Monday, January 29, 2007

U2-charist?

U2 service brings rock to religion

The first "U2-charist" in England, an adapted Holy Communion service that uses the Irish rock group's best-selling songs in place of hymns, is to be staged at a Lincoln church in May.

A live band will play U2 classics such as Mysterious Ways and Beautiful Day as worshippers sing along with lyrics which will appear on screen at St Swithin's parish church in the town centre.
...
Seating will be moved in order for the 500-strong congregation to be able to dance and wave their hands.
...
"It is also very important that we continue to try and find ways of worshipping that are surprising, challenging and fun. Rock music can be a vehicle of immense spirituality."

Maybe if they adapt the lyrics a little this won't be heresy

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

NYT skews facts again

New York Times Gets Another Story Very Wrong - This Time it’s about Marriage

The New York Times has once again published another 'hit piece' on the institution of marriage, alleging that for “the first time more American women are living without a husband than with one”. However, US census data for 2005 shows that the January 16th front-page story in the New York Times is just another disturbing showcase of the Times’ tolerance for “journalistic malpractice”.
...
According to the 2005 report “Marital Status of the Population by Sex and Age”, the United States is not yet a culture that has discarded the institution of marriage, where 60.4% of men and 56.9% of women over 18 years old are married.

However, Roberts creates his own analysis by using the Census Bureau’s “Living Arrangements of Persons 15 Years Old and Over by Selected Characteristics”, by including in his 51% figure of women living without a spouse: unmarried teenage and college girls still living with their parents, women whose husbands work out of town, are institutionalized, or are separated from husbands serving in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Perhaps most disturbing is how blatantly Roberts’ claims are at variance with US census bureau statistics. Among marriageable women over 18 years old, 56.9% of women are married, with 53% having a spouse present, 1.4% with a spouse absent, 9.9% widowed, and 11.5% divorced. Yet, 67.3% of women 30-34, and 70.5% of women 35-39 are married, a far cry from the profiles of women offered by the Times of women finding fulfillment outside marriage.

Original article:
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F50B11F83B540C758DDDA80894DF404482

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Idiots line up to be tasered

Strange Bedfellows

Deanna Brooks (Miss May 1998) and Alison Waite (Miss May 2006) are signing photos (there is a line), and a handful of Nascar-suited guys help volunteers experience a Tasering first-hand.

That’s right, people are asking to be Tasered. They scream. They fall down. They get picked back up.

“What it does is it jams the nervous system,” explains Kevin Grieve, a salesman for the Scottsdale, Ariz., company. The C2, which comes in black pearl, titanium silver, electric blue and metallic pink, releases 50,000 volts for up to 30 seconds — “a lifetime” if you’re the one on the other end, he said. It can be used about 50 times before recharging.