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Bishop Gene Robinson’s prayer at the “We are One” inaugural event is silenced by technical difficulties, and cut from the broadcast. If you pray and HBO doesn’t cover it, can God still hear it?

When he’s not writing bestselling books, Vincent Bugliosi is a legendary prosecuting attorney. As such, he is certainly well acquainted with the legal policy of presumption of innocence. His newest book, Divinity of Doubt, a treatise on agnosticism, would have been much better if Bugliosi had taken this principle into account in the context of his arguments for, and against, God.

On November 2, 2009, five Catholic activists — one nun, two priests, and two laypeople, all age sixty or above — cut through a series of chain link and barbed wire fences surrounding Naval Base Kitsap in Bangor, Washington. The five unfurled a banner reading “Trident: Illegal + Immoral,” poured their own blood over the site, and beat on the ground and the fences with household hammers before being apprehended and arrested. The five, who call themselves the Disarm Now Plowshares, were found guilty in December on four felony counts: trespass, damage to federal property, injury to federal property, and conspiracy to damage federal property. A week and a half ago in Tacoma’s federal court they received prison sentences of six to fifteen months.

Twilight wars in the Middle East, Japan’s nuclear catastrophe, Deepwater Horizon, worldwide crop failures, massive die-offs of long-established species: it’s all so very scary.

Most of us are watching the unfolding events in Egypt with awe and anticipation hoping its citizens will nonviolently supplant a repressive and dictatorial regime with a democracy. Those of us who have physical or emotional ties to Israel see a more complicated picture. Israel is watching the…

Why did Bush not do more for peace during his failed presidency? Because someone is always lobbing a rocket or detonating a bomb, and this invalidates any and every gesture toward peace, in his simple view.

Bernard Madoff’s $50 billion “big lie” is just one big symptom; it is virtually a cultural matter now, a matter of finding some way to shift the corporate culture of the nation and the economic habits of the people.

Is Sarah Palin familiar with the US Constitution? It’s unclear from her excited anticipation of her vice presidential role as ruler of the Senate.

Ultimately it’s disappointing that Trey Parker and Matt Stone—two of the best satirists around—should have chosen such soft religious targets: missionaries from Utah. The finale to season 14 of South Park (the censured episode about the propriety of depicting Mohammed in a bear costume) was gutsier by far. By comparison, poking fun at clueless Mormon teenagers is a cop-out. It’s a waste of theatrical talent.

Some progressive feminists oppose the hijacking of women’s rights to justify U.S. invasions while avoiding any mention about the plight of women in Palestine, Iraq, or Afghanistan.