It’s like a wedding but with a twist: Young women exchange rings, take vows and enjoy a first dance¦with their dads. ‘Purity balls’ are the next big thing in the save-it-till-marriage movement. Smart or scary? Tell us what you think here. By Jennifer Baumgardner In a chandelier-lit ballroom overlooking the Rocky Mountains one recent evening, some hundred couples feast on herb-crusted chicken and julienned vegetables. The men look dapper in tuxedos; their dates are resplendent in floor-length gowns, long white gloves and tiaras framing twirly, ornate updos. Seated at a table with four couples, I watch as the gray-haired man next to me reaches into his breast pocket, pulls out a small satin box and flips it open to check out a gold ring he’s about to place on the finger of the woman sitting to his right. Her eyes well up with tears as she is overcome by emotion. The man’s date? His 25-year-old daughter. Welcome to Colorado Springs’ Seventh Annual Father-Daughter Purity Ball, held at the five-star Broadmoor Hotel. The event’s purpose is, in part, to celebrate dad-daughter bonding, but the main agenda is for fathers to vow to protect the girls’ chastity until they marry […]
Senate Democrats pressed the Republican-controlled Federal Communications Commission this week to slap tighter controls on media ownership, public-interest broadcasting and television violence. But after a sometimes contentious two-hour hearing Thursday, some lawmakers expressed little hope of meaningful change. Several Democrats on the Senate Commerce Committee warned the agency not to try to relax limits on the number of media outlets one company can own, as the FCC did in 2003 only to have a federal court stay the action. Recent FCC policies on media ownership, said Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.), have been ‘a spectacular failure.’ He railed against rules that allow one entity to own eight radio stations in a large city and against proposals to allow one owner to have three TV stations in a city. ‘More concentration means less competition,’ Dorgan said. ‘The public-interest standards have been nearly completely emasculated.’ But FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin, who has close ties to the Bush White House, defended the agency’s policies. ‘The commission has tried to make decisions based on a fundamental belief that a robust, competitive marketplace, not regulation, is ultimately the greatest protector of the public interest,’ Martin said. He told Dorgan, ‘I’m […]
The prospect of an early US withdrawal from Iraq has receded further after an intelligence assessment warned that a pull-out by coalition forces would only lead to a further surge in sectarian violence. The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq, which was presented to President George Bush yesterday, said a political reconciliation between Sunni and Shia factions is unlikely in the next 18 months. Even the sanitised version of the report made bleak reading, concluding that a single event – the killing of a political or religious leader, for example – could plunge the country into chaos. ‘The possibilities have the potential to convulse severely Iraq’s security environment,’ the report noted. The assessment represents the distilled wisdom of all 16 US spy agencies. It was published amid more bad news for the US on the ground in Iraq itself, as the Pentagon confirmed that a military helicopter went down near the Taji air base north of Baghdad. The craft was the fourth helicopter lost over the past month, all believed to have been shot down. No details were immediately available about casualties. ‘Clearly, ground fire has been more effective against our helicopters in the past couple […]
MULTAN, PAKISTAN — In this Punjabi city of shrines, Shiites and Sunnis prayed side by side during Ashura this week, the holiest holiday for the world’s 150 million Shiite Muslims. But a province away, suicide bombers attempted to strike Shiite processions throughout Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province, leaving as many as 21 dead and more than 40 injured in three separate incidents, including two suicide attacks. The violence, the latest in a sharp uptick against Pakistan’s Shiite minority, has heightened concerns that Iraq’s conflict may be feeding sectarian violence here. Whether the conflict in Iraq is capable of igniting Pakistan’s simmering sectarian tensions raises questions about a growing global sectarian war. Sunnis and Shiites The answer is important, analysts say, because Pakistan’s 30 million Shiites – numbering more than Iraq’s – could become a flash point if sectarian violence spreads. ‘In Pakistan, it is not a battle like in Iraq. But in Pakistan, you have the same violence … driving the conflict,’ says Vali Nasr, author of The Shia Revivial, a study of global Sunni-Shiite conflicts. ‘We are going to see increasing occurrences of the bombings like we’ve seen over the weekend.’ [Editor’s note: The original version […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
