God

Birth isn't often pretty. Such was the reassurance offered at Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church, where combined choirs from all around Philadelphia were navigating the thickets of the newest Hannibal Lokumbe cast-of-hundreds piece, Can You Hear God Crying? , to premiere Friday at the Kimmel Center. "You can't do this by ear," exclaimed conductor Donald Dumpson, who has prepared several of Lokumbe's works. "One person off is unacceptable. " "But if you think about the music too hard you'll miss it," said Lokumbe.

By Dusty Nix Brace for the fire and brimstone, Democrats. You didn't invite the Big Guy to your party in Charlotte. Sodom and Gomorrah were a carnival compared to what you're in for. No need for a recap of the whole silly flap over the Dems' decision to remove the word God from their platform statement, then put it back in. But you can say this for the Democrats: They're consistent in their stunning political tone-deafness. From a purely practical standpoint, not invoking the name of the Almighty is a nonissue.

CHARLOTTE - President Obama personally intervened to order Democrats to change language in their party platform to add a mention of God and declare that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, campaign officials said Wednesday. Democrats abruptly changed the platform Wednesday evening to reinstate language from the 2008 platform that said "we need a government that stands up for the hopes, values and interests of working people and gives everyone willing to work hard the chance to make the most of their God-given potential.

Has God forsaken the Republican Party? Well, sit in judgment of what happened last week: It's reported that a couple dozen House Republicans engaged in an alcohol-induced frolic, in one case nude, in the Sea of Galilee, where Jesus is said to have walked on water, calmed a storm, and, nearby, turned water into wine and performed the miracle of the loaves and fishes. Rep. Todd Akin, Missouri's Republican nominee for Senate, suggests women's bodies have mysterious ways to repel the seed of "legitimate" rapists.

MIRAMAR, Fla. - The parents of the unarmed teen who was shot and killed by a Florida neighborhood watch volunteer rejected the shooter's claim that the death was a part of God's plan. In an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity televised Wednesday, George Zimmerman said he felt the course of the night 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was killed "was all God's plan. " "We must worship a different God," Martin's father, Tracy Martin, told the Associated Press. "There is no way that my God wanted George Zimmerman to murder my teenage son. " Speaking Thursday on NBC's Today show, the teen's mother, Sybrina Fulton, said the notion was "ridiculous.

"Change of leadership really denotes a new direction is required, maybe a new speed at which some of the changes will occur. It also signals to labor that it's a new sheriff in town. " — Michael Robinet, managing director of IHS Automotive, a consulting firm near Detroit, after the CEO of General Motors' loss-making European business abruptly stepped down. • "Ratings are not God's holy work. It's a business. It's a fine balance between trying to get a certain amount of market share vs. losing your credibility.

How do you ask a Knight of the Realm — and a Knight of the Realm with a best picture Academy Award, at that — to move on to the next question? With great difficulty. Allotted 15 minutes to chat with Sir Ridley Scott, who is on the phone from London promoting his dazzling and dark — if somewhat nonsensical — sci-fi thriller Prometheus, this interviewer managed to get all of four questions in before the publicist with the charming accent interrupted with a brusque, "I'm going to have to break this off, sorry.

As I write, a jury of 12 good Philadelphians is deliberating over the fate of Monsignor William Lynn, who stands accused of protecting sexual predators. He is the proxy for a hierarchy that far too late came to understand that criminals are criminals even if they are sick of mind and spirit, and wear Roman collars. Today, I don't know what type of verdict those good people will render. But it doesn't matter. The fact that there is a trial at all, one where the defendant is protected by the same system that separates the guilty from the innocent regardless of creed, color or cash flow, is a triumph.

When New Jersey lost one of its 13 congressional districts last winter, U.S. Rep. Steve Rothman faced a tough choice: run against an incumbent Republican in a right-leaning district that now included some of Rothman's former turf or square off against a fellow Democrat in a newly formed district that included more than half of his old constituency. Many Democrats urged him to take on U.S. Rep. Scott Garrett, a Republican with tea party leanings in the Fifth District, where the remapping committee put Rothman's hometown of Fair Lawn, Bergen County.

WHEN Darby Borough cops found what they said were more than 200 marijuana plants inside Daniel Thomas' rowhouse Tuesday morning, he told them that he was an out-of-work horticulturalist. Technically, that's accurate, police say — if by "out of work" Thomas meant that his massive pot-growing operation featured an automated lighting and irrigation system that could function without his daily participation. "This guy is a major-league grower of marijuana," said Police Chief Bob Smythe, strolling in borough hall through a knee-high forest of pungent cannabis plants, which police had transported, using a rented Budget truck, from Thomas' house on Glen Avon Road.