“Liberal Catholicism and liberal Judaism are not really two different religions getting along with each other, but only different flavors of the same religion,” argues Daniel Taylor in the suburban-based Christianity Today (January 11). “They are much closer to each other in core beliefs than they are to more conservative believers within the religion each espouses. They, in fact, do not really respect other religions so much as they try to shame members of other religions to give up their ‘absolutism’ to join them in the progressive club of the open-minded. And they are as absolute in this requirement as any absolutist fundamentalist of any religion.”
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War in the New Age. “During Operation Desert Fox, the Associated Press ran a photo of a 2,000-pound laser guided bomb sitting on the deck of the USS Enterprise with a spray painted message on it saying ‘Here’s a Ramadan present from Chad Rickenberg,’” according to “Top Newspeak Stories of the Month #106” (www.scn.org/newspeak), quoting the Wall Street Journal of January 29. “Defense Department officials immediately caught this breach of etiquette and released an apology. Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon expressed the ‘distress’ of Defense officials over the ‘thoughtless graffiti.’…Mr. Bacon went on to say that ‘Religious intolerance is an anathema to Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen and to all Americans who cherish the right to worship freely.’”
Ouch! According to data gathered in the newsletter “Urban Quality Indicators” (Winter), Jamestown, New York, booked 952 touring artists in 1995, while Chicago booked 855. But we won in ensemble bookings, 1,274 to 47.
