The danger of local newspaper monopolies

In the September 2012 issue of Harper’s Magazine, David Sirota had an excellent article (subscription required for the full article though you can see a shortened version here) that examined how the fact that almost all the major cities have become one newspaper towns lacking any competition has resulted in in an unhealthy collusion between the papers and local institutions and business leaders, with the papers often suppressing stories that might harm the interests and images of powerful people. [Read more…]

Atheist films

Sometimes I feel that my local newspaper The Plain Dealer‘s motto must be “All Catholic News All the Time”. It has devoted an endless number of news stories to the decision by the local bishop to shut down a number of churches and consolidate those parishes with others. We had stories about the anguish of the parishioners, their defiance, their appeals to the Vatican to overturn the rulings, their elation when many of the appeals were successful, and their work in reconstituting the parishes. Many of these stories got front page, above the fold coverage. [Read more…]

The three Abrahamic faiths

Here’s an oldie but goodie for those who haven’t heard it before, a great rant from Marcus Brigstocke about the three Abrahamic faiths. I particularly like the bit that begins at the 6:00 mark, where he nails the problem with trying to distinguish between ‘good’ religion (that we should seek to retain) and ‘bad’ religion (that we should try and eliminate). [Read more…]

Don’t kiss the Buddha

It is never a good sign when the name of my country of origin Sri Lanka appears in news headlines in the western media. It usually signifies a major catastrophe (like the tsunami) or a horrific massacre (like during the decades long civil war and insurgency) or somebody doing something really stupid, like Buddhist monks demanding (and succeeding) that the government change the country’s time zone (scroll down) because the country’s ‘spiritual plane’ was out of alignment. (What were the symptoms, I wonder? Headaches? Nausea?) [Read more…]