Americans reach new levels of ignorance.

According to a new Zogby poll involving 1,213 people across the U.S., three fourths of Americans "can correctly identify two of Show White's seven dwarfs while only a quarter can name two Supreme Court Justices." Asked what planet Superman was from, 60 percent named the fictional planet Krypton, while only…

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Iraq is good business.

In the September, 2006 Harper's "Notebook," Lewis H. Lapham begins with this quote by Rainer Werner Fassbinder:  In the last analysis, terrorism is an idea generated by capitalism to justify better defense measures to safeguard capitalism. Is there money to be made in Iraq?  Lapham, who has wielded a sharp…

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An older, humbler, Billy Graham

Billy Graham, now 87, recently gave an extended interview to Newsweek reporter Jon Meacham.  The interview contained a few surprises that brightened my day. First, Graham indicated that Christians need not be Bible literalists: The new interviews with NEWSWEEK, however, reveal a more intriguing figure than either his followers or his critics…

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Evangelicals pressure Kenya’s National Museum to hide its hominid fossils.

Reading Dispatches from the Culture Wars, I learned of this recent article published by the Telegraph (U.K.): Powerful evangelical churches are pressing Kenya's national museum to sideline its world-famous collection of hominid bones pointing to man's evolution from ape to human. Leaders of the country's six-million-strong Pentecostal congregation want Dr Richard…

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W engages in name-calling to feed the fires of war

“This nation is at war with Islamic fascists.” The President actually said this to describe our opponent in his war on terrorism.   It appears to be a GOP talking point.  Now, what would most Americans think if those intent on bombing civilians described their enemy as "Christian fascists?" How about "why…

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