November 5, 2009 | 8:35 am

Westboro Baptist Church on ‘South Park’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

“South Park” last night made a subtle reference to the Westboro Baptist Church in an episode ridiculing loud, obnoxious motorcycle riders.

Apologies if this clip from “The F Word” causes you to guffaw quite rudely in the library.

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November 4, 2009 | 5:40 pm

UCLA Law: ‘Re-inventing the enemy within’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

The Critical Race Studies Program at UCLA School of Law has a great panel starting in about 15 minutes that I, sadly, won’t be able to attend. (It’s that time of the year: Yep, UCLA basketball is back.) The panel’s title is “Anti-Arab and Islamophobic Legal Discourse and Practice Beyond September 11th” and will feature, among others, Khaled Abou El Fadl.

This panel is the first in a series of CRS events that will address issues confronting Muslim/Arab communities in (and outside of) the U.S. since September 11th with a particular focus on whether and how this picture has changed since the advent of the Obama administration.  The remaining events in the series will take place over the 2009-10 school year, and will include more focused panels dealing respectively with sexuality and Islam, civil rights, immigrants’ rights issues, and the criminalization of Islamic philanthropy.

More events from this series, “Re-inventing the Enemy Within,” will follow.

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November 4, 2009 | 1:32 pm

Carrie Prejean sex tape—say it ain’t so

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Like me, you’ve most certainly been tired of the up-and-down saga of temporarily-Miss California Carrie Prejean for, oh, six months now. Well, the beat goes on.

TMZ is reporting that her demands of a $1 million settlement from the Miss California USA Pageant quickly and quietly disappeared when a lawyer for the pageant showed Prejean a home sex tape starring ... who else?

The video the lawyer showed Carrie is extremely graphic and has never been released publicly. We know that, because TMZ obtained the video months ago but decided not to post it because it was so racy. Let’s just say, Carrie has a promising solo career.

We’re told it took about 15 seconds for Carrie to jettison her demand and essentially walk away with nothing. As we first reported, the Pageant is paying around $100,000 to her lawyers and publicist—a fraction of her bills. She pockets nothing in the settlement.

If this post seems to only be serving prurient interests, it’s important to remind you how Carrie Prejean became a different kind of sex icon. For more:

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November 4, 2009 | 5:38 am

Planned Parenthood exec resigns after watching abortion

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I don’t know how often my GetReligion colleague Mollie Hemingway watches local television news from KBTX in College Station, Texas, but she came across a gem recently.

Mollie says the story, as broken by KBTX, raises more questions than it answers about the exact circumstances of the director of the Planned Parenthood in the Texas A&M area resigning. But what I found so interesting was that Abby Johnson, who had run the local Planned Parenthood office, had a change of heart after watching an abortion on an ultrasound and has now switched sides:

Johnson said she was told to bring in more women who wanted abortions, something the Episcopalian church goer recently became convicted about.

“I feel so pure in heart (since leaving). I don’t have this guilt, I don’t have this burden on me anymore that’s how I know this conversion was a spiritual conversion.”

Johnson now supports the Coalition For Life, the pro-life group with a building down the street from Planned Parenthood. Coalition volunteers can regularly be seen praying on the sidewalk in front of Planned Parenthood. Johnson has been meeting with the coalition’s executive director, Shawn Carney, and has prayed with volunteers outside Planned Parenthood.

Read the rest of Mollie’s post here and check the KBTX report above.

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November 4, 2009 | 12:21 am

Maine voters have no love for gay marriage

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

In California, it was Proposition 8. In Maine, it was Question 1.

Voters Tuesday repealed a state law allowing same-sex couples to wed:

Gay marriage has now lost in every single state — 31 in all — in which it has been put to a popular vote. Gay-rights activists had hoped to buck that trend in Maine — known for its moderate, independent-minded electorate — and mounted an energetic, well-financed campaign.

With 87 percent of the precincts reporting, gay-marriage foes had 53 percent of the votes.

“The institution of marriage has been preserved in Maine and across the nation,” declared Frank Schubert, chief organizer for the winning side.

Gay-marriage supporters held out hope that the tide would shift before conceding defeat at 2:40 a.m. in a statement that insisted they weren’t going away.

“We’re in this for the long haul. For next week, and next month, and next year — until all Maine families are treated equally. Because in the end, this has always been about love and family and that will always be something worth fighting for,” said Jesse Connolly, manager of the pro-gay marriage campaign.

Unlike in California, where a six-month period of gay marriage existed, Maine’s same-sex marriage bill, passed in the spring, had been on hold for the outcome of Tuesday’s vote.

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November 3, 2009 | 8:28 pm

Evangelism—there’s an app for that, too

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

There’s an app for Christian evangelists on Sunday mornings and for incredible productivity and incredible help. In fact, there an app for just about Christian evangelist need on the new iPhone ...

Wow, I feel like a shill. Full disclosure: I have an iPhone but no quid pro quo with Apple. Nor have I tried any of these applications. I’m more of a Words With Friends and Quordy guy myself (challenge me—I dare you).

Anyway, here’s a blog post reviewing 20 apps for Christians:

With more problems and followers than time, many Christian evangelists are finding out that their iPhone can be used for much more than phone calls. Below are the top 20 incredible iPhone Apps for Christian evangelists. The apps can help with prayer, Bible study, productivity, and much more.

The list starts here.

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November 3, 2009 | 8:18 am

What kind of atheist are you?

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

In case you missed it, NPR aired a piece last month about the widening divide between the in-you-face atheists and the nonbelievers who want to be more tolerant of their God-fearing friends:

“It’s really a national debate among people with a secular orientation about how far do we want to go in promoting a secular society through emphasizing the ‘new atheism,’ ” [Center for Inquiry’s Stuart] Jordan says. “And some are very much for it, and some are opposed to it on the grounds that they feel this is largely a religious country, and if it’s pushed the wrong way, this is going to insult many of the religious people who should be shown respect even if we don’t agree with them on all issues.”

Interesting as this story was, it wasn’t really that. It was a fresh perspective on a story that has been brewing under the surface for years. Read more about it at GetReligion.

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November 2, 2009 | 3:29 pm

In limbo with Ariel Sharon

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

It’s easy to forget, but Ariel Sharon, Israel’s legendary military leader and former prime minister, is still alive, trapped within his comatose self. Writing for the Daily Beast, Lynn Sherr compares Sharon’s status in limbo to that of the Mideast peace process—too healthy too die and too injured to work:

The irony is unavoidable. Ariel Sharon, who spent his early life expanding the territory of his native land, then abandoned his dream and evicted settlers from Gaza to shrink Israel’s borders in the quest for peace, remains locked inside the barest human boundaries, imprisoned in his own body. He was once so uncompromising—self-confident, supporters said—they called him The Bulldozer. Other names, too. “Arik, King of the Jews,” after his conquest of the Sinai during the Yom Kippur War. “Murderer,” after failing to prevent the massacres of Lebanese civilians at the Sabra and Shatila camps in 1982. Sensitive and cultured. Stubborn and cruel. No one was ever neutral about Arik Sharon. Still true.

To many, including members of the left wing who embraced Sharon when he pulled out of Gaza, he was the modern father of the nation, ultimately creating his own Nixon-in-China moment as the first to accept a two-state solution.

“I don’t want to compare him to anybody else,” says Israeli President Shimon Peres, “but there was nobody as good as he was.” Peres, 85, who joined the centrist party Sharon founded, Kadima, after decades of fighting Sharon from Labor, adds, with amusement, “You could always expect from him the unexpected. [Moshe] Dayan said about him, ‘I prefer a galloping horse which is difficult to stop than a lazy mule that doesn’t know how to start moving.’”

Dov Weissglas, a savvy Tel Aviv attorney who became Sharon’s trusted chief of staff, recalls the days when Israel was “a teeny, tiny country, a weird strip on the map, with about a million miserable refugees from all over the world.” Because of Sharon, he says, “the whole nation regained its confidence, to successfully survive in this goddamn place in the world. He and his generation became a sort of manifestation that yes, we can live here, we can do it: We can overcome, we can retaliate. He became a myth.”

Or, an anathema.

Sherr goes on in this really well-done essay. You can read the rest here.

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November 2, 2009 | 1:16 pm

Los Angeles has the best delis

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I’ve heard Jews refer to fellow MOTs as Larry-David-lox-and-bagel Jews—as if that’s a bad thing. Larry David is awesome, and what’s better than smoked salmon on a toasty bagel? Well, one thing: The No. 19 at Langer’s.

Honestly, much as I enjoyed my two years at The Jewish Journal, nothing made me sadder about leaving than separating myself from that artery-clogging, thick-cut pastrami on rye. (Don’t forget the Swiss cheese and Russian dressing.)

Don’t tell me eating isn’t a spiritual experience. And thank God—really, I do—that we’ve got such great food in LA, and Jonathan Gold to sift the wheat from the chaff.

In fact, journalist David Sax says we’ve got the best delis in the country:

Brace yourselves, New York, because what I am about to write is definitely going to piss a lot of you off, but it needs to be said: Los Angeles has become America’s premier deli city.

Wait ... Stop ... Put the gun down. It’s true.

Across the city’s sprawling acres, there are more delicatessens of a higher quality, on average, than anywhere else in America. Every time I visited one deli, I heard about three more. Despite their healthy image, far more Angelenos than native New Yorkers eat at Jewish delicatessens on a regular basis. Though the occasional tourist swings by, Jewish delicatessens in L.A. are thriving in the present, not trading on fabled pasts.

There has been no grand decline in the Los Angeles deli scene. Most are packed, sometimes around the clock, and not just with older Brooklynites like Larry King (who eats breakfast at Nate’n Al daily). The delis out there are bigger, are more comfortable, and ultimately serve better food than any other city in America, including the best pastrami sandwich on Earth. Los Angeles is both the exception to the rule of deli’s inevitable decline and the example for the rest of the nation of how deli can ultimately stay relevant. If we are to save the deli elsewhere, we can learn a lot from L.A.

OK, I think that’s going a bit far. I mean, Canter’s leaves a lot to be desired. But we’ve got Langer’s and ... mmmmm ... 4 million pounds of pastrami.

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November 1, 2009 | 1:18 pm

Pumpkins and popes

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Halloween is over, thus ending my run as Dr. Tobias Funke. It was pretty hopping in my neighborhood last night, where I previously noticed this pumpkin. (Anti-Semitic?) As usual, there was plenty of newsink spilled over the celebration of unholiness. But did the Vatican really “condemn” All Hallows’ Eve?

Tmatt says no:

First there’s the headline. Does the Vatican ever take a more nuanced stance on anything besides condemning?

But that’s beside the point. Read the story and see if you can find any material that is actually from the Vatican. Instead we get:

The Vatican issued the warning through its official newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, in an article headlined “Hallowe’en’s Dangerous Messages”. The paper quoted a liturgical expert, Joan Maria Canals, who said: “Hallowe’en has an undercurrent of occultism and is absolutely anti-Christian.”

Parents should “be aware of this and try to direct the meaning of the feast towards wholesomeness and beauty rather than terror, fear and death,” said Father Canals, a member of a Spanish commission on church rites.

OK, in addition to the problem with identifying the newspaper with the teaching authority of the Vatican, the article also misses a key point: Is the Vatican warning parents about Halloween, or about certain types of costumes and celebrations linked to Halloween? After all, the language — from a priest on a Spanish, not Vatican, commission — suggests that there are beautiful and wholesome ways to celebrate the holiday. Right?

Read on. There are other voices quoted and none of them are Vatican officials, let alone Vatican officials who make pronouncements on doctrinal matters.

Any other Halloween stories worth noting out there?

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November 1, 2009 | 11:04 am

American wins NYC Marathon

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

In London

Do you believe in miracles?

Meb Keflezighi, a fellow Bruin born in war-torn Eritrea, today became the first American to win the New York City Marathon in 27 years:

one of 11 siblings in a village with no electricity, Keflezighi now wears his American citizenship on his chest. He was the one American contender who wore the letters U.S.A. on his running top Sunday.

Keflezighi pointed to those letters as the Central Park crowd roared as he crossed the finish line first, capturing the first American victory since Alberto Salazar last won it in 1982. When his victory was assured, Keflezighi dropped to the ground, tears streaming down his face. It was the first marathon victory of his career and washed away years of American futility here.

“U.S.A. gave me all the opportunity in the world, education, sports, lifestyle,” Keflezighi said. “This is so special to me.”

More about the marathon here.

Eritrea, which borders Ethiopia in the Horn of Africa, isn’t a country many Americans know a lot about.

Here in Los Angeles, we have a fairly large Eritrean population, and I always enjoy talking with the chip runners and floormen at Hollywood Park, many of whom hail from the multi-ethnic country with three officials languages (Arabic, English and Tigrinya), about life there. The country is predominantly split between Muslims and Christians.

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