December 29, 2010 | 5:07 pm

Brett Favre, lewd pics and the Ten Commandments

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

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As is the custom in the final days of any year, media outlets are putting out a lot of year-in-review type features. I found ESPN Page 2’s list of top quotes particularly enjoyable. Coming in at No. 16 was Sir Charles Barkley’s objections to Brett Favre’s sending of lewd photographs to a former female employee of the Jets.

I know what you’re thinking: There’s no religion angle to this story (aside, of course, from the shocking revelation that male athletes are not faithful to their wives). But there is. Look at what Barkley had to say:

“My biggest problem with the whole Brett Favre thing is, if you’re going to send a woman a picture of your junk, it should be huge. You can’t send small junk to a woman and expect anything. Seriously, you have to be like Ron Jeremy or some of those other porn stars. If you send a woman a picture of your junk, it should be humongous, it shouldn’t be small. That’s one of the Ten Commandments.”

I’ve met Ron Jeremy and I think that nice Jewish boy would agree that while there are some Commandments that might surprise you, that is not in fact one of them. What is certainly true is that Brett Favre and so many other athletes would benefit from watching the above “PSA.”

December 29, 2010 | 3:54 pm

Happy Holidays from Fresh Brothers

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Photo: Hadley Tomicki

I spotted this most clever holidays greeting from Fresh Brothers in Redondo Beach last week. Unfortunately, the photo I snapped from my car was worthless. Fortunately, this one from Hadley Tomicki, via Grub Street LA, was not. And, yes, that advertisement is kosher.

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December 28, 2010 | 8:01 pm

Rabbis wives urge Israeli women to avoid Arab men

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

The first of two interesting stories sent my way from regular reader Ben Plonie: According to the Jerusalem Post, rabbis’ wives today called on Jewish women not to date Arab men:

The rebbetzins’ letter states, “There are quite a few Arab workers who give themselves Hebrew names. Yusef turns into Yosef, Samir turns into Sami, and Awabad turns into Ami.  They ask to be close to you, try to find favor with you, and give you all the attention in world, they are actually here knowing to act with courtesy, acting as if they really care for you, say a good word, but their behavior is only temporary.  The moment you are in their hands, in their village, under their control, everything changes.”

“Your life will never go back to the way it was, and the attention you so desired will turn into curses, beatings, and humiliations,” the letter warns.

That’s a far cry from the anti-miscegenation laws in some Arab countries, even the more “liberal” ones like Egypt. And it really isn’t that surprising.

There is a good line from an Arab in Jeffrey Goldberg’s book “Prisoners” about how Israeli women mistake some Arabs for being Israelis:

“I’ve f—-ed more Jewish girls than you have,” he told me once, trying to stir my blood. “We’re circumcised, too. They can’t tell the difference.”

But I wonder how common it is for Israeli women to enter relationships with Arab men. Certainly some research center must have compiled data on this.

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December 28, 2010 | 6:22 pm

Eddie Long leading candidate for Worst Pastor of 2010

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I’m not sure just how credible the Preacher Bureau of Investigations is—their web domain, after all, is pimppreacher.com—but I’m pretty sure that a minister would not want to end up on the PBI’s list of worst pastors of 2010. Leading that list is Bishop Eddie Long, whom you might remember as the get-rich-from-church-donations pastor who was accused of sexually abusing teenage boys in his care.

PBI, which bills itself as a watchdog site, is taking nominations for other Worst Pastors of 2010:

Other Pastors that have made the running for the Worst Pastor of 2010 is Rev Gerry James, Pastor Ed Young Jr., Bishop Anthony Jinwright, and Bishop Jim Swilley just to name a few. The winner of the Worst Pastor of 2010 will be announced on December 31, 2010 at 11 am (CST) on Church Folk Revolution Radio.

Vote here. The picture, which reminds me of this “Chappelle’s Show” sketch, is amazing.

The above video was from better times for Eddie Long.

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December 28, 2010 | 12:31 pm

Muslim women and TSA body scanners

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I’m really getting tired of all the TSA body-scanner “controversy.” I get that their implementation leaves flyers in a pickle: submit to a, ehem, thorough pat-down or stick with the all-but-facially revealing body scanner. But there is also a third option: Don’t fly.

Sure, that’s not a very good option for a lot of people. But neither is not using email, which comes with its own privacy concerns.

Here, however, is an interesting story from The Washington Post about what the dilemma means for Muslim women, for whom displays of modesty must meet a much stricter criteria.

Muslims aren’t alone in their antipathy toward the new security measures. Followers of other religions, including Sikhs and some Orthodox Jews and evangelical Christians, also say the scanners and pat-downs make them uncomfortable or breach the tenets of their faiths.

But Muslim women have been particularly reluctant to subject themselves to the scanners, which reveal the contours of the human body in glaring detail.

In Islam, “a woman’s body and a man’s body are both pretty much private,” said Ikramullah, 29, who wears a head scarf. “I choose to cover myself and dress in loose-fitting clothing so the shape of my body is not revealed to everyone in the street.”

The other choice, an “enhanced” pat-down in which security agents touch intimate body parts, was hardly more appealing, said the College Park resident. In recent years, Ikramullah said, she has been pulled aside for a milder version of the pat-downs almost every time she flies. The reason, she believes, is her head scarf.

“It can be humiliating when you’re standing there and people are walking by, seeing you get the pat-down,” she said. “You just feel like you have a target on your head.”

“It can be humiliating when you’re standing there and people are walking by, seeing you get the pat-down,” she said. “You just feel like you have a target on your head.”

To be sure, there is no target on Muslim women. The new TSA requirements affect everyone. My GetReligion colleague Mollie, who is Christian, got groped at the airport last month. And the “If-you-touch-my-junk” guy in the above video is neither Muslim nor a women.

But the concerns for Muslim women and, in fact, anyone whose religious beliefs impose a higher level of modesty are real.

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December 27, 2010 | 11:15 pm

Christmas in a Jewish home

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Before Christmas gets too stale, it’s worth mentioning an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times that reminds me of the few Jews I knew growing up who celebrated Christmas. They were typically gets who had one Jewish parent and one Christian parent, which is the same situation Dinah Lenney’s kids find themselves in.

Lenney, who is Jewish, had married a WASP and gave Christmas a try before they had kids. But then things changed:

when Eliza, our first child, was born, I put the kibosh on Christmas festivities. Commendable, I argued, for a Gentile to sit through a seder, but when a Jew takes on Christmas, she’s an imposter, a hypocrite. Never mind that Fred had valiantly donned a yarmulke more than once, that he’d been willing to learn the Sabbath blessings (though, if left to his own devices, he still veers off into “Red River Valley”). We are not celebrating Christmas, I said. I didn’t care that it wasn’t about religion for him, only peace on Earth, Santa Claus and the smell of pine — a whiff of his childhood — in his very own living room. In the end, Fred gave in.

And so that year, just weeks before my daughter’s first birthday, we sat around awkward and sad. Fred’s parents were dead. My own were on the other coast. Our little girl, impervious to her father’s melancholy and my misgivings, played by herself on the kitchen floor. Watching her there, I realized: She was entitled to Christmas. How dare I steal my husband’s past from him, her legacy from her? And just like that, I gave up the cause.

Christmas, though, is a slippery slope. Once you’ve surrendered, you can’t just hang a scrawny fir with costume jewelry. You need one of those trees that takes over the living room; you need ornaments to weigh it down. You need lights, stockings, jingle bells and candy canes. Before I knew it, I was making wreaths, decorating cookies, helping the kids write letters to Santa, leaving out milk and cookies, and a carrot for Rudolph.

The question I have: Is it better for kids to celebrate the different religions of their parents or for them to be raised in just one tradition?

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December 27, 2010 | 9:54 pm

A reporter leading his story’s subjects in prayer

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Icy Sidewalk Halts Colleen Schoenherr’s Mail Delivery in Roseville: MyFoxDETROIT.com

I get the feeling that Charlie LeDuff, the former NYT reporter who recently moved over to broadcast news in Detroit, was being a bit satirical when he tried to resolve a problem with mail service by leading the homeowner and the postal carrier in prayer.

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December 27, 2010 | 12:58 pm

Pat Robertson wants to legalize pot

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

For once, a little sense out of Pat Robertson:

“I’m not exactly for the use of drugs, don’t get me wrong, but I just believe that criminalizing marijuana, criminalizing the possession of a few ounces of pot, that kind of thing, it’s just, it’s costing us a fortune and it’s ruining young people. Young people go into prisons, they go in as youths and come out as hardened criminals. That’s not a good thing.”

I agree.

(Hat tip: The Caucus)

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December 25, 2010 | 11:33 pm

Why most Americans celebrate Christmas

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

In case you missed it, today was Christmas. Why do most Americans celebrate Christmas? It may please atheists to learn that it isn’t Jesus. At least that is what LifeWay Research found, as USA Today reports:

“A lot of Americans celebrate Christmas like they participate in yoga: unaware and unconcerned about its religious roots,” says Ed Stetzer, LifeWay president and a Southern Baptist pastor.

There are no statistics to prove whether LifeWay’s snapshot of Christmas 2010 is part of a trend or a moment unique for its secular spin. But experts say it reveals several forces inflating a Santa balloon over the season:

•Blame the little kids. Although 37% say Christmas is more religious when children are present, 43% says it’s less so.

“That’s not surprising when more people encourage belief in Santa Claus (38%) than tell the Gospel story (28%) that undergirds the whole of Christianity,” Stetzer says.

So few people hear the Nativity story of the birth of a savior unless they see Peanuts character Linus recite Luke 2:8-14 in A Charlie Brown Christmas.

“Sure, people will say Jesus is the reason for the season, but Thor is the reason the fifth day of the week is named Thursday. That doesn’t mean I celebrate Thor. The fact is, people don’t open the Gospel and read why Jesus came,” Stetzer says.

LifeWay isn’t exactly the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, but their findings are interesting. Find more here.

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December 25, 2010 | 2:57 pm

Tracking Santa’s every movement

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Another great Greenberg Christmas is underway. Santa definitely brought a wonderful bounty. If I had wanted to track Saint Nick’s travels last night, I could have turned to NORAD. But how do they do it?

That, apparently, is a matter of national secret, if not security. The Richmond Times-Dispatch explains in “Operation jolly old elf.”

NORAD Tracks Santa, the official name of the exercise, began in 1955 when a Colorado Springs newspaper ad invited kids to talk to Santa on a hot line.

The phone number had a typo, and dozens of kids wound up dialing the Continental Aerospace Defense Command in Colorado Springs, the predecessor to NORAD.

The officers on duty played along and began passing along reports on Santa’s progress. It’s now a cherished ritual at NORAD, a joint United States-Canada command that monitors the North American skies and seas from a control center at Peterson Air Force Base.

“It’s really ingrained in the NORAD psyche and culture,” said Canadian Forces Lt. Gen. Marcel Duval, the deputy commander of NORAD, who pitches in to field French-language calls on Christmas Eve. “It’s a goodwill gesture from all of us, on our time off, to all the kids on the planet.”

Read the rest here. And watch above to see why it’s better to ask for gifts from Santa Claus rather than Shaqa Claus.

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December 23, 2010 | 2:01 pm

Fox News identifies Elie Wiesel as ‘Holocaust winner’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I didn’t realize the Holocaust was a contest.

Oy ... nice editing Fox News. This certainly provides some awkward context for Fox News boss Roger Ailes’ bizarre Nazi remarks.

I think the title they were looking for was either “Elie Wiesel—Holocaust survivor” or “Elie Wiesel—Nobel Peace Prize winner.” I also would have accepted: “Elie Wiesel—Madoff sucker.”

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December 23, 2010 | 12:17 pm

Enough Christmas cheer to bring down the house

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

You’d think that with the Christmas-shopping rush malls would be well equipped for massive crowds. But this week a Westfield mall in Roseville, Calif., was evacuated after so many choral singers gathered to perform Handel “Hallelujah” that concern arose that the building would collapse.

From CNN:

The Sacramento Choral Society was holding what police called a “well-publicized” event to sing the “Hallelujah Chorus” in the mall’s food court, scheduled for 7:30 p.m.

“Come join our large Chorus of area Singers as they burst into Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus much to the surprise and delight of Shoppers in the Food Court of the recently reopened Westfield Galleria at Roseville,” the society’s website trumpeted ahead of the event.

But less than an hour beforehand, too many people had crowded into the mall.

“At 6:45 p.m., the Roseville Police and Fire communications center received reports that people in the food court heard popping noises and felt floor movement,” a police statement said.

Inspectors later found the building to be safe and choral singers moved their festivities to the parking lot.

Coincidentally, this is the same mall that sustained severe burns after a man set part of it on fire during a standoff with police.

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