"Hey God...Can you hear me now?"

Ahhh God. A subject near and dear to my heart. Usually when I post about god or God, it's a fury filled screed against the pedophile protecting C(c)atholics. On the other hand, regular Zooheads can also get thoughtful posts from my born-again fellow blogger and Dad on the subject of G(g)od:) So today I decided to play nice...no calls to storm your local Catholic church and string up a priest...nope, I'm going to bloviate on the intersection of technology and religion. Where do they interesct? Your pocket...Namely, your cell-phone...Great article HERE on WSJ.com about cellphones and God. Whoa you say...what the hell can goddam cellphones have to do with G(g)od? Plenty...
Our story starts with a simple request. Location Issrael: An ultra-orthodox rabbi goes to a cellphone company and asks for a simple cellphone...no text features, no web access, no camera no nothing...just send and receive calls, end of story. Anything else might 'distract the pious' Makes sense. Who can concentrate on prayers while downloading the latest ringtones? So the cellphone company rolls out it's 'kosher' phones to the current tune of 20,000 subscribers!

But wait...what about Muslims? Christians? You're all in luck...there are companies out there that tell Muslims which direction to face to pray, that send Christians 'prayers of the day' and provide biblically inspired ringtones...According to Louis Cypher of Christones Inc, Jesus' last words were actually, "Oh my Father, Can you hear me now?" (That was a joke...this is not:

"Good News Holdings LLC, in partnership with Barna Group Ltd., a Ventura, Calif.-based provider of Christian data, recently launched FaithMobile, a cellphone service that offers scriptures, Christian ring tones, and one-minute-long inspirational videos to subscribers who sign up on its Web site. The service's advertising slogan: "Have you talked to God today?" It is available in the U.S. on T-Mobile, Alltel and Cingular, selling for an additional $5.99 a month.

Good News also is planning to launch a branded phone this summer in conjunction with six ministries across the country, which will provide subscribers sermons, news, movie reviews and other content. Good News originally thought of calling it the "godphone," but thought better of it and named it the FaithMobile phone instead."

I can't make this crap up:)
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I want to point you to a great blog out of Iraq called 'Baghdad Burning'. It's published by an anonymous young woman in Iraq. It's just been nominated for The BBC Four's Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction (GO BLOGGERS:) Here's a small sample:

"It’s almost funny- only a month ago, we were watching a commercial on some Arabic satellite channel- Arabiya perhaps. They were showing a commercial for Iraqi security forces and giving a list of numbers Iraqis were supposed to dial in the case of a terrorist attack… You call THIS number if you need the police to protect you from burglars or abductors… You call THAT number if you need the National Guard or special forces to protect you from terrorists… But…

Who do you call to protect you from the New Iraq’s security forces?"



So Zooheads...please don't forget to run out and purchase the new Zoophone by ZooTones. Every time you go to make a call it'll say, "Sucka"...;)

Stay safe and...

Stay Naked.

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