News Stories - March 15-21

CENTRAL IDEAS FOR THIS ASSIGNMENT

- Common themes you notice in the media regarding how different traditions are portrayed

- Types of issues that are covered

- How issues covered may relate to issues discussed in class

- Differences between Media portrayal of the traditions and what you have learned about the traditions throughout the semester

These are just a few ideas to get you thinking about the possible angles that you might want to take when brainstorming on how to compose your final paper.  Remember to try and connect your discussion back to course-related material from lecture, tutorial, and the textbook to help you understand how and why these traditions remain so central to some of the global issues of our time.

***NOTE***: the following articles are collected from non-Canadian news sources, and thus you CANNOT use them in your assignment.  However, the stories they cover are most likely covered by the Canadian sources the assignment is focused on, and thus you could possibly find similar stories searching the websites listed at the top of the blog.

Obama denies crisis with Israel - "US President Barack Obama denies there is a crisis in ties with Israel over its settlement plans, as a war of words continues..." - How has this issue been covered in recent weeks? Have different Canadian media sources covered it in different ways?  How can you connect some of the issues that are central to this debate to issues discussed over the course of the semester?  Keep in mind the map of Jerusalem at the bottom of the article.  Why is Jerusalem so central to the Israeli-Palestinian situation?  What central historical moments in the Abrahamic Religions have taken place in Jerusalem?

Source - BBC News

Germany and Ireland call on Catholic Church to hold child sex abuse inquiries - The latest of an ongoing issue relating to the Catholic Church has German Chancellor Angela Merkel calling for an inquiry into sexual abuse within the Church.  How does this story relate to discussions in class and lecture on secularism and Christianity?  How might this development of a head of state (Merkel) calling for an inquiry reflect changes in the perceived strength and power of the Catholic Church?  Does any of this connect with some of the issues that Martin Luther and others had in what led to the Protestant Reformation?

Source - The Guardian, UK

For those of you who have had trouble finding articles on Christianity and Judaism, TA Hisako Omori was kind enough to find the links below that may be of some help:

Pride bars hate speech from parade (The Star, March 19, 2010)

 

Holocaust survivor insists (The Globe, March 19, 2010)

Pope and sexual abuse scandal in Germany (The Globe March 12, 2010)

The Vatican and allegation in Wisconsin (The Globe, March 25, 2010) - Keep in mind that the date of this article is outside of the assignment timeline.  Yet perhaps it will direct you to other articles of similar nature that were posted earlier.

Demonizing Israel (The Spec, March 3, 2010)