{"id":182,"date":"2010-06-25T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-06-25T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/2010\/06\/fun-friday-jack-abramoff-goes-from-prison-to-pizza-china-religious-games.html"},"modified":"2010-06-25T08:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-06-25T08:00:00","slug":"fun-friday-jack-abramoff-goes-from-prison-to-pizza-china-religious-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/06\/fun-friday-jack-abramoff-goes-from-prison-to-pizza-china-religious-games.html","title":{"rendered":"Fun Friday: Jack Abramoff Goes from Prison to Pizzeria; China Holds &#8216;Religious Games&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I can&#8217;t decide which of these religion stories has more entertainment value: disgraced lobbyist&nbsp;(and&nbsp;Orthodox Jew)&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/06\/24\/us\/24abramoff.html?ref=religion_and_belief\">Jack Abramoff now serving his debt to society by working at a kosher pizzeria<\/a>&nbsp;in Baltimore, or China holding its first &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2010\/06\/23\/AR2010062301419.html\">Religious Games,&#8221; in which Buddhist monks played basketball in short robes<\/a>&nbsp;and nuns lost graciously to Muslims at badminton.<\/p>\n<p>Thoughts?<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"Apple-style-span\"><span class=\"Apple-style-span\">*<a href=\"http:\/\/feedburner.google.com\/fb\/a\/mailverify?uri=beliefnet\/beliefbeat\">Click here to<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><strong>subscribe to Belief Beat<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/strong><\/a>and<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/beliefbeat\">click here to<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><strong>follow Belief Beat on Twitter<\/strong><\/a>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I can&#8217;t decide which of these religion stories has more entertainment value: disgraced lobbyist&nbsp;(and&nbsp;Orthodox Jew)&nbsp;Jack Abramoff now serving his debt to society by working at a kosher pizzeria&nbsp;in Baltimore, or China holding its first &#8220;Religious Games,&#8221; in which Buddhist monks played basketball in short robes&nbsp;and nuns lost graciously to Muslims at badminton. Thoughts? *Click here&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment","category-news","category-sports"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Fun Friday: Jack Abramoff Goes from Prison to Pizzeria; China Holds &#039;Religious Games&#039; - Belief Beat<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/06\/fun-friday-jack-abramoff-goes-from-prison-to-pizza-china-religious-games.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Fun Friday: Jack Abramoff Goes from Prison to Pizzeria; China Holds &#039;Religious Games&#039; - Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I can&#8217;t decide which of these religion stories has more entertainment value: disgraced lobbyist&nbsp;(and&nbsp;Orthodox Jew)&nbsp;Jack Abramoff now serving his debt to society by working at a kosher pizzeria&nbsp;in Baltimore, or China holding its first &#8220;Religious Games,&#8221; in which Buddhist monks played basketball in short robes&nbsp;and nuns lost graciously to Muslims at badminton. Thoughts? *Click here&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/06\/fun-friday-jack-abramoff-goes-from-prison-to-pizza-china-religious-games.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-06-25T08:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nicole Neroulias\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Fun Friday: Jack Abramoff Goes from Prison to Pizzeria; China Holds 'Religious Games' - Belief Beat","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/06\/fun-friday-jack-abramoff-goes-from-prison-to-pizza-china-religious-games.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Fun Friday: Jack Abramoff Goes from Prison to Pizzeria; China Holds 'Religious Games' - Belief Beat","og_description":"I can&#8217;t decide which of these religion stories has more entertainment value: disgraced lobbyist&nbsp;(and&nbsp;Orthodox Jew)&nbsp;Jack Abramoff now serving his debt to society by working at a kosher pizzeria&nbsp;in Baltimore, or China holding its first &#8220;Religious Games,&#8221; in which Buddhist monks played basketball in short robes&nbsp;and nuns lost graciously to Muslims at badminton. Thoughts? *Click here&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/06\/fun-friday-jack-abramoff-goes-from-prison-to-pizza-china-religious-games.html","og_site_name":"Belief Beat","article_published_time":"2010-06-25T08:00:00+00:00","author":"Nicole Neroulias","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/06\/fun-friday-jack-abramoff-goes-from-prison-to-pizza-china-religious-games.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/06\/fun-friday-jack-abramoff-goes-from-prison-to-pizza-china-religious-games.html","name":"Fun Friday: Jack Abramoff Goes from Prison to Pizzeria; China Holds 'Religious Games' - Belief Beat","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-06-25T08:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2010-06-25T08:00:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/42dac2ebd149a02dfe91f0f93e36761b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/06\/fun-friday-jack-abramoff-goes-from-prison-to-pizza-china-religious-games.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/06\/fun-friday-jack-abramoff-goes-from-prison-to-pizza-china-religious-games.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/06\/fun-friday-jack-abramoff-goes-from-prison-to-pizza-china-religious-games.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Fun Friday: Jack Abramoff Goes from Prison to Pizzeria; China Holds &#8216;Religious Games&#8217;"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/","name":"Belief Beat","description":"BeliefBeat - Nicole Neroulias","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/42dac2ebd149a02dfe91f0f93e36761b","name":"Nicole Neroulias","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/caf\/caf1ad99f5fc2a063b8e935cf82f65fdx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/caf\/caf1ad99f5fc2a063b8e935cf82f65fdx96.jpg","caption":"Nicole Neroulias"},"description":"Nicole Neroulias is a correspondent for Religion News Service, a secular news and photo service devoted to unbiased coverage of religion and ethics. A graduate of Cornell University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, she has previously written for The New York Times and other media outlets. She and her family live in Seattle.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/author\/nneroulias"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}