Last but not least: The spaghetti monsters and the pasta strainer
PR man, church critic and fan of the religious parody "Flying Spaghetti Monster" Niko Alm made it onto his driver's license photo in Austria with a pasta strainer on his head.
He had read that, as an exception, people are allowed to wear a head covering in passport photos if it is religiously justified, Alm told ORF. He thought that this exception should also apply to him - the pasta strainer as a symbol for the "Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster", so to speak.
Alm was issued his driver's license after two and a half years of waiting. He first approached the authorities at the end of 2008, he told the Allgemeine Frankfurter Zeitung. He also had the pasta strainer on his head at the time so that his application was conclusive. Instead of a driver's license, however, he first received an invitation to see a medical officer to determine whether he was mentally healthy. As this was the case, he finally received his license after a long delay.
He was satisfied with the outcome of the headline-grabbing action, he told Faz. And rightly so: the Spaghetti Monster Church is no longer an unknown thanks to the pasta strainer. And who knows - maybe it will manage to establish itself as the sixth world religion. We wish it the best of luck on the way there.
