truTV: Not Reality. Actuality.

To bring prosperity to the village, an elder married off two trees to each other (Subhasnagar, West Bengal state; February).

Pastor Bob Book of the Church of the Common Ground in Atlanta and his wife scrub the feet of three dozen homeless men every Monday, based on the concept of Jesus washing his disciples' feet, with such pedicures including a soak, pumice-rubbing, nail-trimming and massage, topped off by a clean pair of socks. Book says his crusade makes the down-and-out feel more confident, and the "worst ongoing" threat, according to him, is not Satan in men's minds but fungus in their toes. "It eats away and destroys the toenails and just makes it very hard for people to walk."

That Sacred Institution (as practiced in villages in India): To prevent mysterious illnesses in the village, two 7-year-old girls were married, separately, to frogs (Pallipudupet, Tamil Nadu state; January).

The Vatican said in January that Pope Benedict XVI would soon issue guidelines to help Catholics understand which "sightings" of the Virgin Mary and Jesus are legitimate and which are phony (such as "apparitions" that seem to have been created for quick sale on eBay). When a claim occurs, the local bishop will be expected to convene a panel of theologians, mental-health people and priests who will investigate (and, if the sighting is demonic, summon an exorcist). (A 2003 Vatican paper noted that only 11 of the 295 reported apparitions during the 20th century were "genuine.")

Although to many outsiders, the concept of "clothing" on Muslim women suggests full-body veils, many married women in Syria are decidedly more playful, feeding a market for daring and quixotic underwear (to be worn in private, of course, and only for one's husband). Musical panties (some that glow in the dark), bras with "hands" covering the cups, and underwear designed to collapse and fall to the floor at the sound of hands clapping are just three of the popular items at boutique shops, according to a December BBC News dispatch from Damascus.

Photographer Yeon Lee's exhibit in a London gallery in December featured a burqa-clad model, fully robed from head to toe except for a tiny opening, but that opening was not the typical one, for the woman's eyes. Ms. Lee's openings exposed only the model's nipples, highlighting, she said, "the ways women are categorized in male-dominated societies."