Poor Mojo's Newswire

A New Hampshire couple has pulled their son out of his local high school after the teen was assigned a book that refers to Jesus Christ as a "wine-guzzling vagrant and precocious socialist." Aimee Taylor says her oldest son, 16-year-old Jordan Henderson, was required to read "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America," this fall for Bedford High School's personal finance class. The book is a first-person account of author Barbara Ehrenreich's attempts to make ends meet while working minimum wage jobs in Florida, Maine and Minnesota. . . . [The father also says,] "…These words are illegal to say on national TV and radio in this country and yet here they are in this book."

First Baptist Church of Dallas sends word that this morning on KCBI-FM (90.9), Robert Jeffress announced the launch of a website -- Grinch Alert -- "dedicated to showcasing businesses that do not show outward signs of supporting Christmas." In other words: He's declaring war on those who've declared war on Christmas. That's very Gretchen Carlson of him. The mayor's pastor is asking folks to submit names of stores to the naughty and nice lists, which the station will read on the air every morning. Says the podcast of this morning's broadcast, it all started last week with the public shaming of a bank in Southlake that decided not to put up a Christmas tree in its lobby; says the morning-show host, the bank has since changed its mind due to the divine intervention.

Kentucky’s Democratic governor Steve Beshear announced yesterday that a creationism theme park — dubbed “Ark Encounter” — is expected to open in the state in 2014. The governor boasted that the park would have a $250 million impact on the local economy annually. The park “will feature a 500-foot-long wooden replica of Noah’s Ark containing live animals such as juvenile giraffes.” The project is a collaboration with a non-profit organization Answers in Genesis, which runs the Creation Museum in Boone County, KY. The Nation’s Chris Hayes noted on MSNBC last night that Answers in Genesis “is dedicated to portraying the Bible’s view of history. Among their claims, the Earth was created in six days, just 6,000 years ago, and that at one time, man and velociraptor co-existed peacefully.” (Of course, dinosaurs went extinct nearly 65 million years ago.)