WOUNDED BIRD

Saturday, June 23, 2012

STORY OF THE DAY - GHOSTS OF THE PAST

I'd probably have more trouble with the
ghosts of the past, she said, if my
memory wasn't shot to hell.

True!

From StoryPeople.

Friday, June 22, 2012

PLEASE HELP NACC WITH EXPENSES FOR GC12

Support Our Presence at General Convention

by Lionel Deimel

Dear Coalition Supporter,

The No Anglican Covenant Coalition will send our moderator, Malcolm French, and me, our Episcopal Church convenor, to the 2012 General Convention of The Episcopal Church in Indianapolis, Indiana. The convention begins in less than two weeks. Along with other Coalition members and friends, we will monitor the progress of Covenant-related resolutions and will lobby for The Episcopal Church to take a strong stand against the Anglican Covenant. We will also distribute buttons and brochures to convention bishops and deputies in support of our lobbying efforts.

For the first time, the No Anglican Covenant Coalition needs to solicit financial help in support of our efforts. To date, coalition members have run our operations on a shoestring, and some members have made significant personal sacrifices to enable us to oppose what we believe is a disastrous change in direction for the Anglican Communion.

Our presence at General Convention will be our most expensive undertaking so far, requiring funds for travel, lodging, meals, buttons, brochures, etc. We estimate that this project will cost more than $3,000 US. Your help is urgently needed. Please consider making a generous donation to this important effort.

The No Anglican Covenant Coalition is an unincorporated organization, and contributions are not tax-deductible. However, donations of $25 US or more will be acknowledged with our Yes to Communion button that we will be distributing at General Convention.

By making a donation through PayPal, anyone in the world can contribute to this effort. Note that I, as Episcopal Church convenor, am acting as treasurer, so you will see both the Coalition’s name and my own on the PayPal pages when you make your donation using the button at the bottom of this post.

Thank you for your support,
Lionel Deimel
NACC Covnenor for The Episcopal Church

FATHER RON AND SARAH IN CONCERT

Fr Ron is our priest-in-charge at St John. Ron and his beautiful daughter Sarah performed a benefit concert with the proceeds from the admission charge going to help rebuild St Matthew's Episcopal Church in Houma, Louisiana. The church was destroyed by fire last year, and the congregation is raising funds to rebuild. The building was insured, but the insurance money is not sufficient to cover the cost of rebuilding.

We passed a good time with Sarah and Ron as they performed soul and blues music. The father/daughter duo make a great team. Both sing and play guitar, but, in the concert, Sarah was the main singer, with Ron as the main guitarist. How 'bout Sarah's sassy stance in the photo?

Sarah sang the slow songs like "I Can't Help Falling in Love" and "To Love Somebody" beautifully, but I predict that her forte will be as a blues belter, and I told her so. The woman standing next to me seemed surprised at my comment. I think she didn't know what I was talking about, although she was a musician, but Sarah understood my words - or pretended she did - as the great compliment I meant them to be. I especially liked "Voodoo Shoppe" and "Mean" and... You know what? I liked all the songs, and it's hard for me to pick out favorites. Ron moonlights as a DJ and blogger for WWOZ, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Station.

Ron is a regular Renaissance man, for in his priestly duties, he does simple but excellent liturgy, and he gives damned good sermons...and without notes. We are truly blessed to have him at St John.

Below is the list of songs that Sarah and Ron performed.

Papa Don’t Preach
Voodoo Shoppe
Snake Bit Love
To Love Somebody
I will Survive
Everyday
Can’t Help Falling in Love
Organ Donor’s March
Little Red Riding Hood
I’ve Been to Memphis
The Only Exception
My Medicine
World of Chances
Oh What a Night
Mean
Jenny (867-5309)

PRAY FOR MARK ADAMS

Mark Adams was the only defendant at the Monday trial of Occupiers who was sentenced to do prison time. Occupied Bishop George Packard writes:

For as long as I’ve known of OWS there’s been Mark Adams. He's the poster person for this phenomenon coming from somewhere else after his home was swallowed up in foreclosure. There are other parts of his story he should tell you, not me. Those details add fuel to that motor of energy inside him of, “Why not justice? Why not now?” He said to me last week that he “came to join a social movement in Occupy and found a family instead.”

I think that discernment is what makes his representation in Occupy so compelling. When others might be drawing from personal agendas he fulfills what Jesus said of Nathanael in John’s Gospel, “Here is a man of no guile!” (John 1:47) By no design of his, circumstances around him drop pretense…like a court room revealing itself as nothing more than a star chamber so Trinity can collect rents and swagger.

Even as I prepare to pick up trash at Tompkins Park for my days of community service I still breath the air in freedom but my sweet brother languishes behind bars where he has started a hunger strike “for all those who are unjustly imprisoned.” Even from jail Mark Adams beckons to our better selves.

PICTURES THAT RESTORE YOUR FAITH IN HUMANITY

Interaction between Guatemalan girl and tourist. Sweet!

Chicago Christians at Gay Pride parade apologize for homophobia in the church

Sign at an awesome bookshop

Villager carrying stranded kittens to dry land during flood Cuttack City, India

See the rest of the pictures at BuzzFeed. Please click the link; you won't be sorry.

Thanks to Paul (A.)

Thursday, June 21, 2012

LOUISIANA ENTREPRENEURSHIP AT ITS BEST

A one and a half minute video clip of Louisiana state Senator Dudley LeBlanc of Vermillion Parish, purveyor of the patent medicine, Hadacol, on You Bet Your Life television show hosted by Groucho Marx. Alas, according to Wikipedia, by 1951 the company collapsed under a mountain of debt.

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.
....

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.

Several popular songs were inspired by Hadacol, including "Hadacol Boogie", performed by Jerry Lee Lewis.

Video and link sent to me by an old friend.

JOHN KENNEDY TOOLE LETTER REMAINS IN LOUISIANA

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.
....

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.”

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.

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.

Many years ago, I met the writer at a couple of parties. He was known then as Ken Toole, and I did not make the connection with the writer of Confederacy for years and years. All I remember of him is that he was a quiet type. A college friend dated him briefly, and she confirmed to me that he was very quiet - "One of those situations where I racked my brain to come up with some topics to discuss. Always polite and punctual and private." She does not have letters from him.

I'm pleased that ULL bought the letter, and it will remain in Louisiana.

UPDATE: Ignatius on his bus trip from New Orleans to Baton Rouge :

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.”