By Evangelia Kindinger

On Octo­ber 28, the Hall­mark Chan­nel launched its annu­al “Count­down to Christ­mas.” Dur­ing the eight weeks before Christ­mas, the chan­nel will broad­cast 21 orig­i­nal movies that are all about Christ­mas and the spir­it of the hol­i­days. Estab­lished in 2001, the Hall­mark Chan­nel is a sub­sidiary of the com­pa­ny that has pro­vid­ed many Amer­i­cans with sap­py greet­ing cards for all occa­sions. The Christ­mas movies con­tin­ue with the company’s tra­di­tion of kitsch, espe­cial­ly roman­tic kitsch, as shown in not-so-sub­tle titles, such as A Decem­ber Bride (2016), My Christ­mas Love (2016), or Mar­ry Me at Christ­mas (2017). Christ­mas, it seems, is not pri­mar­i­ly about cel­e­brat­ing the birth of Jesus Christ – or, like in my fam­i­ly, food – but about find­ing love in the midst of snowy land­scapes, hot cocoa, and con­ve­nient­ly hung mistletoes.

Read more »

By Sabrina Völz

Thanks­giv­ing is a day for spend­ing time with fam­i­ly and friends as well as shar­ing culi­nary delights, such as turkey, dress­ing (a Mid-West­ern word for stuff­ing), mashed pota­toes, sweet pota­toes, corn, rel­ish trays, sal­ads, cran­ber­ry sauce, and pie for dessert. I still have nos­tal­gic feel­ings for the days when Thanks­giv­ing was about the only hol­i­day that hadn’t been ruined by commercialization.

I like the hol­i­day and cher­ish child­hood mem­o­ries. In my fam­i­ly, there was nev­er talk of the Pil­grims or any nation­al Thanks­giv­ing folk­lore, as it was more or less cel­e­brat­ed as a reli­gious hol­i­day, as a day to give thanks for all of life’s many bless­ings. After eat­ing a Thanks­giv­ing feast, the major­i­ty of the fam­i­ly on my mother’s side played 500 (a card game) lit­er­al­ly for hours, while oth­ers watched foot­ball games and Thanks­giv­ing parades. But each fam­i­ly who cel­e­brates Thanks­giv­ing will have their own traditions.

Read more »

By Michael Lederer

CADAQUÉS, Cat­alo­nia, Spain – Dis­patch from Spain’s Cold Civ­il War.

Speak­er of the U.S. House Tip O’Neill once said, “All pol­i­tics are local.” In today’s world, no pol­i­tics are local.

Both Don­ald Tusk from the Euro­pean Union and Don­ald Trump from the Unit­ed States have issued recent state­ments sup­port­ing a view of the Cat­alon­ian con­flict as an inter­nal mat­ter. Yet the very fact that both lead­ers felt called to com­ment on it reveals that Barcelona’s rela­tion to Madrid has the easy poten­tial to affect wider inter­ests even as far away as Washington.

Read more »

By Maria Moss

After last week’s intro­duc­tion to the seduc­tive pow­er of the fun­da­men­tal­ist cult “The Way Inter­na­tion­al” and the prac­tice of speak­ing in tongues, in this install­ment, read­ers will find out more about both Char­lene Edge’s “fad­ed scars” as well as mem­o­ries of hap­pi­er times while serv­ing The Way. Char­lene also shares insid­er per­spec­tives on The Way’s teach­ings and com­ments on her rela­tion­ship to reli­gion and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty today. One of this tal­ent­ed memoirist’s great­est pas­sions has become her mis­sion to warn peo­ple about The Way, a non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion that not only con­trols all aspects of its mem­bers’ lives, but also their purse strings.

Read more »

By Maria Moss

In her award-win­ning book Under­tow, Char­lene Edge dis­sects her past as a long-time mem­ber of one of the largest fun­da­men­tal­ist cults in the Unit­ed States, “The Way Inter­na­tion­al.” Under­tow is a demon­stra­tion of the dan­gers of fun­da­men­tal­ism and the destruc­tive nature of cults. Through her per­son­al sto­ry, Char­lene Edge shows how a vul­ner­a­ble per­son can be seduced into fol­low­ing an author­i­tar­i­an leader and how dif­fi­cult it can be to find a way out.

Charlene’s expe­ri­ences with “The Way” depicts the down­ward spi­ral­ing of a col­lege stu­dent who – for rea­sons all her own – fell for a cer­tain kind of pro­pa­gan­da. Now, if it hap­pened to her, why not to you? To us?

Read more »

By Isabella Strauch

The attacks on the World Trade Cen­ter as well as the Pen­ta­gon in Sep­tem­ber 2001, dubbed 9/11, were a major news event. As is the case with trau­mat­ic events, peo­ple often remem­ber exact­ly what they were doing when they heard the news. With 9/11, how­ev­er, visu­al images have been engraved in people’s minds as well: a plane fly­ing into the tow­ers and peo­ple sub­se­quent­ly – out of sheer des­per­a­tion – jump­ing out of win­dows. Michael Moore’s doc­u­men­tary, Fahren­heit 9/11, offers an alter­na­tive media per­spec­tive sig­ni­fy­ing 9/11: that of a pres­i­dent over­whelmed by the news and inca­pable of an imme­di­ate reaction.

Read more »