:: NEWS COCKTAIL aka BlahBlahBlog ::

:: 3.13.2005 ::

:: So Weird ::

From Chuck Shepherd's News of the Weird

LEAD STORY
Producers announced in February that they were still planning to bring the 3-year-old London stage show "Jerry Springer, The Opera" to America in early 2006, despite increasingly vituperative protests of religious groups. The show features "Jerry" mediating confessions in hell between Satan, God, Jesus, Mary, and various biblical characters, complete with a raucous audience periodically chanting "Jer-ree! Jer-ree!" Reportedly, 300 to several thousand curse words are in the script (depending on who counts), and the show's Jesus is a pudgy, diaper-wearing gay man who is apparently coprophilic (among the many alleged points of blasphemy). When the BBC televised a showing, it reported 50,000 complaints, with some physical threats directed to the station's staff and their families. [BBC News, 1-10-05]

Update
At the annual Muslim "stone the devil" ritual near Mecca in January, clerics had feared a repeat of 2004, when more than 250 people were trampled to death (among the 2 million in attendance), but fatalities dropped to the average level this year (just three, according to one report) after larger targets were installed so that participants did not have to get so close to stone them. On the other hand, in the same week, an annual Hindu goddess-worship ritual in Maharashtra state in India resulted in as many as 300 deaths when a fire broke out in a roadside stall near the Mandhar Devi temple, provoking a stampede. [The Australian, 1-24-05] [BBC News, 1-25-04]

Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679 or WeirdNews@earthlink.net

posted by me

:: 10:59:00 PM [+] ::
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