OOH LA-LA!

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec - Moulin Rouge: La Goulue

It was on this day in 1889 that the famous cabaret Moulin Rouge opened its doors.
....

In the early days of the Moulin Rouge, one of its attractions was a giant stucco elephant as tall as a building, and for a franc, men could go inside one of its legs and watch belly dancers. The can-can is said to have originated at the Moulin Rouge.

There's more, much more in today's post at the The Writer's Almanac, including a lovely poem by Howard Nelson, titled "The Man in the Yard", and tidbits on the history of early opera. Today's date was eventful over the years of history, as you will see if you check the link.

The powers at the website post strict rules about what can or cannot be copied, (apparently, nothing can be copied!) but the rule of fair use does not, or so I believe, exclude them. We shall see. The powers may come after me for my brief quote above. I'm quite careful not to use the words of others without attribution.

Image from Wikipedia Commons, not from "The Writer's Almanac".

DIOCESE OF SOUTHWARK (ENGLAND) - "HABEMUS EPISCOPUM!"

From The Diocese of Southwark:

Downing Street has announced this morning that The Rt Revd Christopher Chessun is to be the 10th Bishop of Southwark. He will succeed The Rt Revd Dr Tom Butler who retired in March. Consecrated Bishop in Southwark Cathedral on 21 April 2005, he is the Area Bishop of Woolwich, one of the three Episcopal Areas along with Kingston and Croydon in the Diocese of Southwark. He will be enthroned in Southwark Cathedral in the early part of 2011.

Bishop Christopher, 54, who is an identical twin, was also appointed as Bishop for Urban Life and Faith in May 2010. He will continue to hold this role as Bishop of Southwark.

Congratulations and blessings to Bishop Chessun! He's one of the diocese's own, so he won't take his throne as a stranger. (Aside: All churches with bishops should dump the phrase "enthronement". I don't care if the phrase is ancient and traditional, a bishop takes his position as a servant of the servants of Christ.)

I'm curious as to why the mention of the bishop being an identical twin is so prominent in the announcement. Perhaps, the reason is due to the possibility of photos of a person who looks very like the bishop being mistaken for the bishop.

H/T to Thinking Anglicans.

From the comments at TA:

Thank goodness he's not a wound on the church, like that awful Jeffrey John! (Irony alert!)

Oh dear. I meant for the post to be entirely serious, but it did not come out that way. In all sincerity, I pray for Bishop Chessun as he prepares to take up his new duties as Bishop of the Diocese of Southwark.

STORY OF THE DAY - STRESS MANAGEMENT

I can imagine it working out perfectly, I
said. I can't, she said & I said no wonder
you're so stressed.

From StoryPeople.

Love it, love it, love it!

My "Story of the Day" posts don't get much of a response in the comments, but I post them anyway - but only those that resonate with me. At times the stories don't actually make complete sense to me, but they still make me laugh - out loud.

A UPDATE FROM MARK ON HIS CAT, KATZIE

Katzie had her second surgery and is recovering. See details at Mark's blog, Enough About me.

Thanks be to God, the staff at the veterinarian's office, and to all of you who donated to make Katzie's life-saving surgery possible.

Please leave comments at Mark's blog. Mark has access to the internet only at night.

PLEASE PRAY...

...for Maddie the cat. Maddie, who is 18 years old, lives with my brother-in-law, Frank. She sleeps either in Frank's closet or on his bed. When Frank was living with his son and his family, Maddie adopted Frank, and when Frank moved to his own place, Maddie went with him.

In a recent visit, the vet diagnosed Maddie with cancerous tumors all over her body. In two or three weeks, Maddie will need to be gently eased out of her life on this good earth.

Frank's Corgi, Zoe, is elderly, too, and has a good many health problems, but she hangs in there. Pray for Maddie, Frank, and Zoe.

...and for Frank. Frank will have cataract surgery tomorrow, October 6, on the first eye and on the other eye on October 20. Frank says, "Looking forward to it (no pun intended)".

Pray that all goes well with Frank's surgery.

UPDATE FROM FRANK:

Arrived at 6:40 - prepped - finished by 8:15 - back home by 8:45. Fell asleep couple of times during surgery (they give you Versed under tongue). Typing with one eye - right eye patched over. Painless, etc. Ready for number two. Thanks for the prayers for me and my girls.

Frank

THE HELPFUL SCOTSMAN

A golfer is cupping his hand to scoop water from a Highland burn on the St Andrews course.

A Scottish groundskeeper shouts: 'Dinnae drink tha waater! Et's foo ae coo's shite an pish!'

The golfer replies: 'My good fellow, I'm afraid I'm from England. Could you repeat that for me please, in English?!'

The good Scotman replies: 'I said, use two hands - you'll spill less that way.'

Don't blame me. Blame my naughty friend from the desert, Paul, the BB.

TWO NEW BLOGS

OCICBW... has today launched two new websites St Laika's (a totally inclusive worship blog) and The Anchorhold (about prayer and stuff). Please do me a great favour and advertise
both sites on your own blogs.

Oh, and please, please, please do pop over
there yourselves, of course.

The Rev. Jonathan Hagger (aka MadPriest) and Sister Ellie Finlay administer the new blogs.

"THE SIN OF HONESTY"

Umm, umm, good! And I'm not talking Campbells's Soup. Benny Hazelhurst's post at Benny's Blog with the title above, which I "borrowed" for my post, is excellent.

From Benny's "About Me":

Benny is a husband, father, and a Rev in the Church of England. More controversially, he is an Evangelical Christian who beleives that homosexual relationships and partnerships should be welcomed, nurtured and blessed. He is a founder member of Accepting Evangelicals with his wife, Mel, and they beleive that God has a place for everyone in his/her Kingdom.

I see nothing controversial about Benny and Mel's views, but I'm sure not all will agree.

Benny says:

Over the last week there have been a number of Blogs pointing out the culture of secrecy that exists in the Church of England and the Anglican world over sexual orientation.
....

So the Archbishop's now famous phrase from last week's interview in the Times that "He has no problem with gay bishops' clearly needs another caveat placed alongside celibacy - the caveat that "He has no problem - as long as no-one knows!"

Ouch! Benny says further:

Is honesty the main issue then? Is it the honesty and openness of Jeffrey John that is the real cause of his awful treatment at the hands of the Church? And when is there going to be a sustained challenge to this way of doing things?

Is it the honesty of Gene Robinson and Mary Glasspool that makes them and the Episcopal Church such a focus for disapproval in the Anglican Communion? If they had just kept quiet? If they had just lived a lie? If they had hidden behind a veneer of acceptability? Would everything have been ok?

The answer, of course, is a resounding "No!" If we, as Christ body here on earth are to convince people that God is real, we need to be real. If we want people to find abundant life in Christ, we need to live real lives, not carefully crafted veneers of acceptability.

Wise words, indeed. Please read Benny's post in its entirety. Benny's Blog is most certainly a blog I'll want to keep an eye on.

I am so pleased when clergy in the Church of England speak out on the matter of inclusion and equality for LGTB persons. The few voices which have been heard in the past have suffered and borne the brunt of the backlash from those who prefer an exclusive, pure church, which is not at all the example that Jesus set in the types of people he invited to be his followers, and which is a church that never existed, except in the fantasies of the purists and the exclusionists.

Go, Benny!

NOT AMUSED - AMUSED

Lapin said I would like this. Do you like the 5 pound note trick? I do.

"...ALL LIFE IS 6 TO 5 AGAINST"

Today is the birthday of, amongst other writers, Damon Runyon. From the The Writer's Almanac:

It's the birthday of the man who said, "The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong — but that is the way to bet." That's fiction writer and journalist Damon Runyon, (books by this author) born Alfred Damon Runyan in Manhattan, Kansas (1880). His mother died when he was young, and his three sisters grew up with various family members in Kansas. But young Alfred Damon was raised in Pueblo, Colorado, by his dad, who was a gambler, an alcoholic, a literature enthusiast, and a newspaperman.

The boy was kicked out of school in sixth grade for "excessive horseplay" and got a job for his dad's newspaper. By the age of 15, he was recognized as beyond his years in both his writing ability and his ability to drink and chain-smoke. He met all kinds of characters, and he wrote about them for the newspaper and also in his short stories. He spent a few years traveling around and working for papers, and one of them misspelled his last name as "Runyon" instead of "Runyan," so he decided to go with it.

In the olden days, that was the proper way to make a newspaperman. Each time I think of the reason given for Runyon's expulsion from school, "excessive horseplay", I burst out laughing.

He himself was an enthusiastic gambler, and he found other gamblers, as well as con men, mobsters, prostitutes, hustlers, and boxers. He made friends with these outsiders, and he spent his nights with them, fitting in easily with their lifestyle even though he had more or less given up drinking after moving to New York, sticking to coffee and cigarettes instead. It was said that he would drink 40 cups of coffee to stay up all night, and then show up for work at the newspaper in the late afternoon looking fresh and clean.
....

He said, "I long ago came to the conclusion that all life is 6 to 5 against."

Also, in the olden days, not a few newspapermen led similar lives to Runyon's, and those who wrote for newspapers were not treated with the extreme deference as the members of the top tier today. The opinion writers and reporters of the most prominent newspapers and the national TV news talking heads and pundits often hobnob with the high and the mighty in in positions of power in government, business, and lobbying. They attend the same dinner parties and cocktail parties and then claim to write unbiased stories and opinions about those same people.

However, certain opinion writers and reporters in the top tier are outstanding exceptions to the above description, and I highly respect their work. The less prominent writers and reporters and those on the local scene still work at their jobs.

Read the rest of Runyon's short biography at the website.

I thank Cathy and other friends for sending me links to the website and urging me to sign up for the feed to the "Today's Poem" feature.

Today's poem is "Small Boats" by Steve Kowit.

Picture from Wikipedia.