Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Crowds Pray To Frozen Virgin Mary In Store Freezer
An ice formation inside a Morton, Texas, grocery store's freezer is prompting tears from people who see it and has apparently answered the prayers of some visitors, according to a Local 6 News report...As more and more people began to hear about the Virgin Mary, they started traveling in droves to see the ice.
Some people cried when they spotted the ice and others said it answered their prayers.
"I had a lump in my breast and yesterday when I went home it disappeared," a woman said. "I don't have it no more."
Daquiris, anyone?
Comments
Are they sure it isn't Jaspar Beardly from the Simpsons?
Posted by: Chuck C | January 24, 2007 9:46 AM
An ice formation inside a Morton, Texas, grocery store's freezer is prompting tears from people who see it and has apparently answered the prayers of some visitors...
Um...they were praying for the Virgin to appear as a block of ice? Shouldn't they have been praying for peace on Earth? Or at least affordable nutritious food for their kids?
Posted by: Raging Bee | January 24, 2007 9:46 AM
Holy Crap!! Does this mean that every stalagmite is also the virgin mary too?
In the picture, there's a smaller piece of ice sticking up just in front of it. Does this remind anyone else of something that's quite rather unholy?
I dunno... maybe sexually experienced pagan women worship it too.....
Posted by: doctorgoo | January 24, 2007 9:48 AM
That's one ice block that they won't ever allow to melt. My prediction is that the ultimate fate of this apparition will be sublime.
Posted by: DougT | January 24, 2007 10:46 AM
Not while I'm drinking, please, DougT. :-)
Posted by: Michael Suttkus, II | January 24, 2007 11:57 AM
Oh, Ed. Next you're going to be reminding us of the sightings of the Virgin Mary in an ice cream stain in--where was it?--New Orleans, the sightings of the VM in the sugar crusting of a danish somewhere in Tennessee, and the sightings of the VM in an ice formation on a window at a mental institution in Massachusetts. And those are only a few that I recall from the last decade.
These sightings, like those of Elvis, have gone on for millenia. Well, not for Elvis--he wasn't born more than a millenium ago, at least, as far as we know.
Posted by: raj | January 24, 2007 12:36 PM
Something similar happened last Sunday on Moral Oral. Moral accidentally wounded a Jewish doctor with a Jesus figurine. When the doctor woke up in the hospital everyone was refusing to clean and bandage his wound because it was "miraculously" shaped like Jesus.
Posted by: Reed A. Cartwright | January 24, 2007 2:35 PM
Lucy: If you use your imagination you can see lots of things in the cloud formations. . . What do you think you see, Linus?"
Linus: "Well, those cloud up there look to me like the map of British Honduras on the Caribbean. . . that cloud up there looks a little like the profile of Thomas Eakins, the famous painter and sculptor. . . and that group of clouds over there gives me the impression of the stoning of Stephen. . . I can see the Apostle Paul standing there to one side. . . .
Lucy: Uh huh . . . . that's very good. . . . What do you see in the clouds, Charlie Brown?"
Charlie Brown: "Well. I was going to say I saw a ducky and a horsie, but I changed my mind."
Posted by: celcus | January 24, 2007 2:49 PM
Here's a bit more reasonable, though not superstition-free appearance of the Vrgin Mary in an egg yolk over in the UK: http://ickent.icnetwork.co.uk/kentnews/tm_headline=virgin-mary-spotted-in-boiled-egg&method=full&objectid=18519002&siteid=74229-name_page.html
"He said: "I don't believe that Mother Mary actually appeared in the egg, just that it's a nice coincidence that the yolk resembles her face....I don't think it's a miracle, but maybe I will get more grace from Jesus or Mary because of what's happened."
Posted by: Rob H. | January 24, 2007 3:11 PM
Chuck C: "Are they sure it isn't Jaspar Beardly from the Simpsons?"
You mean Frostillicus?
"I had a lump in my breast and yesterday when I went home it disappeared,"
Interesting story. Seems like if it was that easy, there'd be no disease anywhere in the world.
Posted by: Grumpy | January 24, 2007 5:28 PM
It's interesting how humans are driven to see faces, or at least facial structures, in objects. Now that the VM grilled cheese is quite old, you could have a heck of a drinking game. You shave the ice off the VM ice sculpture and drink margaritas until someone is drunk enough to be willing to each the grilled cheese. I would assume that the winner would be divinely cured of their hangover?
Posted by: dogmeatIB | January 24, 2007 9:44 PM
Very amusing. I bet if you found a suspicious lump, grumpy, who would be reduced to sniveling incoherent fear.
Yeah, you are a big talker, but I bet you'd cry like a baby if you had to face some of the things women do.
Posted by: Luann | January 25, 2007 7:32 AM
Very amusing. I bet if you found a suspicious lump, grumpy, who would be reduced to sniveling incoherent fear.
Yeah, you are a big talker, but I bet you'd cry like a baby if you had to face some of the things women do.
Humour
Posted by: Will | January 25, 2007 7:52 AM
It's interesting how humans are driven to see faces, or at least facial structures, in objects.
Um, something like the Man in the Moon?
Or, slightly different, something like the Canals on Mars?
Yup, you're exactly correct. Humans apparently are driven to anthropomorphise virtually anything.
Posted by: raj | January 25, 2007 8:51 AM