The sight of a woman being tattooed live on the altar accompanied by the sound of a buzzing ink gun provided a startling backdrop to Sunday’s evangelical sermon.
Reimbursement for spiritual healing
Leaders of the Church of Christ, Scientist, are pushing a proposal that would help patients pay someone like Lewis for prayer by having insurers reimburse the $20 to $40 cost.
I am past the point of questioning other folks’ religious beliefs, and in the grand scheme of health care reform, this doesn’t really bust my balls, but how, exactly, did they calculate the cost of a prayer at $20-40? Is it like lawyers - billed incrementally by the hour?
How DNA testing is changing fatherhood
This is one of the more wrenching articles I have read this year. I found myself irrationally pissed off at nearly every one of the women described in the article, which I hope wasn’t the intention.
Pretty shocking was this:
Once a man has been deemed a father, either because of marriage or because he has acknowledged paternity (by agreeing to be on the birth certificate, say, or paying child support), most state courts say he cannot then abandon that child — no matter what a DNA test subsequently reveals.
I was surprised, as I thought that DNA reigned supreme in these cases. The primary subject of the article, a man named Mike, discovered that his daughter was not biologically his when she was 5. He continued to pay child support and co-parent her after his divorce, in part because the mother apparently told Mike that the biological father was not “going to step up to the plate.”
The mother eventually married the biological father of the daughter and, unbelievably, opposed Mike’s attempts to stop paying child support:
Her attorney argued in an appeal that parenthood shared by one mother and two fathers “would lead to a strange and unworkable situation.” So, the lawyer reasoned, [the biological father] should not be forced to help pay for [his biological daughter]’s care.
The court agreed, but for different and legally technical reasons. As it stands today, having been affirmed by the PA Supreme Court, Mike is the legal father and the sole man responsible for the girl’s financial support.
That is one scrappy pecker.
DON’T MOVE THE BOAT!
Woodpecker vs. snake. I wish Hollywood could make tension and suspense like this! I love the unseen guy with the camera modulating his voice as he says “Don’t move the boat.”
(Via an aggregator site that never attributes.)
Kid Rock, Wasting Time
Kid Rock, for instance, is very pro-America and has common sense ideas.
— Sarah Palin, Going Rogue, page 300
Lynden David Hall, All You Need Is Love
This is the version from Love, Actually (the wedding scene at the beginning). So damn good, and all Sunday jazz-like.
