When it comes to religion, Ned Flanders generally steals all the thunder for references to faith and The Simpsons. L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s daily newspaper, shook things up for a day offering some quality fodder for religion blogs by declaring Homer Simpson as Catholic. We could probably create a context out of this, but check out some of the headlines:

Vatican Claims Homer Is Catholic; Saints Go Begging (NPR)
D’oh! Vatican declares Bart and Homer Simpson Catholic (CNN)
IS THE DOPE CATHOLIC? The Vatican blesses Homer Simpson (despite what the show says) (Washington Post)

But never fear. There were some publications that actually took the news seriously. Here’s the basic report from Reuters.

“Few people know it, and he does everything to hide it. But it’s true: Homer J. Simpson is Catholic”, the Osservatore Romano newspaper said in an article on Sunday headlined “Homer and Bart are Catholics.”

The newspaper cited a study by a Jesuit priest of a 2005 episode of the show called “The Father, the Son and the Holy Guest Star”. That study concludes that “The Simpsons” is “among the few TV programs for kids in which Christian faith, religion and questions about God are recurrent themes.”

Entertainment Weekly went so far as to get reaction from a Simpsons producer.

Simpsons HQ is flattered and amused by the attention from the Vatican. “My first reaction is shock and awe,” exec producer Al Jean tells EW.com, “and I guess it makes up for me not going to church for 20 years.” That said, Jean is quick to throw not-so-holy water on the Homer-is-Catholic assertion, pointing out that the family attends the First Church of Springfield, which is decidedly Presbylutheran. “We’ve pretty clearly shown that Homer is not Catholic,” he says. “I really don’t think he could go without eating meat on Fridays—for even an hour.”

The Telegraph’s piece actually offers some context from the past.

It is not the first time that the Vatican newspaper has praised The Simpsons. Last December, as the television series celebrated its 20th anniversary, the paper said that “the relationship between man and God” is one of its most important themes and that it often mirrored the “religious and spiritual confusion of our times”.

Once a staid and sober paper of record, L’Osservatore Romano has ventured into popular culture in the last three years under a new editor, commenting on everything from The Beatles and The Blues Brothers to the blockbuster film Avatar and the Harry Potter books and films.

It’s a fun, light-hearted story that offers the chance to highlight something larger going on at the newspaper and perhaps in the culture there. Besides, it appears that the editors at the Vatican newspaper has something in common with Rowan Williams.

When news broke on Monday about the death of a prominent pro-life activist, I expected to read about it in the conservative and pro-life press. But I wasn’t so sure what to expect in terms of the mainstream media.

Dr. Mildred Jefferson was a legend in the movement. She was involved from the beginning, having helped found the National Right to Life Committee and serving three consecutive terms as its president. She was also an inspiration to younger activists and her many admirers. The mainstream media, of course, are not known for their thorough coverage of those who oppose abortion.

However, there was one other thing about Jefferson’s life that made her newsworthy. Here’s how The New York Times handled it:

Dr. Mildred Jefferson, a prominent, outspoken opponent of abortion and the first black woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School, died Friday at her home in Cambridge, Mass. She was 84.

Jefferson’s achievements, which also include becoming the first female surgical intern at Boston City Hospital and first female doctor at the former Boston University Medical Center, are important. But I think it’s proper and fitting to begin with her work fighting against the practice of abortion.

But what really marks this obituary, short as it is, is that its writer gave full treatment to Jefferson’s beliefs about abortion. He didn’t avoid them or treat them as unacceptable — he simply presented them:

Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion, “gave my profession an almost unlimited license to kill,” Dr. Jefferson testified before Congress in 1981. …

“With the obstetrician and mother becoming the worst enemy of the child and the pediatrician becoming the assassin for the family,” Dr. Jefferson continued to testify, “the state must be enabled to protect the life of the child, born and unborn.”

The Associated Press mentioned Jefferson’s death, but only barely. But the Boston Globe also allowed Jefferson to state her own beliefs:

Dr. Jefferson was small in stature — Fox believes she often wore hats so she would not disappear into a crowd — but she did not shrink from controversy. And she was not afraid to use blunt analogies to state her views. In a 2003 profile in the antiabortion magazine American Feminist, Dr. Jefferson said the antiabortion movement was “second only to the abolitionist movement” in the way it changed American thinking.

“I am at once a physician, a citizen, and a woman, and I am not willing to stand aside and allow this concept of expendable human lives to turn this great land of ours into just another exclusive reservation where only the perfect, the privileged, and the planned have the right to live,” she told the magazine.

While Jefferson’s pro-life activism wasn’t religious in nature, I was curious to find out more about her religious beliefs. The Globe gave a hint — Jefferson was the only child born to a Methodist minister and a school teacher.

The headline on the recent Time cover story tried to set an epic tone, summing up a story that was going to courageously explore an election season that has intimidated politicians (mostly on one side of the political aisle) and, thus, has intimidated journalists.

Cue the music. A fanfare please. Please place your right hand over your heart.

An American Journey

6,782 miles. 12 states. 24 days. 576 songs. One road trip reveals the issues people are talking about — but politicians aren’t.

Once again, I cannot link to the complete Joe Klein essay, because Time no longer posts the texts for several weeks. Have I missed an actual pattern? I’m a subscriber, obviously, and I cannot figure this out. Input, need input.

Anyway, here is a link to the thumbnail version, which gives you a bit of the flavor. Here is Klein’s overture to what Time editors clearly see as a kind of sweeping first-person opera of truth telling:

I found the same themes dominant everywhere — a rethinking of basic assumptions, a moment of national introspection. There was a unanimous sense that Washington was broken beyond repair. But the disgraceful behavior of the financial community, and its debilitating effects on the American economy over the past 30 years, was the issue that raised the most passion, by far, in the middle of the country. Many Americans also were confused and frustrated by the constant state of war since the terrorist attacks of 9/11. But for every occasion they raised Afghanistan, they mentioned China 25 times; economics completely trumped terrorism as a matter of concern.

Road trips are nourishment for the mind and the soul, if not the body (given the quality of roadside food); from Huckleberry Finn to The Hangover, they have been a classic American pastime. The trip exploded my personal Beltway Bubble, which turns out to be more a state of mind and a set of habits than an actual place. Driving 6,782 miles in four weeks, I was forcibly weaned from my usual engorgement of newspapers, magazines, blogs and books. I watched no more than 15 minutes of cable news per day but listened to music obsessively. I was cleansed and transformed, a news junkie freed from junk news, and able to experience Americans as they are — rowdy and proud, ignorant and wise.

So where is one supposed to go to hear the voice of the true America? I can’t link to the Time map, but you can draw it in your mind as I list the stops Klein made in his pilgrimage.

Our pilgrim starts in New York City, of course.

Next up? Allentown. Philadelphia. State College, Pa. West Middlesex/Youngstown. Columbus. Detroit. Chicago. Madison. Sharon, Wisc. St. Louis. Boontown, Mo. Kansas City. Des Moines. Denver. Colorado Springs. Phoenix. Las Vegas/Pahrump. Sebastopol, Calif. Sacramento/Yuba City. Los Angeles/Pasadena.

Guess what? This election is all about the economy. It isn’t simply that the economy is the main issue, which it clearly is, but it is the only issue. Oh, President Barack Obama is also a major issue, as is Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. But it seems that when Americans open their heart, from coast to coast, what they want to talk about is economics — issues that are framed almost precisely the way they will be framed the next time that someone whose last name is Clinton steps to a podium to deliver a campaign address.

Of course, it helps if one goes nowhere near the Bible Belt, other than, of course, a few select corners of the Midwest. It is significant that Klein mainly hits the industrial Midwest, with the exception of the Village of Sharon.

But wait, you say, what about Colorado Springs? Isn’t that the center of theocratic America?

Maybe, although that is a very complex community. And, besides, I cannot find a single word in Klein’s piece that appears to be drawn from encounters in the homeland of Focus on the Family. I guess everyone there was silent.

So here’s the news: The angst and the rampant anger that is making America such a dangerous place right now are completely rooted in secular, faith-free issues. There are no cultural, moral or religious issues at play at the moment. And there will be no wave of post-election data from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life that demonstrates, once again, that frequent visits to pews or sanctuaries have anything to do with how Americans make their decisions when they pull levers in voting booths.

So those of you who are interested in religion news have no reason whatsoever to read this particular Time cover story. Issues of culture, morality and religion will play no role whatsoever in this election season. The Time team listened to America and America — mostly the blue zip codes — has spoken.

I’m certainly no fashionista. Most of my shirts are of the T variety, and I’m still rocking a lot of the clothes I acquired (second hand) in high school. So take with a grain of salt the following evaluation of a recent Los Angeles Times article about Islamic headscarves getting fashionable.

The article, a Column One, focused on the “edgier” hijab designs of Marwa Atik. And this evolution of the hijab is cast as a microcosm for tension in the Muslim American community over how to assimilate.

Reporter Raja Abdulrahim writes:

The hijab has long been a palette of sorts for changing styles and designs, and shops across the Middle East are replete with colors and shapes that can vary from region to region. Some women in the Persian Gulf region wear their hair up in a bouffant with the scarf wrapped around it like a crown. Syrians are known for cotton pull-on scarves, the hijab equivalent of a T-shirt. And in Egypt veiled brides visit hijab stylists who create intricate designs and bouquets of color atop the bride’s head.

But Atik’s experiments with the hijab, which is meant as a symbol of modesty, are created with an eye toward being more adventuresome and risky.

To some, the trend heralds the emergence of Westernized Muslim women, who embrace both their religion and a bit of rebellion.

But to others in the Muslim community, what Atik is doing flies in the face of the head scarf’s purpose. When the scarf is as on-trend as a couture gown, some wonder whether it has lost its sense of the demure.

That’s a completely believable premise. And Abdulrahim backs it up with voices from the community. Sort of.

The voices in support of the more fashionable headscarves are spot on. In addition to Atik, her family and friends, Abdulrahim talks with Hijabulous blogger Alaa Ellaboudy, whose blog is all about keeping the hijab absolutely fabulous.

But when it comes to voices opposing flashier designs that treat the hijab as an expressive article of clothing and not just a religious constraint, the story is a bit thin. All we get is this:

Eiman Sidky, who teaches religious classes at King Fahd mosque in Culver City, is among those who say attempts to beautify the scarf have gone too far. In countries like Egypt, where Sidky spends part of the year, religious scholars complain that women walk down the street adorned as if they were peacocks.

“In the end they do so much with hijab, I don’t think this is the hijab the way God wants it; the turquoise with the yellow with the green,” she said.

Really? Maybe it is just the way Sidky is described, but she sounds like the Muslim equivalent of a Sunday school teacher. Hardly an authoritative voice. Further, as I’m sure we GetReligionistas have noted ad nauseum, world religions are really, really big streams, and you can always find a fish willing to swim against the current.

Also of significance: There is no deep discussion in this article about why Islam instructs women to wear the hijab. The article reference modesty, but it’s a different type of modesty than the yarmulke. Where does the concept come from and why is is threatened, or not, by more stylish or, heaven forbid, sexy headscarves?

As your GetReligionistas have noted many times, it’s pretty obvious that many people — including more than a few mainstream reporters — are confused about the meaning of the word “evangelical.” Heck, I’m not sure that I know what that word means anymore and I used to be one. The Rev. Billy Graham once told me that he wasn’t sure how to define “evangelical.” Honest.

For the most part, many journalists seem to think that “fundamentalist” means people (we don’t like) who believe that some truths are absolute and eternal (especially if the doctrines in question are linked to the Sexual Revolution). So what about “evangelical”? It seems that “evangelical” has simply become a political term for religious conservatives. Somewhere, I imagine, there is an Orthodox Jewish leader who will soon be hailed as a powerful “evangelical.”

Anyway, please note the USA Today headline and key references in the actual text of the following Associated Press report (drawn from the Wilmington, Del., News Journal) about the every colorful Christine O’Donnell of Delaware:

The headline: “Christine O’Donnell reins in evangelical talk.”

And here’s a look at the top of the story:

When the energy and conservative fervor of the Tea Party swept into Delaware this year, it found Christine O’Donnell.

She had long been an outspoken crusader for chastity, against abortion and for prayer in schools.

O’Donnell didn’t merely join groups that shared her moral certitude, she founded an advocacy group and became a leading voice in others, staking out positions against sex education, urging that biblical creationism be taught in schools, and professing that homosexuality is a sickness. She seamlessly turned that enthusiasm toward politics.

Just four years ago, she told The (Wilmington, Del.) News Journal that during the primary she “heard the audible voice of God. He said, ‘Credibility.’ It wasn’t a thought in my head. I thought it meant I was going to win. But after the primary, I got credibility.”

These days, she talks more about the Constitution than the Bible. After knocking off longstanding U.S. Rep. Mike Castle, a moderate Republican attacked by the Tea Party Express for occasionally voting with Democrats, O’Donnell recast her campaign. She steered clear of the talking points that made her popular with talk-show hosts and conservative commentators. …

“My faith has influenced my personal life,” O’Donnell said Wednesday night at a Republican speaking engagement. “My faith hasn’t really influenced my politics.”

This report, of course, describes her infamous 1997 visit to Bill Maher’s show Politically Incorrect in which she confessed that she “dabbled into witchcraft.” It mentions that she attended Fairleigh Dickinson University and majored in theater. It notes that she converted to evangelical Protestantism in college. It mentions that she opposes abortion, believes that homosexual behavior is sinful, that masturbation is sinful, etc., etc. These are all “evangelical” stances, apparently. It is especially bad, of course, that she believes that some people — attention devotees of the Kinsey Scale — change their sexual behaviors during their lifetimes in ways that suggest sexual orientation is often not a matter of black and white certainty.

Wait, she converted to evangelicalism? Converted from what, you ask? From Catholicism, of course.

However, it is interesting to note that this AP report never mentions her Catholic upbringing and, most importantly, it does not mention that, as an adult, O’Donnell returned to the Catholic faith.

In fact, unless my search engine is broken and I am blind, it does not appear that this news story contains the word “Catholic.” This candidate is, apparently, still an “evangelical.” Search the text for yourself.

Meanwhile, the candidate is not hiding her church affiliation, as she demonstrated in the most quoted clip from that Delaware debate. The New York Times political team noted:

As she did throughout the first half of the debate, Ms. O’Donnell quickly tried to return the focus to Mr. Coons, saying, “I would argue there are more people who support my Catholic faith than his Marxist belief.”

Now, if you write for The Huffington Post, this is how you can deal with O’Donnell’s return to the Catholic fold:

Delaware is 29 percent Catholic. Mike Castle, Christine O’Donnell’s opponent for the senate nomination, is Catholic. Christine O’Donnell was born Catholic but renounced the church when she was in college, and became whatever backwoods claptrap was going. When she started running for office all the time, she converted back. Which sounds pretty convenient, but then, the prodigal son came home when he ran out of money, too.

Apparently, if one is an editor at the Associated Press, it is also possible to simply call her an “evangelical” — whatever that means — and be done with it.

Catholic? Apparently not. Silence is golden and, in this case, politically important.

PS: Oh, it goes without saying that comments should deal with the journalism issues in this news report — not with one’s views of either of the candidates in this race. This is not the place to debate whether one agrees or disagrees with O’Donnell’s religious beliefs.

A columnist at the Wall Street Journal used to regularly feature snippets from sports columnists who fancied themselves political pundits. You’d be expecting a nice piece on the last golf tournament but you’d instead get some tirade about the Iraq War or how awful President Bush is.

But I think that The New Yorker gets a special prize for its treatment of the Berenstain Bears in an app review. Except that rather than review the current top-selling book app at the iPhone App Store — “The Berenstain Bears and the Golden Rule” — Ian Crouch says something is deeply troubling in Berenstainland:

I was thrilled to read that my favorite bears remain popular with kids today, and a new platform means new readers. Then I noticed something odd about this incarnation of the Berenstains: they’d become practicing Christians! The golden rule is just the kind of sensible, even-handed moral that I remember from my old favorites, but in the new app, the universal theme is tied directly to a Biblical source: Matthew 7:12. “Golden Rule” is part of the “Living Lights” series of Berenstain books published by Zonderkidz, a division of Zondervan, a Christian publisher based in Michigan. (The app is produced in association with Oceanhouse Media.) Other titles in the series include “The Berenstain Bears Say Their Prayers,” “The Berenstain Bears Go to Sunday School,” and “The Berenstain Bears: God Loves You.”

The singular quality of the series always seemed to be the everyday fallibility of the characters; they could be mean-spirited, selfish, territorial, and gluttonous (they’re bears after all), but by the end of each book, they would redeem themselves—restored to their better selves by the steadying influence of trusty humanist values and good cheer. God never seemed to have anything to do with it. Now, I’m faced with the unthinkable: would these once agnostic Reagan-era bear creatures now vote Tea Party in the next election?

Um, this is just utterly bizarre. Saying prayers, going to Sunday School and believing that God loves you might be views that some in the Tea Party hold. But what does it say about The New Yorker that these activities are so beyond the pale that they think that only those awful Tea Partiers do them?

I mean, I actually know political liberals who pray, go to Sunday School and believe that God loves them, too!

Not to mention, that if these completely anodyne ever-so-slightly-religious themes are so shocking, what would The New Yorker do if the Berenstains got into more particular religious themes? I’m laughing, while considering all this, but also sort of crying on the inside.

Sigh.

Crouch gives an update where we learn that he and a few others believed the Berenstains were Jewish. Apparently one of the original illustrators was raised Jewish while the other — his wife — grew up Episcopalian. This led Crouch and a few others to believe that the books were Jewish, I guess. But son Mike, who now illustrates the books with his mom, says the Christian line is in response to appreciative Christian buyers of the books.

All I remember is that my prank-prone family once tried to convince my brother that his true parents were Stan and Jan Berenstain. I have absolutely no idea why they did this.

Despite remarkable popularity and obsessive fans not seen since the head Deadhead died, Insane Clown Posse manages to attract little attention from music critics or cultural commentators. (For the uninitiated, look upon their wikipedia, ye mighty, and despair.) But despite the amazingly off-putting profanity and sexual imagery of Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope’s horrorcore lyrics, clearly these two rappers have a powerful ability to connect with what I think it’s fair to characterize as an alienated and disaffected fan base. I think the ICP phenomenon is probably a lot more complex than and interesting than it appears, even though cultural elites seem to disdainfully regard it as something unfortunately endemic among the lower classes like the musical version of methamphetamine. (Then again, there’s probably a lot of overlap on the ICP fans and meth users venn diagram.)

So when the Guardian reported (profane language warning) last weekend that the Insane Clown Posse was outing themselves as “evangelical Christians” I wasn’t entirely surprised. Last year, after seeing a viral video for ICP’s bizarre concert festival, “The Gathering of the Juggalos,” (also NSFW) out of morbid anthropolgical curiosity I spent some time learning about the group. I was struck by how many religious themes the band’s “Dark Carnival” mythos seemed to embrace. Indeed, The Guardian notes that the capstone to a cycle of six concept albums was a song called “Thy Unveiling” that actually caused some controversy among ICP fans when it was released in 2002. The song goes a little something like this:

[Expletive] it, we got to tell.

All secrets will now be told

No more hidden messages

…Truth is we follow GOD!!!

We’ve always been behind him

The carnival is GOD

And may all juggalos find him

We’re not sorry if we tricked you.

How on earth do you square this with so many other offensive and unChristian things that ICP sing about? In June, ICP explained it to a New Jersey newspaper this way:

Violent J has no problem explaining why Insane Clown Posse couched a spiritual message within such violent, profane and sexual language.

“That’s the stuff that people are talking about on the streets. So in other words, to get attention, you have to speak their language,’ he said. “You have to interest them, gain their trust, talk to them and show you’re one of them. You’re a person from the street and speak of your experiences. Then, at the end you can tell them God has helped me out like this, and it might transfer over, instead of just come straight out and just speak straight out of religion.”

That’s interesting, but not a whole lot to dig into and it really doesn’t begin to address the scope of contradiction here. But whereas the quote above is just an aside in a larger article about ICP, the Guardian devoted an entire article to specifically discussing the group’s religion. Beyond the fact they declare themselves Christians, we learn absolutely nothing about the specifics of their faith and beliefs. They’re described as “evangelical” — but why? We’re not sure. Where do they go to church? Why did they decide on this, uh, particular vehicle for spreading the good news? And interestingly, back in the late 90s, when ICP was signed to Hollywood Records — a Disney subsidiary — the label recalled an ICP’s album the day it was released and dropped the band because it appears Disney was concerned about being protested by the Southern Baptist Convention. It sure would be interesting to ask the band about that in light of recent revelations.

There are many specific questions that the revelation of their faith prompts, yet we get nothing aside from some broad platitudes about God’s creation while discussing the band’s infamous “Miracles” video. (Again, profanity.) Since the Guardian outed ICP as Christians a weeks ago almost all of the follow-up pieces have been snarky pile-on pieces from the music press.

I’d always thought that cultural commentators were ignoring ICP at their peril, but now it appears that there’s an interesting religion story that’s being missed here as well.

All together now, let’s say the words of wisdom that I learned as a Baylor University undergraduate: No non-NoZe knows the no-nonsense, non-NoZe news that the NoZe knows.

Let me stress that I was not a member of the NoZe Brotherhood during my years at Jerusalem on the Brazos. I definitely was not cool enough and there was a good chance that my GPA was not high enough (my stab at taking Hebrew was a disaster) — or both.

But I had friends in the slightly secret society that was the NoZe and some of them were even capable of clever, non-profane humor on occasion. However, when you are a satirical society at the world’s largest Baptist university, you simply have to make fun of the sacred cows that are grazing everywhere on campus. And when young, loud and often crude college males start making fun of religion the results can get ugly.

So what happens when a NoZe brother ends up, as an adult, becoming a political gadfly who needs the votes of millions of people in church pews? Obviously, ink will be spilled after tips from those on the other side of the political asile. The Politico headline proclaimed: “Paul’s college group mocked Christians.” Here’s the top of the story:

Rand Paul’s Kentucky Senate campaign drew a round of startled media attention this summer, after GQ reported that he’d played hair-raising pranks as an undergraduate at Baylor University in the early 1980s.

Issues of the newsletter published by Paul’s secret society, the NoZe Brotherhood, during his time at Baylor reveal a more specific political problem for the Kentucky Republican: The group’s work often had a specifically anti-Christian tone, as it made fun of the Baptist college’s faith-based orientation.

Paul, the son of Texas Rep. Ron Paul, beat back charges in the Republican primary that his libertarian views put him outside the GOP mainstream. A practicing Christian, he has backed away from some of his father’s more radical views on cutting government programs and withdrawing the American military from conflicts abroad. But Paul’s Democratic rival, Jack Conway, has sought repeatedly to cast Paul as out of sync with “Kentucky values,” and the NoZe newsletter may provide more fodder.

The NoZe Brotherhood, as the group was called, was formally banned by Baylor two years before Paul arrived on the grounds of “sacrilege,” the university president said at the time. “They had ‘made fun of not only the Baptist religion, but Christianity and Christ,’ ” President Herbert Reynolds told the student newspaper, The Lariat.

I know from personal experience that the late President Reynolds had a very thin skin, but that quote is simply a riot. By the way, who is Reynolds quoting in this quote inside of a quote?

What about many of the charges leveled in this article? Please understand what Baylor alumni understand. It’s hard to take seriously anything that a NoZe says when discussing the affairs of the NoZe. But the whole point of the society was to make fun of Baylor and, especially, the top administrators. Obviously, that meant making fun of Baptist culture.

Some NoZe scribes were better at this than others. Were many of these satirical scribbles crass? You betcha.

However, Baylor knows the NoZe. Check out this detail in this laugher of a story.

The newsletters were retrieved from the Baylor University Library by Democrats opposing Paul. In response to the initial GQ report, he dismissed “National Enquirer-type stories about [Paul’s] teenage years,” while Paul denied the most extreme allegation: That he’d “kidnapped” a fellow classmate, attempted to make her smoke marijuana, and then forced her to “worship” a god called the “Aqua Buddha.” The undisclosed fellow student also later told a reporter that she’d gone along with the prank.

The NoZe Brotherhood was founded in 1926, according to an account in Baylor’s magazine, a social club for smart, irreverent young men at the Baptist school whose irreverence may naturally have targeted the religious university authorities.

As for the newsletter, “In the 1970s, its format and content changed, carrying more topical and controversial, stories,” according to another Baylor Magazine account, to which a university spokeswoman referred POLITICO. That official history avoids detailing the group’s irreligious tendencies, but they were front and center in Paul’s time, and the newsletters offer the context for the strange, high-profile campaign flap. At a Christian school, the group focused explicitly and repeatedly on religious targets; the Aqua Buddha was just one jab in that direction.

Yes, they store The Rope in the Baylor library.

That does not surprise me. I am surprised that I was at Baylor from 1972-78 (including graduate school) and I do not remember the Aqua Buddha. That sounds like rather mild NoZe material, to me.

Oh well, what a flashback. I hope Paul’s enemy’s political opponents realize what a joke this is.

There was a massive “game-changing” development in stem cell research last month, but you probably didn’t hear about it.

So what else is new? The short of it is that scientists figured out an improved method to efficiently produce safe alternatives to human embryonic stem cells without destroying embryos. It’s been just a few short years since scientists figured out that they could pursue promising stem cell research without using, much less killing, human embryos.

Rob Stein, who covers this beat regularly at the Washington Post, had the goods. He explains that a team of researchers at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute published a series of their experiments showing out an improved way of developing these induced pluripotent stem cells:

Scientists hope stem cells will lead to cures for diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, spinal cord injuries, heart attacks and many other ailments because they can turn into almost any tissue in the body, potentially providing an invaluable source of cells to replace those damaged by disease or injury. But the cells can be obtained only by destroying days-old embryos.

The cells produced by the Harvard team, known as induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells, would avoid that ethical objection and could in some ways be superior to embryonic stem cells. For example, iPS cells could enable scientists to take an easily obtainable skin cell from any patient and use it to create perfectly matched cells, tissue and potentially even entire organs for transplants that would be immune to rejection. …

“All I can say is ‘wow’ - this is a game changer,” said Robert Lanza, a stem cell researcher at Advanced Cell Technology in Worcester, Mass. “It would solve some of the most important problems in the field.” …

In 2006, researchers discovered that they could coax adult cells into a state that appeared identical to embryonic stem cells and then, just like embryonic stem cells, morph these iPS cells into various tissues. But the process involved inserting genes into cells using retroviruses, which raised the risk that the cells could cause cancer. Since then, scientists have been trying to develop safer methods. Several approaches using chemicals or other types of viruses have shown promise. But none has eliminated the safety concerns, and most have been slow and balky.

Until this most recent development, that is.

Stein’s article ran in late September. Now check out this week’s Christian Science Monitor story about how important federal funding of embryo-destroying stem cell research is:

“We all hope that someday [iPSCs] will be viable replacements for embryonic stem cells,” says research professor Daniel Anderson, walking between his laboratories, which are scattered across several floors in interconnected buildings at MIT. “But it’s not today.”

For example: The viruses used to reprogram adult skin cells to act like embryonic stem cells make them unsafe, so far, for many applications.

I think it might be a mistake to equate potential risk with an actual lack of safety, but it doesn’t matter either way. The story completely misses this “game-changing” development all the way across town. Part of the problem could be that advances — or even discussion of advances — in embryonic stem cell research usually get major play in the media while those that don’t involve destroying human embryos do not.

In fact, when I went to look for stories on the iPS development, they were almost all in conservative, Catholic, pro-life or Baptist media.

The media seem more interested in what will happen with embryonic stem cell research if federal funding is banned. The New York Times also ran a story recently:

Perhaps more than any other field of science, the study of embryonic stem cells has been subject to ethical objections and shaped by political opinion. But only a year after the Obama administration lifted some of the limits imposed by President George W. Bush, a lawsuit challenging the use of public money for the research and a conservative shift in Congress could leave the field more sharply restricted than it has been since its inception a decade ago. At stake are about 1,300 jobs, as well as grants from the National Institutes of Health that this year total more than $200 million and support more than 200 projects.

While this is true, as Wesley Smith notes, it neglects to mention the $2 billion in private and state funding the field has received. “Indeed, in California, the CIRM is permitted-if it wishes-to fund $300 million a year in ESCR experiments. Surely that is relevant to a story on how the sector would be impacted if the Lamberth decision is ultimately upheld.”

The story had other problems, including ignorance about legislation and a complete failure to mention iPS stem cells, much less the recent developments with same.

Anyway, the CIRM mentioned above is the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine, a state agency with billions of dollars in funding for embryonic stem cell research. Because, you know, California is flush with cash or something. Check out this poem that the state agency awarded a prize for:

Stem C.
This is my body
which is given for you.
But I am not great.
I have neither wealth,
nor fame, nor grace.
I cannot comfort with words,
nor inspire to march.
I am small and simple,
so leave me this.
Let me heal you.
This is my body
which is given for you.
Take this
in remembrance of me.

The state agency apologized:

CIRM recently announced two winners of the second annual poetry contest, one of which contained some religious language that is identical to liturgical language used in the context of Christian and Catholic sacraments. The language introduces a religious element that we now realize was offensive to some people.

But this gaffe was only covered in pro-life and industry news, near as I can tell. It’s just so interesting to me what gets covered and what doesn’t these days.

“Allahu Akbar!”

For anyone who paid attention to the news last year, the words shouted by the gunman responsible for a rampage that killed 13 people and wounded 32 at Food Hood, Texas, come as no surprise.

In widespread news accounts, witnesses reported that Maj. Nidal Hasan, an American-born Muslim, shouted the Arabic phrase for “God is great!” before opening fire.

Those words are making it into the headlines again this week as dozens of survivors begin testifying at a hearing to determine if Hasan will be tried at court-martial. The hearing is expected to last several weeks.

While the words are not a surprise, they are relevant to news accounts of witness testimony.

Take the Los Angeles Times’ lede to the first day of coverage, for example:

Reporting from Ft. Hood, Texas — Just after lunch on Nov. 5, an Army psychiatrist inside the medical processing center at Ft. Hood did something that Sgt. Alonzo Lunsford, the non-commissioned officer in charge at the center that day, said mystified him.

He said Maj. Nidal Hasan, the psychiatrist, suddenly stood up, shouted “Allahu Akbar!” — Arabic for “God is great” — and reached under his uniform top.

“I was wondering why he would say ‘Allahu Akhbar,’ ” Lunsford recalled Wednesday at a hearing for Hasan, who is charged with killing 13 people and wounding 32 others that day.

The Dallas Morning News gave a similar account:

FORT HOOD, Texas — The pop-pop-pop of gunfire, groans of a dying soldier and wailing from terrified survivors riveted a military courtroom Wednesday as Army prosecutors played a 911 tape of last November’s massacre at a soldier-readiness center.

Eight witnesses gave graphic descriptions of the chaos unleashed when Army Maj. Nidal Hasan opened fire in the worst attack ever on an American military installation. Several recalled hearing a shout of “Allahu akbar,” or “God is great,” just before the melee began.

“I looked at [Hasan] and was wondering, ‘Why would he say Allahu akbar?’ ” testified the first prosecution witness, Staff Sgt. Alonzo Lunsford. Within seconds, the sergeant added, Hasan pulled a pistol from his combat uniform and began shooting.

Likewise, CNN’s report referenced the Arabic words and their meaning.

That’s all pretty straightforward, right?

But then I read the Washington Post’s version of the testimony:

“I was wondering why he would say ‘Allahu Akbar,’ ” testified Sgt. Alonzo Lunsford, who said he ducked behind a counter as soon as he saw Hasan start shooting inside the Soldier Readiness Processing Center here on Nov. 5. He said he watched as Hasan, after shooting a physician’s assistant, locked his eyes on him.

“The laser [on the weapon’s barrel] comes across my line of sight. I closed my eyes. He discharged his weapon,” said Lunsford, who was shot five times, including once in his head, and lost nearly all sight in his left eye.

Anything missing there? Go ahead and read the whole story. “God is great” is nowhere to be found.

Is the omission in one of America’s great newspapers purposeful? Do all Post readers speak Arabic? Is the Post intentionally trying to avoid the potential religious motivation of the gunman?

That was my first thought, but on closer inspection, the Post story — unlike other reports I read — includes important background about the suspect:

A Muslim born in Virginia, whose parents had immigrated to Jordan from a Palestinian town near Jerusalem, and later from Jordan to the United States, Hasan joined the Army after graduating from Virginia Tech in the mid-1990s with a biochemistry degree.

After medical school, he began a residency at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.

Hasan became more religiously observant in recent years, after the death of his parents, acquaintances have said. He began corresponding via e-mail with an imam, Anwar al-Aulaqi, who has been linked to al-Qaeda attacks against the United States.

Still, am I wrong in thinking that “Allahu Akbar” needs to be defined within the context of a mainstream news story? Certainly, most news accounts did so, but not all.

Like the Post, the San Antonio Express-News’ story (also published in its sister paper, the Houston Chronicle) uses the Arabic words but fails to explain them:

After eating a quick lunch in a parking lot on Fort Hood, Zeigler entered the Soldier Readiness Processing Center and took a seat in Station 13, a crowded waiting area where dozens of troops sat in four rows of chairs.

“Allahu akbar!” cried a man, producing a gun.

Within seconds, Ziegler would be among 32 people wounded in a shooting at the Army post that also left 13 dead. On Thursday, Ziegler was among 11 who testified in the second day of an evidentiary hearing against Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who was charged in the Nov. 5 shooting spree.

Of course, the same Express-News story alternates at ease between spelling the witness’ name as Ziegler and as Zeigler, so maybe expecting important context would be asking too much.