The News and Observer from Raleigh, North Carolina • E1

Metamorphosis: Reassignment hits where teens live. PAGE 10E. Weingarten: Bigger backsides for us? Huh? PAGE 2E. Divine Design galore. HOME GARDEN.

102030405060708090 102030405060708090 1E, FRIDAY, JANUARY 6, 2006 Ask Amy: Husband clueless over hurt. Page 7E Check It Out 2E Comics puzzles 8E Movie listings Up Sudoku 6E Television 6E www.newsobserver.com/life FRIDAY, JANUARY 6, 2006 HE EWS BSERVER Life, etc. TELEVISION THE NEWSEASON Religious and moral issues, news and personalities, every Friday. Find more inside, starting on page 3E. ARIA ASTRO COLUMBIA NEWS SERVICE NEW YORK aryl Smalls was walking on Broadway in New York at his usual pace of two to three blocks a minute.

He was running late to meet his date, who was waiting at a movie theater in Times Square. But then Smalls, a 23-year-old black electrician from the Bronx, saw a street vendor hawking a T-shirt he had to have. His date would have to wait. Smalls plunked down $20 for a 100- percent cotton, XXL, black T-shirt with white letters saying You See Police, Warn A a comic twist on the Warner Bros. movie studio logo.

In this version, the logo becomes a police patch with the WB letters inside, and the words A instead of The words You See are placed outside the logo. some reason, it reminded me of this black joke we have about how we took over that toy store, Toys Us, and we renamed it We Be Smalls said. think this is going to be a The popular shirts have quickly become controversial. Law enforcement officials and community leaders saying the shirts promote violence. Nevertheless, the shirts are being sold on street corners as well as at festivals, concerts and events like the Black College Reunion in Daytona Beach, and Unity Day in Philadelphia.

A shirt raises copyright question HRISTY EMIRE THE ASSOCIATED PRESS riter-director Eli Roth just show you a close-up of a chain saw severing the fingers of a hapless backpacker who has been chained to a chair and tortured. also show you the bloody stumps falling onto the dark stone floor, as well as the partial paw that remains. Such is the relentlessly graphic nature of which is not for the faint of heart. Roth follows up his darkly funny, gross-out debut, with the story of Ugly Americans and their Icelandic pal who are traveling across Europe seeking thrills, but become the victims of someone twisted idea of fun. And is extremely effective in achieving its goal: to make you squirm in your seat, heart pounding, fingers splayed across your eyes, in sheer amazement at the intensity of the images on the screen.

A lot of horror movies come out every year but few of them are truly disturbing. This one is. Roth builds tension slowly and takes his time in torturing us and continues to reveal himself as a filmmaker of control and confidence beyond his 33 years. (Quentin Tarantino apparently agrees, serving as an executive producer and providing the Tarantino tag above the title.) Nothing violent occurs for the first half of the film, as 20-something friends Paxton (Jay Hernandez from and Josh (Derek Richardson from and smoke hash and chase foreign women with their new pal, Oli (Eythor Gudjonsson), who likes to call himself king of the hope bestiality is illegal in Paxton yells when he sees a curvaceous hooker dancing in a window, ONAT HIMRON STAFF WRITER yidah Mateen think twice when a judge asked her to place her hand on the Bible and take an oath to tell the truth. you have a Quran she asked.

A lifelong Muslim who lives in Greensboro, Mateen was sure that this day and the courthouse would have one, she said. But the Guilford County courthouse did not. In fact, none of the courthouses do. Mateen was sworn in by raising her hand and affirming to tell the truth. Still, she thought, courthouses should have more than just Christian holy texts.

That way, people of other faiths could vow to tell the truth on a book they hold sacred. Before leaving that day, she decided to ask her mosque to donate some Qurans to the Guilford County courthouses. Last summer, when she finally got around to making the donation, she was rebuffed by another judge who said state law prohibits the use of any holy text other than the Bible. Muslims say Quran should join Christian Bible for courtroom oaths Playing on the familiar Warner Bros. logo, the T-shirts exhort passers-by to A gotten mixed reviews.

COLUMBIA NEWS SERVICE PHOTO Graphic makes you squirm SEE T-SHIRT, PAGE 7E NEWSHOWS The Book of Daniel 9 p.m., NBC (two-hour premiere; airs next Friday at 10 p.m.). WHAT IT IS: This controversial comedy-drama about a Vicodin-addicted Episcopalpriest is part part Knows Jesus has a featured role, but only the Rev.Daniel Webster can see him. STARS: Aidan Quinn, Garret Dillahunt. In Justice 9 p.m.,ABC (debuts in its regular time slot). WHAT IT IS: A loopy big-shot lawyer heads the National Justice Project, dedicated to freeing innocent people from prison.

His handsome lead investigator has some bad karma to work off, and his young investigative staff suffers from too much sexual tension. STARS: Kyle MacLachlan, Jason MOVIE REVIEW Hostel In July, the North Carolina chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit, claiming that the term refers not just to the Bible, but to other sacred texts such as the Quran, the Muslim holy book. Last month, Superior Court Judge Donald L. Smithdismissed the lawsuit determining, in part, that becauseMateen was able to testify that day, no legal controversy remained. The ACLU has appealed the decision.

struggle, which has been featured in newspaper articles and radio shows, is the latest case of religious liberty to arise in North Carolina.In other cases, employers have been challenged to allow Sikhs to keep their beards and Muslim women to wear veils. For many, these cases are a test of whether North Carolina and by extension the United States can accommodate the growing religious diversity of its citizens. North Carolina case is another example of the ways expanding religious diversity is coming into conflict with established practices in the public said Thomas Tweed, a professor of religion at UNC-Chapel Hill. North Carolina law already offers an alternative to people who do not want to take the traditional oath of laying a hand on the Bible. The law allows people to raise a hand affirming that they are telling the truth, or to swear by God they are telling the truth without laying a hand on the Bible.

That should be enough, according to some critics of the suit. you have to swear on the Bible, the asked Steve Noble, the chairman of Called2Action, a Christian activist organization based in Wake County. the fact that a Judeo-Christian nation, when we say Holy Scriptures we mean the FAITH INSIDE God Squad. What the faithful can believe. PAGE3E FASHION Phrase fits to a SEE QURAN, PAGE 5E Whose Holy Scriptures? Syidah Mateen, holding the Quran, waits at the Al Ummil Ummat Islamic Center in Greensboro for worship to begin Wednesday.

STAFF PHOTO BY TED RICHARDSON CAST: Jay Hernandez, Derek Richardson, Eythor Gudjonsson, Barbara Nedeljakova, Jana Kaderabkova. DIRECTOR: Eli Roth. LENGTH: 1 hour, 35 minutes. WEB SITE: www.hostelfilm.com THEATERS: Cary: Crossroads. Chapel Hill: Timberlyne.

Durham: Southpoint. Wynnsong. Garner: Towne Square. Morrisville: Park Place. Raleigh: Brier Creek.

Carmike. Grande. Mission Valley. North Hills. Wakefield.

Roxboro: Palace. Smithfield: Smithfield. RATING: (for brutal scenes of torture and violence, strong sexual content, language and drug use). SEE PAGE 7E.