News from Around the World

I thought this was pretty good.

“Can’t too much go wrong next to a big statue of Jesus.” Before you read any further, to spark some genuine interest in this post, take a quick glance at this article from the New York Times, more specifically the picture. Yes, that is a 60 foot tall Jesus in the middle of nowhere Ohio (well, that would cover all of Ohio, but my contempt and hatred for Ohio will have to wait for some other time). I bring this up because I first discovered this completely tasteful icon while driving up to Ann Arbor from Atlanta for the weekend. With the exception of Dayton, Toledo and Cincinnati, Ohio is pretty much a whole lot of nothing for the stretch of I-75 that we drove on. It was approaching around 1 AM, after not seeing a pair of head or breaklights in about 20 minutes, when my friend who was driving while I was in the passenger seat reading exclaimed “Jesus Christ!” Yup, that was about right. Keep in mind it is about 1 in the morning, very dark, and I guess you could say that we “saw the light” because this thing errupted out of the darkness to the bewilderment of us all. Was it a magnificent, holy and humbling scene? Not quite. To be very honest, it scared the living crap out of me. At first we couldn’t tell was it was and the spotlights that light up during the night cast shadows around his eyes, which have the effect shining a flashlight under the face while telling a ghost story. And it is 60 feet tall. And his hands look close enough to the road to flatten your car if he decided to become animated like the Statue of Liberty in “Ghost Busters.” I prefer my giants to be either jolly green or carry and axe, wear flannel and have a blue ox as a pet. On the way back, the well lit Christ was far less breathtaking and simply prompted an “Oh come on” from our crew.

Read the whole thing.