PPS joins with Vatican to create public squares outside churches around the world
Reprinted from L'Osservatore Romano
VATICAN CITY, March 9 -- Pope John Paul II announced today a surprising inititiative to create new public squares next to most Roman Catholic churches around the world. The Catholic Church will be joining with Project for Public Spaces, a New York-based organization with 30 years experience in creating better public places around the world, to accomplish this ambitious goal.
"Our goal is to have a public gathering spot in nearly every community in the world, where people, Christian or not, can gather to talk, laugh, and enjoy God's bounty," the Pontiff said in remarks. He symbolically chose St. Peter's Square, one of the world's great pedestrian plazas, to make the announcement.
Some were surprised by the Vatican's choice of partners, a small secular organization based in the United States. But not to inside observers. Over recent months, PPS has entered into similar projects with the two largest synods of African-American churches; patriarchs of the Orthodox church in 26 countries; Hindu, Jain, and Muslim religious leaders in India; 200 Buddhist temples across Asia; worldwide Lutheran organizations; and the Reconstructionist Jewish movement. They are currently in negotiations with other mainline protestant churches in Europe and North America; Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, and Hasidic Jewish organizations; Islamic leaders in 32 countries; Shinto and Confucian organizations; as well as neo-pagan, Native American, and atheist organizations.
Reuters/AP
The American Medical Association and Federal Transit Authority announced startling results from a nationwide survey of thousands of transit passengers, providing conclusive evidence that people who ride the bus have significantly greater psychic abilities than people who don't. (Initially designed to uncover potential differences in HDL cholesterol and blood pressure levels between those who take mass transit and those who don't, the study revealed some genuinely unexpected findings.)
"Communicating with the dead is easier than digging up a bus schedule in this town."
Interviewed at bus stops in 5 major metropolitan areas--New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Denver, and Washington, D.C.--transit riders were able to predict with 89% accuracy when their bus was scheduled to arrive. Accuracy soared to 99% when asked what route a particular bus was to follow. "They did this all without the benefit of schedules or route maps," exclaimed an FTA spokesperson, "these people are really gifted!"
Another unanticipated finding was that transit users listed their employment in fields related to the "paranormal" arts (i.e. psychic readers, mediums, fortune tellers, practitioners of palmistry, shamans, and parapsychologists) in levels drastically higher than the national average.
Maria Esposito, a psychic nutritionist from El Monte and a regular on the #33 bus to downtown L.A. explained it this way: "You have to be a mind reader to ride the bus in LA. It's the only way to figure out what time your bus is coming or where it's going. Communicating with the dead is easier than digging up a bus schedule in this town."
Reprinted from the St. Louis Republican-Democrat
Some of the Americans who have done the most to create great places around the land are being honored with a new series of postage stamps issued by the United States Postal Service. The "All-American Placemakers" series debuts this summer with seven 37-cent stamps honoring:
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