An order of Roman Catholic nuns in Baltimore are auctioning off a Honus Wagner baseball card worth over $150,000. The kerfuffle about a Christian flag flying over a veterans memorial in King, North Carolina continues with one veteran standing guard to make sure the city council doesn’t remove it. A Louisiana parish has banned the observance of Halloween this Sunday. Trick or Treaters can celebrate on Monday the 1st but face a fine of $500 and up to 30 days in jail for knocking on doors on the 31st.
A religious stereotypes Venn diagram according to Google.
Germans don’t take Holocaust references lightly. A German magazine warns the Tea Party that its constant invocation of Hitler, Nazis, and other parts of German history is “flippant…ignorant and offensive.” In Italy, the LDS Church has officially broken ground on a temple in Rome. In France, a man allegedly concocted a story about being mistaken for the devil as an alibi for a knife-wielding attack.
A missionary built a flying car.
A Satanist group in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma held a public event in the city’s civic center while Christian protesters gathered outside and prayed. A school board member in Tennessee said that if students don’t want to hear prayers over the loudspeaker at football games they can “put their fingers in their ears.” The schools have since put a halt to pre-game prayers. Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell says prayer had a direct role in spiking her polling numbers.
Can meditation change your brain?
The best response to Juan Williams’ fear of Muslims in “garb” is the new blog Muslims Wearing Things. My favorite is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in a cowboy hat. Muslims caught in the midst of a disputed mosque in Tennessee are frustrated and baffled by the misunderstandings of their faith. Some mosques are holding open houses to dispel anxieties and welcome in non-Muslim neighbors. Meanwhile, anti-Muslim crusaders are making millions by inflaming anxiety and fear. And the Islamic Studies program at UCLA continues to languish in a suspension of incoming admissions pending reorganization.
In a new survey, 15% of respondents said that information on political parties and candidates had been made available at their places of worship.
An Episcopal parish in Maryland has voted to join the Roman Catholic Church. In Minnesota, an election mailer turned out not to be as anti-Catholic as initially reported. It was still anti-smart, however. Muslim American leaders in Chicago are rallying to get Muslims out voting in next week’s election. And Democrats are turning to black churches for support on Tuesday.
America’s greatest singing voice (in my humble opinion), the late Johnny Cash, will be inducted into Gospel Music Hall of Fame in January. And then there’s Marin Luther’s 95 Theses rap.
