Here’s the lastest AP report on the 1 p.m. shooting at the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington:

NAFEESA SYEED
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — At least two people were shot Wednesday at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, authorities said.

D.C. police spokeswoman Traci Hughes said a person walked into the museum at about 1 p.m. with a rifle and shot a guard. U.S. Park Police Sgt. David Schlosser says one or more guards at the museum returned fire, hitting the suspect.

Authorities said the conditions of those shot were not known. Both were taken to George Washington University Hospital.

Fire department spokesman Alan Etter told CNN a third person was hurt after being cut by broken glass.

The museum normally has a heavy security presence with guards positioned both inside and outside. All visitors are required to pass through metal detectors at the entrance, and bags are screened.

The museum, located just off the National Mall near the Washington Monument, is a popular tourist attraction. It draws about 1.7 million visitors each year.

Roads surrounding the museum have been closed and blocked off with yellow tape. Several police cars and officers on horses surround the area.

Schlosser said park police SWAT teams are doing a secondary sweep of the building, but they don’t believe there is another gunman.

Sandy Perkins of Massachusetts said her daughter, Abigail, called her shortly after the shooting. The teen was on a school trip to the museum and told her mother students heard several shots before they were told to leave the building.

Abigail said some of her friends were very shaken, but all were otherwise fine, Sandy Perkins said.

The teens did not see where the shots were coming from.

Linda Elston, who is visiting the museum from Nevada City, Calif., says she was on the lower level of the museum watching a film when she and others were told to evacuate.

“It was totally full of people,” Elston said. “It took us awhile to get out.”

She said she didn’t hear any shots and didn’t immediately know why there was an evacuation leaving her feeling “a little anxious.”

Across the river…the U.S. Justice Department this week sued Essex County, N.J., for discriminating against a Muslim corrections officer by not allowing her to wear a hijab or head scarf.

In a release, Loretta King, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, said: “Employees should not have to choose between their religious beliefs and their economic livelihood. Federal law requires all employers, even those having policies regarding the wearing of uniforms, to reasonably accommodate the religious observances and practices of their employees.”

The Newark Star-Ledger reports that in 2000, New Jersey’s Department of Corrections relaxed its no-beard policy after 33 Sunni Muslim corrections officers sued.

No joke: A Kentucky church has invited people to bring their guns on June 27.

They’ll be celebrating the 4th of July and the Second Amendment, the pastor says.

Pastor Ken Pagano of New Bethel Church in Louisville (that’s him) told Peter Smith of the Louisville Courier-Journal that he was “trying to think a little bit outside the box” to promote responsible gun ownership.

He’s done it, I’d say.

The event—billed as an “Open Carry Celebration”—is being promoted with online posters, including one using a red font resembling splattered blood, according to the Courier-Journal. I can’t find this one on the church’s website, though.

New Bethel is a member of the Assemblies of God, the nation’s largest Pentecostal denomination.

The Rev. Marian McClure Taylor, incoming executive director of the Kentucky Council of Churches, had this to say: “Pastor Pagano assured me that the event is designed to help people who own handguns to be very responsible, and that the proceeds will all go for charitable causes in the community. Those two commitments are consistent with the high value the Assemblies of God churches place on human life.”

Pagano is a Marine vet who serves as a chaplain for the Louisville police. Church members have regular outings at a firing range.

The event will include a $1 raffle drawing for a handgun.

Reading about this made my think of a song by the Beat Farmers, a little known country/blues outfit from the San Diego area. It was called “Gun Sale at the Church” and included these lines (sung by the late, great Buddy Blue, a Syracuse native):

*****
Well let’s pack up the kids
and take a break, get away
leave the hustle and bustle
of living from day to day
and I know that the crime
in the city is getting worse
So I’m going on down to
the gun sale at the church . . .
Well we’ll ask the lord to
forgive us for all our sins
and we’ll look at the latest in
gold plated firing pins.

*****

What the heck. Here they are:

Photo: Aaron Borton, Special to The Courier-Journal

Do you ever wonder about Wikipedia?

I do. Who writes this stuff? Who are these people who supposedly safeguard for accuracy?

Why do people do it? How do they find the time?

I don’t get it.

We do know that people and organizations update their sites to improve their public image.

But the Church of Scientology has apparently been banned from doing its own edits.

You can read the long Wikipedia page about the case. I skimmed it. There are lots and lots of findings and decisions, like this one:

*****

Any editor who, in the judgment of an uninvolved administrator, is (i) focused primarily on Scientology or Scientologists and (ii) clearly engaged in promoting an identifiable agenda may be topic-banned for up to one year. Any editor topic banned under this sanction may be re-blocked at the expiry of a topic ban if they recommence editing in the topic having made few or no significant edits outside of it during the period of the topic ban.

*****

There is also this warning about the “editing environment:”

*****
Both experienced and new editors on articles related to Scientology are cautioned that this topic has previously been the subject of disruptive editing by both admirers and critics of Scientology making this topic a hostile editing environment. Editors are reminded that when working on highly contentious topics, it is crucial that all editors adhere strictly to fundamental Wikipedia policies, including but not limited to maintaining a neutral point of view, citing disputed statements to reliable sources, avoiding edit-warring and uncivil comments, and complying at all times with the policy on biographies of living persons in reference to the various living people whose names come up from time to time in these articles.

Methodists used to have the run of this region.

Around the turn of the 19th century, Methodist circuit riders roamed the country, including the Lower Hudson Valley, to visit churches and preach just about anywhere.

The most famous circuit rider, Francis Asbury, the founding bishop of American Methodism, traveled about 275,000 miles on horseback in the East and the Midwest. He is said to have preached 16,000 sermons and to have started countless churches, such as the Crestwood church known as Asbury United Methodist Church.

Even Bruce Springsteen’s adopted home, Asbury Park, has his name.

During the same period, Methodists founded many camp grounds for evangelism and prayer revivals. One of them, I recently learned, is in Ossining.

It’s known as CampWoods Grounds.

A group of Swedish Methodists organized their first meeting there in 1854. According to a history on the CampWoods website:

*****

The pre-Civil War period of the camp meetings at CampWoods maintained its character as a religious jubilee in the countryside.  During the 1850’s, the atmosphere on the boats, trains and wagons coming to the 10-day meetings in the woods of Ossining and during the religious retreats themselves were jubilant and celebratory.  A typical camp meeting in August 1868 attracted an estimated 15,000 attendees.

*****

Later, cottages were built in place of tents. Some people would stay for months.

The grounds were eventually winterized and secularized.

CampWoods is still there, home to 45 families that live there full time. The board that oversees the place still tends to the main church and summer services are open to the public.

In fact, for the next few Sundays, through July 5, CampWoods is hosting a Vesper Series at 7 p.m.

This Sunday (June 14), Jaime Rickert, a self-described “wandering minstrel,” will perform.

Next Sunday, on Father’s Day, the Rev. Gordon Anderson, the longtime pastor of First Baptist Church of Ossining and a veteran evangelist of radio/TV ministries, will preach, as he has done in summers past.

On June 28, the Emanuel Ringers, a bell choir from Emanuel Lutheran Church in Pleasantville, will perform.

And on July 5, there will be a “bluegrass blessings” sing-a-long.

I hope to get to CampWoods over the next few weeks and write something about the place.

The pictures are from the CampWoods website.

The top one, I guess, is from back in the day. The bottom one is the “Swedish tabernacle” as it currently looks.

The apparent Republican takeover of the NYS Senate could mean that gay marriage is dead in its tracks.

Could mean.

Gay marriage was to be one of the major issues for the last two weeks of the regular session.

It’s not clear—at least to me—whether this bloodless coup will take hold. The Dems seem to be saying, not surprisingly, that it won’t stick.

The whole thing stems from Democratic Senators Pedro Espada Jr. of the Bronx and Hiram Monserrate of Queens deciding to form a coalition with the GOP. That’s them, Monserrate on the left.

The two promised to do so months ago—shortly after Dems took over the Senate for the first time in decades—if they did not get important leadership posts and a promise that gay marriage would not reach the floor.

(AP Photo/Mike Groll, file)

I mentioned last week that the Empire State Stem Cell Board, which gives out tax money for stem cell research, is considering whether public money should be paid to women who have eggs extracted for research purposes.

The board’s Ethics Committee has supported doing so.

The board is expected to take up the matter at a meeting on Thursday morning (10:15 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.) You can watch it HERE.

Kathleen M. Gallagher, director of pro-life activities for the New York State Catholic Conference, released this statement today:

*****

The New York State Stem Cell Board is poised to facilitate the exploitation of low-income women by using taxpayer funds to pay for the retrieval of eggs. This is a grossly unethical, dangerous and exploitative move that treats women’s body parts as commodities. It must be rejected. If the Stem Cell Board itself moves forward with this proposal, then the state Legislature must act to prevent it.

“No other state in the union allows eggs-for-research payments, and for good reason. The Board is considering up to $10,000 per retrieval, which, in the current economic climate, will induce low-income women who are struggling to put food on their table to undergo this painful and dangerous procedure. Such women face serious health risks and loss of fertility. Vulnerable women should not be coerced into risking their health and their lives for speculative science with speculative benefits.

“A compelling case cannot even be made that the medical benefits somehow mitigate the ethical lapse. Scientists are seeking these eggs to clone human embryos, which will be subsequently destroyed for their stem cells. Yet the science of stem cell research is moving in the opposite direction, toward research involving adult stem cells and the reprogramming of ordinary skin cells to act identical to embryonic cells. This type of research bears none of the ethical burdens of embryonic research.

“Payments to women for the extraction of their eggs crosses an ethical line that New Yorkers should not be forced to finance. Regardless of one’s position on embryonic stem cell research, we can all agree that women should not be exploited by researchers, with state approval. The Legislature should step in now to ban payments for eggs.

If you’ve ever been to a concert at Jones Beach, you know it is a uniquely great spot.

Right on the water. A cool breeze, on the right night.

Yeah, sometimes it rains, but what can you do? I once saw Van Morrison there and the skies opened up just as he finished the final encore—Send in the Clowns. There was no where to run, so we just got wet.

Anyway, Jones Beach will take a break from the usual line-up of classic rock acts to host the Harvest Crusade Evangelistic Outreach.

Evangelist Greg Laurie will run the free two-day crusade, which will also feature Christian bands like Kutless on Saturday and Jars of Clay on Sunday.

Laurie filled Madison Square Garden in 2007 and 2008. He is senior pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship in Riverside, Calif., one of the most mega of the megachurches.

More than 110 churches from Long Island elsewhere in New York are expected to participate.

Steve Tomlinson, pastor of Shelter Rock Church in Nassau County, says: “There is a new spirit of cooperation among the local churches on Long Island to work together for a cause that is bigger than any of us. We believe the Harvest with Greg Laurie outreach at Jones Beach will help make an eternal impact on the community.”

According to a release: “Greg Laurie will talk nightly about spiritual topics that are applicable to any person, no matter the age: Why am I here?  Is God real?  What happens when I die?”

Then next week it’s back to business at Jones Beach with country star Kenny Chesney. Later this summer: Aerosmith/ZZ Top, Doobie Brothers/Bad Company, Def Leppard/Poison/Cheap Trick, Judas Priest/Whitesnake, CSR, Jimmy Buffett, Loggins & Messina, and more, more, more.

Who knew that Loggins & Messina were still at it?

Young Israel of New Rochelle will host a program tonight (Monday, June 8) on one of the most pressing issues in Orthodox and Conservative Judaism today: how families can afford the costs of day schools.

The program—“Day School Education in Challenging Times: Family, Institutional, and Communal Responsibility”—is being presented by the UJA-Federation of NY’s Westchester Region.

Start time: 8:30 p.m.

From a release, here’s the line-up:

*****

Gary Rosenblatt, editor of The Jewish Week (that’s him), will moderate the panel discussion, which will feature experts in the field of Jewish education: Amy Katz, associate director for the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education; Scott Shay, past chair of UJA-Federation’s Commission on Jewish Identity and Renewal and chair of the Task Force on Communal Jewish Education; and Dr. Jon Woocher, chief ideas officer at the Jewish Education Service of North America.

*****

Also co-sponsoring are most of the region’s modern Orthodox congregations: Congregation Anshe Sholom in New Rochelle, Hebrew Institute of White Plains, Young Israel of Harrison, Young Israel of New Rochelle, Young Israel of Scarsdale, and Young Israel of White Plains.

Relics.

They’ve always fascinated me.

Pieces of the dead.

People travel from far and wide to see them, be near them, venerate them, pray by them.

When I’ve written about relics—usually in the Catholic world—I’ve been taken by the mysterious histories of many relics.

I wrote last year about relics of St. Barbara, a patron saint of firefighters, which were brought to St. Augustine’s Catholic Church in Ossining. The ocassion was a Mass to commemorate the anniversary of 9/11.

In doing a bit of research, I learned that there was much disagreement about her legend. And that several churches claimed to have at least some of St. Barbara’s relics.

But it was very meaningful to firefighters and others to have some relics of the saint in the midst.

Now, a writer named Peter Manseau has released a book about relics. It’s called “Rag and Bone: A Journey Among the World’s Holy Dead.”

It may have to be part of my summer beach reading (I know, it’s not everybody’s idea of beach reading).

Manseau’s website offers this description:

*****

By examining relics—the bits and pieces of long-dead saints at the heart of nearly all religious traditions—Peter Manseau delivers a book about life, and about faith and how it is sustained. The result of wide travel and the author’s own deep curiosity, filled with true tales of the living and dubious legends of the dead, Rag and Bone tells of a California seeker who ended up in a Jerusalem convent because of a nun’s disembodied hand; a French forensics expert who travels on the metro with the rib of a saint; two young brothers who collect tickets at a Syrian mosque, studying English beside a hair from the Prophet Muhammad’s beard; and many other stories, myths, and peculiar histories.