Rapper ordered to take etiquette classes

At a June hearing, a Philadelphia judge became so exasperated at defendant Robert Williams’ seeming cluelessness about his need to keep his probation appointments that she ordered him to take etiquette classes before returning to court.

Williams, a rap singer and budding music mogul still under court supervision on gun and drug charges from 2008, cavalierly defended his inability to find time for his probation officer by explaining that he was a busy man, working with seven artists, with a demanding travel schedule, and uninhibitedly using social media (creating posts that, allegedly, led to threats against the probation officer). (Williams, of course, was accompanied to court by a several-man entourage.)

• An atheist church in Lake Charles, La., run by lapsed Pentecostal Jerry DeWitt, conducts periodic services with many of the trappings expected by the pious – except for the need to believe in a supreme being.

Such churches can help soothe the biological needs for survival and avoidance of loneliness by congregational rituals and in helping find meaning in something other than (oneself).

For example, atheist Sigfried Gold praised a rigorous prayer routine in overcoming his weight problem.