April 1, 2007 [LINK / comment]
To mark Palm Sunday today, four of the churches in downtown Staunton held a joint procession through the streets. Priests/clergymen from Emmanuel Episcopal, Trinity Episcopal, St. Francis of Assisi Roman Catholic, and First Presbyterian Church led the prayers, and an offbeat ensemble consisting of a guitar, a banjo, a violin, an accordion, and a drum played "As the Saints Go Marching In" and other rousing hymns. This tradition, which commemorates the triumphal entry of Jesus Christ into the City of Jerusalem, began about 15 years ago in Staunton, I am told. Former Episcopal Bishop the Right Rev. A. Heath Light was there as well. I would say there were at least 300 people altogether, and this lively celebration of ecumenical spirit really gave meaning to the term "faith-based community."
I thought I had eluded being had by April Fool's pranksters until I checked my e-mail this evening. I received a message purportedly from Sen. Jim Webb, addressed to "Andrew," as if I had signed up to receive it. I was furious: Who was trying to make others think I was a closet Democrat?? The more of the message I read, however, the more transparently phony it became. So I checked the source code of the message, and saw that the "Unsubscribe" link was actually a link to the Museum of Hoaxes, which has no reference to Jim Webb in its archives, so this particular April Fool's scam remains a mystery. For a couple minutes, though, they got me!
Actually, a chronometrical anomaly tripped me up today as well: My iMac's internal clock system thought that today was the beginning of Daylight Savings Time, as this Sunday had been in the past. Thanks to Congress, however, Daylight Savings Time began a few weeks early this year, so computer clocks around the country will have to be manually adjusted four times every year from now on -- unless you want to pay for an operating system upgrade, that is. I'm sure this will end up being a lot more trouble than it is worth in terms of alleged energy savings. Was it all a plot by Bill Gates and Steve Jobs?