Speaking of billboards, there’s one I pass every morning on my way to work inviting those interested in Scientology to an event. But what I find funny is that the very next billboard is one for a male stripclub.
Thorpe Park is banning visitors from putting their hands in the air while riding its rollercoasters following complaints about body odour.
The new rule will apply at the theme park in Chertsey, Surrey, from Wednesday and signs will tell visitors to keep their arms down and ‘Say no to BO’.
With temperatures expected to reach 84F (29C), managers expect an excess of perspiration as visitors queue to go on rides.
Wardens on the rides will also remind people to consider their fellow passengers and anyone ignoring the warnings will be escorted off. Those who continue to do so will be asked to leave the park.
I guess these park officials haven’t experience Six Flags Over Texas in July.
Nearly two weeks ago, I stood before 7,000 people—and an additional 60,000 connected via satellite feed—who gathered for the Willow Creek Association’s annual two-day conference the Global Leadership Summit to hear from diverse faculty on the subject of how to get better at leading whatever it is that we lead. Part of the assortment this year included Bono, who agreed to a follow-up discussion to our 2006 interview, during which he called out the local church for being inexcusably late to the game of fighting extreme poverty and treatable disease.
The evangelical church has taken a lot of justifiable heat in recent years for being vocal about the things we hate while staying silent about some of the most pressing needs in our world. There are times when I believe the church should be the conscience of our culture, but to Bono’s point, a reframing must occur, one where the divisiveness that once defined us as people of faith gets edged out by a unity around great societal causes. And what has to unite us in this day and age is the fight against poverty and disease. Faith leaders the world over expected this day would come. What we didn’t expect was that it would take an Irish rock star to demand the dawn.