On Friday evening, Adams Morgan’s pizza and beer-fueled sinners met their match: A group of pizza and God-fueled “soul winners.”

At around 1:30 a.m., a sizeable crowd gathered outside Columbia Road watering hole Chief Ike’s. The hundred-strong mob jumped, fist-pumped, and chanted in unison. Some wildly brandished flags, possibly made of their own shirts. From my perch across the sidewalk, the driving two-syllable chant was indecipherable.

Were these revelers footballers? Kickballers? Goths? As I ventured closer to the seductive chorus, its message became clear: “JE-SUS!” the mob shouted, again and again. “JE-SUS! JE-SUS! JE-SUS!”

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The D.C. Public Charter School Board has voted tonight to convert seven Catholic schools to charters. The vote was unanimous, after about 15 minutes of discussion. More to come.

UPDATE, 10 P.M.: The Catholic conversions, to be known as the Center City Public Charter School, were the only application to be accepted unconditionally by the board this year. The application for the National Collegiate Preparatory Academy, a high school, was also approved unanimously, albeit with conditions to be specified. The board denied the applications from the other seven schools, all but two unanimously.

While introducing the charter-applications portion of the agenda, board chair Tom Nida mentioned that letters and petitions had been received in opposition to the Center City application, but during the discussion of the proposal, virtually every member spoke in praise of it.

“These have been well-run schools with a culture of achievement and high standards,” said member Will Marshall.

Member Dora Marcus called Center City’s a “strong application” and said it was “our duty” to keep the schools open.

The only even mildly negative comments came from member Karl Jentoft, who expressed concerns (somewhat self-servingly) at higher level of oversight and accountability the schools would have as a charter, and from member and executive director Josephine Baker, who expressed some dismay at the size of the proposed school—possibly more than 1,000 students across seven campuses. Both voted to approve.

Jentoft dismissed much of the hullabaloo surrounding the decision: “There’s been a lot of political stuff going on,” he said, “but our role is to look at the application and make sure the children get an education.”

Nida closed discussion after about 15 minutes with a defense of the board’s procedures. “We’re in a situation where I come back to our process,” he said. “The process has been followed….Has it been followed? Is it fair to the parties concerned? This is a test of our process.”

He included a poke at the old D.C. Board of Education, which used to share chartering authority with the Public Charter School Board before giving up that authority in 2006 with the achievement of its schools in doubt: “This is why we’re the sole authorizer. Our process has worked.”

Sioban Farey, she of the incensed, wordy postings regarding the planned closing of the National Cathedral’s greenhouse, is deep in the weeds on this issue now. Since City Desk broke the news the greenhouse would close June 29, Farey and between 65 and 300 other incensed plant-lovers (her estimates) have been busy organizing to stop the insanity.

They’ve launched a rudimentary Web site, savethegreenhouse.org (upgrades are coming), and Farey has been on the horn with the Washington Post (a weekend story is promised) and NBC 4 (news tonight at 6 or 11, she thinks). It was on the front page of the Northwest Current (can’t link to it, sorry) and, well, they are doing this thing; they are going to keep that greenhouse open.

The Cathedral, which has already handed out virtual pink slips to the greenhouse employees, does not appear to be budging. The associate dean, Margaret Bergan Davis, has said (I’m paraphrasing) that cuts need to be made, new visions have to be realized, the greenhouse is not part of said new visions, so good luck, Sioban Farey. Davis left a message on Farey’s machine about all the other green programs going on that still are a part of the Cathedral’s vision. Farey was not impressed.

Farey has said, well, Farey has said a lot. In a 45-minute conversation late this morning, she brought up Darfur, 9/11, the snipers, the Walter Reed scandal, global warming (natch), and the stress our nation’s decision makers are under. (Plants reduce stress. There are studies. She could find them.) For all of these reasons and many more—including people like to buy plants and herbs at the greenhouse—Farey thinks this is a cause worth fighting for.

“I read the strategic report yesterday. They [the Cathedral officials] want more diverse, younger participants. We’re moving into a more enlightened green period. Even if it’s John McCain, it’s going to be more progressive environmentally. America is rejoining the international community….I’ve been working on planet change the last couple of years out of my own personal interest…This is the nation’s church in the nation’s capital and what they’re doing is cutting the tiny greenhouse loved by lots and lots of people….”

Farey of Chevy Chase, D.C. side, says she has also been enlisting “establishment” people, one of whom calls what’s happening “absolutely disgusting” and another of whom promised to pull $1,000 out of her pocket right then and there “and she said she has a friend who’d be willing to contribute considerably more.”

Yet this is not just a greenhouse for the matrons of Cleveland and Glover Parks, she attests. Latinos shop there for the specialized herbs and people “make pilgrimages” there on a regular basis.

In other words, watch out Margaret Bergan Davis. You’re going to have to deal with this one for awhile yet.

(photo by Just Chaos)

If Catholics prefer Hillary, and Guam is overwhelmingly Catholic, then how did Obama win Guam? Is it the islander connection—Obama being from Hawaii, which is the New York of Micronesia? Is it, as Slate suggests, that Catholics generally prefer Hillary because they don’t want to support a non-Caucasian candidate—which presumably isn’t an issue in Guam, where the majority of the island’s people and politicians are non-Caucasian?

a Catholic church in southern Guam

I’m still looking for my amusing Christmas photos of Santas riding on Guamanian rooftops, under blue blue skies; they’re around, but have gotten lost on my computer

As a former resident of that part of the world, I have sent off some emails to smart friends involved with Micronesian politics to see what they think about Obama’s seven-vote victory. I’m curious what they have to say about it.

Finally: The New York Times’ Andy Newman gets to the bottom of Pope Benedict XVI’s relationship to kitties. This overdue link-up between the pope and crazy cat people is a nice change of pace from weeks of papal coverage that has too often glanced over the ridiculous side of pope and pope-related activity.

Meow:

Benedict’s kindness toward the strays of Rome is already the stuff of Vatican legend. His house in Germany, its garden guarded by a cat statue, was filled with cats when Benedict lived there full time before he was posted to the Vatican in 1982.

The article then delves into a close reading of Joseph and Chico: The Life of Pope Benedict XVI as Told By a Cat, the first (but please, not the last) biography of a pope written from a cat’s perspective. It’s also a true story, Vatican approved.

But with the pope’s schedule filled with human concerns, whither the felines? A phone interview with Chico’s owner reveals the stunning truth. According to Rupert Hofbauer, “Chico, now 10, misses his old friend, who has not been back to visit since becoming pope.”

Photo of “Pope” courtesy of swanksalot

Today is Poem In Your Pocket Day. The Academy of American Poets suggests that you “handwrite some lines on the back of your business cards,” “add a poem to your email footer,” or “post a poem on your blog or social networking page.” Hey, this is a blog or social networking page! Here, timely verse from Sharon Olds:

The Pope’s Penis
by Sharon Olds

It hangs deep in his robes, a delicate
clapper at the center of a bell.
It moves when he moves, a ghostly fish in a
halo of silver sweaweed, the hair
swaying in the dark and the heat — and at night
while his eyes sleep, it stands up
in praise of God.

If you prefer not to pocket your excitement, it’s also National High Five Day.

The Post had a story on April 9 about a guy who thinks DC’s spoke-system grid was designed to depict a pentagram, thus proving the demonic core of the nation’s capital. The five-pointed star has terminuses at Dupont and Logan circles to the North, Washington Circle to the West, Vernon Square to the East and, finally, traveling along Connecticut and Vermont avenues, the White House to the South. The Mayflower Hotel is near the center of the pentagram, as is the strange model white house we discovered several months back at Scott Circle. The plastic toy, which someone eventually painted black, lines up perfectly with the real White House in the distance down 16th Street. Which leads me to wonder if the guerrilla art was really a satanic ritual. Woo! Fun with the devil!

I’ve been stuck in four Pope-related traffic jams over the last 18 hours — the weirdest coming this morning when I was caught behind a dirty Metro bus on P Street as a full load of MPD cops got off. And during each stuckage, I mulled over mysteries that have doubtless been mulled over at least since the last pontiff took a bullet in 1981:

Why would a Pope need mortals to protect him? Who’s really in charge here?

Check out some good old Pope backlash. Not My Pope, a local-run website launched in 2005, claims to be “so darn mad” at Pope Benedict XVI (“a sham of a man, masquerading as Pope“) that it’s collected a site full of anti-Pope sentiment in an attempt to excommunicate him from the Roman Catholic Church. They also sell t-shirts.

One Not My Pope contributor is upset that the Pope hasn’t secured her nail-salon owning nephew a “nice, respectable girlfriend”; another is dismayed that the Pope is not a relavist. “This is stupid and I hate him,” he writes.

But the highlight of the anti-Pope site is its “Go Protestant” section, which ranks other Christian religions on a scale of zero crosses to five, from Roman Catholic (great, except for the Pope) to Unitarian (”The Unitarian Church is spiritually dead because God is not present except in the omnipresent nature of His being. Their beliefs are tantamount to heresy. Ratzinger probably loves Unitarians”).

My favorite is their take on the Baptist religion:

Forget old lady Jessup on the organ. Instead, come to see electric guitar playing longhairs rocking it out for the Lord. Watch out, though! Many Baptist churches are sham operations conducted by charismatic preachers who only wish to corrupt the loving message of Jesus for financial and political gain. And that’s just unacceptable for a Catholic.

* The Post’s Dan Morse has the scoop on the “demonic pentagram” created by a map of D.C. streets, “one that bores directly into 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.” The tip comes via Lexington, South Carolina’s Cutting Edge Ministries (click to learn the “Secrets of the Dollar Bill!”) Morse ties in this evergreen crazies story by referring to John McCain’s penchant for calling D.C. the “City of Satan” when on the stump. But as Morse notes, “Satan and Washington go back.” Way back. It’s worth reading through his history of demonic Washington to get to the “avowed Satanist from Laurel.”

* In related news, our own Jule Banville isn’t the only one hating on the Pope bobblehead Metro ad. As it turns out, the Archdiocese of Washington doesn’t find it very funny, either. Quoth one Metro rider:

“The guy said thank heaven. When you’re religious or somewhat religious, you’re like you don’t want to play with our religion that much,” said Isabella Jones. [via WJLA]

* Well, some people like you! Mr. T in D.C. takes this opportunity to praise Metro.

* Prince of Petworth ponders the disabled trash can.

Photo by FredoAlvarez. 

In case anyone’s curious, the Black Israelites I wrote about in this week’s cover story have some pretty sophisticated websites, here, here and here. (The first site is down for maintenance.) Although I didn’t come away agreeing with the Israelite Church of God in Jesus Christ, I must say that they were very friendly and open with me.

The Atlas of Creation came in the mail today. The book weighs about 20 pounds and has holograms of animals on the cover. The author, Harun Yahya, goes through hundreds of animals in the fossil record and demonstrates, or rather just states, that they haven’t evolved for millions of years and thus God made everything.

The skulls that are put forward as evidence for so-called evolution belong either to extinct species of monkeys, or to human races that no longer exist today. And none of them can be accepted as evidence for evolution.

A bio on the website describes the author as a devout Muslim and Turkish intellectual who has been waging war against materialism his whole life. He saves this argument for the last chapter of the book, which begins thus: “WARNING! The chapter you are now about to read reveals a crucial secret of your life. You should read it very attentively and thoroughly for it is concerned with a subject that is liable to make a fundamental change in your outlook to the external world.”

Yahya explains the world we live in is just a flimsy replication of the real world God created. For proof, he points to Virtual Reality. You know, the gimmicky visors and gyrating platforms that came out in the 1990s and failed to convince anyone they were piloting a helicopter? Anyway, since we all so often fall for the illusions of virtual reality, it proves that we can be convinced by any mere replica, like the chair you’re sitting in right now.

The book is on sale here for just $99.

The very excellent local blog The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks was a little baffled earlier this week by the front of the “I AM” temple in Adams Morgan. In a post titled Necessary?, Bethany Keeley scratches her head at the strange doings at the temple, at least when it comes to styling words on its facade.

As somebody who once spent six months of his life researching New Age religion (and who still gets a little obsessed with it), I can answer Keeley’s in the affirmative: The “I AM” movement was a spinoff of Theosophy–named, as Keeley rightly surmises, from God’s announcement of Himself in Exodus 3:14. Like lots of Blavatsky-esque blithering, “I AM” teachings are stuffed with gobbledygook. But all the literature I’ve read on the subject, as well as the group’s official Web site, includes the quotation marks. There may be a glint of tinfoil in its teachings, but its grammar is tight.

(For anybody who cares to investigate this stuff further, America’s Alternative Religions, a collection edited by Timothy Miller, is a great place to start.)

What would pass in fanboy circles as a theological debate took place over the weekend at extremeskins.com, the message board owned by the Washington Redskins.

A poster going by Burgundy&Gold4Ever got a hand-written note from Jim Zorn in response to a fan letter. Turns out the new Redskins coach, much like the old Redskins coach, ends his writings with a cite for a Biblical verse, only the recipient couldn’t tell which verse, because Zorn’s numbers were illegible.

“Which Proverb do you think he’s referencing?” Burgundy&Gold4Ever asked, and included a .jpg of Zorn’s note.

The ensuing thread was an Internet version of the classic “I am pointing a gub at you!” scene from “Take the Money and Run,” as Woody Allen’s
attempted bank hold-up goes to hell because tellers can’t read his note.

“I think it is Proverbs 22:1,” guessed Moorecards: “A good name is more desirable than great riches;
to be esteemed is better than silver or gold.” (That post prompted smart and smartassy input from HogNose: “So now he has gone from Maroon & Black, to Silver & Gold?”)

Nighthawk suspected the lefty coach had legibled 21:1 “The kings heart is in the hand of the Lord; he directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases.” Goldbean agreed that Zorn wrote 21:1, but threw in three different translations. JJ Redskin went with 26.1: “As snow in summer, and as rain in harvest, so honor is not seemly for a fool.” Another amateur graphologist told folks they weren’t even in the right book, saying Zorn’s writing “looks Arabic.”

WVURedskins proved himself the man of littlest faith: “[T]here is a decent chance that he didn’t write this at all.”

SpringfieldSkins summed things up for secular fans, surmising Zorn’s passage was “Psalms 21:21: For some men walk these fields and others watch over them. Burgundy rain and golden dust will rain from the skies at the bowl of the most super proportions.”

Regardless, if Zorn emulates Belichick 18:1, he’ll walk on water around here.

Kudos to the Washington Times, home to strong-willed Eagles fans, for flooding the zone on the Pope’s visit to D.C. in April–for about a month now the paper’s had a dedicated blog on the subject. Today it brings word that parishioners at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in New York City, where Benedict XVI will lead a prayer service, are getting the shaft as far as actually getting to attend. Worse, only 27 tickets are being made available to St. Joseph’s parishioners to attend the pope’s mass at Yankee Stadium.

Closer to home, the blog also brings word of the crucifix that will hang behind the Pope when he delivers mass at Nationals Park on April 17. The winner, pictured above, currently resides at St. Mark the Evangelist Church in Hyattsville.