{"id":323,"date":"2010-12-17T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-12-17T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/2010\/12\/fun-friday-buff-bods-for-the-pope-and-festivus-for-the-rest-of-us.html"},"modified":"2010-12-17T07:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-12-17T07:00:00","slug":"fun-friday-buff-bods-for-the-pope-and-festivus-for-the-rest-of-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/12\/fun-friday-buff-bods-for-the-pope-and-festivus-for-the-rest-of-us.html","title":{"rendered":"Fun Friday: Buff Bods for Benedict, Festivus for the Rest of Us"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Both of these stories cracked me up this week: a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.masslive.com\/news\/index.ssf\/2010\/12\/inmate_requests_festivus_meal.html\">California inmate cited his religious belief in <em>Seinfeld&#8217;s <\/em>&#8220;Festivus&#8221; holiday in a bid to get salami-free prison&nbsp;meals<\/a>, and a quartet of <a href=\"http:\/\/ncronline.org\/blogs\/ncr-today\/circus-performers-vatican\">buff acrobats performed a bizarre barechested show for Pope Benedict <\/a>during his general audience.<\/p>\n<p>The Festivus story is more fun to read and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.getreligion.org\/2010\/12\/explaining-festivus-to-the-rest-of-us\/\">interesting to dissect<\/a>, but the Vatican acrobat performance is hilarious to watch:<\/p>\n<p><object width=\"480\" height=\"385\"><embed height=\"385\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"480\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/-rbxov7CVi8?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\"><\/object><\/p>\n<p>Reminds me of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Ai9IEkYrZQk\">this <em>Saturday Night Live <\/em>skit<\/a>. (Perhaps <em>SNL <\/em>will spoof the Vatican version this week &#8212; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.masslive.com\/television\/index.ssf\/2010\/12\/jeff_bridges_eminem_lil_wayne.html\">Jeff Bridges, Eminem and Lil&#8217; Wayne&nbsp;are the guests<\/a>, which would certainly be interesting! But it&#8217;ll probably&nbsp;just be &#8220;Weekend Update&#8221; fodder.)<\/p>\n<p>What do you think? Share your thoughts in the Comments section below.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"WIDOWS: 2; TEXT-TRANSFORM: none; TEXT-INDENT: 0px; BORDER-COLLAPSE: separate; FONT: medium 'Times New Roman'; WHITE-SPACE: normal; ORPHANS: 2; LETTER-SPACING: normal; COLOR: rgb(0,0,0); WORD-SPACING: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px\" class=\"Apple-style-span\"><span style=\"TEXT-ALIGN: left; FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; FONT-SIZE: 12px\" class=\"Apple-style-span\">*<a style=\"PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; OUTLINE-WIDTH: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT-FAMILY: arial, sans-serif !important; COLOR: rgb(2,61,137); FONT-SIZE: 14px !important; TEXT-DECORATION: none; PADDING-TOP: 0px\" href=\"http:\/\/feedburner.google.com\/fb\/a\/mailverify?uri=beliefnet\/beliefbeat\">Click here to<span style=\"PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; OUTLINE-WIDTH: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT-FAMILY: arial, sans-serif !important; FONT-SIZE: 14px !important; PADDING-TOP: 0px\" class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><strong style=\"PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; OUTLINE-WIDTH: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT-FAMILY: arial, sans-serif !important; FONT-SIZE: 14px !important; PADDING-TOP: 0px\">subscribe to Belief Beat<span style=\"PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; OUTLINE-WIDTH: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT-FAMILY: arial, sans-serif !important; FONT-SIZE: 14px !important; PADDING-TOP: 0px\" class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/strong><\/a>and<span style=\"PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; OUTLINE-WIDTH: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT-FAMILY: arial, sans-serif !important; FONT-SIZE: 14px !important; PADDING-TOP: 0px\" class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><a style=\"PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; OUTLINE-WIDTH: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT-FAMILY: arial, sans-serif !important; COLOR: rgb(2,61,137); FONT-SIZE: 14px !important; TEXT-DECORATION: none; PADDING-TOP: 0px\" href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/beliefbeat\">click here to<span style=\"PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; OUTLINE-WIDTH: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT-FAMILY: arial, sans-serif !important; FONT-SIZE: 14px !important; PADDING-TOP: 0px\" class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><strong style=\"PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; OUTLINE-WIDTH: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT-FAMILY: arial, sans-serif !important; FONT-SIZE: 14px !important; PADDING-TOP: 0px\">follow Belief Beat on Twitter.<\/strong><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Both of these stories cracked me up this week: a California inmate cited his religious belief in Seinfeld&#8217;s &#8220;Festivus&#8221; holiday in a bid to get salami-free prison&nbsp;meals, and a quartet of buff acrobats performed a bizarre barechested show for Pope Benedict during his general audience. The Festivus story is more fun to read and interesting&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],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Fun Friday: Buff Bods for Benedict, Festivus for the Rest of Us - 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\/12\/fun-friday-buff-bods-for-the-pope-and-festivus-for-the-rest-of-us.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Fun Friday: Buff Bods for Benedict, Festivus for the Rest of Us - Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Both of these stories cracked me up this week: a California inmate cited his religious belief in Seinfeld&#8217;s &#8220;Festivus&#8221; holiday in a bid to get salami-free prison&nbsp;meals, and a quartet of buff acrobats performed a bizarre barechested show for Pope Benedict during his general audience. The Festivus story is more fun to read and interesting&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/12\/fun-friday-buff-bods-for-the-pope-and-festivus-for-the-rest-of-us.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-12-17T07:00:00+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: Buff Bods for Benedict, Festivus for the Rest of Us - 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\/12\/fun-friday-buff-bods-for-the-pope-and-festivus-for-the-rest-of-us.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Fun Friday: Buff Bods for Benedict, Festivus for the Rest of Us - Belief Beat","og_description":"Both of these stories cracked me up this week: a California inmate cited his religious belief in Seinfeld&#8217;s &#8220;Festivus&#8221; holiday in a bid to get salami-free prison&nbsp;meals, and a quartet of buff acrobats performed a bizarre barechested show for Pope Benedict during his general audience. The Festivus story is more fun to read and interesting&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/12\/fun-friday-buff-bods-for-the-pope-and-festivus-for-the-rest-of-us.html","og_site_name":"Belief Beat","article_published_time":"2010-12-17T07:00:00+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\/12\/fun-friday-buff-bods-for-the-pope-and-festivus-for-the-rest-of-us.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/12\/fun-friday-buff-bods-for-the-pope-and-festivus-for-the-rest-of-us.html","name":"Fun Friday: Buff Bods for Benedict, Festivus for the Rest of Us - Belief Beat","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-12-17T07:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2010-12-17T07:00:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/42dac2ebd149a02dfe91f0f93e36761b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/12\/fun-friday-buff-bods-for-the-pope-and-festivus-for-the-rest-of-us.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/12\/fun-friday-buff-bods-for-the-pope-and-festivus-for-the-rest-of-us.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/12\/fun-friday-buff-bods-for-the-pope-and-festivus-for-the-rest-of-us.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Fun Friday: Buff Bods for Benedict, Festivus for the Rest of Us"}]},{"@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\/323","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=323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}