So we’re still getting great numbers of page views at James MacDonald Preaches on Finances on Easter Sunday, and not a small number of comments, especially for this blog.  Some of you haven’t been back there since it appeared, but I later added an update to clarify some of the comments I got both on and off the blog:

Update 4/4/13

Basically what you’re seeing in the comments section is four possible responses:

• Supportive (objectively) — People who feel J. MacD. was within his rights to preach this topic on Easter Sunday because it was a legitimate message even for “Holy Week.”
• Supportive (subjectively) — People who rally around J.MacD. as their pastor or shepherd and want to defend him.
• Opposed (subjectively) — People who choose to criticize J. MacD. on whatever grounds or based on whatever leadership criteria, or choose to examine this particular topic in light of…

Colonel Sanders would be proud. While the 74-year-old secret recipe for his fried chicken has remained firmly under wraps, cravings for his deep-fried deliciousness have become so widespread that an entrepreneur has begun smuggling KFC to customers in the Gaza Strip using secret underground tunnels. According to the New York Times, Khalil Efrangi, 31, runs a small shop in Gaza called Yamama that will deliver a 12-piece bucket of KFC for $27, about twice what it costs across the border in Egypt, where the food is prepared.

Since Israel strengthened the blockade on its Gazan border with Egypt in 2007, “People have used the hundreds of underground tunnels that connect Egypt and Gaza to smuggle in everything from motorcycles to fish to brides,” reports the New York Daily News. So KFC seems like a natural extension for the clandestine trade route, even if the contraband meals can take…

1. There Goes the Neighborhood

   While I occasionally spend a few hours standing on my front stoop scantily clad and in a suggestive pose hoping to gain a little notoriety on Google Maps Street View, I still expect a certain amount of privacy when my family (and several of my neighbors) say it’s time to go back into the house. For some New Yorkers, that expectation of privacy in their own homes went right out (or at least through) the window with the debut of a new photography show at a Chelsea gallery. Photographer Arne Svenson took photos of the residents of the building across the street and created a collection called The Neighbors. According to Salon’s Mary Elizabeth Williams: “None of the photos show the subject’s faces, but the residents of the luxury condo across the street from Svenson are understandably none too thrilled to see their asses turned…