Are American Muslims harboring terrorists or seeking peace? To answer the question raging on talk radio, Willamette Week peeks behind the curtains at Portland's Islamic Academy. WW's Chris Lydgate interviewed students, teachers and parents, reviewed textbooks and sat in on classes and prayers. "What we discovered was neither the conservatives' paranoid nightmare of fanatics sharpening scimitars nor the liberals' wishful daydream of Unitarians in headscarves. Instead, we developed a far more nuanced image. We found a deeply conservative faith determined that its children not lose their way in a me-first society--and a group of believers scrambling for sanctuary in a newly suspicious nation," Lydgate writes.
Debbie Eason, founder of the Creative Loafing chain of alternative newsweeklies, is planning a new venture after selling the chain to her children. She intends to launch a new paper, either weekly or biweekly, covering intown western Atlanta, appropriately called West Side Story, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. She tells the daily her new paper won't compete with Creative Loafing-Atlanta.
