“We need to have more respect for each other,” Wonder says, leaning forward for emphasis. “Things have just gone really crazy, out of control. … We’re on a very weird kind of cycle.” It was here that he put together the tracks featuring a wide array of musicians, including Prince, Paul McCartney, India.Arie and Bonnie Raitt, as well as two duets with his daughter Aisha Morris, one of his seven children. Story. I saw Stevie Wonder in concert back in... Read more

The variation on Beacon’s saying is this: The Internet shows us that, while a million monkeys at a million keyboards might eventually produce the complete Works of Shakespeare, they’ll first produce a lot of monkey porn. A Comment, and picture, stolen from Get Religion Read more

MUZAFFARABAD: Death toll in the disastrous earthquake that had struck Azad Kashmir, Frontier province and Punjab is likely to go beyond 40,000 marks, while the much needed relief works in some of the devastated areas could not yet been taken up. The nightmare and the huge tragedy that visited these ruined and ravaged vast areas of hills and dales and the plane lands with no exceptions and with equal severity could hardly be described as words fail to depict the... Read more

It was on this day in 1962, Pope John XXIII convened the first session of the Second Vatican Council in Rome, also known as Vatican II. Vatican II resulted in some of the greatest changes in the history of the Catholic Church. As a result of it, Catholics were allowed to pray with Protestants and attend weddings and funerals in Protestant churches. Priests were encouraged to say mass facing the congregation rather than facing the altar, and Priests were allowed... Read more

[T]he first collective meeting of 256 bishops representing the Catholic world in four years, and the first presided over by the new pope inevitably brought out the major problems facing the episcopates – terrorism, Islam, and the issue of married priests. Vatican experts were making the point this week that the church has recently removed the celibacy rule for individual married Protestant clergymen wishing to become Catholic priests. An undisclosed number of Anglican and Episcopalian priests with families have turned... Read more

If you’ve ever been part of an Internet discussion list, you will appreciate the wit and art of Mike Reed at Flame Warriors. I’ve had him in my side margin links for a long time, but noticed his URL had changed. Pay him a visit, it’ll do ya good. Read more

But we should also understand that our best human efforts, the works of Michelangelo and the Pyramids and Dostoevsky and Mozart, are like a toddler’s finger painting, stuck on God’s refrigerator more out of love for the artist than appreciation for the art. Read more

CLEVELAND (AP)–One of the domes atop Ohio’s oldest Russian Orthodox church was peeled of its copper covering by thieves who apparently wanted to sell the metal for scrap. “Who could steal from God?” said Ted Lentz, the church caretaker, as he looked up at the damage Wednesday. The St. Theodosius Russian Orthodox Cathedral, which appeared in scenes of the Oscar-winning film “The Deer Hunter,” is topped with 13 onion-shaped copper domes, one for Jesus and each of his 12 apostles.... Read more

On Harriet Miers: If she does not exhibit these qualities in testimony before the Judiciary Committee, Harriet Miers should be rejected. That she is a woman, a good lawyer, a trusted friend of the Bush family, a born-again Republican and Evangelical Christian is not enough. That Dr. James Dobson has been secretly assured by Karl Rove she is pro-life is not enough. After all, we have a president who professes to be “pro-life,” yet cannot bring himself to say that... Read more

“President Bush said to all of us: ‘I’m driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, “George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.” And I did, and then God would tell me, “George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq …” And I did. And now, again, I feel God’s words coming to me, “Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East.” And by God I’m... Read more