truTV: Not Reality. Actuality.

In May, "more than 300 people" in Augusta, Ga. (according to the Augusta Chronicle), assembled at the Municipal Building explicitly to pray for the city, following weeks-long controversies on the city commission. In June, "more than 300 people" in Destin, Fla. (according to the Northwest Florida Daily News), assembled at the Destin Worship Center and raised their hands in joyful prayer for a rebound in the real estate market in the coastal communities in the Florida panhandle.

In May, The Times of London, interviewing witnesses in Diyala province in Iraq, described scenes from the hard-core Salafist version of Islam being enforced (similar to what the Taliban imposed in Afghanistan), including breaking the fingers of those who repeatedly smoked cigarettes, prohibiting grocers from displaying bananas (as "obscene"), and requiring them to screen cucumbers from tomatoes (as the latter are "feminine vegetables"). One local man said he assumed that another restriction that farmers modestly cover their goats' "nether regions" was just a rumor, until he saw a goat wearing boxer shorts.

While the California Assembly debated an open-hand-only spanking bill for parents this Spring, the Bethel Baptist Church in El Sobrante continued to demand that spanking by flexible rod is the only punishment acceptable to God and which will produce wisdom in the child. No sturdier weapon may be used, nor the open or closed hand, nor even mere yelling, according to a Church pamphlet cited by InsideBayArea.com for a May report. Said one parishioner-parent, "With my girls, the spanking relieved them of their guilt, which allowed them to be happy in a very short time afterward." Said another, "We disagree with timeouts . . .. That's an attack on spanking."

While the California Assembly debated an open-hand-only spanking bill for parents this spring, the Bethel Baptist Church in El Sobrante continued to demand that spanking by flexible rod is the only punishment acceptable to God and that will produce wisdom in the child. No sturdier weapon may be used, nor the open or closed hand, nor even mere yelling, according to a church pamphlet cited by InsideBayArea.com for a May report. Said one parishioner-parent, "With my girls, the spanking relieved them of their guilt, which allowed them to be happy in a very short time afterward." Said another, "We disagree with timeouts. ... That's an attack on spanking."

Recurring Themes: When an evangelical parishioner comes to the altar to receive "the spirit of the Lord" and falls backward, church-supplied "catchers" ease them to the floor, usually. Judith Dadd's lawsuit against Mount Hope Church went to trial near Lansing, Mich., at press time, as she sought compensation for head trauma and lacerations after no one was there to break her fall. (In a 1995 incident at a tent revival in Lafayette Parish, La., News of the Weird reported that the first overcome parishioner was caught, but a second, who was apparently overcome too quickly, landed hard on the first woman and broke three of her ribs.)

When an evangelical parishioner comes to the altar to receive "the spirit of the Lord" and falls backward, church-supplied "catchers" ease them to the floor, usually. Judith Dadd's lawsuit against Mount Hope Church went to trial near Lansing, Mich., at press time, as she sought compensation for head trauma and lacerations after no one was there to break her fall. (In a 1995 incident at a tent revival in Lafayette Parish, La., News of the Weird reported that the first overcome parishioner was caught, but a second, who was apparently overcome too quickly, landed hard on the first woman and broke three of her ribs.)