The Army pioneers a role-playing computer game as a way of educating soldiers about the risks of suicide and the importance of seeking timely help. (Not a first-person shooter.)
The Minnesota-based theater group Ten Thousand Things performs Shakespeare and other drama in homeless shelters, prisons, and similar venues.
"The world's first satirical board game of religious warfare." What a bizarre notion.
This is pretty much spot on.
A reasonably accurate, fair-minded profile by NYT religion-beat regular Goodstein about Sarah Palin's "spiritual warfare" and "prayer warrior" background.
I don't get this. What can they do with Twitter that they can't already do with mobile phones and plain-vanilla web access?
The Kuwaiti central bank puts together a bailout package for one of that country's biggest financial institutions, and in Abu Dhabi, real estate prices have suddenly begun to soften. The article names widespread, heavily-leveraged currency trades as the primary culprit
An ad hoc group of British atheists has mounted a fundraising campaign to put billboards on London buses reading: "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life." Um... good for them, I guess.
Kristof is outraged that the Bush administration has undercut the efforts of the Marie Stopes International aid group to provide contraception to poor women in rural Africa, pointing out that since this population suffers a 1-in-10 risk of dying in childbirth, the move will undoubtedly increase both abortions and maternal death and disability. This is supposedly a "pro-life" move.
A profile of Hawa Yilmaz, a young Turkish woman who decided as a teenager to begin wearing the hijab, against the wishes of her family and to the disapproval of her friends. She has now become an activist for the rights of Muslims, especially women, in a state that legally enforces a fairly strict form of secularism (for example: no hijab is allowed on university campuses). Good profile. Webcite: http://www.webcitation.org/5bgnIYlsG
Religion-themed bottled water. Spiritual Water, the company that makes the products in the photo, sells them under ten different Christian-themed labels. Other companies use Hindu themes. Some religious leaders have objected to the practice as environmentally and socially irresponsible. From December 2007.
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