Blind Faith : Blind Folly

16 avril 2013

POSTHUMOUS RECOGNITION ?

Forty years ago, Don McLean wrote and recorded a beautiful ballad entitled "Vincent" with its unforgettable refrain "Starry, starry night", recalling one of van Gogh's most famous paintings, "La Nuit Etoilée" (Musée d'Orsay). Vincent van Gogh was not...

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14 avril 2013

PEARLS, PIGS AND PERSEVERANCE

Preachers, pundits and politicians have to be pretty arrogant to apply to themselves the words "crying in the wilderness". But some of us get a bit impatient promising ourselves a posthumous public, if not postponed post-mortem recognition and appreciation...

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14 avril 2013

IS DROOPY AN ATHEIST ?

"I'm happy !" He certainly doesn't look it. Americans have enshrined in their Declaration of Independence a universal human right which, whether "endowed by their Creator" or not, is called the "pursuit of happiness". In spite of his melancholy signature...

Posté par frankophile à 12:00 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

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13 avril 2013

" ... SPRINGS ETERNAL"

Besides Lourdes, there are two thousand "miraculous" springs in France. Once you have located the village, just follow the signs to the one for backaches, headaches, rheumatism or pimples. The town of San Damiano in northern Italy attracts busloads of...

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11 avril 2013

"WE'RE PEOPLE TOO !"

Her words sum up a Jewish lady's protest against gender segregation in the right to pray at the sacred wall in Jerusalem. Women as well want to wail at the wall. In the Catholic Church, some women want to be priests. Tradition going back to anti-feminist...

Posté par frankophile à 23:31 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

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10 avril 2013

THE POWER OF CONTAGION

The word "contagion" is usually associated with diseases like Legionellosis ("Legionnaires' Disease"), a form of pneumonia first detected in 1976. History is filled with the pernicious, devastating effects of major diseases like the Black Plague (called...

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10 avril 2013

"WHAT DOES IT PROFIT A" ... PROPHET ?

The answer is : a bucket of ducats, for some of them, especially televangelists, fortune-tellers and other swindlers. But more often, according to Holy Writ about its own prophets, a less attractive destiny : being unwelcome in one's own country (tell...

Posté par frankophile à 11:55 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

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6 avril 2013

"MY DADDY'S A THEOLOGIAN"

I'm pretty sure none of my children ever said that of me. Kids do ask each other what their parents do. I imagine mine said something like "He's a teacher", referring both to my stints in the States as a Religious Education Director and Professor of Theology,...

Posté par frankophile à 19:12 - Commentaires […] - Permalien [#]

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5 avril 2013

AN ALTAR-BOY FROM OZ

When you enter your 77th year as I just have, indulgent progeny and rare tolerant friends will allow you the luxury of brief, occasional, preferably infrequent bouts of nostalgia. They will not allow your organ-recitals and accounts of your most recent...

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5 avril 2013

"DELENDA RELIGIO"

"Delenda Carthago", "Carthage must be destroyed" : Cato the Elder's mantra, repeated at the end of each of his discourses, whatever the subject, bore fruit years later when at the end of the Third Punic War in 146 B.C. the North African city was in fact...

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