Mind Soup

AFP:  Manchester United 's fans in Malaysia erupted in astonishment and anger on social media Thursday after clerics warned Muslims against wearing the team's famous jersey with its "devil" emblem. Manchester United and the rest of the English Premier League are hugely popular in Muslim-majority Malaysia, where conservative religious leaders said the jersey was un-Islamic and should be banned. Social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook were flooded with comments from fans in the Southeast Asian nation. "Maybe the religious leaders are just fans of Liverpool?" quipped one supporter on Twitter. "Why this become an issue after Manchester United has won the title for 11 times? They haven't been watching the matches all this while?" said Sharifah Shahidah, a die-hard Manchester United fan of two-decades standing. "What am I gonna do with all my Man Utd jerseys? And my sons' jerseys?" Sharifah, a Muslim mother of two a...

NEW YORK -- J.D. Salinger, the legendary author, youth hero and fugitive from fame whose "The Catcher in the Rye" shocked and inspired a world he increasingly shunned, has died. He was 91. Salinger died of natural causes at his home on Wednesday, the author's son said in a statement from Salinger's literary representative. He had lived for decades in self-imposed isolation in the small, remote house in Cornish, N.H. "The Catcher in the Rye," with its immortal teenage protagonist, the twisted, rebellious Holden Caulfield, came out in 1951, a time of anxious, Cold War conformity and the dawn of modern adolescence. The Book-of-the-Month Club, which made "Catcher" a featured selection, advised that for "anyone who has ever brought up a son" the novel will be "a source of wonder and delight - and concern." Enraged by all the "phonies" who make "me so depressed I go crazy," Holden soon became American litera...

London, England (CNN) -- Obsessive, overenthusiastic, fanatical -- call them what you will. They used to be the exception rather than the norm. But these days, devoted fan followings are cropping up with increasing frequency. The latest embodiment of the die-hard fans that have emerged: "Avatards," the loyal followers of James Cameron's wildly popular 3D science fiction film "Avatar." Since the blockbuster epic hit the cinema screen across the globe last month, countless forums, Web sites and wikis devoted to all things "Avatar" have popped up. Enthusiastic fans can go to "Learn Na'vi" to study the language spoken on the mythical world of Pandora. On fan sites like "Naviblue," fans discuss everything from their bordering-on-obsessive relationship with the film to feelings of despondence caused by the fact that Pandora is not real. On fan site ""Avatar Forums," one forum member, Neytiri, offers advice on...

Score one for Lost fans! President Obama will not give his State of the Union speech on Feb. 2, the night ABC has scheduled the premiere of the show's sixth and final season. The mere mention of the date had sent fans racing to launch a Twitter protest campaign earlier this week. "I don't foresee a scenario in which millions of people that hope to finally get some conclusion in Lost are pre-empted by the president," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told AP today. He later added, "I assume it's a big deal at ABC." No word on when the State of the Union will actually be. Meanwhile, Variety reports today that Disney execs are trying to figure out how to keep the Lost love alive after the show ends - with novelizations, comic books, games, re-cut Lost DVDs and even the "oft-rumored Lost amusement park attraction." It might even mean a a new TV or feature take on Lost, with a new cast. In other words, says Variety, Lost: The Next Generatio...