Salon.com > Newtown Massacre

Pastor apologizes for participating in Newtown memorial service

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 16:13:00 +0000

In the days following the Sandy Hook massacre, the Rev. Rob Morris, a new pastor to Christ the King Lutheran Church, gave the benediction in a high-profile interfaith memorial service on Dec. 16 in Newtown, Conn. — among the attendees were President Obama, the surviving families of the slain, and clergy members from a variety of religions, including the Muslim and Baha’i faiths. As the New York Times reports today, his denomination regards sharing the stage with other, "false" religions like Islam and Baha'i, as a violation — they prohibit joint worship with other faiths, under any circumstances. After an excoriation by his leader, Rev. Matthew C. Harrison, president of the Missouri Synod, Morris submitted an open-letter apology for his attendance. Here is his letter.

The Newtown kids’ music output: How much is too much?

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 18:26:00 +0000

The students of Sandy Hook Elementary School have turned December's tragedy into an occasion for uplift: Different groups of students have recorded a charity single of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and performed "God Bless America" with Jennifer Hudson at the Super Bowl. The Sandy Hook school choir is now set to perform "Call Me Maybe" during the Grammy pre-show, along with a satellite interview with "American Idol" host Ryan Seacrest. Already, there have been outraged tweets at the perceived exploitation of Newtown kids by the entertainment industry, a number of which have been collected in this Daily Intel post.

Chris Frantz, the former Talking Heads drummer, volunteered his Fairfield County, Conn., home studio for the Newtown students' "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," and admitted he initially felt trepidation about working with a small group of Sandy Hook students. "I wondered, 'How is this going to be perceived by people on the outside?'" he told Salon. "But as soon as the children showed up at our home, I knew it was a unique and important opportunity."

Gun deaths rampant after Sandy Hook massacre

Thu, 03 Jan 2013 19:12:00 +0000

There have been more than 400 guns deaths since the Newtown massacre on December 14, according to a new interactive project between Slate.com and the anonymous twitter user @gundeaths.

The two launched the project because, as Slate writes, there are few real-time chronicles of daily gun deaths in the United States, despite the daily mention of firearms and gun politics in the media since the shooting. In fact, the onslaught of reporting on guns has been so intense, The Huffington Post published an article this morning with the headline “So You’re Bored of the Newtown Massacre?”