Mohammed and Charlie bumped Adam and Alfie out of the top 20 list of baby names for 2004. But the name can be spelled various ways - Mohammed, with 2,279 boys, came in 20th place, but Muhammad occurred 1,086 times and placed 54th. Other variants are Mohammad with 770 in 72nd place, Mohamed with 305 at 139, Muhammed with 287 at 144, and Mohammod with 27 at 751. That makes 4,754 boys given the Islamic prophet's name in various spellings.
- Religion News Service
Stone strikes back
Director Oliver Stone said Wednesday he was surprised by the hostile critical reaction to his historical epic "Alexander" - and put the blame on "a raging fundamentalism in morality in the U.S." U.S. critics lambasted the film, which stars Irish actor Colin Farrell, and some conservative groups condemned Stone's depiction of the Macedonian conqueror's bisexuality.
"From day one audiences didn't show up," Stone told reporters in London before the film's British premiere. "They didn't even read the reviews in the south because the media was using the words, 'Alex the gay.' As a result you can bet that they thought, 'We're not going to see a film about a military leader that has got something wrong with him.' ”
He was "taken aback by the controversy and fierceness of the reviews about a character we don't really know too much about. I operate on my passion and sometimes I'm naive. I don't think about the consequences."
- The Associated Press
No hugging at church
A deadly meningitis strain that has claimed 27 lives since March last year, most of them in Banguio, the northern Philippine summer capital, has prompted the country's Roman Catholic Church to change some liturgical customs at its serviÂces. "I already instructed my priests to give communion into the hand, and not into the mouth as was the tradition," said Bishop Carlito Cenzon of the Baguio diocese. He also discouraged hugging and hand-holding as part of the service.
- Ecumenical News Intl.
Leave crosses at home
An evangelical Christian group planning a prayer vigil and demonstration near the inaugural parade has criticized a U.S. Secret Service ruling prohibiting crosses and other structures including props, folding chairs, bicycles, displays such as puppets, papier-mache objects, coffins, crates, theaters, cages and statues.
The Christian Defense Coalition sent a letter Thursday to officials of the federal agency that protects the president and requested that it redraft the rules to remove crosses from the list.
''We were stunned on a number of levels that somehow crosses are included on a Secret Service letter detailing what items should be prohibited from the inauguration parade,'' the Rev. Patrick Mahoney, director of the Washington-based group. ''To somehow single out a cross and imply that it can be used as a weapon is ludicrous."
- Religion News Service
