{"id":344,"date":"2011-01-21T12:33:00","date_gmt":"2011-01-21T12:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/2011\/01\/fun-friday-boy-george-ricky-gervais-tiger-mom-russian-strippers.html"},"modified":"2011-01-21T12:33:00","modified_gmt":"2011-01-21T12:33:00","slug":"fun-friday-boy-george-ricky-gervais-tiger-mom-russian-strippers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/01\/fun-friday-boy-george-ricky-gervais-tiger-mom-russian-strippers.html","title":{"rendered":"Fun Friday: Boy George, Ricky Gervais, Tiger Mom &amp; Russian Strippers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Time to lighten up and have a laugh &#8212; or at least a hearty eye-roll? I have four finalists for this week&#8217;s Fun Friday newsmaker.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/hostednews\/afp\/article\/ALeqM5jDCDikl3VEoUtnKVZDKaX2mPscFg?docId=CNG.dd4a72c03d05289270a5b0c91dbe7e44.481\">Boy George Returns Stolen Church Icon <\/a>(AFP)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Full disclosure: I wanted to go with this one, because&nbsp;my family is Cypriot and I&#8217;m now wondering if Boy George and George Michael, a British Cypriot and fellow former pop star, will bond over this experience. Now that<a href=\"www.towleroad.com\/2010\/03\/george-michael-and-boy-george-end-25year-bitch-fight.html\"> they&#8217;re no longer feuding<\/a>&nbsp;(over Michael&#8217;s decision to remain closeted during the height of his fame), wouldn&#8217;t it be great if they put their has-been careers together and create a Boy George Michael comeback&nbsp;sensation? Hey, if the Backstreet Boys and New Kids on the Block can do it&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>But, I figured the rest of you would prefer to chat about one of these:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.jta.org\/telegraph\/article\/2011\/01\/19\/2742619\/chinese-mom-vs-matzo-mom#When:15:18:00Z\">Chinese Mom vs. Matzah Mom <\/a>(JTA)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/s\/afp\/20110118\/lf_afp\/russiachurchfashionoffbeat\">Russian Women &#8216;Dress Like Strippers&#8217;: Church Spokesperson<\/a> (AFP)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/religion.blogs.cnn.com\/2011\/01\/21\/ricky-gervais-says-atheism-shouldnt-offend\/\">Ricky Gervais Says Atheism Shouldn&#8217;t Offend <\/a>(CNN)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n<p>What do you think? Share your thoughts in the Comments section below.<\/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>Time to lighten up and have a laugh &#8212; or at least a hearty eye-roll? I have four finalists for this week&#8217;s Fun Friday newsmaker. Boy George Returns Stolen Church Icon (AFP) Full disclosure: I wanted to go with this one, because&nbsp;my family is Cypriot and I&#8217;m now wondering if Boy George and George Michael,&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-344","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: Boy George, Ricky Gervais, Tiger Mom &amp; Russian Strippers - 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\/2011\/01\/fun-friday-boy-george-ricky-gervais-tiger-mom-russian-strippers.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Fun Friday: Boy George, Ricky Gervais, Tiger Mom &amp; Russian Strippers - Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Time to lighten up and have a laugh &#8212; or at least a hearty eye-roll? I have four finalists for this week&#8217;s Fun Friday newsmaker. Boy George Returns Stolen Church Icon (AFP) Full disclosure: I wanted to go with this one, because&nbsp;my family is Cypriot and I&#8217;m now wondering if Boy George and George Michael,&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/01\/fun-friday-boy-george-ricky-gervais-tiger-mom-russian-strippers.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-01-21T12:33:00+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: Boy George, Ricky Gervais, Tiger Mom &amp; Russian Strippers - 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\/2011\/01\/fun-friday-boy-george-ricky-gervais-tiger-mom-russian-strippers.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Fun Friday: Boy George, Ricky Gervais, Tiger Mom &amp; Russian Strippers - Belief Beat","og_description":"Time to lighten up and have a laugh &#8212; or at least a hearty eye-roll? I have four finalists for this week&#8217;s Fun Friday newsmaker. Boy George Returns Stolen Church Icon (AFP) Full disclosure: I wanted to go with this one, because&nbsp;my family is Cypriot and I&#8217;m now wondering if Boy George and George Michael,&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/01\/fun-friday-boy-george-ricky-gervais-tiger-mom-russian-strippers.html","og_site_name":"Belief Beat","article_published_time":"2011-01-21T12:33:00+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\/2011\/01\/fun-friday-boy-george-ricky-gervais-tiger-mom-russian-strippers.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/01\/fun-friday-boy-george-ricky-gervais-tiger-mom-russian-strippers.html","name":"Fun Friday: Boy George, Ricky Gervais, Tiger Mom &amp; Russian Strippers - Belief Beat","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-01-21T12:33:00+00:00","dateModified":"2011-01-21T12:33:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/42dac2ebd149a02dfe91f0f93e36761b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/01\/fun-friday-boy-george-ricky-gervais-tiger-mom-russian-strippers.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/01\/fun-friday-boy-george-ricky-gervais-tiger-mom-russian-strippers.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/01\/fun-friday-boy-george-ricky-gervais-tiger-mom-russian-strippers.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Fun Friday: Boy George, Ricky Gervais, Tiger Mom &amp; Russian Strippers"}]},{"@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\/344","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=344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}