Check out this article from the link to the title of this posting. And be sure to check out the video at the bottom and Emma, the president of the Student Workers at this Boulder CO high school.I have my own take on this pledge and prayer business. I went to school prior to the Supreme Court cases on prayer in the 60s. When ordered to pray, every student I knew just ignored the process as well as with the pledge. Children are subject to reverse psychology. Tell them they have to do something and they won’t do it for hell or high water. Tell them they can’t do something and try to stop them from doing it. If you want kids to pray, like those little no-neck monsters in Texas, then sue the school system to stop them from praying. If you want to protect kids from proselytizing then order them to pray all day long. They will do everything but that.One other note: This is the same high school where the US Secret Service questioned the principle and teacher three years ago because a group of high school students were planning to enter a talent contest by singing the 1963 Bob Dylan song “Masters of War”. Somehow the Secret Service got into their confused little minds that Bob Dylan was writing about GW Bush back in 1963 when he wrote the song. Peter Nuhn

Happy Mythology day!Tomorrow is the only “American holiday” that has no relationship to Christianity, but DOES have a relationship to a different religion (Paganism). Those nasty pagan roots irk the fundies, so they protest, so now there are “Harvest festivals” around town, and Haloween is somehow evolving. OK.If we are going to adapt Haloween, I vote for “Myth Day”, so we can all dress up as our famous mythological character. Guess who I’m going as!See you at “The Holidays”!

http://www.atheists.org/nogodblog/index.php/2006/03/12/atheist_classifiedsThis is a free service for the blog — Post your services here — and patronize each other!Personal Plug — Space and Time Magazine is now available at Barnes and Noble. It’s a 40-year-old Sci-fi, Fantasy, and Horror magazine that my wife and I own. Please buy an issue at a B&N near you or on-line at Amazon.

The decline in American pride, patriotism, and piety can be directly attributed to the extensive reading of so-called ‘science fiction’ by our young people. This poisonous rot about creatures not of God’s making, societies of ‘aliens’ without a good Christian among them, and raw sex between unhuman beings with three heads and God alone knows what sort of reproductive apparatus keeps our young people from realizing the true will of God.” – Jerry Falwell, “Can Our Young People Find God in the Pages of Trashy Magazines? No, Of Course Not!”, Reader’s Digest, Aug. 1985:142-157

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=NSPJHT4BQROMVQFIQMFSFF4AVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2007/10/24/wpio124.xml

Padre Pio, Italy’s most-loved saint, faked his stigmata by pouring carbolic acid on his hands, according to a new book.The Other Christ: Padre Pio and 19th Century Italy, by the historian Sergio Luzzatto, draws on a document found in the Vatican’s archive.The document reveals the testimony of a pharmacist who said that the young Padre Pio bought four grams of carbolic acid in 1919. “I was an admirer of Padre Pio and I met him for the first time on 31 July 1919,” wrote Maria De Vito. She claimed to have spent a month with the priest in the southern town of San Giovanni Rotondo, seeing him often.”Padre Pio called me to him in complete secrecy and telling me not to tell his fellow brothers, he gave me personally an empty bottle, and asked if I would act as a chauffeur to transport it back from Foggia to San Giovanni Rotondo with four grams of pure carbolic acid.”He explained that the acid was for disinfecting syringes for injections. He also asked for other things, such as Valda pastilles.”The testimony was originally presented to the Vatican by the Archbishop of Manfredonia, Pasquale Gagliardi, as proof that Padre Pio caused his own stigmata with acid.It was examined by the Holy See during the beatification process of Padre Pio and apparently dismissed.Padre Pio, whose real name was Francesco Forgione, died in 1968. He was made a saint in 2002. A recent survey in Italy showed that more people prayed to him than to Jesus or the Virgin Mary. He exhibited stigmata throughout his life, starting in 1911.The new allegations were greeted with an instant dismissal from his supporters. The Catholic Anti-Defamation League said Mr Luzzatto was a liar and was “spreading anti-Catholic libels”.Pietro Siffi, the president of the League, said: “We would like to remind Mr Luzzatto that according to Catholic doctrine, canonisation carries with it papal infallibility.“We would like to suggest to Mr Luzzatto that he dedicates his energies to studying religion properly.”

Not really.But a good ol’ congrats to the Bosox. I used to be a fan, but then I left the sport after the-incident-that-shall-not-be-mentioned.Now, all of a sudden, the sox are world champs AGAIN, and the pats are undefeated AGAIN. What’s next — an Atheist president?