Unusual Tuesday

Boy, different stories are just jumping out of the woodwork at me today...thought I'd share some with you.
Like:


*Celebrities' favorite things to eat. (Don't knock Angelina Jolie's taste for fried cockroaches until you've had one. I had a fried grasshopper once -- tasted like a really greasy potato chip. But full of protein.)

*Strange moneymakers. (Wanna buy some animal pee??)

*Weird cars. (Someone on Comcast woke up on a different side of the bed today -- I got a number of tips via their site.)

*Twenty bento lunch box ideas for kids. (Do you like a smiley face on your sandwich?)

*An unusual and moving story about falling in love with a man. Who wasn't born a man. I only wish Allison Cooper would keep some kind of blog, so we could follow her life...she writes beautifully.

*Researching that one took me to another story: a baronet who was born female (or perhaps a hermaphrodite), 'changed' to male, and became eligible for the title when his brother died. A cousin fought Ewan Forbes' claim, on the count that the title could not go to a woman...and lost. (The Wikipedia entry suggests that females CAN be 'baronetesses,' says there have been four, but they seem to be recent.) That same cousin became the baronet when Forbes died in 1991. Read the story of Sir Ewan Forbes, 11th Baronet, here.

One of the oddest music videos in history: Multiple Beakers doing Ode to Joy. (Well ok, this one is pretty weird, too.)

And finally, Park51, the proposed mosque to be built near Ground Zero. It's generated all sorts of talk, both pro and con, about a Muslim worship center so near the site that was devastated in 9/11. We saw little evidence of this, by the way, on our recent trip to NYC -- but we were by St. Paul's, the church and cemetary that miraculously survived 9/11, and the memorial exhibit on the next block over. Perhaps the mosque was on the other side of Ground Zero site, which was heavily covered with large canvas walls. (Years ago, when we were here before, one side was a looonnng sidewalk -- and a bus stop -- overlooking the digging.) You couldn't see a thing inside except for a few piles of dirt...and a beefy security guy at the entrance.
   I asked Husband, who is one of God's greatest conservatives, what he thought about this. A long pause. (He isn't quick to speak.) Then he said thoughtfully, "I think if they're not promoting terrorism or helping terrorists, they should be allowed to build wherever they want." To my surprise -- because I also have strong opinions about the cowards who murdered thousands of innocent victims in their quest to rattle an idealogical saber. But I agree with him. Religious freedom is one of our country's most precious tenets. To deny the opportunity to build -- given that your desire to reach out is an honest one -- would be wrong, whether the group was Muslim...or Catholic...or Methodist.
    One of the New Testament's most interesting verses reads, "Try to live in peace with  everyone, and seek to live a clean and holy life..." (Hebrews 12:14)

If we all did that.... wow.