January 2008
35 posts
15 Rounds with Seymour Hersh →
Shiraz Janjua, Associate Producer Altmuslim’s Wajahat Ali tracks down a “surly” Seymour Hersh and manages to get a fair interview out of him. (Seymour Hersh is a highly regarded correspondent for The New Yorker and writes about the Middle East and US foreign policy.) The story behind the interview, and his attempts to track down Mr. Hersh, are more compelling even than what Mr....
Yes, Q-i-s Is a Word...and Boy, Does It Add Up!
Mitch Hanley, Senior Producer In a recent Sightings newsletter, the regular distribution from the Martin Marty Center at University of Chicago divinity school, Marty wrote about the religion statistics as reported by the World Christian Database. Among their findings are the following figures on Christians across the world. “Roman Catholics” claim 1,130,401,000…The 422,659,000...
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SOF Playlist Track: Cepia, Hoarse Mitch Hanley,...
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Pope Cancels, Crowd Applauds (but not why you... →
Trent Gilliss, Online Editor I’m guessing since we’re a public radio program a good number of you probably heard Sylvia Poggioli’s piece (I just love her style of reporting) on the brouhaha at Rome University. There’s a healthy debate going on within the Roman Catholic Church about the pope’s current proclamations and his former papers as Cardinal Ratzinger. But, I...
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Confronting a Teenager's Doubts
Shiraz Janjua, Associate Producer Cary Tennis, the smart, poetic, intelligent advice columnist for Salon, dispenses some of his usual brilliance to a teenager who seems to be outgrowing (subscription required, or free to view after ads) the faith and/or views of her parents. The danger of teaching a child only one absolute and inviolable set of rules is that when the child meets contradictions...
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A List Apart
Trent Gilliss, Online Editor The List Universe assembles all types of “top 15” lists. Well, they’ve started a series on religious and atheist thinkers. I couldn’t help note the contrast in quotes from the great 13th-century philosopher Thomas Aquinas: “Wonder is the desire for knowledge.” and one of America’s great 20th-century writers, Ernest Hemingway:...
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The Star Market →
Kate Moos, Managing Producer I love Marie Howe’s work, and her books What the Living Do and The Good Thief are favorites. Here’s a new poem I happened across in The New Yorker.
Muhammad's Bios
I’m conducting a tiny experiment: reading back-to-back biographies of Muhammad based on free books we got here at SoF: Tariq Ramadan’s In The Footsteps of the Prophet, and Karen Armstrong’s Muhammad: A Prophet For Our Time. Shiraz Janjua, Associate Producer
The Science of Morality
In the New York Times Magazine, renowned cognitive scientist Steven Pinker looks at the possible biological underpinnings to the human concept of morality. The wonderful public radio show Radio Lab also explored this issue a while back in one of their episodes. Shiraz Janjua, Associate Producer
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"Great Tunes for a Lazy Saturday" →
Trent Gilliss, Online Editor I take a lot of pleasure in reading blogs and newsfeeds, especially when I receive a Google alert notifying me that something’s been posted about SOF. Not only do I get to see what they’re saying about the program or a particular show, I get to learn something more about our own content or be exposed to a new band or idea. With that, I’m giving a...
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Polling Juggernauts and the Press →
Kate Moos, Managing Producer Some of us have been ranting and tearing our hair over the incredibly moronic and unhelpful horse race coverage of the presidential campaigns, especially leading up to the Iowa caucuses and then the New Hampshire primaries. While it’s gratifying to hear the pollsters and pundits be a little contrite in the wake of New Hampshire’s so-called...
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The Buddha Project →
Trent Gilliss, Online Editor The online photography magazine Lens Culture has compiled a fabulous group of images (over 300 now) of the Buddha in the far reaches of Asia to the grounds of the Golden Bears in Berkeley. A fair number of photography, design, architectural magazines and blogs — the ones I read — usually focus on the aesthetic, the theory, the economics, and so on of an object....
December 2007
7 posts
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“‘If any of these said persons come in love unto us, we cannot in...”
– from the Flushing Remonstrance, signed on Dec. 27, 1657, and cited in Kenneth T. Jackson’s Op-Ed article “A Colony with a Conscience” in The New York Times Trent Gilliss, Online Editor
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A Jewish Santa Claus
Trent Gilliss, Online Editor This wonderful anecdote about the late Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel brings deeper meaning to the holiday season and cultural relations: “In 1965, after walking in the Selma-to-Montgomery civil-rights march with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel was at the Montgomery, Ala., airport, trying to find something to eat. A surly woman...
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Five Things the Romans Did at Christmas →
Trent Gilliss, Online Editor Mary Beard’s blog at the Times Online is a lot of fun. And she quickly spots in on quirky similiarities between Saturnalia and the Christmas holiday.
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Touching Soles
Trent Gilliss, Online Editor One of the most difficult aspects of working at Minnesota Public Radio is that I often don’t get a chance to listen to public radio on the weekdays, especially during working hours. Thanks to a new baby boy, I was actually able to listen to a documentary on Alzheimer’s disease by a colleague and former producer at SOF, Brian Newhouse. It’s a...
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