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Archive for the 'Religion' Category

All the Rage #4: Flame On (and Off)

Published by William Beutler on April 13, 2008 in Entertainment, Environment, Literature, Religion, Sports, WikiRage and Wikipedia. 2 Comments

It’s time once again to turn our attention to what Wikipedians turned their attention to this week, according to the most-edited list at WikiRage.

  1. Article: Suleiman the Magnificent
    Why: This fourteenth century Ottoman sultan was the Featured Article on April 8.
    Detail: As usual, the front-paging of an article results in some vandalism. But the overall effect is salutary, as the article gets closer scrutiny by serious editors. In the meantime, you get enjoyable debates like this: “Article says: ‘Suleiman married a harem girl Roxelana, who became Hürrem Sultan’. I understand that PC or indifference thereto is a controversial subject, but is ‘harem girl’ (although perhaps literally correct) really the best way for us to phrase this? … As a female member of the household, she would still have been part of the harem. I don’t really see a problem with the term. I suppose we could change ‘girl” to ’slave,’ if that’s what the problem is.”

  2. Article: J.K. Rowling
    Why: The children’s author who is wealthier than the Queen was the Featured Article on April 11.
    Detail: At 23:42 GMT on April 12, David4674 reduced the entire article to… nothing. His edit summary was surprisingly forthright: “Blanked the page.” But don’t worry, David4674 isn’t a real editor: he’s a sock puppet of… Dan 689. Both appear to have been banned.

  3. Article: Deaths in 2008
    Why: Passing this week: Monk’s psychiatrist and numerous people I’ve never heard of.
    Detail: Abu Ubaidah al-Masri, an al Qaeda operative in Pakistan is believed to have died of hepatitis in December 2007, but U.S. government sources didn’t announce this until just the past week, hence his inclusion in the list.

  4. Article: Victoria Cross
    Why: Not a television actress from the 1980s, but in fact the highest military decoration in the British Commonwealth. Featured Article? Good guess! It was on April 9.
    Detail: Only the Talk page will tell you that Major General Candy in “The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp” was a fictional recipient of the VC, if it matters, and I am not sure it does.

  5. Article: Yi So-yeon
    Why: As of April 8, this 29 year-old astronaut is the first Korean and second Asian woman in space
    Detail: If you’re envious now, just wait until she starts doing TV commercials. Although you might have to be in South Korea to see them, I’m sure the money is just as good.

  6. Article: 2008 Summer Olympics torch relay
    Why: The ceremonial relay has been in the news for controversy: Human rights protesters have targeted the ceremony, even snuffing out the flame a couple times in France.
    Detail: Not yet making the page: Complaints about the environmental impact of carrying the torch around the globe.

  7. Article: Chrono Trigger
    Why: Not that Wikipedians are opposed to editing video game articles already, but this was the Featured Article on April 10.
    Detail: When the article appeared on Wikipedia’s main page on Thursday, the box art was not included, even though it is included in the article. I’m not sure I quite follow the reasoning, but Wikipedia is lately in the habit of keeping fair use images off the front page, only including an image if it is free use.

  8. Article: Tomb of Antipope John XXIII
    Why: The only question is, when was it the Featured Article? The answer is April 6.
    Detail: I have to admit, this question from the Talk page crossed my mind, too: “If he’s the anti pope, does that mean he worships the anti christ?”

  9. Article: American Idol (seaon 7)
    Why: It’s dominating the iTunes top 10 list, so why shouldn’t it be on the Wikipedia top ten list?
    Detail: Let’s be clear about this: “Also, regarding David Hernandez: As far as I’ve read, only incriminating pictures of him working at the bar were released. I have NEVER heard about any nude pics floating around out there on the net. Could anyone find a source to prove this? (And a link to these alleged ‘nude’ pictures. Not even for personal reasons. I’m just pretty certain only clothed pics of him with the name of the bar he works at were at VFTW and that’s it.)”

  10. Article: Olympic Flame
    Why: See #5.
    Detail: I find all this torch business a little silly, but did you know that in a ceremony involving eleven “priestesses” the torch is lit by the sun’s rays using a parabolic mirror? That’s kind of cool.

    11. Holdovers this week: Deaths in 2008, articles related to controversy involving China and the Olympics (returning from week 2)

    Falling off the list: April 1, 2008; Ima Hogg; Celine Dion; April Fool’s Day; Canada on Strike; Earth Hour; NATO; Google’s hoaxes; Bette Davis

    Recurring themes: Featured Articles being the most-edited of the week.

    Honorable mention: Eek, a Penis! was the episode of South Park this week, and even though it was edited 220 times this week, somehow that wasn’t enough to make the top 100. I’m suspicious; #100 was controversial talk show host Randi Rhodes, and her page was edited less than 100 times in the past week. Hmm.

Addressing Black Liberation Theology, or Not

Published by William Beutler on March 19, 2008 in Barack Obama, Internecine Battles, Religion, Rhetoric and White House '08. 6 Comments

Since Barack Obama’s “major speech on race” yesterday I’ve talked to several people, mostly Obama supporters, who thought the speech was brilliant. Even Charles “The Bell Curve” Murray thought it was tremendous. But most of Murray’s colleagues at National Review had a much different reaction, and even some non-aligned pundits are skeptical that Obama accomplished what he needed to.

The speech was about race, but I don’t believe this is the real underlying problem in the Jeremiah Wright imbroglio. One aspect of the controversy is religion, but I don’t think this is it exactly, either. Rarther, the problem is a combination of race and religion, and it doesn’t take an expert pundit to recognize that’s a dangerous combination.

As I noted in a previous post, it would be a cruel irony if the upshot of Obama’s campaign was a widening of suspicions between blacks and whites. If so, this will happen by white voters having to confront a strain of Christian thought which they are currently unfamiliar with and may not like very much once they do. And whether this strain is a prevailing belief among blacks or not, even those who do not subscribe to it just may take the opposite position out of perceived racial solidarity.

Now, I don’t claim to know much about Black Theology, other than what Wikipedia tells me (not much). I also do not know how representative Wright’s views are of the wider black electorate, but Newsweek has demonstrated that Wright’s views are not a fringe minority among prominent African-American clergy.

That said, here is the quote from its most prominent scholar, James Cone, making the rounds of the blogosphere:

Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill Gods who do not belong to the black community … Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love.

This version of the quote originated in the Asia Times, and previously appeared only in in academic books. It stands to reason that this heretofore obscure quote is going to get more significant play. Note the screen capture below of recent popular keywords on Free Republic:

Free Republic Freepers discussing Black Liberation Theology

No doubt Obama supporters and Democrats generally would dismiss the Freepers as populating the “fever swamps” of the right. But they’d be unwise to ignore them — and already, pro-Clinton bloggers are starting to pick up on it.

Unfortunately for Obama, his speech was not about religion. The words “liberation” and “theology” do not appear in the text of his remarks.

Obama should have gotten out in front of Wright’s anti-American rants long before this week, but he apparently chose not to address them until he was forced to do so. Likewise, he should have used Tuesday’s speech to address Black Liberation Theology itself. Too late now.

Assuming Obama wins the Democratic nomination, and that is still the way to bet, the only question now is whether this will happen during the primary or the general.

The Great Wright Hope

Published by William Beutler on March 18, 2008 in Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, Religion, Rhetoric and William Beutler. 4 Comments

Mike Turk puts some numbers to a thought I’d had rolling around my head since shortly after the controversy over the incendiary remarks by Obama’s former pastor went big-time last week:

First, consider the results of a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll conducted last week. The survey results indicate that since December the number of people who believe Obama is a Muslim jumped from 8% to 13%. That’s a 62% increase in only three months. How many “middle of the road” Americans received the “Obama is a Muslim” e-mail from friends and either read it or passed it to someone else? Now pretend your Obama and the “whisper” campaign is that you’re really a dirty terrorist in hiding. Anything that focuses the public attention on your twenty year membership is a Christian church may be a very, very good thing.

Whether this is correct or not, I suppose we’ll find out in a few weeks. However, I’m skeptical that it’s much of a victory to replace the incorrect impression that Obama is a Muslim with the correct impression that his closest spiritual adviser has a fierce anti-American streak.

Consider the Romney campaign’s unsuccessful attempt to win over evangelical voters. After all, Mike Huckabee all but swept the Southern Republican primaries where their votes figured prominently. Romney could probably tell you that simply believing in God and Jesus Christ isn’t always enough.

Which leaves me with this question: Could “black liberation theology,” to which which the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Chicago’s Trinity church adhere, become the focus of whispers and speculation and suspicion? I think it’s quite plausible, and I find the prospect fairly troubling. It would surely be ironic if the Obama campaign produced a wider rift between black and white Americans.

Obama’s slowness to deal with the Wright time bomb, and muddled initial response, is somewhat like Kerry’s inept response to the Swift Boaters’ allegations. With his speech today, going on over my shoulder in the background, however, he’s trying to address it head on. This suggests Obama recognizes how divisive Wright’s rhetoric and his own apparent tolerance thereof can be, to his own campaign at the very least.

I’m agnostic, so to speak, about Obama’s campaign in general. (Not so much in the general.) But in this task I hope he succeeds.

Is Benazir Bhutto the Next Theo Van Gogh?

Published by William Beutler on December 27, 2007 in Breaking News, Fox News, International, Religion, Terrorism and White House '08. 8 Comments

Benazir Bhutto assassinated, via Puneetworld on FlickrI’m nobody’s expert on Pakistani politics, although I know enough that when I saw “Charlie Wilson’s War” this weekend, I nodded with recognition when Tom Hanks’ Wilson made reference to the execution of President Bhutto, I knew he wasn’t referring to Benazir Bhutto.

Small coincidence, and what a way to return to work* this morning: Approaching my office building for the first time in two weeks, I looked up to the WJLA JumboTron to see:

BHUTTO KILLED IN EXPLOSION

By the time I collected my morning coffee and found my desk, Fox News had revised this to:

BHUTTO SHOT IN NECK

Damn. Well, it’s crazy but not a surprise, except maybe that this attempt succeeded after others failed. As I understand it, Bhutto was hardly a great prime minister — twice-removed from office on corruption charges that I presume are largely true but not the proximate cause of her ousters. Will Pakistan be thrown into further turmoil? Will this resurrect terrorism as an issue in the U.S. presidential election? At the very least, I assume her reputation outside of Pakistan as a friend of the U.S. and a representative of moderate Islam — now, to borrow a phrase, martyred — may grant her a legacy that her actual record doesn’t necessarily warrant.

One last thought: I remember back in high school, one of my junior social studies classmates was Pakistani-American, who as a secular young woman from a family that had presumably left because of the country’s highly volatile politics, idolized Bhutto and wrote her major year-end term paper about her. Her name escapes me at the moment, and I have no idea where she is today, but I wonder what she’s thinking this morning.

Update: Sue Davis, an old colleague from National Journal, writes at the WSJ’s Washington Wire:

Before news of Bhutto’s death was reported, Rudy Giuliani’s campaign unveiled a new ad this morning, entitled “Freedom,” to begin airing nationally tomorrow. … Giuliani was also the first candidate to release a statement on the death of Bhutto.

National security has taken a back seat in the last month or so of the presidential campaign; not coincidentally, Giuliani’s campaign has already received the pre-mortem treatment, even from supporters. If Giuliani has any chance of getting back into this thing, this is it.

*Oh, and if you’ve been wondering at the dearth of posts the past two weeks, wonder no more.

Image via puneetworld on Flickr.

Blog P.I. Gets Results! Plus, More Thoughts on GOP Online Fundraising

Published by William Beutler on December 9, 2007 in Midterms '10, Online Fundraising, Religion, Republicans, Rhetoric, Terrorism and White House '08. 1 Comment

In a post evaluating the three competing GOP online fundraising tools last weekend, and I criticized the “Defeat Radical Islam” issue badge on Slatecard for overlaying the Star and Crescent with the Universal No symbol. This weekend, Slatecard’s David All has updated the badge. Replacing Islam’s holy symbol is now a pair of crossed AK-47s. Old and new:

Old “Defeat Radical Islam” badge               New “Defeat Radical Islam” badge

I suppose it is possible the good people at Izhevsk Mechanical Works will object, but I doubt it would matter if they did. Not that the old badge necessarily ran the risk of inciting politically-motivated riots in the Arab street (although one never knows) but it sent the wrong message. The new one is also unlikely to move the NRA. Good thing they have a sense of humor, and good thing All made the change.

Meanwhile, during the week I discussed the three utilities — Slatecard plus Rightroots and Big Red Tent with a smart conservative who argued that a) the movement needs to settle on just one, b) social features are not all that important, and c) what does matter is enabling state-level fundraising.

To take the last point first, I couldn’t agree more. Just as building state-level blogs is crucial to conveying information, so too is it important to lower the barriers to making financial contributions. State governments rarely make news here in DC, but decisions that matter to most people’s lives occur at that level, there are simply more of these races, and winners of those campaigns often go on to compete in federal elections. Making this happen 50 times over is a formidable challenge. ActBlue didn’t always do this, but now they do. My guess is that whomever on the right does this first will emerge as the go-to website.

Moving backward to the second point, it’s a fair point that people are unlikely to visit these sites with money burning a hole in their pocket, just looking for a candidate to support. Including a great deal of information about the candidates is not the most important thing these websites do. Those decisions will be made offline and influenced by bloggers who already command an audience. Yet I still think a fundraising widget would make such donations more likely, that good information and cross-referencing between issues and candidates can encourage more political giving. If you are primarily motivated by winning the Iraq war or promoting federalist solutions, you may be likely to throw a bit of money at candidates you hadn’t planned on — but only if you know to do so. How about a feature, similar to Amazon.com’s “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” feature? How about “Donors Who Gave to This Candidate Also Gave To”?

First point last: I said before that I think different mechanisms could be adopted by different segments of the party, but I cannot deny the logic of consolidating support behind just one of them — efficiency matters, and I think reinforces my second point. That said, I do not think there need be any rush to get behind just one. Competition among them should eventually produce one that’s better than the others. Maybe that happens in 2008, but I think the separation will occur during the ‘10 midterms.

You Got to Have Faith

Published by William Beutler on February 12, 2007 in Barack Obama, Religion, Social Networking, Startups and White House '08. 1 Comment

Pointed out to me earlier today is this screen shot from the Create Your Profile page at My.BarackObama.com:

MyBarackObama does not list religion/faith among the potential interests of supporters

No category such as “faith/religion”? If you say so. Not only has Sen. Obama has faced unfair but persistent questions about his faith, but the entire Democratic Party has been trying since 2004 (at least) to demonstrate that Republicans don’t have a lock on “moral values.” Sure, it’s just the initial launch of a website intended for those who already support Obama, but it’s still worth asking how they let this one get by.

And while it certainly is easy to nitpick and second-guess someone else’s hard work, I still have to wonder: If “This Campaign is About You,” then why not provide a box for you to fill in your own most important issue?

Obama: Stealth Muslim!

Published by Olly Ruff on December 30, 2006 in Barack Obama, Internecine Battles, Middle East, Religion, Rhetoric and White House '08. 19 Comments

So, Barack Obama’s middle name happens to be Hussein, and this fact has been slowly working its way into general media consciousness for a few months now — most notably when Republican strategist Ed Rogers began pointedly mentioning it on “Hardball.” On December 18, plucky sub-Coulter Debbie Schlussel took this insinuation to its logical conclusion:

…is a man who Muslims think is a Muslim, who feels some sort of psychological need to prove himself to his absent Muslim father, and who is now moving in the direction of his father’s heritage, a man we want as President when we are fighting the war of our lives against Islam?
Absolutely the most charitable interpretation of this is that Schlussel believes Obama should, instead of pursuing a career in politics, be parachuted in behind enemy lines to work as some sort of “undercover Muslim.” However, she continues:
Where will his loyalties be?
By this logic, one would presume that Schlussel isn’t too happy about Obama being a Senator, never mind holding any higher office. After all, the man’s father was a Muslim at one point in his life, for crying out loud!

Although the comment thread at Schlussel’s original post has continued to thrive, response over the last couple of weeks has not been disproportionate; at any rate, it has not been as disproportionate as I would have liked. Media Matters had a field day, as they tend to do when people say such transcendentally stupid things, and responses on the right ranged from pained to exasperated to really exasperated to really, really exasperated. The angelically beaming Brendan Nyhan points out the comparison with anti-Catholic suspicions of JFK (although really this makes even less sense, as JFK was at least Catholic), following up an interesting earlier post covering some more whimsical sniping about the size of Obama’s ears.

The measure of a presidential campaign is, in large part, how it deals with this sort of thing. (If we ever hear an official statement from the Obama camp regarding the candidate’s ears, then he’s toast.) Schlussel’s slur, at once serious and deeply non-serious, is a gift to a talented politican.

If I were working for Obama, I’d be looking for an excuse to make the “Hussein” non-issue into a signature moment, preferably sometime after the New Year (and after the execution of Saddam is no longer a story). A judiciously crafted public response could turn out to be an enduring image of a candidate calling for tolerance in the face of hysteria; unfortunately, it could also turn out to be an enduring spectacle of an otherwise dignified and serious man shouting at people on the internet. So, to avoid the latter possibility, I’d be looking around for someone other than Ed Rogers to raise the story’s profile in the old media, and I’d be wondering: how long has it been since Tom Tancredo did any bad ethnic humor in public?

Can someone in public life make sure he sees a copy of this Schlussel thing? Hopefully he won’t notice that “Schlussel” is a suspiciously foreign-sounding name.

Jesus Christ Wiki Star

Published by William Beutler on December 5, 2006 in Entertainment, Religion, Seriously and Wikipedia. 1 Comment

Hi, my name is Bill, and I’m a Wikipedian. (Hi, Bill.)

It is true — I am not just a frequent commentator on and booster of Wikipedia; I am in fact also a registered user and semi-frequent contributor. Most of my edits are simple clean-ups such as formatting edits, typo fixes and correcting British spellings on American subjects.

Sometimes, though, I have to go a little bit further. For example, see this comment I left on the discussion page for a controversially-named “post-thrash/metalcore” band, having just made an important edit to an oft-defaced, marginally-related entry:

Wikipedia discussion page for Lamb of God (band)

Blogpsot.com

Published by William Beutler on October 9, 2006 in Cybersquatting, Google, Religion, Seriously and Website Design. 5 Comments

I’ve had a Blogger account since September 2002, which means over this period I must have typed in the domain http://*.blogspot.com hundreds, if not thousands of times. But this past week appears to have been the first time I’d ever mistyped the URL as blogpsot.com instead — althouse.blogpsot.com, it happened to be. Try it yourself.

When you land, you’ll find yourself at “AmazingBibleStudies,” a Netscape 4-optimized CSS job which feebly boasts of being a “Mega site of Bible studies and information”:

Blogpsot.com screen shot, screen cap

Though the claim of mega status probably cannot be substantiated, it most certainly is a Van Impe dispensationalist collection of Bible passages and vacation photos of Israel.

And it turns out that no matter what subdomain you use — atrios.blogpsot.com, iraqthemodel.blogpsot.com, americablog.blogpsot.com — the administrator has them all set to display the “AmazingBibleStudies” page.

It’s a common technique to buy domains based on probable typos for popular domains, with the expectation that they’ll be useful for spamming and scamming and squatting — so this could be the spam version of Crosswalk.com, or just an amateur evangelical Bible scholar with a mischievous self-promotional side.

The domain registration does not list it as an E-commerce site, though there is that rotating banner ad at top. If it was really a money-making enterprise (or even an attempted one) it would presumably be plastered with Google AdSense. WHOIS does reveal the owner of the domain to be one Doug Powell of St. Petersburg, FL. It may very well be this Doug Powell. And for what it’s worth, the contact page indicates that he would like you to call him “Master P.”

I figure Powell is not a professional cybersquatter because he doesn’t hide his name. Compare to Blgspot.com, a true squatter site, owned by Caribbean Online International Ltd., “your reliable provider for hosting websites in the caribbean.” Now that’s a legitimately illegitimate site.

That said, the Blogpsot.com registration details are nevertheless intriguing:

Blogpsot.com Whois meta information

Let’s repeat part of that again for the Google bots: “666, angels, antichrist, armageddon, audio bible, audio sermons, baptist, bible helps, bible prophecy, bible statistics, bible study, bible tracts, bible, catholic, christian, churches, cults, devil, free sermons, gospel music, gospel, heaven, hell, israe.”

Yes, Israe. And 666 comes before angels? And the devil gets a nod, but no mention of Christ? Yikes — maybe it’s less Van Impe and more LaVey.

Update: Credit where it’s due — Respectful Insolence took a somewhat more in-depth look at this site in a December post titled “Cypersquatting for Jesus?”