I am often surprised by the hypocrisy displayed by our print and electronic media. They make gratuitous folk heroes out of total nonentities; and then they appear pained at the excesses perpetrated by them.

And you thought it happened only in America. Taking heed of the age-old axiom “sex sells”, a church in Australia is inviting around 25,000 households for a course in sex, marriage, adultery and pornography.

Riverside Church pastor Andrew Newbold and his wife Megan have launched a four-week series on sex, marriage, adultery and pornography. They are advertising this seminar on a flyer that reads: “The best sex you’ll ever have.” The flyer shows two pairs of feet, belonging to Newbold and his wife Megan, protruding from under the sheets.
Talk about grabbing eyeballs. Madison Avenue should sit up and take notice.

The pastor’s message is wonderfully simple and direct. Sex is natural; sex is fun. Heck, even the Bible tells us to go forth and multiply. So there is no reason why it should leave some people, including church goers, feeling guilty, frustrated or empty. Calvin is dead. Long live Hugh Hefner.

Remember the Mel Gibson movie “The Passion of Christ”? Part of the reason for its immense popularity was the realism with which Christ’s crucifixion was portrayed. Audiences were both fascinated and repulsed by all the blood and gore. It reinforced the predominant Christian tenet that Jesus endured an enormous degree of suffering, in order to take the world’s sins on his shoulders. The brutal flaying depicted in the movie was regarded as a sort of visual proof of this.

Now, a noted literary theorist has sparked fury among Christians by uttering that the Crucifixion of Christ was not as bad as it has been painted. Terry Eagleton, Professor of Cultural Theory at the University of Manchester, said so at a taping of BBC Radio 4’s program Lent Talks. The program is due for broadcast on 20th February.

"You better rub on some more sunscreen, Gwyn," Daddy muttered. He tossed the bottle at my five-year-old self and started lathering another white glob into his blue-veined skin. I was redheaded, light-eyed, and hopelessly freckled just like he was. The sun would crook its rays into sinister claws and scoop both of us into its fiery mouth within minutes if we didn't slather ourselves in gallons of sun goop. Pale people have to be pro-active about protecting their complexions.

My father inspected his arms, worked the excess sunscreen into his elbows, and then glanced at me. "Put some on your ears."

"Yes, Daddy." I placed a dot on each ear.

"No, Gwyn," my father said, smiling. "You'll need more than that." He knelt before me and squirted a puddle of sunscreen into his fingers and then massaged my little ears until they tickled. "Perfect. No skin burn for you." I nodded, like I always did when words were unnecessary.

"You better rub on some more sunscreen, Gwyn," Daddy muttered. He tossed the bottle at my five-year-old self and started lathering another white glob into his blue-veined skin. I was redheaded, light-eyed, and hopelessly freckled just like he was. The sun would crook its rays into sinister claws and scoop both of us into its fiery mouth within minutes if we didn't slather ourselves in gallons of sun goop. Pale people have to be pro-active about protecting their complexions.

My father inspected his arms, worked the excess sunscreen into his elbows, and then glanced at me. "Put some on your ears."

"Yes, Daddy." I placed a dot on each ear.

"No, Gwyn," my father said, smiling. "You'll need more than that." He knelt before me and squirted a puddle of sunscreen into his fingers and then massaged my little ears until they tickled. "Perfect. No skin burn for you." I nodded, like I always did when words were unnecessary.

The following story appeared today on the Associated Press wire: 

Now here's a no-holds-barred account of Islam, with a few reputable quotes thrown in for good measure. There's a part of me that disagrees that Islam should be "wiped out," but then again, I have no problems with the idea that Nazism and Communism should be wiped out. So why such compunctions against Islam, which by its very nature has just as inherent a potential for violence againt non-Muslims.
 
A quote:
 
This is why sanctions are not going to prevent Iran’s development of nuclear weapons. But inasmuch as such weapons would enable Iran not only to destroy Israel but also dominate Saudi Arabia and thereby control the oil on which the world’s economy depends, the Iranian regime and its nuclear facilities must be destroyed—and without being squeamish about civilian casualties.
 

Iranian President Imajihadi (or whatever his name is) has delivered a morals lesson to the world. A short quote:
 
"Islam is the religion that can connect us together and can meet the needs of humanity," he said.

President Ahmadinejad said those who deviate from path of God and refuse to follow monotheism are unbelievers.

Those who have ignored God and His prophets, has turned the world into a hell, destroying ethics, human's dignity and world security, he pointed out.
 
Thanks for the lecture, Imajihadi. Given the generally uneducated, poverty-stricken, and oppressed nature of the Muslim world (except in rare instances where oil money isn't closely held by the ruling class or in secular Muslim-majority states), I'm sure that you're the one whose advice we should be taking.

At the Rule of Reason blog, Edward Cline embarks on a tremendous discussion of the Bible as teaching tool in public education. He makes an ironclad case that such "Bible study" classes cannot be tolerated Constitutionally, and have no place in academics. I agree with Mr. Cline completely, and could probably think of other reasons why teaching the Bible (even ostensibly as an "academic" pursuit) is wrong on many levels.
 
In discussing the particular topic of Bible study in public schools, Mr. Cline attacks the generally irrational nature of public education, which I've experienced on numerous occasions with my two children.
 
There's so much there (it's a bit of a long read) that I'll quote a few particularly interesting parts, but leave the rest for you to discover for yourself:
 

Free Will is both a reality and a necessity.

I can't imagine a God only interested in preprogrammed robots. How boring that would be --for all involved-- if we were nothing more than marionettes being jerked around by a dull-witted God, Creator and created would quickly lose interest. Wouldn't you?

We are challenged to think and act, not simply to react in predigested ways. It is what we do with the conditions of our lives, seemingly good and bad, that builds character. Watching the variations of how we grow, I believe, provides 'That-Which-Has-Created-Us' endless pleasure. And when we grow, endorphins reward us by feeling oh so good. I envision God's own pleasure centers lighting up too.