Give it up: brownies {thanks, stock.xchng}

Self-deprivation time! Lent, the popular observance (No. 501 on stuffchristianslike.net!) where people give up something for 40 days, starts Wednesday.

To, uh, “celebrate,” we tried to contact a Lent expert/guide. In the process, we’ve decided that for Lent, we’re giving up finding a Lentpert.

So instead, we researched the top things people eschew for Lent and present a guide to cope.

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Baltimore’s City Hall

Starting today and for every Wednesday during the month of March, Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon will have a “Red Bag” Speaker Series.

 The Mayor is inviting city residents to visit Baltimore’s City Hall and hear from two distinguished women leaders during a lunch session.

The speaker series is being held in order to recognize “Women’s History Month”.

Those who attend are encouraged to bring their bag lunches and to enjoy the speakers.

This week’s theme is “Women in Faith” and will feature Bishop Vashti McKenzie and Rabbi Nina Cardin.

The series takes place on the first floor in the City Hall Rotunda beginning at noon.

A Baltimore native is set to be part of the Obama administration. Bishop Vashti Murphy McKenzie the first female bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal church is expected to be named to the White House Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

The council is something Obama discussed earlier today at a prayer breakfast in Washington.

The President is expected to sign an Executive Order regarding the council later today. You can read The White House’s take here.

Prior to being elected bishop back in 2000, McKenzie was pastor of Baltimore’s Payne Memorial A.M.E. Church.

McKenzie is also a member of Baltimore’s famed Murphy family, a family which for decades has published The Afro-American Newspaper, The Afro as it’s known has editions in Baltimore and Washington.

You can also read more about the bishop here.

From today’s b, the paper

There’s an odd epidemic spreading in this country.

I’m talking about pastors who suddenly are giving sex advice and urging their followers to do the deed as much as possible. The latest to fall prey to this disease of ickypastoritis is Ed Young, of the Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas.

A local news channel, at wfaa.com, reports that last Sunday the good pastor Young had a “much-anticipated” (by whom, not revealed) sermon called the “Seven Days of Sex.” Young is challenging married couples to have sex for seven days straight. Unthinkable!

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