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| Interaction between Guatemalan girl and tourist. Sweet! |
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| Chicago Christians at Gay Pride parade apologize for homophobia in the church |
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| Sign at an awesome bookshop |
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| Villager carrying stranded kittens to dry land during flood Cuttack City, India |
Hadacol was a patent medicine marketed as a vitamin supplement. Its principal attraction, however, was that it contained 12 percent alcohol (listed on the tonic bottle's label as a "preservative"), which made it quite popular in the dry counties of the southern United States.Several popular songs were inspired by Hadacol, including "Hadacol Boogie", performed by Jerry Lee Lewis.
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The label on the tonic's bottle clearly stated that the recommended dosage (1 tablespoonful taken 4 times a day) was to be taken "...in a 1/2 glass of water after meals and before retiring". However, some pharmacies in dry counties were known to sell it by the shot-glass and at least one bar in New Orleans' French Quarter was known to sell a "Tassel Cocktail" with Hadacol as an ingredient.
The University of Louisiana at Lafayette has acquired a rare personal letter and other memorabilia associated with John Kennedy Toole, the author of “A Confederacy of Dunces” who briefly taught at ULL’s predecessor and is believed to have drawn inspiration there for characters in that classic book.Confederacy is one of my favorite books about my beloved New Orleans. The book is a masterpiece, which Toole could not get published in his lifetime. His mother, Thelma, believed that the failure to publish contributed to the despair that led Toole to take his own life at the age of 31.
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The letter in the collection was written in January 1963 to English professors Patricia and Milton Rickels at the former University of Southwestern Louisiana from Puerto Rico, where Toole was serving in the U.S. Army and working on “A Confederacy of Dunces.”
Toole submitted Dunces to publisher Simon & Schuster, where it reached noted editor Robert Gottlieb. Gottlieb considered Toole talented but felt his comic novel was essentially pointless. Despite several revisions, Gottlieb remained unsatisfied, and after the book was rejected by another literary figure, Hodding Carter Jr., he shelved the novel.What were they thinking? Kudos to Thelma Toole, who would not give up her hope for publication, and pestered the novelist, Walker Percy, until he read the manuscript. After reading it, Percy submitted the manuscript to LSU Press with an enthusiastic recommendation, and they published the book. Confederacy became a best seller and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1980.
Do you remember the time that I went to Baton Rouge in one of those? I vomited several times. The driver had to stop the bus somewhere in the swamps to let me get off and walk around for a while. The other passengers were rather angry. They must have had stomachs of iron to ride in that awful machine. Leaving New Orleans also frightened me considerably. Outside of the city limits the heart of darkness, the true wasteland begins."
"Of course," Ignatius continued, mistaking his mother's rapt look for interest, "that was the only time that I had ever been out of New Orleans in my life. I think that perhaps it was the lack of a center of orientation that might have upset me. Speeding along in that bus was like hurtling into the abyss. By the time we had left the swamps and reached those rolling hills near Baton Rouge, I was getting afraid that some rural rednecks might toss bombs at the bus. They love to attack vehicles, which are a symbol of progress, I guess.”
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| Earth's seasons. Far left: summer solstice for the Northern Hemisphere. |
"No timeframe" and "following ACC-15" keep options open. Drexel Gomez' drumbeat of 'urgent, urgent' has clearly been ignored. Instead an open-ended process would allow the Anglican Consultative Council to kill the Covenant if enough members wished to do so. Alternatively it would allow one province after another to sign up till those who had initially declined to do so became overwhelmed by its popularity and conceded.Hmm...and further from GS1878: report by the Business Committee on the reference [of the Covenant] to the dioceses :
6) ... For the record, there is nothing in the Synod’s Constitution or Standing Orders that would preclude the process being started over again, whether in the lifetime of this Synod or subsequently, by another draft Instrument to the same effect being brought forward for consideration by the General Synod before being referred to the dioceses under Article 8. The Business Committee is not, however, aware of a proposal to re-start the process in this way.Please read Paul's entire commentary on the shenanigans "amongst those who might regard themselves as 'players' in this particular game." Sounds to me as if the "players" want to keep all options open, including an attempt to revive the corpse of the covenant in England.
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| #OWS #D17 Trial photo by Jefferson Siegel |
Read it all at the link above to Bishop George's blog.No, my great sadness today has nothing to do with the law, its fairness or even an economic system favoring the few at the expense of the many in these days.It has to do with how Trinity Church has chosen to hop back and forth between being the aggrieved and trespassed party on the one hand and the sympathetic ear and support for those who deserve a message of mercy and forgiveness on the other. There was nothing to be gained by going forward with these prosecutions. Rector James Cooper even appreciated "the healthy debate" about his property. I guess that discussion has limits for him when his corporate side and cash flow takes over.Is this entity a corporation worried about fiduciary interest or a portion of the Body of Christ? Which are they? We have received our answer today by their insistence for this action. In a time when we hope our moral institutions will speak with clarity…this one didn’t.
A retired Episcopal bishop and a priest from the Episcopal Diocese of New York were among seven people convicted June 18 on charges of trespassing on property owned by Trinity Episcopal Church, Wall Street, during a Dec. 17 Occupy Wall Street demonstration and sentenced to four days of community service.Statement from Trinity Wall Street after the verdict was handed down:
George Packard, former Episcopal bishop suffragan for armed services and federal ministries, and the Rev. Earl Kooperkamp, rector of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Harlem, had faced up to 90 days in prison on the most serious charge, Packard’s lawyer, Gideon Oliver, had previously told ENS.
An eighth defendant, Mark Adams, was convicted of trespassing and additional charges of attempted criminal mischief and attempted possession of burglar’s tools, reportedly for trying to use bolt-cutters to slice through the fence surrounding the property. He was sentenced to 45 days in prison on Rikers Island and taken from court in handcuffs, Oliver said in a telephone interview after the trial.
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Packard said he was surprised, disappointed and saddened by the trial’s outcome. He spoke to ENS via cell phone while attending a post-trial conference about how to support Adams, who he said had “become the fall guy” for the Dec. 17 Occupy action. The prosecutor recommended a 30-day sentence, but Adams received 45 days, he said.
“The eight of us [defendants] feel sort of bonded in brotherhood,” he said. “We’re feeling like a member of the family has been torn out from among us.”
Trinity did not have to pursue the charges, but it opted to “protect fiduciary interests,” Packard told ENS. “It’s pretty sad. I mean, this is what our church has come to. You don’t have enough pledging units to sustain many places. So we depend on the cash flow of corporate investment. It’s a caricature of what the gospel is.”
Like many churches, Trinity has a long and active history in addressing social and economic inequities. While we are sympathetic to many of the OWS protestors' stated goals, we do not support the seizure of private property. Trinity urged the District Attorney's Office to offer non-criminal dispositions before trial and to request non-jail sentences for those defendants who chose to proceed to trial. All protestors received sentences of four days of community service, except for one defendant who was convicted of additional crimes and had several open cases unrelated to Duarte Square. We continue to support the basic principles underlying the Occupy movement, and will continue to welcome protestors, as we welcome all others in our community, to our facilities in the Wall Street neighborhood.As I have said elsewhere, Trinity's choice was stark and not complicated...to be on the side of the angels or on the side of the greedy bankers and financiers who run our country. Surely the Occupiers represent a very small David taking taking on the Goliath of Wall Street, but they did it anyway.
A lawyer awakened after a serious operation, only to find herself in a dark room with all the blinds drawn.Kudos to Paul (A.) for sharing lawyer jokes, since lawyering is his profession, though I note the lawyer in the joke is a woman, which may give him a degree of deniability.
"Why are all the blinds closed?" she asked her doctor.
"Well," the surgeon responded, "they're fighting this huge multi-alarm fire just across the street from the hospital, and we didn't want you to wake up and think the operation had failed."
Cheers,
Paul (A.)
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| #OWS #D17 Trial photo by Jefferson Siegel |
The defendants were some of the dozens arrested last Dec. 17, a month after O.W.S.’s eviction from Zuccotti Park. Half of the 20 defendants in this particular group had already had their cases adjourned or charges dropped entirely.
Eight stood ready to go to trial on Monday morning. Charges for most of those who entered the lot included trespassing and criminal mischief.The trial resumes tomorrow.
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t the end of the second day of testimony, retired Episcopal Bishop George Packard — who was the first to climb a ladder and enter LentSpace on Dec. 17 — stood outside the court building with his fellow defendants.
“I just felt like Occupy Wall Street needed a new home and we should place our bodies in a location of justice,” Packard said of his motivation for entering the fenced-off square.
Defense lawyer Gideon Oliver said Trinity has had chances to drop the case against his client Packard, but refused to do so.
“Packard had a good-faith belief, based on Trinity’s past practices and his relationship with Rector James Cooper, that Trinity would exercise forbearance. Trinity had multiple opportunities to back off these prosecutions,” Oliver said.
Defense lawyer Stolar offered a more faith-based outlook.
“The Bible and prayer say, ‘Forgive us our trespasses.’ That’s what Trinity should be doing.”
Eight Occupy Wall Street members were convicted on Monday of criminal trespass for breaking into a fenced-in private lot last December during a protest.Trinity could have dropped the charges. What about forgiveness?
The protesters scaled an eight-foot fence, ignoring signs that warned against trespassing, and entered a plaza known as Duarte Square that is owned by historic Trinity Church, one of lower Manhattan's largest land-owners.The one-week trial in Manhattan Criminal Court pitted the church, once a strong ally of the movement, against Occupy supporters, who pressured church leaders not to cooperate with the prosecution.....In the trial before Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Matthew Sciarrino, one defendant, Mark Adams, was also convicted of trying to slice through the fence's locks with bolt-cuttersSciarrino sentenced him (Mark Adams) to 45 days, more than the 30 days that prosecutors had been seeking; he did not offer an explanation.The other seven defendants received four days of community service.
