Interesting Ash Wednesday Articles

Ash Wednesday already? The Los Angeles Times writes about the calendar’s surprise. “Today is Ash Wednesday, and if the start of the Lenten season leading to Easter seems early this year, there’s a reason: The last time Lent arrived this early was 1913.”

More Protestant participation. The Houston Chronicle finds interest growing beyond Roman Catholics. “Protestant churches in recent years have increasingly turned to the rite to increase spirituality and devotional preparation for Easter Sunday among their members.” Elsewhere on the site, a blog invites readers to confess their sins in the comments. Two of the intial three comments think the idea’s a little weird.

Lent vs. economic effects. New Hampshire’s Foster Daily Democrat talks to a professor who thinks Lenten sacrifices may help people deal with economic issues. “The Lenten season — which lasts 40 days from Ash Wednesday today to Easter Sunday on March 23 — may make it easier for Americans to cut back on spending as they deal with the effects of a recession, she said.”

Ash ordering trend? Still recovering from Hurricane Katrina, many churches on Mississippi’s Gulf coast are ordering their ashes this year, including orders on some websites, the Clarion-Ledger reports. “Traditionally, the residue is created by burning palm leaves used during the previous year’s Palm Sunday celebration….”

Lent vs. chocolate sales. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch considers the question. “For chocolate lovers who surrender their bonbons for God, this presents a vexing problem, or at least a cruel scenario. How can they say no to the tempting contents of all those heart-shaped boxes? For at least one chocolate company, the situation goes beyond mere dilemma and actually puts a dent in sales.”

Source: USA Today

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Super Tuesday – Total Number of Votes

I thought this was interesting:

Here are the numbers just for the 19 states where both parties had elections yesterday

Obama/Clinton voters: 14,460,149
McCain/Romney/Huckabee voters: 8,367,694

Or, 73% more Democratic voters than Republican voters.

A lot of this is huge Democratic numbers in New York and California.

Link

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Wikipedia Islam Entry Is Criticized

An article about the Prophet Muhammad in the English-language Wikipedia has become the subject of an online protest in the last few weeks because of its representations of Muhammad, taken from medieval manuscripts.In addition to numerous e-mail messages sent to Wikipedia.org, an online petition cites a prohibition in Islam on images of people.

The petition has more than 80,000 “signatures,” though many who submitted them to ThePetitionSite.com, remained anonymous.

“We have been noticing a lot more similar sounding, similar looking e-mails beginning mid-January,” said Jay Walsh, a spokesman for the Wikimedia Foundation in San Francisco, which administers the various online encyclopedias in more than 250 languages.

A Frequently Asked Questions page explains the site’s polite but firm refusal to remove the images: “Since Wikipedia is an encyclopedia with the goal of representing all topics from a neutral point of view, Wikipedia is not censored for the benefit of any particular group.”

The notes left on the petition site come from all over the world. “It’s totally unacceptable to print the Prophet’s picture,” Saadia Bukhari from Pakistan wrote in a message. “It shows insensitivity towards Muslim feelings and should be removed immediately.”

Full Article

And I wonder what the people of the above stated faith will think about this website in 328 days.

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