Lucien Aigner

Originally published on January 9th, 2015 

"Pictures produce impact, writing adds meaning. Pictures without words are often ambiguous, words without pictures lame."

______________________________________________________________________

He was a small, natty man in a beret.  He would have looked at home in the French countryside, strolling with purpose towards the town.  With a showier wardrobe, he could have been Hercule Poirot.  I had one of the best afternoons of my life with him.

As it was, he didn't live in France, but in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, a pokey railroad town with a large number of increasingly geriatric hippies that was just beginning to be discovered by an annoying collection of New Yorkers.  His home, which was also his studio, was just off the main street and in easy walking distance from his familiar hangouts.  On any given day, Lucien would be seen at the local coffee house, the provencal restaurant, the bookstore, the library and, on Sundays, at the Episcopal Church. 

I once asked him why he attended the Episcopal church on Main Street.  He told me that his late wife was an Episcopalian and he had fallen into the habit of walking there on Sunday mornings to listen to the music, which he appreciated.  After services he also enjoyed the whole notion of a "coffee hour" where, as he said, "The coffee and conversation are of a high quality." 

I wasn't sure of his age, although I guessed he was in his 70's [I was off by about twenty years].  He no longer drove, so from time to time, especially as I worked in a school in those days and had weekends and summers off, I would drive him to the supermarket or to a bookstore in the northern part of town.

One year, due to the generosity of one of my wife's cousins, we wound up with season tickets to Tanglewood, the music venue that is the summer home of the Boston Symphony and hosts a variety of other orchestras, quartets, soloists and pop acts during the season.  It was common for us to take along a picnic lunch after my wife had concluded her church services and spend some pleasant afternoons on the great lawn.  When I mentioned this to Lucien, he asked if he could hitch a ride some Sunday and I said, "Sure". 

That Sunday came and I found myself behind Lucien in the season ticket holders' line.  I assumed that he had a ticket but, to my surprise, and to that of the ticket taker, he pulled from his ancient wallet an even more ancient press card from a magazine that was not only German, but I think had ceased publication around the time I was born.  I thought it might disintegrate upon contact with the air.  It looked like some artifact drawn from a forgotten shelf in an archaeology museum [That's about right, actually].  In a spiel that was carefully rehearsed, balanced in its use of persuasive language and enlivened by Lucien's continental charm, he managed to get past the gate attendant, the usher, and the guard and join us in the season ticket holder's private seating area.

As a former reporter, I confessed to how much I admired his technique.  His response remains a classic: "That was nothing compared to sneaking into the League of Nations."

Lucien Aigner was born in 1901 in what was then Austria-Hungary.  He was from a family that was prominent in the shoe industry [his younger brother, Etienne, was the founder of a famous house of luxury leather goods].  He rather disappointed his family when, at the age of nine and in possession of an early Brownie camera, he informed them it was his intention to be a reporter who also took photos.  Little did they realize that, once he had upgraded to a Leica, their son would create the entire field of photojournalism.

Lucien told me of his photo technique, that lazy summer Sunday on the lawn at Tanglewood, in that the secret was always to observe the hand gestures of the subject.  Their motion, more than facial expression or body attitude, indicated that an expression or gesture was about to be made that would allow the photo to have animation and resonance.

For example, the photo of Mussolini above, the one that would advance Lucien into the top rank of news photographers in the 1930's.  While it may appear that Il Duce was expressing his distaste for something before him, in fact he was about to sneeze.  The photo made the cover of Life magazine.

When that failed, it was also good to ask the subject a difficult or troubling question, something designed to annoy them for a moment.  Again, in that second of reaction, their mask would drop and their essence revealed.  For example, this is what happened to Fiorello LaGuardia when he shared a limousine with Lucien:

Or, when one interrupts Einstein when he's on his third pipe and on the verge of solving the riddle of the universe:

Lucien Aigner's photos are on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Victoria and Albert in London, and in galleries and smaller collections that specialize in the photographic arts.  I once found an Aigner portrait of Haile Selassie hanging in a small historical society in the Caribbean. 

There are many, many resources online that display the full range of the subjects.  Many of those photos I helped Lucien catalog while he was still living in his home/studio in Great Barrington.  They were stored in trunk after unopened trunk, still bearing travel stickers of the sort that had fallen out of use earlier in the century.  At least one trunk contained photos he had not himself seen in sixty years.  Personally, after combing through his collection, I always thought that his best work was of decidedly non-famous people:

Like this guy

Lucien would eventually move to an assisted living community elsewhere in Massachusetts, where he would die in 1999.  A very complete obituary appeared in the New York Times shortly afterwards; it marked well his contribution to journalism and the art of the camera.

On the occasions when I drive along Great Barrington's Main Street, I still sometimes absent-mindedly look for the natty man in the beret, walking with the memories of his times and those remarkable people, common and uncommon, whose visage he made eternal.

Of Course, You Will Look Like a Goof

The Foam Fins Covering This Wetsuit Let You Body Surf Without a Board

Captialism and Poverty

Global capitalism is lifting people out of poverty at the fastest rate in human history. Global inequality is narrowing, fast.

Unfortunately, the organizations that address inequality tend to rely on donations and, thus, exaggerate the issues and statistics, thereby incensing school children, college "scholars", and Episcopal clergy [in other words, those who are, in order, either developing intellectually, are historically passionate about perceived inequities, or are notoriously simple in their world view] and leave a gross misrepresentation in the public square.

No matter how impoverished one may feel, most of us are living better than did a king in the Middle Ages.

Could We Start Teaching Civics Again, Please?

10% of College Graduates think Judge Judy is on the Supreme Court

Why Addiction Is Not a Disease

This book as been declared anathema by many of my ordained colleagues and the powers-that-be in the greater church.  If I have learned anything at all in my near seven decades on Earth, it's that anything determined to be "unclean" by a large church body, be it that of Rome, Canterbury, or Geneva, deserves a serious examination.

The Biology of Desire: Why Addiction Is Not a Disease

If you wish to reduce an otherwise emotionally balanced and apparently rational healthcare or pastoral professional to a stuttering rage, all you need to do is offer the following observation, as did the person who sent me this book:

Addictions and other bad habits were defined as "diseases" for one reason only: insurance coverage. Today, we see an expansion of behavioral issues - and even phony issues - labeled as diseases for the same reason.  Secondarily, having a disease eliminates moral responsibility, and nobody enjoys taking moral responsibility for rotten, decadent, or depraved behavior. It feels morally, if not heroically, better to be a "survivor" or a "victim."

When the highest status one may achieve in a culture is that of "victim", not only are we thus all diseased, but the culture is doomed.

This Keeps Happening

ISIS destroys ancient Christian monastery

It's near Mosul, where the largest collection of Iraqi Christians, including an old friend profiled on Friday, used to live.  That all changed just a year ago.

Now, St. Elijah’s has joined a growing list of more than 100 demolished religious and historic sites, including mosques, tombs, shrines and churches in Syria and Iraq. The extremists have defaced or ruined ancient monuments in Nineveh, Palmyra and Hatra. Museums and libraries have been looted, books burned, artwork crushed — or trafficked.

[An aside not even known by the diocese:  The first Anglican/Episcopalian to set foot in Mosul was missionary Bishop Southbridge in the 19th century. He had previously been a circuit clergyman in...Litchfield County, Conn.]

Rather Glad I Don't Have a Parish in Fairfield County

However, the rest of the state is not looking too great either.

GE didn’t act just out of pique. It looked deeper and further than June’s tax hike. Connecticut is facing huge budget deficits of $355 million in 2017, $1.7 billion in 2018 and $1.9 billion in 2019, according to the state’s non-partisan Office of Fiscal Analysis. A cumulative deficit of almost $4 billion in an annual budget of about $20 billion is an abyss. Future tax increases are inevitable.  Nor are these projections dynamic. That is to say, they do not factor in the likely reaction of taxpayers, both businesses and individuals, to the coming succession of tax increases that the state will be forced to levy. Famously, Connecticut is the new Dodge City, the place that a 2014 Gallup Poll discovered half the citizenry wanted to get out of.

Even Dan "The Gun Gov" Malloy is desperately looking to leave his state for a post in the Obama/Clinton administration.  So far, a chair near the First Lady during SOTU is all they're willing to give him, though.

Where I'm really noticing it now is in the absence of retired colleagues.  Connecticut used to be filled with retired clergy.  Even in the smallest parish I could expect to have four potential "substitutes" for those Sundays when I was on vacation.  Nowadays, I can't find even one.  Then there is the obvious effect this is having on state population, which will always be reflected in congregational size and budgets.

You Know, I Was Wondering This Myself

Watching Downton Abbey with an Historian: The Case of the Missing Vicar

I watched a couple of hours of this soap opera the other night [good husband points, right?] and it really struck me how religiously vacant the Abbey world was.  That's completely wrong, historically.

Downton Abbey has given us glimpses of the church before, most prominently in the debate over where Sybil and Tom’s baby should be baptized. But in general it is kept resolutely off-stage, against all historical evidence. No dramas play out through glances and whispers during Sunday services. The Dowager Countess spends her energies on influencing the hospital administration, not whether the new vicar will be high or low church in his style. Lady Mary and Lady Edith are haunted by lower-class women—blackmailers and distraught kidnappers—for their indiscretions, but never by a church-imposed morality or even just the gimlet eye of a clergyman. Sunday night’s episode saw both Mary and Cora realize they were acting selfishly and seek to make amends, but this, too, happened in strictly secular, almost therapized language rather than with reference to any religious ethic or spiritual advisor.

There would be few dinners at the Abbey to which the local vicar would not be invited, not to mention called in to aid with the mortal realities and moral curiosities of the family.  In the 1920's, this would be considered normal.  Also, as he's the prime landowner, Lord Whatever would, by default, be the equivalent of the "senior warden for life" of the local parish.  He never seems to have to go to monthly meetings, does he?

The Rev. Florence Li Tim-Oi, Ordained on January 25, 1944 [Yes, That's Right]

Li Tim-Oi was born in Hong Kong in 1907. When she was baptized as a student, she chose the name of Florence in honor of Florence Nightingale. Florence studied at Union Theological College in Guangzhou (Canton). In 1938, upon graduation, she served in a lay capacity, first in Kowloon and then in nearby Macao.

In May 1941 Florence was ordained deaconess. Some months later Hong Kong fell to Japanese invaders, and priests could not travel to Macao to celebrate the Eucharist. Despite this setback, Florence continued her ministry. Her work came to the attention of Bishop Ronald Hall of Hong Kong, who decided that “God’s work would reap better results if she had the proper title” of priest.
On January 25, 1944, the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, Bishop Hall ordained her priest, the first woman so ordained in the Anglican Communion.

When World War II came to an end, Florence Li Tim-Oi’s ordination was the subject of much controversy. She made the personal decision not to exercise her priesthood until it was acknowledged by the wider Anglican Communion. Undeterred, she continued to minister with great faithfulness, and in 1947 was appointed rector of St. Barnabas Church in Hepu where,on Bishop Hall’s instructions, she was still to be called priest.

When the Communists came to power in China in 1949, Florence undertook theological studies in Beijing to further understand the implications of the Three-Self Movement (self-rule, self-support, and self- propagation) which now determined the life of the churches. She then moved to Guangzhou to teach and to serve at the Cathedral of Our Savior. However, for sixteen years, from 1958 onwards, during the Cultural Revolution, all churches were closed. Florence was forced to work first on a farm and then in a factory. Accused of counter revolutionary activity, she was required to undergo political re-education. Finally, in 1974, she was allowed to retire from her work in the factory.

In 1979 the churches reopened, and Florence resumed her public ministry. Then, two years later, she was allowed to visit family members living in Canada. While there, to her great joy, she was licensed as a priest in the Diocese of Montreal and later in the Diocese of Toronto,where she finally settled, until her death on February 26, 1992.

Allow me to offer some controversial observations, as I was active in the church upon the initial "discovery" of Li Tim-Oi's story and actually met her.  Mother Li was so unknown that, upon the much-trumpeted occasion of the ordination of the first women clergy in 1974, we were not generally aware that the Anglican Communion had already ordained a woman to the priesthood more than thirty years before.  Once Mother Li's remarkable story was discovered, it deflated some of the self-importance of the American church, especially as all of the first American ordained women were white and economically privileged; two things Mother Li was not.  It seemed that it was only out of good Episcopal manners that she was initially granted a date on the calendar.  Times, fortunately, have changed.

Anyone who met her in person, as I was so honored when we shared a lecture hall at the University of Toronto, would have recognized being in the presence of a true priest.  She lived to serve God, not self, and reached beyond culture to preach a quiet, simple message of faith.  I'm glad she was the first woman priest, as she set a standard that is inspiring, catholic and service-oriented.

Gracious God, we thank you for calling Florence Li Tim-Oi, much beloved daughter, to be the first woman to exercise the office of a priest in our Communion: By the grace of your Spirit inspire us to follow her example, serving your people with patience and happiness all our days, and witnessing in every circumstance to our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the same Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

James Mattis on the Importance of Reading

Thanks to my reading, I have never been caught flat-footed by any situation, never at a loss for how any problem has been addressed (successfully or unsuccessfully) before. It doesn’t give me all the answers, but it lights what is often a dark path ahead.

If you don't recognize his name, Mattis is known among a select few as "Mad Dog".  In more polite circles, he's General Mattis, USMC [Retired].  He lead combined forces in Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, and Iraq.  He was probably the best read officer in recent years who was not employed as an instructor in one of the service academies.  I appreciate that Hollywood presents Marines as a collection of meatheads, but that's never been the case.

The reason for his zeal for history is that, in his profession, errors lead to problems that are not encountered in other arenas:

The problem with being too busy to read is that you learn by experience (or by your men’s experience), i.e. the hard way. By reading, you learn through others’ experiences, generally a better way to do business, especially in our line of work where the consequences of incompetence are so final for young men.

He's also famous for some other quotations, such as this one that he offered to some Afghani chieftains, “I’m going to plead with you, do not cross us. Because if you do, the survivors will write about what we do here for 10,000 years.”

Good Intentions + Gobs of Money = Disaster

Live Aid: The Terrible Truth

It was thirty years ago and, musically, was spectacular; the last roar of a musical trend begun twenty-five years before and, unfortunately, the high-water mark for that music, as well.

By this time we had all seen the pictures and TV footage of Bob Geldof, the figurehead of Live Aid, bear hugging and playfully punching Mengistu in the arm as he literally handed over the funding for this slaughter. It was on TV now alright, but as an endless, relentless reel of heroic Bob Geldof highlights. He drenched himself in the adulation and no one begrudged him it, until our investigation exposed the holocaust that Live Aid’s collected donations had help perpetrate on the Eritrean independence fighters.

Christian Persecution Reaches Global Historic High

More than 100 million Christians are being persecuted globally, according to the 2016 Open Doors World Watch List, and more than 80 percent of that persecution is down to religious fundamentalism of some kind.At least 7,000 Christians have been killed for their faith in the last year alone, up from 4,000 in 2014, the report notes. But it admits that the figure is likely to be a significant underestimate as it does not include murders in Iraq, Syria and North Korea, where violent persecution of Christians has become the norm, as accurate records do not exist in those countries.

To Better Understand The Episcopal Church's Suspension, We Offer This:

Ignore much of the "official" commentary, as this is more informative:

Over time, mainstream journalists around the world have gradually come to realize that the Archbishop of Canterbury is not the "Anglican pope." In most news coverage these days, he is referred to as the "symbolic" leader of the global Anglican Communion or as the "first among equals" when the Anglican archbishops are doing business.

Let's focus on that second image for a moment, as I point out one or two elements of the flood of news coverage of the "special," as opposed to normal, gathering of the Anglican primates in Canterbury the last few days.

If Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby is the first among equals, then it is important for journalists to realize that the other archbishops really do see themselves as, well, equal among the equals. Thus, when you are working through the tsunami of global coverage of the vote by the Anglican primates to "suspend" the U.S. Episcopal Church from many official roles in the Anglican Communion, it helps to focus on the previous actions taken by the primates on issues linked to the redefinition of marriage to include same-sex unions.

Yes, we are back to that complicated Anglican timeline thing. There is no way to avoid it.

As is consistent with The Episcopal Church's world view for the past decade or so, the suspension [which we are now being told through official channels isn't really a suspension suspension, it's more like a non-suspension suspension] is represented in public statements by clergy as intolerance towards our policy concerning "same-sex marriages".  That is accurate, certainly.  However, the Church pretty much sees the world through one issue at a time, and as the author of the article above identifies in his timeline, this is a venerable disagreement and more complicated than that.

There are a couple of things that I have yet to see mentioned in other public statements.  The first is that the "split" or division in the Anglican Communion is inevitable.  The Communion is the last vestige of the British Empire and exists within that tension.  All of the member churches were founded by the missionary activity of the Empire.  Historically, the membership of The Episcopal Church of the United States is special as we are the only ones to have broken away from the Church of England through the process of armed rebellion.  That has always made our status somewhat estranged. 

The Anglican Communion's lack of influence over the common work of our parish will be noticed by those in the pews when those in the pews notice no difference.  I challenged those present at our late morning liturgy to name the Archbishop of Canterbury and none could.  As parishes seem less and less involved in their own dioceses, it's no surprise that the greater church is less interested in global Anglicanism save for underwriting ministries in the developing world and providing  mission opportunities for those who wish to visit those countries.  [Just to note the difference in perspective, some African, British, and Canadian Anglicans describe the former as virtue-signalling and the latter as the American tendency "to vacation in the misery of others".]

The second is the relative distaste with which The Episcopal Church is regarded by other members within the Communion.  In part, this is because we are Americans and are seen to blame for the chaos in the Middle East and Europe that permits the gross persecution of Christians, about which we say little and do nothing, and the other is the use of secular courts to sue congregations into compliance with diocesan ideology.

[Don't get mad at me for simply relaying what is freely discussed among international clergy when the U.S. bishops and seminary/divinity school professors aren't around.]

Update:  Looks like I'm not the only one noticing the complications.

Unless something gives, it’s unlikely that the American Episcopalians will be able to hold on to a place in the emerging Anglican Communion. The two sides see the current dispute very differently. American Episcopalians see the church’s embrace of gay marriage and new kinds of theology as a matter of conscience and Christian witness. Their critics in Africa and elsewhere see Episcopalians as having lost touch with the faith’s historical sources of authority. Neither Scripture, Tradition, nor Reason, they claim, support the Episcopal positions within the Anglican world. Besides that, many of the conservative Anglicans are from the developing world, where the Episcopalian decision to chart its own course regardless of the views of other member of the Communion looks less like conscience and more like neo-colonial arrogance and racial pride.

The business about "neo-colonial arrogance" has been common in discussions of The Episcopal Church for some time, especially among the African and Latin American churches.   Since the American church is shrinking and the African and Latin American churches are growing, we are in a moment of global reappraisal.  I mentioned this once at a clergy meeting about ten years ago and, before I even got to the end of my statement, was shouted down by my colleagues.  Maybe they'll be willing to consider this an issue now.

Maybe They Need to Drop the "P"

EPA accidentally turns river orange

and

The EPA Also Knew Flint's Water Might Be Poisoned Last Year But Didn't Tell Anyone

This Week's Stats

Our most read story:
The Continuing Adventures of...Ohio Man!

Really?  Zombies?  Really?


Our least read story:
Eugenie Clark

If you don't recognize the least read story, that's because it was published back in March.  For some reason, I'm guessing having to do with a college class somewhere, she was moderately popular this week.

Arabic Orthodox Chant احمدوا الرب

Yes, it's Christian

Matti Moosa

[Originally published on December 21, 2012]

"So, why don't you come over and have some nice...pie!"

It was a familiar bidding, and one I always looked forward to receiving, especially at the end of a long day serving as the vicar of two parishes in the countryside of western Pennsylvania.  I was single in those days and sorely missed the company of people I had known in New York City.  In fact, the transition from being a free-lance clergyperson and academic researcher in the world's greatest city to being a basic, meat-and-potatoes parish priest in Edinboro, Pennsylvania was such a shock to my system that I filled all of my waking hours with work, driving back and forth between two churches and visiting hospitals, nursing homes, and parishioners in a route that covered 1500 square miles.  Given that winter lasts about nine months of the year in Erie County, and that it snows every single day of winter, those treks could be arduous.

I had invested in an answering machine, which was an extravagance, because in the pre-cell phone days it was the only way my far-flung congregation could get important messages to me.  Well, by important, I mean they could record complaints about the organ music, complaints about the new hymnal [yep, the hymnal was new back then], complaints about the new Book of Common Prayer [ditto], complaints about my sermon...well, you get the picture.  I reached the point where I would have to sit down and steel myself before I hit the "play" button.

But once or twice a week there would be a message from Matti Moosa, either bidding me to come have some of his freshly baked pie or describing in detail the mildly insane and totally hilarious dream that he had the night before.  [I remember in particular a dream that Matti had of his death.  He was always irritated by the fact that the archdeacon drove a Mercedes Benz and could be ostentatious about it.  In the dream, he was riding to heaven in the archdeacon's Mercedes and St. Peter, much like Matti, took great umbrage at the idea of a priest driving what in western Pennsylvania in the 1980's was a very showy car.  The Great Fisherman, in Matti's dream anyway, forbade the archdeacon entrance to the Kingdom, permitted Matti a place in the realm eternal, and kept the car for himself.]

At first, I knew him only as one of my parishioners at my new parish.  I had a number of university faculty in that congregation, professors of everything from English to Education to Chemistry; the vice president of the university always sat in the front row, but Matti was easily the most learned.

He was born and raised in Mosul in a house that had been in his family for almost 1000 years.  Yes, that number is correct.  In Iraq, he had been an attorney, working among the other members of what was once a large and vibrant Mesopotamian Christian community.  Somewhere along the line, and I never got the whole story, he earned the right to study at Columbia University, earning a Ph.D. in History.

He was also an ordained deacon in the Syrian Orthodox Church.

As the Episcopal Church in the less-urban portions of the United States was in those days the closest relation to Orthodox Christianity, Matti, his wife and three children, became faithful members of my first parish as a rector.

He was one of those professors that most students would initially be afraid to have, as he expected them to be as serious and studious as was he.  As he was blessed with a photographic memory, he could quote whole sources from books long out of print.  I think he knew about every Middle Eastern language, and would sometimes lapse into Arabic syntax when excitedly presenting a point about historiography, Franco-British geographic manipulation, theology, the absurdity of continuing Muslim/Jewish strife, or when yelling at his frequently flatulent dog.  For all his seriousness, his sense of humor was, as I have found with many Middle-Easterners, at turns child-like in its joy and sublime in its regard for human foible.

On the occasion of our first dinner together, after pie, he described the book he was writing, an examination of the Maronite sect of Christianity, and asked if I would be willing to help him with it.  Of course I said, "Yes".  Within moments I had a type-written manuscript roughly the weight and thickness of one of the larger telephone directories.  I took it with me that evening, only to have Matti call me the next afternoon to ask if I was done with it yet.

He also wrote a well-received and timely history of the extremist Shiites of Islam, a translation of the poetry of Kahlil Gibran and of all of the poetry of Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz.  There was never a time when his dining room table wasn't covered with research papers, 3x5 cards, obscure notes in at least two languages, and all sorts of other objects related to scholarly study, except when we gathered together for vast Arabic meals finished with the most American homemade apple pie I'd eaten since my late grandmother's.

My salvation for those years, lost as I was afraid I was in the middle of nowhere, was with Matti, his learned and interesting family, and the fascinating scholars, poets, and writers that he brought from around the world to that former farmhouse on the outskirts of Edinboro.  Without him and his family's support and encouragement, I doubt that I would have ever continued in what became my life's work.

There are times, when our table is surrounded by family and friends, and the laughter and comments are ranging about the room, when I think back to those days long gone, when I would sit at Matti's table, in the midst of some argument about transubstantiation that was being heard in multiple languages, and remember the smile of sheer joy that he had.  It was then that he would say in Arabic, "Fadal".  In other words, "everyone eat and share the bounty that has been provided."

A great sentiment, don't you think?  It really sounds better in Arabic, though.

[Matti's Amazon.com page, yes, his own page, may be found at this link.]

An update:  Matti died on December 30, 2014.  May he rest in peace and rise in glory.

Since His Death, A Lot Has Been Written About Him, But This May Be the Most Interesting

David Bowie: the man who loved books

Stop the Presses!

 Primates suspend Episcopal Church from full participation in the Anglican Communion

I appreciate that many in the United States will see this as a rebuke to gay rights, and it is, but after speaking with some overseas colleagues, it is meant to be more of a rebuke to the Episcopal Church's tendency of the last decade or so to promote, and brutally enforce through both canon and common law, a monolithic view concerning social issues.  Whereas that is normal operating procedure in the Church, it's viewed as distasteful in other portions of the Anglican Communion.

Interestingly, it might mean that the Episcopal Church of the United States will not be able to vote against the inclusion of the Anglican Church of North American into the Anglican Communion.  As the ACNA is actually growing, and of a distinctly different spiritual verve, we may see the future forming before our eyes.

[A tip of the hat to The Rev. George Conger, Episcopal priest and journalist, who broke this story and beat all of the wire services, cable and network news, and print media.  Oh, and some of our diocesan folks didn't even know about it until they were informed by The Coracle.  Thanks, George.]

And I'm in Connecticut. In Winter.

Dig for 'lost city' in Honduras has begun

Ohio Men!

Ohio Men are proud:
Ohio Man Sends Selfie To Cops Over 'Terrible' Mugshot 

Ohio Men do important things:
Ohio man chosen master builder for new Legoland Discovery Center Michigan

Indie Music Scene, NYC circa 1980

Yeah, I'm in there somewhere.  I always was.

Miniatur Wunderland

That's Not How Resurrection Works, Folks

David Bowie fans sign petition to bring him back from the DEAD 

Maybe related:
Man claiming to be Jesus planned to kidnap one of the Obama dogs

The Sad Fate of St. John's Anglican Church in Quebec.

After Gaining Paranormal Fame, Ghost Hunting Spirit Summoners Burn Historic 'Ghost Church' to the Ground

YES! I'll Be Able to Read Again

Return of incandescent light bulbs as MIT makes them more efficient than LEDs

Combine this with GE saving more money by moving out of Connecticut and our long, national nightmare might soon be over.  Well, in regards to light bulbs, anyway.

Super Wild Nerd News

Rumors Are Flying That We Finally Found Gravitational Waves 

If you're wondering at my interest, remember that I'm a physicist's son.

Why Is Northeastern Church Attendance Falling? Hmmm, May It Have Something To Do With This?

The Northeast continues to experience a moving deficit with New Jersey (67 percent outbound) and New York (65 percent) making the list of top outbound states for the fourth consecutive year. Two other states in the region — Connecticut (63 percent) and Massachusetts (57 percent) — also joined the top outbound list this year. The exception to this trend is Vermont (62 percent inbound), which moved up two spots on the list of top inbound states to No. 3.

This information is courtesy of United Van Lines.  You know, the actual movers.

It Really is Time to De-Sentimentalize Tribal Culture

And I speak as a member of the Turtle Clan of the United Remnant Band of the Shawnee Nation [aka URB].

Half-truths about American Indians' environmental ethic obscure the rational ways in which they have lived with and shaped the natural world.

This Is the City With the Strictest Gun Control in the Country

110 shot, 17 killed in first 10 days of 2016 in Chicago

Government gun control programs are always oriented towards the law-abiding, never towards those who would ignore such laws and work around them.  Gun violence programs never address gang problems or mental health issues.  For all of his moral preening and how he relishes being called "The Gun Gov" and sitting next to the First Lady at the State of the Union, Dan Malloy did nothing to address the causes of the Sandy Hook atrocity.

Not one "common-sense" gun control law would have changed a dang thing and those children would still be dead, the sound of their parents' mourning cries would still be in my memory, as would the sight of a young police officer so stunned by grief that he could no longer stand on his own.  

Sorry, Vegans

Mortality in vegetarians and comparable nonvegetarians in the United Kingdom is the same.

In Response to a Stunningly Ill-Informed Comment Made by a Pulitzer Prize-Winner

Media elites seriously need to meet a Christian or two. They live in a country that is majority Christian, in a culture shaped overwhelmingly by Christian influences. Journalists love politics and many voters are shaped by their religious views — so meeting such people can help them in their jobs of analyzing the electorate, something that they have not shined with this year. 

More than 70 percent of Americans identify themselves as Christians. So that gives us hundreds of millions of Americans to go out and meet. Some are more devout than others, but I bet you could find at least a few dozen who understand what is meant by the body of Christ. Or, you know, just read the Bible. I know it seems like a huge book but it’s doable and so worth your time. You will be amazed at how, in addition to the story of God’s salvation of man, there are historic and literary references you never grasped before. Trigger warning: it contains other metaphors.

This concerns me as I use, correctly, the term "Body of Christ" in my sermons, homilies, and other comments during meetings and such.  I always assumed, since it is commonly used in scripture, prayers, and songs, that it was understood to stand for the resurrected reality in which we all live.  The congregation, the community of the faithful, is the Body of Christ.  Heck, the congregation acknowledges this at every, single baptism.

Is it really that obscure a reference?

From Yesterday's Address by the Archbishop of Canterbury

In some parts of the Communion decline in numbers has been a pattern for many years. In England our numbers have been falling at about 1% every year since WWII. This week will see the publication of the figures for 2014, continuing that pattern, made to look a little worse by a change in the way we count people. The culture has becoming anti-Christian, whether it is on matters of sexual morality, or the care for people at the beginning or the end of life. It is easy to paint a very gloomy picture. 

We can also paint a gloomy picture of the moral and spiritual state of Anglicanism. In all Provinces there are forms of corruption, none of us is without sin. There is litigation, the use of civil courts for church matters in some places. Sexual morality divides us over same sex issues, where we are seen as either compromising or homophobic. The list can go on and on. The East African Revival teaches us the need for holiness. We must be renewed as a holy church, defined by our passionate worship and its content, with every Christian knowing scripture, prayerful, humble and evangelistic. In a sentence, we must be those who are, to the outside world, visibly disciples of Jesus Christ.

It's best to read the whole thing.

For Those Wondering Whether I'll Be Watching the State of the Union Address, Here's a Modest Response

The annual State of the Union pageant is a hideous, dispiriting, ugly, monotonous, un-American, un-republican, anti-democratic, dreary, backward, monarchical, retch-inducing, depressing, shameful, crypto-imperial display of official self-aggrandizement and piteous toadying, a black Mass during which every unholy order of teacup totalitarian and cringing courtier gathers under the towering dome of a faux-Roman temple to listen to a speech with no content given by a man with no content, to rise and to be seated as is called for by the order of worship — it is a wonder they have not started genuflecting — with one wretched representative of their number squirreled away in some well-upholstered Washington hidey-hole in order to preserve the illusion that those gathered constitute a special class of humanity without whom we could not live.

What's really wonderful about the quotation above is that it is one, perfectly composed, 127 word sentence.  My personal comments are probably a tad more pungent, if more succinct.

Decline of the West, Part III

Why Hillary Clinton 'Desperately' Wants Kim Kardashian's Cellphone

Alternate header: It's for Her Husband

Next Time a Hollywoodian Scolds You About Being Enviromentally Responsible, Note This

The line of SUVs and limousines taking the glamorous people to one of the many, many occasions 
where they give one another awards.

Or, the next time a Hollywoodian scolds and mocks Midwesterners and Southerners who own guns about how they are morally and psychologically questionable, note this, too:

Security teams guarding the glamorous people at yet another awards ceremony.

That's also true of politicians:

And popes:

Am I the only only one beginning to get the impression that there are far too many people insulated from the common experience of reality who are making imperious pronouncements to those of us who are not as fortunate as to live in their bubble?

As We Remember Both Alice Paul and David Bowie Today, This Seemed Apt

Fun Idea, But Does Greece Have Money to Burn on Such Things?

There's a Plan To Rebuild the Colossus of Rhodes

If I May Add a #5: Don't Follow Government Dietary Guidelines

4 Health Fads That Still Won’t Work In 2016

It's Finally the Future: The Flying Car is Here!

Landing right in the middle of the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show was this Jetsons-like flying pod from Chinese company EHang. The battery-powered, eight-rotor contraption resembles those buzzy, annoying drones your neighbor’s kids keep flying into your yard, only it’s large enough to carry an entire human being.

My youthful goal of becoming Jonny Quest is almost realized.  Now, where can I get a laser beam?

Ohio Man!, Again

An Ohio man who put up a "zombie Nativity" display has pleaded not guilty to a zoning violation and pledges to keep his holiday tradition alive.

Frankly, this fellow bores me.  It's hardly brave or transgressive to mock Christianity and to use its characters and symbols in a grotesque manner.   It's not like it hasn't been done over and over.

Now, it would interest me if he did the same for Muhammad and Islam, but that would require actual artistic courage, wouldn't it?

I'm Wondering the Same About My Colleagues

Why are feminists refusing to discuss the Cologne sex attacks?

Decline of the West, Part II

The line to get into 14th St Trader Joe's right now includes people taking selfies of themselves waiting on line pic.twitter.com/JV4IXOXhrn

— Perry Stein (@PerryStein) January 10, 2016

This Week's Stats

Most read posting:
Perhaps It Was a Form of Art


Least read posting:
No One Ever Believes This, But When I First Learned to Drive in Ohio, I Was Warned About Drunken Amish on the Roads 

Really, drunken Amish aren't of any interest?  This really isn't a Midwestern audience, is it?

Aram Khachaturian - Masquerade: Waltz

B. Traven

Originally published on December 26, 2014 

"The creative person should have no other biography than his works."

_________________________________________________________________________________

There is a place of ephemeral legend in Mexico, known in Spanish as "El Camino", or "The Road", that doesn't exist on any map, save those written in the hearts of ones who yearn.  It refers to the experience of outsiders who come to the southern states to find...well, either something or nothing, depending on their desire, and become lost within the quest.  It has claimed many people, men and women, through the years.

There have been explorers, of course, who have worked their way through the jungles and beaches of Mexico; there have been poets, artists, and any number of musicians.  J. Frank Dobie, Ambrose Bierce, William Cullen Bryant, William Burroughs, Jack London, Katherine Anne Porter, Edna Ferber, Jack Kerouac, Hart Crane, and Ken Kesey offhand come to mind as just a few of the gringos and gringas who have, one way or another, hiked the mythical El Camino.  Personally, I've known a number of surfers who have looked for oblivion in the Meso-American waves.

During the 1920's and 30's a series of riveting novels, set mostly in Mexico and mostly about the spiritual experience of El Camino, were best-sellers in Europe.  Their author, known only as B. Traven, had remained aloof from any sort of publicity.  He lived somewhere in Mexico, no one really knew where, and wrote in German, with his publisher translating his works into the various languages of his continental audience.

Then, in 1946, the filmmaker John Huston began his walk of El Camino.  Having spent several years as the ne'er do well son of a recognizable and bankable stage and movie actor, Huston had been a boxer, drinker, flunky, go-fer, writer, and general dogsbody in the film industry until, to quote from Steely Dan, "he crossed a diamond with a pearl" five years earlier and wound up writing the screenplay for and directing The Maltese Falcon, a critical and box office hit that earned serious money for his studio, made a leading man out of Humphrey Bogart, and created the entire genre of film noir.

The only problem with being a success in a world of transient fame was that one was only popular until the next big movie came along.  This is why Huston was sitting in a humid café in Mexico City waiting to meet a man who did not exist.

Having lived and traveled freely in Europe and familiar with the popularity of Traven's work, Huston was particularly interested in Traven's 1927 novel, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, especially as it was the first and only Traven book translated and marketed in the United States at that time. That the novel was an American best-seller and a terrific story convinced Huston that it should be translated to the screen.  Before he could begin to do so, however, the whole world was distracted with World War II.

When Huston returned to civilian life after directing documentaries for the War Department, he again returned to his Sierra Madre project.  His first item of business was receiving the author's permission to use his novel, something that was trickier than it ordinarily would have been since no one was really sure of Traven's whereabouts or true identity.  Still, Huston was not one to be daunted and he began a near-Quixotic quest to contact the author and receive his permission.

So it was that Huston found himself waiting for Traven to join him for a drink or three.  However, instead of Traven, a man introducing himself as Hal Croves turned up, explaining that he was serving as Traven's representative and had the power of attorney necessary to complete their contractual negotiations.  While Huston initially suspected the Croves was Traven, he was willing to indulge him in order to complete the film.  The meeting went well and the two met again in Acupulco to finalize the deal and appoint Croves as a "technical adviser" to the film.  In 1947 the filming began on location in Mexico with Croves a familiar personality on the set.  Once filming was completed, Hal Croves disappeared.

Tim Holt, Humphrey Bogart, and Walter Huston; and maybe Traven in the tent, who knows?

Of course, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, starring Humphrey Bogart and Huston's father, Walter, was a huge success; nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture of 1948 and earning Oscars for Best Screenplay Adaptation and Best Director for John Huston.  With the popularity of the film and the reignited interest in the novels of Traven,  reporters became interested in the elusive author.

However, the only connection to Traven was Hal Croves, who had not been seen for over a year.  A particularly intrepid reporter for a Mexican newspaper began a search for Croves and, instead, found a fellow in Acapulco named Traven Torsvan, a recluse called "El Gringo" by his neighbors.  His interest piqued, the reporter discovered through immigration paperwork that Torsvan was born in Chicago and had come to Mexico in 1930, eventually establishing residency.  Using questionable techniques, mainly bribery and petty theft, the reporter established that El Gringo was receiving royalty checks in the name of "B. Traven" along with correspondence from other authors.  When confronted by reporters, Torsvan, like Croves, disappeared.

A decade later, after interest in Traven and his true identity had cooled, the mysterious Hal Croves, in absentia from the human race since 1947, reappeared to serve as Traven's official representative in negotiation with European filmmakers interested in emulating Huston's success with Treasure.  He would even attend film festivals in Europe, only to be peppered by reporters with questions about his true identity.

Croves would die in 1969.  His widow, who had also been his secretary, would then reveal the true story of B. Traven.  Senora Croves told the press that her late husband had, in fact, been a German anarchist named Ret Marut [aka Otto Feige].  In Germany, her husband published a successful novel, The Death Ship, and edited an anti-government magazine for which he was eventually arrested and sentenced to death.  He managed to escape to Mexico, altering his identity to that of an American émigré.

During his years south of the border, in addition to writing over a dozen novels and short story anthologies, Feige/Marut/Torsvan/Croves/Traven also managed to work as a photographer for some expeditions into the Mexican jungles [from which the above photo, maybe of Traven, comes], as a translator and guide, and as an inn-keeper.  It was a busy life for him, but since he may have been five or so people, perhaps not that unusual.

There is now an entire industry devoted to claiming to know Traven's real identity and disparaging other theories.  It's rather entertaining but largely meaningless.  As Traven noted, for a true artist it's about the work, not the biography.  His story is yet another tale of those, like his characters, who travel El Camino in search of something that they never entirely find and leave behind a life more full of questions than answers.

B. Traven's novels are now all available in English and most are still in print; some are even available in e-book format.



Traven.  Maybe.

Tonight's Happy Story

World's oldest living animal, Jonathan the Tortoise, gets a new lease of life after vet puts him on a healthy diet... at the age of 183

Jonathan today.

Jonathan in 1890.

When People No Longer Believe in God, They'll Believe in Anything

And they will make a religion of it.

As British fans prepare to flock to the cinema for the reboot of 'Star Wars', it seems this enthusiasm has been reflected in the large numbers turning to Jediism, the religion inspired by the fictional light sabre-wielding Jedi Knights in George Lucas's record-breaking franchise, now helmed by director JJ Abrams.The Daily Mail reports that the Jedi church now has more than 250,000 followers worldwide, including more than 100,000 in England, 65,000 in Australia, 15,000 in the Czech Republic and 9,000 in Canada.

I'm rather glad that the first movie came out when I was in college and not when I was a ten-year-old comic book aficionado, or else I might have been irreparably harmed.  

Not For Those With High Blood Pressure

How the Gold King Mine spill continues to affect Navajo life

and

Gold King Mine Disaster Cause May Never Be Known, Thanks To EPA

The EPA accepted blame for the Aug. 5, 2015, leak that poisoned drinking water in three western states and the Navajo Nation with three million gallons of toxic mining waste, but no officials have been named as responsible or punished. Similar previous environmental disasters, however, were subjects of criminal investigations that led to severe public penalties for those responsible.

The U.S. government is attempting to coerce the Navajo into accepting money to help with destroyed crops and diseased livestock in return for never bringing it up again, ever, ever, ever.  That way, when a generation of Navajo are suffering from even more poverty and some exotic cancers, the U.S. government can just shrug it off.

Different century, same attitude.

I Really Thought This Was Going to Be About Browns Fans

Football fan's flaming backside extinguished by tailgaters' beers

Admit it, you laughed when you saw the video.

I've Been a Little Heavy Lately, So I Offer This

How Globetrotter Meadowlark Lemon Made a Career out of Joy

It always amused me that my mother, who was 5' 0" on her tallest day, played women's basketball for the University of Michigan [Go, Wolverines!] and it was she who introduced me as a child to the Harlem Globetrotters.  They came to town every year and we would always make a point of seeing them.

If You Ever Sat Through a Diocesan Convention, You Know What This is About

Are You Guilty of “Virtue-Signaling?”

Except In the Soviet Union, You Would Not Have Been Paid FOUR BILLION DOLLARS for a Cartoonish Movie Series

At one point [George Lucas] said that filmmakers in the Soviet Union had more freedom than their counterparts in Hollywood, who, he maintained, “have to adhere to a very narrow line of commercialism.”

By the way, if you want to know the secret to Lucas' success, read about his former wife who saved both Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark from absurd plot errors:  Maria Lucas, Academy Award-winning film editor.

Dude, You Teach POLITICAL Science, Not Real Science

An assistant professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst concluded his comparative politics course earlier this month by telling students the planet is dying because of human activity – and there is little hope of reversing course.

Speaking as a former UMASS-Amherst parent, I'm wondering why and how an assistant professor justified blowing off half of his class time to claim narcissistic attention for his personal theory, especially when it costs $60,000 in tuition alone for a four-year degree.

Maybe the Fairest and Most Balanced Appraisal of the Latest "Gun Control" Initiative

Washington Post: Obama’s executive actions on guns: Legal analysis

A query:  If the events at Sandy Hook were so emotionally disturbing to the President of the United States, wouldn't it have made sense to advance something that would have actually addressed the circumstances that were manifest in the Newtown atrocity?  Just saying, "The Republicans wouldn't let me" is a weak argument given that, in 2013, there was a Democratic majority in the Senate.  It looks like the Democrats wouldn't let him, either.

Also, if mass shootings are so disruptive to the presidential mien, maybe some address of gang violence and mental healthcare could also be mentioned?

Perhaps learning how to work with existing elected representatives can be rediscovered by the next president and his or her administration.  Although, given the leading candidates, that may be a pipe dream.

At 15, I Traveled to Europe by Myself and Lived on my Own

United Airlines has decided 15-year-olds flying alone need someone to walk them on and off their flight.

Of course, it's just a money grab disguised as something "for the good of the children".

Go here, type "15", and see what people have accomplished at that age.

[Hat tip to Reason.]

Updated with correct link.

The Return of Ohio Man!

Ohio man beats balmy weather by making snow in his backyard

Or he could have just waited a few days and nature would have provided it for free.

Perhaps It Was a Form of Art

FBI offers $5,000 reward after bacon found at Vegas mosque 

After all, some beardo back in the 1980's stuck a crucifix in a beaker of urine, named it "Piss Christ", and received not an investigation by the FBI, but a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.  That's made up of tax money, by the way.

No One Ever Believes This, But When I First Learned to Drive in Ohio, I Was Warned About Drunken Amish on the Roads

Horse-drawn buggies collide on Indiana road

And I Didn't Think This Election Cycle Could Get Any More Weird

HRC: @johnpodesta "has made me personally pledge we are going to get the information out" on aliens and Area 51

— Jennifer Epstein (@jeneps) January 4, 2016

The Final Headline of 2015 Really Sums Up the Year

Fight breaks out at Newark anti-violence rally

I'm Not "Evangelical" in the Same Sense as This Fellow, But He's Got a Point About the Media

Every journalist in America has been secretly attending seminary, and now understands Christianity better than most Christians do. This is the only conclusion I can draw after months of theology lectures from reporters whose most recent encounter with religious terminology was Hozier’s “Take Me to Church.”

I do get tired of the annual lectures from the media about how the Holy Family was homeless [they weren't] or, should someone disagree with their stance on a trendy social issue, how that person is less-than-Christian.  Journalists dismiss and ridicule the religious and then pose of the arbiters of all that is holy, based upon a grotesque sense of moral superiority.

I expect this nonsense from politicians, but they tend to be dull-witted and corrupt and are, thus, easy to ignore.

I also expect artists and filmmakers similarly to mock Christians and compliment one another on their bravery.  They, too, are unimportant as they would never have the guts to do the same with those whose reaction tends less towards "turn the other cheek" and more towards decapitation.

Heck, My Company Has Been Able to Do That for Centuries

New company claims they'll be able to RESURRECT THE DEAD

#10, #5, and #4 Are Interesting from a Biblical Archaeology Perspective...

...and #3 may or may not be something for which we were searching back in my days as a Meso-American archaeologist, but #2 is just neato:

10 Recent And Surprising Scientific Finds From Around The World

Decline of the West, Part I

Parents Are Naming Their Babies After Instagram Filters

Montego Bay- Bobby Bloom- 1970

Peter Scott

Originally published on May 3, 2013

"The people I burgled got rich through greed and skullduggery. They indulged in the mechanics of ostentation - they deserved me and I deserved them. If I rob Ivana Trump, it is just a meeting of two different types of degeneracy on a dark rooftop."

I'm a sucker for "caper" movies; even the bad ones.  It doesn't matter if it's Cary Grant, David Niven, Maximilian Schell, Robert Wagner, Tom Selleck, or even George Hamilton, once the protagonist dons crepe-soled shoes and a cashmere turtleneck, I enjoy the un-knotting of the elaborate details of the theft and root for the thief to successfully steal the diamonds, ornamental knife, Nazi secret plans, or whatever macguffin drives the plot.

I recall being fifteen and adrift in Europe, living on 75 cents a day, when I thought that this would make a pretty good life, especially if it meant a villa on the Cote d'Azur and some quality time with Grace Kelly.  I also always liked the ingenuity it takes to figure out how to get into a place that is supposedly impregnable.  Rather like a logic puzzle, I guess.

But what a lot of people don't know is that, during my time in Europe dreaming of being a cat burglar, there was an actual cat burglar on the loose who had been plying his trade among the rich and famous for some time.  His name was Peter Scott and he died just a few weeks ago, leaving behind some very interesting writings and stories, and a legend that may never be touched.  After all, computer hackers, who are the cat burglars of the 21st century, aren't generally fit enough to scale a wall and are too socially awkward to hang out with Melina Mercouri.  Besides, in turtlenecks, they tend to look more like beatniks than international men of mystery.


Brits of a certain generation just can't help but be jaunty

Most of the facts of Scott's early life are unknown.  Given his nature, his autobiography, Gentleman Thief, requires a considerable amount of salt.  According to Scott, after flunking out of the Royal Belfast Academy around 1950, he squandered his inheritance and turned to a life of crime, using his posh appearance and familiarity with the lives and manners of the affluent to simply walk into homes, usually during parties, and pass himself off as a guest to the household staff or as a member of the household staff to the guests.  He perfected this double-subterfuge over 150 times in the homes in Belfast and, eventually, London.

While he was first caught in 1952, he served only six months.  This gave him time to perfect his technique and enjoy a bit of a holiday.  After his release, he returned to a life of crime with a vengeance, now casting himself, if just in his mind, as a new type of Robin Hood:  He stole from the rich and...well... that was pretty much it.

Throughout the 1950's and 60's, Scott used the Daily Mail gossip pages as the source for his research as to what homes were most deserving of his professional attention.  As a surprising amount of information about party guests, the value of jewelry on display, and security precautions would be listed in print, Scott found a lush field of information   Soon, the homes of Mayfair, Belgravia, and Sloane Square became featured in another section of the newspaper.  Namely, the crime pages.

Using his ill-gotten gains, Scott enjoyed memberships in a variety of exclusive clubs and the company of many female members of the swank set.  In turn, these social connections introduced him to even more victims, enabling him to continue his pursuits and become the creme de la creme of burglars.

Just to give the reader a primer on Scott's professional life, over the course of 40 years, using techniques as various as the above-described party-crashing or the old-fashioned shimmy up a drainpipe, Scott stole jewelry from, among others, Elizabeth Taylor, Vivien Leigh, Lauren Bacall and Sophia Loren. Actually, it may have been that latter theft that lead to his undoing, as the Italian starlet, upon discovering that her $400,000 diamond necklace had been lifted, placed a gypsy curse on the burglar. Shortly thereafter, Scott was arrested, tried, and sentenced to 12 years in Wormwood Scrubs [or some such place].

[I should note he wasn't limited to jewelry.  In the 1990's, by now in his late '60's, he was arrested for stealing Picasso's Tete de Femme from a London gallery.]

Personally, I'm not sure why anyone would want it. 

After four wives and four divorces, partying with The Rolling Stones, millions of pounds stolen and spent, memoirs written and published by name even while he was still actively stealing, and occasional "vacations" at the pleasure of Her Majesty, Scott died peacefully in a council flat [a tax-supported housing complex], his medical bills and living expenses generously paid for by the honest, working, and law-abiding people of the United Kingdom. 

And they say that crime doesn't pay.  I think I already had that one figured out when I was fifteen.

Scott's autobiography is now out of print and rather difficult to find, or afford, even when using online used and rare book agencies. 

However, some recommended "caper" films include the following:

To Catch A Thief [1956]
Topkapi [1964]
The Pink Panther [1964]
Bob le Flambeur [1956]
The League of Gentlemen [1960]
How to Steal a Million [1966]
The Italian Job [1969]
The Great Train Robbery [1979]
Jack of Diamonds [1967]
Lassiter [1984]

Also the old TV shows It Takes A Thief [1968] and T.H.E. Cat [1966] are pretty good, too, if you like that sort of thing.

First Post Of The New Year

While I'm loath to say goodbye to any year, as each is to be cherished on its own, 2015 was particularly difficult and I'm ready for a new number to write on checks.  So, here's to 2016.

It's also the Feast of the Holy Name, too:

Eternal Father, you gave to your incarnate Son the holy name of Jesus to be the sign of our salvation: Plant in every heart, we pray, the love of him who is the Savior of the world, our Lord Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

Civil Disobendiance + Open Carry = Christian Witness

Well, this would cause the average Episcopal bishop to faint, but here you go:

“We are not complying with a bad law today,” Matthew Short, PR director of Don’t Comply said. “Evidently the city of Dallas believes that it’s wrong, or bad, or unlawful for us to feed more than a certain number of people at a time. But, during Christmas, we want to show love to our community and give these people a chance to survive the winter, whether it be with blankets or coats, or just giving them a holiday party like today with all kinds of cookies, and goodies, turkey and dressing, and the whole nine yards.”

Cleaning Out the Random Photo File Before the End of the Year

Father of the year, as far as I'm concerned.

No comment.

Apollo astronauts hanging around the pool.

I dream of doing this.

More surf-themed weirdness from the '60's.  Also, an M2 would seriously unbalance a board.  Still kinda cool, though.

Separation of Church and State, huh? 

The guys, a long time ago in...ah, you know the rest.

The Element of Monasticism That I Appreciate the Most

For more than 100 years, the cloistered nuns known as the Pink Sisters have worked in shifts to ensure nonstop prayer in Philadelphia’s Chapel of Divine Love.

An Obituary of Note [albeit a tardy one]

Joe McGovern Loses Life in Freak Accident

He was Narragansett's own master surfer whom I observed and shared waves with many times.  He was also one of the few surfers in the water older than I.  I went for one last ride the other day and found myself thinking with some wistfulness of him and of our generation of shredders.

Here's more:

Narragansett, surfing community mourn loss of Joe McGovern

Nor Was He a Vegan, a Socialist, a Refugee, or Homeless

No, Jesus Was Not a Palestinian

If True, Then Being an Actual Reporter in the '70's Would Have Killed Them

Reporters claim PTSD from watching violent news

These Surf Nazis are Especially Immature

Beaches often breed territorial tensions, but here, amid homes that routinely sell for millions of dollars, the tactics are unusually fierce. Too many surfers want to ride too few waves. Newcomers seeking entry have retreated in the wake of flattened tires, snapped antennas and slurs scribbled with surf wax on their cars.

It ain't Frankie and Annette, folks.  It never was.

Happy Birthday, Sis

This photo was taken on her birthday in 1977 when we were about two miles from shore on a frozen Lake Erie.  No, we didn't walk out that far.  We drove.