangelical turnout in swing states like Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, North Carolina and Ohio would almost certainly help Mr. Romney.”
Master and Commander on the Far Side of the Galaxy
posted on September 24, 2012The American Conservative’s Noah Millman reviews the new film, “The Master,” which is largely inspired by the early years of Scientology. Millman writes, “You would expect that a movie about a cult would show the titular Master to have a profound psychological hold on his followers, but this is not the case.” Instead, “virtually everybody involved in ‘The Cause’ seems to be perfectly lucid and, moreover, perfectly willing to be critical” of The Cause’s leader, Lancaster Dodd, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Read at The American Conservative