ꒌ ЛИТУРГИЈСКО ПРОСЛАВЉАЊЕ ОБРЕЗАЊА ГОСПОДЊЕГ и светог Василија Великог у Цркви Преображења Господњег на Жабљаку. Неки из оне велике множине окупљене на Бадње вече, када је више људи било напољу него у дупке пуној цркви, још се изгледа нису испавали... :)))

► █░▓ The feast of The Circumcision of our Lord, eight days after the Nativity. This is commemorated on January 1. In this local church (SOC) the old Julian calendar has been observed, which coincides with January 14th of the Gregorian calendar. This particular shrine in Žabljak (Crna Gora) is literally one of the most if not thé most elevated church in the Balkans where the full annual cycle is being served. In orthodox church women usually stand in the northern half and men in the southern half of the nave; this capture covers the former. It is from the closing chapter of the liturgy, and many partakers have already left due to the workday in this tourist place. Those who remain until the end are those who truly feel, love and stick to the grace.

In submitting to the Law of Circumcision, our Lord signifies that He is the fullness and the completion of the Old Covenant. St. Paul says that in Jesus the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily. The Church Fathers explain that the Lord, the Creator of the Law, underwent circumcision in order to give people an example of how faithfully the divine ordinances ought to be fulfilled. The Lord was circumcised so that later no one would doubt that he had truly assumed human flesh, and that his incarnation was not merely an illusion, as certain heretics taught.

Additionally, He received the name Jesus (= Savior) on this day.

That is, the 8th day! Some municipal civil servant weirdo at the counter told me I was late with registering the name of my son 2 or 3 days after his birth. No, see I wasn't. We have a definite example set once and for all. Don't ever fall for the hypocritical reasoning of double-crossing weasel bureaucrats!

(source in part: Orthodox Wiki)

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Still Not Over It

Porkchop

Wilmington Azalea Festival

Wilmington, North Carolina

Toledo, Spain. Former capital of Spain. Now, it's mostly a tourist attraction. If you view the large size of this photo, you'll see numerous dish antenna's. It always strikes me as a bit hypocritical that the old "preserved" historic sites allow in certain bits modernity - electricity, satellite TV, etc. It creates an interesting blend of modernity and history.

After the introduction, Coach Finstock has us run a few laps around the gym. Once we get through that, Harry goes over to Cheyenne. What is he doing with that thief? I better go over there to make sure nothing happens..

"Hey Cheyenne! Good to see ya again. Decided to take my advice I see.." I hear Harry say enthusiastically.

"You too Harry! I'm glad I told my parents about Midtown. At least I'll know someone here!" Cheyenne replies with a smile. How long is that façade going to last?

"Wait. You know her Harry? Where from?" I reply, as I stand there, still trying to process what's going on..

"Oh Pete. Remember a couple of weeks ago when I asked you if you wanted to go bungee jumping, and you gave me a silly excuse for why you couldn't go?"

"Yeah what about it?" I do have some of the worst excuses ever.. But that's what happens when no one knows my secret.

"Well.. That's where I met Cheyenne.. She was there, so I figured, why not get to know her? Bungee jumping isn't really as much fun alone. So as soon as she told me she just came to town recently looking for a good school, I recommended Midtown! Now she's here! Pretty cool right?"

He would totally change his tune if he knew what she was up to at night..

"Yeah.. That's great Harry.." I try to sound enthusiastic, but I just can't. My best friend recommended a thief to come to the same school as me, Spider-Man.. When is that ever a good idea? Though maybe I'm being a hypocrite. After all, Lana is a 'supervillain' of sorts, yet I was fine with becoming friends with her.. Then again, she has noble intentions, even if she's going about it the wrong way. I'm worried Cheyenne might be using Harry for his money. Or am I just over thinking things?

"Hey, is it ok if I hang out with you guys at lunch? Don't want to impose or anything." Cheyenne

"You wouldn't be imposing! The more the merrier! Right Pete? Besides, I think you and Lana would get along really well." Oh Harry, you don't know the half of it. I guess this is really happening. Our friend group consists of me, Harry, and two thieves. One with honorable intentions, the other with questionable ones. It would be nice if Lana would ask me for help though.. Not Peter Parker me.. The other guy. The friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man me.

"Pete? Hello? Earth to Peter?" Harry says, as I realize I completely zoned out for a second there.

"Sorry. Yeah that's right. The more the merrier!"

Soon enough, P.E. ends, and I get changed for my next class. So much weird stuff going on today. First, of all, Aunt May trying to act as though things are good between us and the Hardy's, even though they aren't.. I don't get why she wants us to go to an event hosted by the wife of the man who murdered Uncle Ben. Felicia and her mother claim that he's innocent, and that he would never do that to Uncle Ben, but I saw the face of the man who did it. It was him.. Walter Hardy.. Which is why I really don't want to go tonight, but for some reason Aunt May feels that she has to go.. Then there's stuff with Harry knowing Cheyenne. I don't think I can handle another thing going wrong. Just another day in the life of Peter Parker, I guess.

"PROTECT AND EAT"

December 20, 2016 – Taiji, Japan

This Taiji town worker (pictured left) wears a jacket embroidered with a slogan so hypocritical, yet so reminiscent of the actions and behaviours of the Taiji town government, that despite the mind bending hypocrisy, it's not even surprising.

Standing beside a member of the organisation that is doing something to protect whales and the people of his own town from mercury poisoning (Sea Shepherd) he watches on as cetaceans are brutally driven into the cove and slaughtered.

The corruption of ethics begins from the top, trickles down and dies with these such paradox.

Sites for more information :

Sea Shepherd Cove Guardians Page (official)

www.facebook.com/SeaShepherdCoveGuardiansOfficialPage

Cove Guardians

www.seashepherd.org/cove-guardians

Photo: Sea Shepherd

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youtu.be/e7rVnifARMc?si=heA4aIvovDvYwteS

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Today, I have a question. A pressing question. For some Western feminists.

How can you remain silent, when women and girls are raped, tortured, their bodies carried around naked and spat on by bearded men shouting Allah Akbar?

Then you can never call yourself a feminist again.

Every day, including today, some Western hypocritical feminists should be ashamed of their silence on the horror that Hamas men inflicted to women and girls on 7 October.

And that includes big names we were once proud of.

Why are their lips sealed and their hearts of stone when it comes to the excruciating pain of Jewish women?

The MeToo movement and so-called intersectional feminists do not care about all women.

If they remain silent, it means they have lied to us about their commitment to women's rights.

Their actions support the oppressor, not the victims.

Also the EU money does.

Indirectly.

Those who say nothing about these women and the hostages, should not be standing here and speaking about human rights.

When you are under attack by terrorists, a cease fire is like raising your hands when you are being shot at.

Perhaps it is worth considering that a real lasting cease fire will start with bringing back all the hostages to their homes and the rapists to justice.

Assita Kanko

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Pro-abortion, pro-choice protest rally against overturning Roe V Wade. Notice the coat hanger the woman has at the bottom of her sign. Old men should not decide what a woman can and can't do with their body. Only women should decide this with their doctors. Not old fart politicians, or ivory tower intellectual hypocrite (five) judges on the Supreme Court.

We speak of kindness, but so many of us are hypocrites. We think of kindness as selective. We believe that if we’re kind to one but then ignore the feelings of another, we are still kind. Sometimes, we protect ourselves by thinking they deserve it or that not showing kindness when they need our kindness is just a personal choice. But kindness is like bright yellow on blue; it’s never unnecessary. There’s always a place for kindness as there’s a place for sunshine! People can say many things about me, but I treat a homeless person on the street like the most critical person I've ever met! There's not one person who can say that I've mistreated them for the past 13 years! Simple rule in life: if you don't want it to be done to you, don't do it to others!

"Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labor of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father." –1 Thessalonians 1:3

It is air and exercise that keep the body healthy. So it is spiritually. The graces of the Spirit need to be often exercised and well aired to keep them healthy--aired with the pure breath of heaven, and exercised with the operations of the Holy Spirit drawing them forth into activity and energy. And just as in nature a man gains health and strength by using his limbs and working his muscles, so in spiritual things these graces of the Spirit gain strength by use and exercise. Faith by working hard, hope by enduring much, and love by laboring long in the face of difficulties, become each more strengthened, more confirmed, more active, healthy, and energetic.

It is a false faith to sleep all day in the sluggard's arm-chair; it is the hypocrite's hope who endures nothing for Christ's sake; it is love in 'lip and tongue and name' that undergoes no labor to please the beloved Object. Look at these things in the light of your own experience. See whether you can find not only faith in your heart, but its work; not only hope, but its patience; not only love, but its labor. The Apostle remembered without ceasing their work of faith, and labor of love, and patience of hope. His eye was fixed not so much upon their Christian graces as their exercises of them, and as he saw their faith working diligently, their hope suffering patiently, and their love laboring unweariedly for the glory of God and the good of his people, he was satisfied they were the graces of the Spirit wrought in their heart by a divine power.

Lemme see what's wrong with David:

-Hypocrite

-Spoiled

-Noob

-Fail at building

-Can't spell or self-edit

-Steals desgins and then sells them.

-Ruins themes

-Troll

-Removes things from his store to make them appear as "Sold out", creating the illusion that people buy his, sorry, other people's stuff.

-Pedophile

-Conceited

-Scammer

More to come, post some suggestions in the comments. Let's grow this list NAOW!

Beth: who are you?

Corrupted Soul: don't speak to me as if you know me, naive young hypocrite!

Beth: what? why would you say that?

Virilya: he's one of the submissives, to his own anger. people like him spread this disease

Beth: knowing that, I'm pretty sure he's trying to upset me

Corrupted Soul: do you think this is a game? don't make me laugh, haha

Beth: but that was a silly fake laugh..

Virilya: Champion! don't give in!

Corrupted Soul: girls can't even game, you whiny little brat!

Beth: is this his tactic? calling me names like a schoolyard bully?

Corrupted Soul: I know what you are, you're a feminist

Beth: can I please kill him now?

Virilya: no, don't. if you attack him, he wins

Beth: that sucks! so, he's a troll?

Virilya: he's just an angry, pathetic man who was never loved

Beth: yep. Troll

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I want to point out that gender has nothing to do with the above ^_^ I've met girl trolls!

Before you speak to me of the hypocritical ways of post-processing film shots, I'd like to say that in my defense, I was unable to find the sooc ones.

So you get this.

The blacks are too high.

Anywayyyyyy.

Cela faisait bien longtemps que j'avais laissé cette demoiselle , sans avoir fait l'effort de la custo vraiment . Deux ans après , la voici terminée , j'ai trouvé ce qui me derangeai le plus chez les Byul mais maintenant , j'en suis gaga :)

I realize that consumerism is disgusting but my generatiion is full of hypocritical fuckers pretending that they are not capitalist in their Etsy shops and I'm brave enough to call bullshit.

Aim got new eyes by Silent Paradise, they are FF16 in 16/8mm with small pupils. I was so excited to stick them in his head, I didn't get a photo of them alone... :P I was always Photoshopping his eyes to brighten them up, but this is unedited! They have such a nice glow! I love them!!!! T___T

I keep saying I will include story snippets when I post so I guess I should do that. :P And since I just posted that relationship chart... I will expand on Aim's relationships a bit!

When Aim was human, he had a large family and social circle. But once he turned into a demon and acquired magical fire powers, he became a very isolated and destructive person. He could be compared to Andras in that way, except that Andras never used violence for his own personal benefit or because he was angry, whereas Aim would totally burn the face off of anyone who looked at him the wrong way. So Aim got this reputation for being the Most Evil, and demons who couldn't defend themselves well avoided him at all costs.

After a few hundred years, Aim began to get bored, and had a bit of an identity crisis because his whole life until this point revolved around setting shit on fire. That's when he met Gremory, who was like a breath of fresh air; he was just so good and pure! Aim was totally smitten, but felt like Gremory was way out of his league and what few friends he had agreed completely, haha (Murmur was one of them, WHAT A PAL. I've mentioned it before but Murmur definitely had some sass before his mind turned to mush). So Aim never confessed his feelings, but he did ask Gremory for advice since he was so lost. Gremory looked into Aim's possible futures, and hinted that he look for Dantalion, a demon that they knew was out in the human world somewhere, but nobody had found yet (honestly though, nobody had tried very hard).

Aim was kind of like... what the fuck... who gives a shit? But it would at least serve as a distraction, so he did it. He asked around, got some tips, and went looking. It took years to find Dantalion, and during that time Aim remembered how nice it was to just be chill and, y'know, not burn everything. When he did find Dantalion, they immediately hit it off and have been best friends ever since... which is something they both desperately needed. ;3;

Aim and Dantalion are super adorable little jerks. They're the kind of friends who spend all their time together doing nothing but laughing a lot. And they're both total hypocrites who will scold other people for being lazy while they are literally sitting there accomplishing nothing. I also marked on the chart that Aim is friends with Andras. They were never particularly close, but they get along really well when Dantalion isn't around... heh... Andras finds them incredibly annoying when they're together. xD Aim also really likes Saturn, but I mean Saturn is super agreeable so it's not hard to befriend him. A lot of people get bored with Saturn because he's always spacing out, but Aim's used to that (Dantalion falls asleep aaaaall the time). Lastly, he only met Agares once and they immediately hated each other's guts. They are on complete opposite ends of the morality spectrum, which Agares is really insufferable about, so Aim basically just hates him because he hates Aim.

That was probably way more than anybody wanted to know. XD

Aim is a Dollgru #09 head on a NobilityDoll Emotional body!

5 “When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. I tell you the truth, that is all the reward they will ever get. 6 But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you. 7 “When you pray, don’t babble on and on as people of other religions do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again. 8 Don’t be like them, for your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him! 9 Pray like this:

Meet Ida Razor, our town's leading feminist and author of the book "101 ways to get rid of your husband". But here she is looking for a man to help with her suitcase.

I’ve been dwelling on the “extras,” lately. The additional layers I use to cover and hide. The inessentials I’ve built up to mean more than they really merit.

I have become synonymous with lipstick. It’s a mask, and I have to be critically aware of it. Why do I feel more myself with it on? How do I feel without it? What does it translate to?

It is a personal, hypocritical challenge to wholeheartedly believe in rejecting social constraints of the body and femininity while sheepishly subscribing to a remaining handful. There are leftover imprints of these influences that I still hold onto, some twisted and stereotypical security blanket.

I feel more “beautiful” with lipstick. My knee-jerk defense is that I wear it “for me,” because I “feel better with it on.” But I feel “better” with it because I have been conditioned to believe there is something missing from me without it. That I need something extra, however dictated or defined, in order to be myself.

But we cannot be apologetic for our bodies.

Lipstick is a trivial metaphor for a greater problem. There are rules and expectations modern feminists believe they are reclaiming - but I worry we are not zooming out far enough. We are “reclaiming” smaller modes of functioning within a system that has stripped us of the fundamental: an innate sense of value irrespective of the physical and external. We have to dive deeper, question more, reject more. Whatever you are wearing or doing or performing “for you,” take a beat and reflect: What convinced you of it in the first place? Are you also enough without it? Are you still you?

I am not throwing away my lipstick - I’m wearing it in bed as I write this (forgot to take it off.) But I am questioning where this “empowerment” comes from, why I have attached to it in this form, and what wearing it “for me” really means. Thinking critically about the extras I attach myself to, and where the harmful juxtapositions are.

MEN LOVE WAR

(“ I don’t know what weapons men will use in the Third World War ,

but in the Fourth it will be sticks and stones”-Einstein)

Men love war. In joyous chorus

They sound the colorful call to arms

For the dubious sport of death.

They love it with undisguised love.

They parede it in the streets

Create manuals and schools

Raising flags and lowering coffins

Entoning slogans and burying songs.

Men love war. And they don’t love war

Merely with athletic courage

And military pride, but with the pious

Voice of the priest, who before the battle

-serves the Host of Death.

It was thus in Crimea and Troy

In Eritrea and Angola

In Algiers and Mongolia

In Siberia and Now.

Men love war

And can barely stand peace.

Mem love war and so

There is no danger of peace.

Men love war, profane

Or holy, it’s all the same.

Men make war their mistress

Although they’re wedded to peace.

And Lord, what ravenous pastures when they meet!

What pleasures! What screams! What moans!

What sublime pervertions schemed

In the shroud of sheets, soiling

The bed or battlefield.

For centuries I thought

War was a detour

And peace was the route. Wrong. They’re paralled

Banks of the same river, hand and glove

Foot and boot. More than twins,

Odd and even, good luck and bad,

they’re sword-swallowers,

tail-in-mouth snake, they’re ouroboros

eternally devouring us.

War is no intermezzo.

It is part of the show. And not just a tragedy,

It’s comedy two, royal or plebeian.

War is not cruelly unforeseen.

It is recidivistic vice. A rite

Full of risks. Why

It’s better than the circus:

It’s where the happy acrobat

Dressed like a kamikase

Jumps without a rope or net,

All the plates get smashed

And the contortionist breaks in half

In Death’s own Kamasutra.

But war is not the opposite of peace

It is its cradle, its complementary teat.

Horror is not the inverse of beauty

-they’re on a par. Men love the beautiful, but

they like horror in art. Horror

is not darkness, it’s counterpart of light.

Lucifer,light-bringer, is brilliant like Gabriel

And terror attracts. Nothing more attracting

-then Christ dead on the cross.

War is not, then, just a mass

That the father says, a science

That hallucinates wise, a sport

That fascinates the strong. War is art.

And so wirth the ardor of vanguardist

We attend the Biennial of Horror

And inaugurate the Bauhaus of Death.

But atop the carnage are no buzzards,

Jackals, vultures, hyenas.

Only showy heron of aluminum, serene

In their electronic ballet.

Perhaps it was the Dance of Death, pathetic.

Not so. It’s just another lesson in aesthetics.

And thus the modern soldiers

Are like doctor and engineers

And no the minister of war

Would wear a butcher’s gear.

War is war!

Said the violent invader

Raping the nun in the convent.

War is war!

Said the statue of the admiral

With his mouth full of cement.

War is war!

We say with our radar

Savoring the enemy

Somewhere north ou our resentment.

There is no nead, then, no disguise

The love of war was Patriotic Love

Of Defense of Home. We love both war

And peace-will such bigamy ever cease?

I, a poet of today, eternal Baudelaire,

You and I, mon hypocrite lecteur,

Mon semblable, mon frère.

We want battles, planes in flames,

Sinking ships, the spectacles of confrontation.

Tomorrow we’ll open up fish bellies

With a bayonet blade.

And when the trumpet plays “Soupy”

We’ll stick our pigs with knives

And pin exquisite medals on

-the dead men on the table.

Clean flesch, if posible, no blood.

Let the missile,launched from afar,

In silence, not splatter our clothes.

But if a “blood bath” it be,

Then , as Terece said:” I am human

And nothing human is alien to me.”

Death and war, in any case

Will catch me off guard no more.

I inscribe theeir effigy on the stone

As if the dice of my fate

No longer rolled on their own.

As if I passed from white

To black and back to with again

And was never in the dark.

So bring on war. Total.

Atomic trumpet blast, beginning of the end.

With caution as befits the sage

I’ll first cry out against what’s done.

But with voraciousness as befits the race

And seeing then invade my garden space

I’ll fashion from the leaves of the banana

An ideological banner

And fulminate my enemy before he can attack.

And should he not shoot back or come,

I’ll take advantage of weakling’s slipe,

Invade his house and sate my millenial cannibal-wise

Roaring behind my human mask.

-Poet, your words terrify!

(I hear someone say).

Terrified I wrote them.

Now I feel I’m free.

Death and war

No longer frighten me.

Like Oedipus perplexed

I deciphered them in my bowels

Before I was devoured

By the inscrutable sphinx.

Neither cynical nor sad. An animal

Human too, I go marching, dancing, praying

Toward the mighty carnival.

Soldier, penitent, poet,

-peace and war, life and death

await for me

-at the atomic funeral.

-Will the human species disappear from Earth?

No. There’ll be some new Adam and Eve

To remake love, and two brothers:

-Cain and Abel

- to reinvent war.

(VALE A PENA TRADUZIR, É A MAIS PURA REALIDADE....)

I feel utterly inadequate and unworthy to share any Biblical truth with anyone, because how can a law breaker like me promote the same law he breaks? I am no less of a hypocrite than anyone else ever lived. But if every Christian stops sharing Biblical truths because he or she is not perfect then the gospel will not be preached anymore.

Joseph Reassures His Brothers - Genesis 50

15 When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, "What if Joseph holds a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrongs we did to him?" 16 So they sent word to Joseph, saying, "Your father left these instructions before he died: 17 'This is what you are to say to Joseph: I ask you to forgive your brothers the sins and the wrongs they committed in treating you so badly.' Now please forgive the sins of the servants of the God of your father." When their message came to him, Joseph wept.

18 His brothers then came and threw themselves down before him. "We are your slaves," they said.

19 But Joseph said to them, "Don't be afraid. Am I in the place of God? 20 You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. 21 So then, don't be afraid. I will provide for you and your children." And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them.

I doubt any human will condemn Joseph if he had held a grudge against his brothers or even if had taken revenge against them. This story reminds me of once as I was reading the Bible at break time at work a lady who was new in Canada asked to read what I was reading. She was shocked by our Lord’s words in Matthew 5:44:

But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

She said in her broken English, “No, I think he wrong. Love family friends ok, good. No love enemies, bad!” How else could she feel about those words? Her reaction was completely natural—human-like. But not Joseph. Joseph didn’t have a Bible, he didn’t have the gift of the Holy Spirit, he didn’t have godly parents to guide and protect him or, he didn’t have access to Christian counsellors, he didn’t even have accountability partners. But he had a heart of flesh and not of stone, a heart bent toward God—Joseph was a man who truly knew how to love God and esteem Him. He dared to be different for His God. Even though all he knew about this God was probably what he heard from his father Jacob.

David Spares Saul's Life - 1 Samuel 24

1 After Saul returned from pursuing the Philistines, he was told, "David is in the Desert of En Gedi." 2 So Saul took three thousand chosen men from all Israel and set out to look for David and his men near the Crags of the Wild Goats.

3 He came to the sheep pens along the way; a cave was there, and Saul went in to relieve himself. David and his men were far back in the cave. 4 The men said, "This is the day the LORD spoke of when he said to you, 'I will give your enemy into your hands for you to deal with as you wish.' "Then David crept up unnoticed and cut off a corner of Saul's robe.

5 Afterward, David was conscience-stricken for having cut off a corner of his robe. 6 He said to his men, "The LORD forbid that I should do such a thing to my master, the LORD's anointed, or lift my hand against him; for he is the anointed of the LORD." 7 With these words David rebuked his men and did not allow them to attack Saul. And Saul left the cave and went his way.

Most natural people reading this will think that David was either a coward or simple minded. No law on earth can condemn David for killing Saul—this was the best scenario for self-defence in an era where murder could go unnoticed. But David did not live by the laws of an era, a culture, or a certain kingdom; David lived by the laws of his God and held himself accountable to God and God alone. Even when, many years later, he committed adultery with Bathsheba and murdered her husband, after he was convicted of his sins he said, “Against you[God], you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight,” (Psalm 51:4) David realized he sinned against God before anyone else, after all it was God who said, “You shall not murder”, and “You shall not commit adultery.” To David God was as real as a human judge.

What laws did David follow in sparing—twice--king Saul’s life? He didn’t have the Sermon of the Mount. What he had was “an eye for an eye”, yet David showed a deep knowledge of God that can only be gained through a personal relationship with God strengthened by daily walk with Him.

This morning I was talking to a lady who attends church at least twice a week (and not just any church: this is a pretty committed church to following our Lord) and she opened the topic about how Christian women should dress and told me that she can’t understand what is so sinful about wearing tight jeans and that she can’t stop wearing them. I knew exactly what her problem was, so I asked her, “Where in the New Testament does the Bible mention how Christian women should dress?” She replied, “It doesn’t! It is not mentioned anywere!” I told her, “You see, there are at least two places that talk directly about this issue. Not to mention dressing in church, and the numerous verses that deal with causing someone to sin.” Her problem is that she has no faith. She doesn’t believe that God’s Word is worth reading nor that God’s laws are extremely important to follow. Otherwise, she would never say that she can’t obey them. How is she going to dare be different for Her God when she doesn’t believe that He knows best?

We have the illusion that going to church, giving to the poor, and singing Christian song build our faith—they don’t. Our Lord did not build His faith when He healed or preached. He build His faith when He woke up early in the morning and spend time talking and listening to His heavenly Father and obeying Him. When He healed and preached He was simply expressing His faith.

David did not build his faith when he became a king; rather he became a king because he had faith. He built his faith when as a young shepherd he spent countless hours by himself knowing His God and attending sheep. When he wrote the Psalms he was simply expressing his faith. Yet, when we read the Psalms we think that our faith is going to be built just by reading them.

Do you dare to be different for your God? The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The God who loved you so much that He sent His beloved, perfect, and only Son, Jesus Christ, to die a gruesome, painful, and humiliating death on the cross just so that you would love Him and spend eternity in heaven with Him. Start being different in the little things because God will not trusted you with greater things without you showing trustworthiness in the little things.

Let me tell you a little story: about a week ago I saw my mid-term grade and it was substantially above the class average. I knew something was wrong because I had not done so well on the mid-term. I told my close classmates that there must be something wrong with the way my paper was marked. Sure enough when I received it I was given 14% extra by mistake. So I submitted my test paper back to the TA for my mark to be fixed, namely lowered 14%. My classmates thought I was either the craziest man ever lived, or the most simple minded, or the most idealistic. But I am none of those things. I simply asked myself this question: does God know about it, and what would He want me to do?

One classmate had a long discussion with me because of this and he made the remark, “Fadi, you are living your life backward!” I told him, “Exactly! That’s exactly how I know I am heading in the right way! Because most people—naturally living by their human nature—do not follow God. So when I do something that’s different then I know that I am walking in the right way. Human thinking says, ‘Good! Free marks!’ But God says, ‘That’s cheating. That’s being dishonest. That’s stealing.’” Another classmate said, “Have you ever thought that may be God wants to help you by giving you those free marks?” I answered him, “God doesn’t sin—He doesn’t cheat. He doesn’t cause people to sin, but He does test our faith.” Why do we feel that we have to know every trivial thing, except when it comes to God we start guessing who He is and how He operates?

My mom sometimes comes from church and tells me, “Fadi, I saw this beautiful and wonderful single lady at church and I thought…” And that’s when I stop her. Sometimes she keeps going, and I have to insist she stops. She says, “How will you ever get married if you don’t even build relationships with girls?” I cannon justify my position except that God is working, at least in me that I know for sure, and He hasn’t done His work yet. And I won’t do anything before I hear from Him and know His will. Actually, He has given me specific promises about the topic of marriage, and I cannot go out and do my things and ruin everything He is doing. Can you imagine how rude it is when, let’s say, a close friend of yours asked you to photograph their wedding, and you spend all this time preparing your photography equipments and cleaning them, and charging the batteries, and backing everything, and making sure you haven’t forgotten anything, and bought extra accessories such as a flash diffuser, and even went as far as taking photography lessons or reading about wedding photography…only to find out that your friends has already arranged someone else to photograph the wedding? Yet, we do this all the time with God.

My question for you is this: Do you dare to be different for your God and Saviour? By “…for your God and Saviour”, I don’t mean to impress the world by your obedience and try to change people. What I mean is: do things because they please His heart, regardless of what the outcomes will be.

PS: I want to give special thanks to my co-worker Chungsoon, for teaching me how to tip the Pepsi can like this without it falling. All you have to do is leave just the right amount of Pepsi for the can to balance on its edge.

(Toronto, ON; fall 2008.)

El angelito mira con ironía a la moralina de siempre, de re-ojo.

Para descuartizarla monta a caballo...

Natalia: Dentro y fuera de cualquier red social, dentro y fuera de Flickr?

Fernando: Dentro y fuera.

# # #

The little angel looks at the usual moraline with irony, at a glance... he re-looks.

For the slaughtering, he rides a horse...

Natalia: Inside and outside any social network, inside and outside Flickr?

Fernando: Inside and outside.

# # #

Hypocrisy & Communication series

They were huddled in like cattle during muster,

Entering the doors not in order but one cluster.

I’m tired, I’m bored or wow, does that guy stink!

I travel with CityRail 5 days a week and find the service great! I pay less than $40 per week and I am taken from my home to work and back again. What more could I ask for…yes, I could ask for five star luxury, a massage during my trips and free meals but remember, I pay less than $40 a week!

People are constantly complaining about things that when viewed from a large perspective and in relation to other countries, are really pathetic (in my opinion).

In China the public train service employ workers to physically push the commuters in to the carriages and I’m sure we have all seen the photos from India and Bangladesh of passengers riding ALL OVER the outside of the train…People should be grateful for the service we have!

Is it hypocritical that I complain about people that are complaining!? I think it may be but it really bugs me that people have gripes about a service that actually works!

Yes there are delays and train cancellations sometimes but really, is it that bad you have to carry on about it?

I mean, what’s the worse that can happen, you’re late to work or an appointment? If you were that concerned about being on time you would have caught an earlier train to leave some spare time anyway…

Man, it feels good getting something off your chest….maybe these complaining people are on to something!

This image is part of my Rhyming Captures Set

More shots from Sydney

of all the reasons I have to care about you it's your smile that gets me every time.

This is an outtake from yesterday's paint antics. I saved it 'cause it was Demi's favourite. :']

About to do an almighty tag description. If you don't want to find out obscene amounts of irrelevant information about me, leave now ;)

1. Favourite 5 Disney movies.

- UP.

- Nemo!

- Pirates of the Caribbean

- The fox and the hound :']

- That one about the mouse.. not tales of despereux though.

2. what makes you happy, and what makes you sad?

- I have a feeling most of you would be able to guess this. I'm happiest when around certain people; the one's I'm close to, usually the worst influences. The ones who make me laugh my stupid loud laugh and whose company I feel genuinely at home in. I'm happiest when talking to them, or spending with them, or even just wasting time with them.

What makes me sad, more than anything, is seeing those people upset. I try not to be but I'm easily influenced by them and their emotions and while I often steal happiness from their supplies the same can be said for their sadness.

and 3.

- What's the last movie you watched? Ooft. A documentry on the spanish american war ;)

- What's your favorite noise? laughter.

- Do you like some kind of light on when you go to bed, or just darkness? I used to be afraid of the dark and now I can't bear the light.

- What's the weirdest thing you've ever eaten? Not sure; some sort of bizarre concoction formed at a sleepover during a dare, no doubt.

- What's something you really want right now but don't need? Summer, I guess.

- What's your hair look like right now? Wet, tied back.

- Have you seen Waldo? If so what the heck man! Weirdest question ever? It's called Wally here. and yeah, I saw lots of adults running round the city dressed as him one saturday night :')

5 thoughts I've had today,

- I've had a nice day.

- Am I hungry?

- Why do I spend so very much time on public transport?!

- Must update ipod.

- I hope that works out.

10 truths:

Oh dear.

- I don't drink tea or coffee, I drink steamed milk and vanilla syrup.

- I have a fairly good taste in music, but some very very guilty pleasures. Usually involving american teen stupidly-famous actors.

- I will literally forgive anyone for anything and am trying to stop doing it.

- People who don't make an effort annoy me more than anything, but that makes me a hypocrite sometimes.

- I have three scars; one from falling down a drain in malawi by the roadside, one from burning my hand on the oven when I got home from malawi and one from chickenpox when I was tiny.

- I spent most of last year in the doctor's surgery at least once a week pretty much, because I have so many minor maladies.

- I'm a complete geek when it comes to videogames like pokemon.

- I want to be head girl.

- I spent a long, long time wishing I was someone else but now I no longer wish that because I've seen them a little more through someone else's eyes.

- I clearly crave attention :')

Hahaa, and this:

1. Thing you cannot leave the house without? camera.

2. Favorite Brand of Make up? ehh, maxfactor mascara, I'm impartial about everything else.

3. Favorite Place? Home (:

4. Favorite clothing store? Ruby red boutique :)

5. Favorite band? Uhm, too many to count. Blink 182 maybe.

6. Heels or flats? Pahaa, flats by day, heels by night ;)

7. Do you make good grades? Generally

8. Favorite colors? Deep red

9. Do you drink energy drinks? No :')

10. Do you drink juice? Too often.

11. Do you like swimming? Love it.

12. Do you eat fries with a fork? Depends who I'm with!

13. Favorite song? Iris - googoo dolls

14. Do you want to get married later on in life? Yep.

15. Do you get mad easily? Oh yes :)

16. Are you into ghost hunting? Nope, but going on a ghost hunt soon xD

17. Any phobias? Fire.

18. Do you bite your nails? Not unless something's on my mind

19. Have you ever had a near death experience? Nope. touchwood!

20. Do you drink coffee? Not YET. ;)

5 places I'd like to visit:

Rome (or Florence)

New York

Tokyo

Mexico city (beginning to sound like my geography case study list)

Bavaria

Allright. And now the almighty ten facts.

AHH SO MANY TAGS. :)

1. I played volleyball today; we kicked ass, but lost. In style. Ish.

2. I miss someone I see everyday and spend a lot of time with. Weird or what?

3. I feel like going and curling up with a book, which I'll do in a sec, since I acquired three today - the great gatsby, a history one and draculaaaa.

4. I would LOVE to work in a bookstore. I've applied, but so has my life arch nemesis.

5. HAHAH yes, I have an arch nemesis xD

6. I'm not in school much over the next few weeks, mixed feelings about this.

7. I must, must get a job. Or stop spending money.

8. Mum just gave me the local newspaper to read; my dad's school is in the midst of a money scandal. Oh, dear.

9. I had ice cream for breakfast this morning. Vanilla.

10. I also wear vanilla perfume.

OKHAY I'M DONE.

The Message to the Church in Philadelphia

7 “Write this letter to the angel of the church in Philadelphia.

This is the message from the one who is holy and true,

the one who has the key of David.

What he opens, no one can close;

and what he closes, no one can open:[c]

8 “I know all the things you do, and I have opened a door for you that no one can close. You have little strength, yet you obeyed my word and did not deny me. 9 Look, I will force those who belong to Satan’s synagogue—those liars who say they are Jews but are not—to come and bow down at your feet. They will acknowledge that you are the ones I love.

10 “Because you have obeyed my command to persevere, I will protect you from the great time of testing that will come upon the whole world to test those who belong to this world. 11 I am coming soon.[d] Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take away your crown. 12 All who are victorious will become pillars in the Temple of my God, and they will never have to leave it. And I will write on them the name of my God, and they will be citizens in the city of my God—the new Jerusalem that comes down from heaven from my God. And I will also write on them my new name.

13 “Anyone with ears to hear must listen to the Spirit and understand what he is saying to the churches.

Since 9/11 the number of crimes committed daily by America's corporations & politicians has increased so dramatically that no one - & no single agency - is able to feel adequately informed. During this era of runaway mob scheming & proliferation I've read 25 & usually more serious news articles daily, which is the minimum number that must be examined & absorbed to enable more than a glimmer of the magnitude & scope of the criminality.

In the early months of George W. Bush's institutionalization of Federal Government as Mob Operation it was apparent that the people of the nation were under the spell of a psychopathic cult leader who, unlike the usual religious con men - say, Jim Jones, David Koresh, L. Ron Hubbard, Ayn Rand or the convicted felon, Joseph Smith - had at his disposal & command the whole vast apparatus of the empire's instruments for social control, including the police, army, legal system, churches, news press & television media. And of course the oligarchs & their executives (Bush's peers by birthright) were anxious to steal all that they could while the taking was easy ... & very easy it became, & very easy it still is.

Habeas corpus was taken away from us, as was posse comitatus. The Watergate criminal, ex-Admiral John Poindexter, was appointed to create Total Information Awareness, a DARPA program designed to spy on all citizens at all hours, which when public outcries arose against it was disbanded but instantly replaced here & there in various other government agencies, such as the CIA & NSA, in which agencies it grew like flies multiplying in a dung heap, as indeed it continues to do, most recently with drones supplied to local police forces, able to identify & track a milk carton from 60,000 feet above the earth. Again, under Mob Boss Bush, the capitalists joined in, & we became & are still spied upon by our telephone & internet servers, & banks, which collect & dispense the history of our once private individual activities & behaviors from birth to our death. Cameras serving police record our passage from Starbuck's to Sears. Like all people caught up in cults, we came to believe that all of this is as it must & should be, & we silently conform to it, as do trained dogs to their masters.

The deep function of what has happened is this: The wages we receive & the taxes we pay must all be instantly given up to the superrich. Our physical health is a commodity owned by the superrich, not us. Likewise, our welfare is owned by the aristocrats, not by us. In a few short years, for instance, student debt was made to exceed the nation's credit card debt - our children, in other words, were sold into debt peonage, & this is enforced by new law that says the children must pay it even after filing bankruptcy, & even in old age by garnishment from Social Security income. And of course there has been & will be no let up in the quest of the superrich to own Social Security, which surely they will in the near future unless a people's government is somehow - repeat, somehow - created.

As Thomas Frank has explained, a college graduate can no longer pursue his or her intellectual dream, such as becoming a teacher, artist or journalist committed to discovering & telling the truth, because student debt & laws enforcing payment compel immediate entrance into the empire's mainstream occupations, where the objectives to be pursued are the properties of others, not of oneself. Thus our children are now born into bonded servitude, for which on the whole wages are pitiful & increasingly buy little more than necessities.

All great institutions in the empire assure us that all of this criminality is necessary for two reasons: One, immensely determined evil external & internal personages are out to destroy our country, & we must surrender all of our civil rights & wealth in order to survive; & Two, alas alas, our nation has no money, & so must sell all of the people's assets & public services to the superrich. Well ... please, the first reason does not survive the briefest review of its merit, & let me not bother anyone with further words about it. And the second reason is equally preposterous, because the United States prints its own money, & under Obama did so to the tune of two trillion dollars given by the Federal Reserve to its clients, the big banks (which naturally did not, have not & will not do anything socially responsible with it). No economist who is committed to an understanding not of capitalist dogma, but rather to the truth of what was very well learned during & consequent to previous severe economic demand crises, such as the one we are now in, believes that 'shrinking government' is anything other than a vicious, irresponsible policy devised by & for the sole benefit of aristocrat thieves & their sociopathic politicians. Economics, after all, is a science, & as such its method & conclusions are dependent upon the collection & interpretation of empirical data, not any of which does in fact or in the least support shrinking government during a demand crisis. Indeed, the only agency known to be capable of or potentially possessed of the will to end such crises is a nation's government.

But all good sense is lost upon cultists, who will do anything to secure life in death, a clear clear E-meter reading, a galaxy to be an eternal god of with one's dead wife, morality in selfishness, up in down, straight in crooked, or - now - an American in Washington, DC (or in Dallas or Tombstone or any other city or town).

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Hope Burning

Posted on May 30, 2012

By Robert Scheer

EXCERPTS: Obama as the cool triggerman is an image useful to White House operatives as they buff the president’s persona for the coming election. But what it reveals is the mindset of a political cynic whose seductive words cloak the moral indifference of a methodical executioner. Forget Harry Truman, who obliterated the civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or Lyndon Johnson, who carpet-bombed millions in Vietnam. The Democrats have got themselves another killer, one whose techniques are as devastatingly effective, but brilliantly refined.

The story obviously was planted in The New York Times to benefit the Obama political campaign.

.... Pfc. Bradley Manning was held for many months in solitary confinement for allegedly disclosing information of far lower security classification. The difference is that the top secrets in the news article are ones the president wants leaked in the expectation they will burnish his “tough on terrorism” credentials. This is clearly not the Obama whom many voted for in the hope that he would stick by his word, including the pledge he made on his second day in office to ban brutal interrogation and close the prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. “What the new president did not say was that the orders contained a few subtle loopholes,” the Times now reports concerning the early promises by Obama. “They reflected a still unfamiliar Barack Obama, a realist who, unlike some of his fervent supporters, was never carried away by his own rhetoric.”

Parse that sentence carefully to learn much of what is morally decrepit in our journalism as well as politics. The word “realist” is now identical to “hypocrite,” and the condemnation of immoral behavior addresses nothing more than “rhetoric” that only the “fervent” would take seriously. The Times writers all but thrill to the lying, as in recounting the new president’s response to advisers who warned him against sticking to his campaign promises on Guantanamo prisoners: “The deft insertion of some wiggle words in the president’s order showed that the advice was followed.”

Please Continue to Full Text: www.truthdig.com/report/item/hope_burning_20120531/

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#TrumptheHypocrite

Ancient Trees (11th Century) @ Ripley Castle,England,UK

THE DEER PARK CONTAINS SEVERAL MAGNIFICENT TREES. SOME HAVE PROBABLY BEEN HERE SINCE THE 11TH CENTURY. CERTAINLY THESE OAKTREES MUST BE VERY OLD TO ACHIEVE A GIRTH OF 28.5'.

The Ingilby family celebrates 700 years at Ripley CastleThe Ingleby family can trace its history back to 1090, when Sir Robert Ingleby owned land in the village of Ingleby, near Saxelby, Lincs. Another branch of the family had extensive lands in and around Ingleby Greenhow and Ingleby Mill in North Yorkshire. When Sir Thomas Ingleby (c1290-1352) married the heiress Edeline Thwenge in 1308/9 she came with a very substantial dowry: Ripley Castle and its surrounding estates. Like most wedding presents, it has taken the family several generations to work out what to do with it! Life was far from easy: in 1318 the Scots, under Sir James ‘Black’ Douglas, plundered the region mercilessly, destroying 140 of the 160 houses in nearby Knaresborough. In the following year a bovine plague killed almost all of the cattle in the region, leaving thousands destitute and milk in short supply. In 1349 the Black Death struck, wiping out almost half of the local population and leaving numerous hamlets bereft of people.

The old village of Ripley was abandoned and the survivors built a new settlement on the site of the current village, on the doorstep of the castle. Sir Thomas was in great favour at the king’s court in London and was appointed as an Advocate in 1347. In 1351 he was appointed as a Justice of Assize. He died the following year and a magnificent tombchest in All Saint’s Church, Ripley, has the figures of Thomas and Edeline lying recumbent on the top, he in his armour and chain mail, she in a long robe and head dress. His oldest son, also called Thomas (1310-1369) also married well: Katherine Mauleverer was descended from Aelfwine, an Anglian of proud descent and one of the largest landowners in the North of England. He followed his father into the royal court, and accompanied Edward III on a hunting trip to the royal hunting forest of Knaresborough in 1357. The king found a wild boar and threw his spear at it, but only injured it. The boar charged the king’s horse, and the king was thrown to the ground. Thomas killed the boar, saving the king’s life. He was knighted, granted the boar’s head emblem as his family crest, and granted the right to hold a weekly market and annual horse fair in Ripley – both continued to be held until the early 1900’s. He was appointed as a justice of the King’s Bench in 1361, the only judge to hold that position apart from the Chief Justice. He could claim £40 pa for expenses, and a further £20pa for holding assizes in different counties.

Thomas’s brother, Sir Henry Ingleby, enjoyed an equally notable career. Rector of several parishes, he was appointed Master of the Rolls and Keeper of the Writs, serving under the Lord Chancellor William Edington: he had an office in the Tower of London and paid 40 shillings a year for the privilege of collecting the wool tax from the monasteries. He also oversaw the network of royal horse dealers who bought horses for the royal household, then sold them at a profit: the proceeds were used to build Windsor Castle. He died in 1375 and was buried in York Minster.

Sir John Ingleby (1434-1499) inherited the estate from his father at the age of five: his trustees had to testify to his correct date of birth in order to get the estates out of trust when he came of age. Their testimony paints a remarkable picture of an average day in the life of 15th century England. ‘Ralph Acclom remembers John’s birth because he was staying with John, Abbot of Fountains Abbey and rode across with him to baptize the baby. Ralph Apilton remembered John’s birth because he killed a deer between Ripley and Hampsthwaite. Robert Atkinson remembered the date because he rode with John Slingsby from Ripley to Sherburn and was robbed and beaten up, losing 28s and 8d.’John built the castle gatehouse – still there today – and married a wealthy heiress, Margery Strangeways of Harlsey Castle. She bore him a son and heir, William. In 1457 John abandoned his wife, son estates and earthly possessions to become a monk at Mount Grace Priory a Carthusian charterhouse near Northallerton which had been founded by his great grandfather – and was the last resting place for his parents.

He was appointed prior of Sheen in 1477 and first visitor of the English province between 1478 and 1496. The royal family worshipped at Sheen and John became the first of three executors for Queen Elizabeth, wife of Edward IV, in 1492. He was Henry VII’s special ambassador to Pope Innocent VIII, the king describing him as ‘my captain and envoy’ in one of the letters that John delivered to the Pope. Henry appointed him to oversee the conversion of priory at Sheen into the royal palace of Richmond between 1495 and 1499, and the Pope appointed him bishop of Llandaff on 27th June, 1496. He was buried at the church of St Nicholas in Hertford. His luckless wife, Margery, effectively became a widow when he took holy orders: she spent eleven years raising her son before marrying Richard, Lord Welles. Her luck was no better second time round: Edward IV reneged on a promise of safe keeping and had her husband beheaded in 1469, less than a year after their marriage.Sir William Ingleby (1518-1578) married the staunchly Catholic Ann Mallory and lived through a period of profound religious turbulence. When Henry VIII suppressed the smaller monasteries in 1536, Yorkshire’s old established Catholic families rose in revolt: the Pilgrimage of Grace was a populist and peaceful revolt that received such widespread support throughout the North that the king, heavily outnumbered, was forced to sue for peace. Reneging on a promise of safe keeping, Henry had the organizer, Robert Aske, arrested and put to death: 200 of his fellow pilgrims shared his fate. William received a reward for his staunch loyalty to the crown: Queen Mary wrote ‘For the opinion I have conceived of Sir William Ingleby…I have appointed him Treasurer of Berwick’. The Rising of the North in 1568 was potentially even more serious. The rebels set out from nearby Markenfield Hall and mustered an army that far outnumbered the king’s resources. Sir William, as High Sheriff of York, was obliged to muster additional troops but while doing so was surrounded in Ripon market square, by a group of rebels amongst whom were two of his sons, David and Francis. He had to fight his way out and, deciding that Ripley Castle was too weak to defend, took refuge in the duchy of Lancaster’s Knaresborough Castle until the troops under his command were strong enough to defeat the rebels. The earl of Sussex wrote to

William Cecil ‘Sir William Ingleby has served the Queen as truly and as chargeably from the first suspicion of this rebellion, as any man of his rank has done. He has delivered to me, from time to time, better intelligence than I have received from any others. He be such that her majesty may rest assured of his honesty and loyalty’. The rebellion was crushed: David and Francis fled into exile but Sir William’s own son in law,

Thomas Markenfield, was executed. Francis Ingleby (1550-1586) studied at Brasenose College, Oxford and read law at the Inner Temple. In 1583, having received a heavenly visitation while staying at Ripley, he emigrated to Reims and became ordained a Catholic seminary priest, returning to England in 1585. There are remarkable parallels with today: a native Englishman, passionately supporting a minority religion, goes abroad to receive militant training in his faith. He returns intent on spreading the word and overthrowing the established religion and government.

Francis was hung, drawn and quartered on York Knavesmire in 1586 and beatified by the Pope in 1987. His brother David (1547-1600) became known as ‘the Fox’ for his ability to outrun his pursuers. He was the man who guided the seminary priests around the North of England, leading them from one safe house to another. He married Lady Ann Neville, daughter of the exiled earl of Westmoreland – and another staunch Catholic. David was heavily implicated as a co-conspirator of John Ballard in the Babington treason, a conspiracy to remove Elizabeth I from the throne and replace her with Mary, Queen of Scots. He and Francis were described as ‘the most dangerous papists in the North’. A huge manhunt was launched to find them: a secret priest’s hiding hole, built to conceal them and other visiting priests while they were at Ripley, was only discovered by accident in 1964. A set of instructions written out for a spy being sent to the royal court in Scotland listed numerous things that the spy should and should not do: it ended with a very simple warning ‘ beware of David Ingleby’. David died in exile in Belgium: Elizabeth I, taking pity on his by now

impoverished widow, awarded her a pension provided she behaved herself. Their cousin Mary Ward spent several of her formative years staying with the Inglebys. In 1609 she founded a Catholic Society for Women, modeled on the Society of Jesus. They founded schools and taught in them, and the nuns were strongly encouraged to work in the community. Pope Urban VIII suppressed the order and it wasn’t until 1877 that her society was fully restored with papal blessing. The Bar Convent in York – which she founded - was the first teaching convent in the world. Sir William Ingleby (1546 - 1618) hosted a visit by James VI of Scotland en route to the king’s coronation as James I of England in 1603. Within two years William was heavily implicated in a plot to kill the king his family and hundreds of MP’s. The Ingilbys were related to or closely associated with, nine of the eleven principal conspirators of the infamous Gunpowder Plot. The mother of Robert and Thomas Wyntour, two of the leading conspirators, was an Ingleby. They had spent the week before the plot was unearthed at Ripley, buying horses from the surrounding district. Sir William and his son were arrested and charged with treason, but were, surprisingly, acquitted of all the charges. The third charge was that of bribing witnesses.

Sir William Ingleby (1594-1652) supported Charles I throughout the civil war, raising a troop of horse to fight under the generalship of Prince Rupert of the Rhine. He fought at the battle of Marston Moor, alongside his redoubtable sister, ‘Trooper’ Jane Ingleby, and somehow managed to escape the bloody rout that saw the king’s northern armies defeated for good. He made the safety of Ripley, but was his arrival was followed almost immediately by that of the victorious rebel general, Oliver Cromwell. Sir William leapt into the priest’s secret hiding place, leaving his sister to look after Cromwell. She at first refused to let him into the castle, swearing that she would defend it against all comers. After some negotiation, he was allowed to enter and spend the night there, guarded at pistol point by Jane, to prevent him from searching the castle for her brother. Cromwell, stunned at being held at gunpoint by a woman having just won the greatest victory of his career, did nothing and she saw him off the premises the following morning.

Sir William’s son, also called William (1620-1682) was deeply religious – and a closet ‘rebel’. He managed to get the family’s entire fortune captured by the rebels and his father, believing him to have done it on purpose, wrote him a blistering letter, threatening to disinherit him. The letter, signed ‘your loving father’, can be seen at the castle today.

William junior was not good looking: his portraits confirm that. In 1659 he employed a dating agent, a Mr E Pitt, to find him a wife, and again we have the correspondence: the mission was successful.Sir John Ingilby (1757 – 1835) married Elizabeth Amcotts, a Lincolnshire heiress. His father in law promised him funds to help the young couple rebuild the castle. Sir John had a row with his father in law half way through the project, and ended up so heavily in debt that he had to flee the country for eleven years while his land agent sold timber to pay off his debts. While he and his wife were abroad their oldest son died at the age of 18, and they were hustled from one European city to another as the Napoleonic wars consumed the continent. A bundle of frequently harrowing letters, written to his agent while he was in exile, survives. By the time he returned, his marriage was over: having had 11 children by his wife, he had a further 5 by Martha Webster, daughter of a local tenant farmer.

One son, Edward Webster, had problems involving a gamekeeper’s daughter near Skipton and was placed on board the RM Reynolds at Ramsgate with £200 and a supply of clean shirts: his stepbrother was ordered to remain on the dockside to ensure that he didn’t leave the vessel before it set sail for Sydney. This proved to be a life-changing experience and he and his successors thrived Down Under: Robert Webster was the minister of state for the Olympics in the NSW state government when Sydney won the bid for the games.

Sir John’s son Sir William Amcotts Ingilby (1783-1854) was the product of a broken home, and a great eccentric. He was a drinker, gambler and general reprobate: he became an MP, as many such people do. He was a leading Whig, and an outspoken supporter of the reform Act of 1832. His dress sense was spectacularly awful ‘’As to your friend, Sir William Ingilby I am told by a lady who saw him and absolutely took fright at it, that this eccentric baronet walks about Ripley and Ripon too, in his dressing gown, without smalls or loincloth on. The absence of the former was luckily disguised by the wrap of the gown, and is alleged on hearsay: but the naked throat, shirt collar displayed a la Milord Byron, had a striking effect, and produced the scarecrow impression.’ Believing that his tenants and workforce should be well housed in this age of industrial revolution, Sir William demolished the entire village of Ripley and rebuilt it as a model estate village, copying an idea that he had observed in Alsace Lorraine. Instead of a Town Hall, Ripley has a magnificent ‘Hotel de Ville’ – certainly the only one of its kind in England! He died without heir and left the estate to his cousin Henry, telling him that he was doing so because ‘ I don’t believe that you are any longer the canting hypocrite I took you for’. Sir William Ingilby (1829-1918) was a somewhat dictatorial Landlord. He disapproved of alcoholic drink being served on the Sabbath day and closed down the three pubs in the village when the Landlords refused to close on Sundays. The village remained dry for 71 years until the Boar’s Head opened in 1989. When a child ran out of the front door of one of the village houses and startled his horse, causing him to be deposited on the ground in the middle of the Main Street, he prevented further embarrassment by imposing an edict that the villagers should not use their front doors.

Having survived several plagues, invasions, civil wars, wars, religious turbulence, a plot to commit regicide, numerous periods of deep recession and everything else that has befallen this country in the last seven hundred years, the Ingilbys can justifiably breathe a sigh of relief that they have arrived safely at this astonishing landmark. Theirs is a story of how one family has been tossed around in the choppy waters of England’s stormy history – and somehow survived, despite being on the losing side more often than not. The history of the Ingilbys is a microcosm of the history of England and features a cast of extraordinarily brave, foolish, eccentric and courageous characters, black sheep and white. They have gone from high office in the court of kings and queens to running a wedding and conference venue and hotel, but they are still at Ripley and the story continues as they steer their family and business through these challenging times. Sir Thomas and Lady Ingilby have four sons and a daughter. A more detailed history of the family, complete with family trees not just of the Ingilby family but various families that became related to the Ingilbys by marriage over the centuries

I’m taking the MCAT in less than 36 hours and I am so burned out. I figured I could use a study break to make good on at least one of my long-ago ideas I proposed to you guys. Eh, I’m slightly hypocritical, whatever. I’m not making stuff specifically for Flickr anymore, I’m just continuing to collect and expand my collection for my own amusement. At least research backs up my self-serving bias haha.

With the exception of Sandman, most of these guys have been built for months already. I can update this with my signature text labels if anyone would like them.

Once again, credit to the incredibly creative Numbuh1Nerd for inspiring Mr. Terrific’s torso and to Max for the brilliant idea for Mr. Terrific’s right arm. Also to Roman for inspiring the torso for Alan and the head for Hawkman!

MUA and hairstyle:Marina Meboniya

Model:Kseniya

Presidential campaigns bring out the worst in everyone. We forget what we share, what we have in common and we embrace rhetoric with religious fervor. We cling to what we like, what makes us comfortabe, we preach it from our pulpit and breath fire and brimstone about the evils of our enemy, our opponent. We vilify, demonize, find the inevitable flaws (that every human being has). Twist the words, seduce the statistics, ignore all logic and bare-knuckle scream that we're right and you're wrong.

For 3 months we act as if we care about issues and laws and policies. We fight our friends, our family. "You're one of them", "You're full of hate", "You're telling lies". Then for 4 years we ignore that which we found so important. We hypocrites, we band wagoners, we party crashers.

We forget our freedom. We forget our liberty. We forget our purpose, our likeness, our humanity; and sit in a dark basement, hiding from light in the clutter and the mess and things that we store away that don't really matter. We forget that its never as bad as we make. That things always seem worse than they are. That the whole is the sum of its parts.

One of the best horror cards of the 1950s, the classic Curse of the Demon lobby #5, featuring a stunning close-up of the monster; ironically, this scene with the actual demon was added by the producers, over the objections of the film's director, Jacques Tourneur, who wanted to keep the threat more mysterious and unseen.

youtu.be/KcPcJ9ycEu4?t=2m22s Full Feature

This atmospheric British film, about a psychologist investigating a devil worshipping cult, features one of the most memorable creatures to come from horror films of the 1950s. The incredible monster showcased on this frightening one sheet is actually based on a woodcut print from a 1650s book on demonology. And even though the demon appears on this one sheet and in the film, director Jacques Tourneur didn't want to depict it, feeling that the mystery of what it looked like outweighed showing it.

Curse of the Demon / Night of the Demon

Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment

1957/58 / B&W / 1:78 anamorphic 16:9 / 82, 95 min. / Street Date August 13, 2002 / $24.95

Starring Dana Andrews, Peggy Cummins, Niall MacGinnis, Maurice Denham, Athene Seyler

Cinematography Ted Scaife

Production Designer Ken Adam

Special Effects George Blackwell, S.D. Onions, Wally Veevers

Film Editor Michael Gordon

Original Music Clifton Parker

Written by Charles Bennett and Hal E. Chester from the story Casting the Runes by Montague R. James

Produced by Frank Bevis, Hal E. Chester

Directed by Jacques Tourneur

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Savant champions a lot of genre movies but only infrequently does one appear like Jacques Tourneur's superlative Curse of the Demon. It's simply better than the rest -- an intelligent horror film with some very good scares. It occupies a stylistic space that sums up what's best in ghost stories and can hold its own with most any supernatural film ever made. Oh, it's also a great entertainment that never fails to put audiences at the edge of their seats.

What's more, Columbia TriStar has shown uncommon respect for their genre output by including both versions of Curse of the Demon on one disc. Savant has full coverage on the versions and their restoration below, following his thorough and analytical (read: long-winded and anal) coverage of the film itself.

Synopsis:

Dr. John Holden (Dana Andrews), a scientist and professional debunker of superstitious charlatans, arrives in England to help Professor Henry Harrington (Maurice Denham) assault the phony cult surrounding Dr. Julian Karswell (Niall McGinnis). But Harrington has mysteriously died and Holden becomes involved with his niece Joanna (Peggy Cummins), who thinks Karswell had something to do with it. Karswell's 'tricks' confuse the skeptical Holden, but he stubbornly holds on to his conviction that he's " ... not a sucker, like 90% of the human race." That is, until the evidence mounts that Harrington was indeed killed by a demon summoned from Hell, and that Holden is the next intended victim!

The majority of horror films are fantasies in which we accept supernatural ghosts, demons and monsters as part of a deal we've made with the authors: they dress the fantasy in an attractive guise and arrange the variables into an interesting pattern, and we agree to play along for the sake of enjoyment. When it works the movies can resonate with personal meaning. Even though Dracula and Frankenstein are unreal, they are relevant because they're aligned with ideas and themes in our subconscious.

Horror films that seriously confront the no-man's land between rational reality and supernatural belief have a tough time of it. Everyone who believes in God knows that the tug o' war between rationality and faith in our culture has become so clogged with insane belief systems it's considered impolite to dismiss people who believe in flying saucers or the powers of crystals or little glass pyramids. One of Dana Andrews' key lines in Curse of the Demon, defending his dogged skepticism against those urging him to have an open mind, is his retort, "If the world is a dark place ruled by Devils and Demons, we all might as well give up right now." Curse of the Demon balances itself between skepticism and belief with polite English manners, letting us have our fun as it lays its trap. We watch Andrews roll his eyes and scoff at the feeble séance hucksters and the dire warnings of a foolish-looking necromancer. Meanwhile, a whole dark world of horror sneaks up on him. The film's intelligent is such that we're not offended by its advocacy of dark forces or even its literal, in-your-face demon.

The remarkable Curse of the Demon was made in England for Columbia but is gloriously unaffected by that company's zero-zero track record with horror films. Producer Hal E. Chester would seem an odd choice to make a horror classic after producing Joe Palooka films and acting as a criminal punk in dozens of teen crime movies. The obvious strong cards are writer Charles Bennett, the brains behind several classic English Hitchcock pictures (who 'retired' into meaningless bliss writing for schlockmeister Irwin Allen) and Jacques Tourneur, a master stylist who put Val Lewton on the map with Cat People and I Walked With a Zombie. Tourneur made interesting Westerns (Canyon Passage, Great Day in the Morning) and perhaps the most romantic film noir, Out of the Past. By the late '50s he was on what Andrew Sarris in his American Film called 'a commercial downgrade'. The critic lumped Curse of the Demon with low budget American turkeys like The Fearmakers. 1

Put Tourneur with an intelligent script, a decent cameraman and more than a minimal budget and great things could happen. We're used to watching Corman Poe films, English Hammer films and Italian Bavas and Fredas, all the while making excuses for the shortcomings that keep them in the genre ghetto (where they all do quite well, thank you). There's even a veiled resentment against upscale shockers like The Innocents that have resources (money, time, great actors) denied our favorite toilers in the genre realm. Curse of the Demon is above all those considerations. It has name actors past their prime and reasonable production values. Its own studio (at least in America) released it like a genre quickie, double-billed with dreck like The Night the World Exploded and The Giant Claw. They cut it by 13 minutes, changed its title (to ape The Curse of Frankenstein?) and released a poster featuring a huge, slavering demon monster that some believe was originally meant to be barely glimpsed in the film itself. 2

Horror movies can work on more than one level but Curse of the Demon handles several levels and then some. The narrative sets up John Holden as a professional skeptic who raises a smirking eyebrow to the open minds of his colleagues. Unlike most second-banana scientists in horror films, they express divergent points of view. Holden just sees himself as having common sense but his peers are impressed by the consistency of demonological beliefs through history. Maybe they all saw Christensen's Witchcraft through the Ages, which might have served as a primer for author Charles Bennett. Smart dialogue allows Holden to score points by scoffing at the then-current "regression to past lives" scam popularized by the Bridey Murphy craze. 3 While Holden stays firmly rooted to his position, coining smart phrases and sarcastic put-downs of believers, the other scientists are at least willing to consider alternate possibilities. Indian colleague K.T. Kumar (Peter Elliott) keeps his opinion to himself. But when asked, he politely states that he believes entirely in the world of demons! 4

Holden may think he has the truth by the tail but it takes Kindergarten teacher Joanna Harrington (Peggy Cummins of Gun Crazy fame) to show him that being a skeptic doesn't mean ignoring facts in front of one's face. Always ready for a drink (a detail added to tailor the part to Andrews?), Holden spends the first couple of reels as interested in pursuing Miss Harrington, as he is the devil-worshippers. The details and coincidences pile up with alarming speed -- the disappearing ink untraceable by the lab, the visual distortions that might be induced by hypnosis, the pages torn from his date book and the parchment of runic symbols. Holden believes them to be props in a conspiracy to draw him into a vortex of doubt and fear. Is he being set up the way a Voodoo master cons his victim, by being told he will die, with fabricated clues to make it all appear real? Holden even gets a bar of sinister music stuck in his head. It's the title theme -- is this a wicked joke on movie soundtracks?

Speak of the Devil...

This brings us to the wonderful character of Julian Karswell, the kiddie-clown turned multi-millionaire cult leader. The man who launched Alfred Hitchcock as a maker of sophisticated thrillers here creates one of the most interesting villains ever written, one surely as good as any of Hitchcock's. In the short American cut Karswell is a shrewd games-player who shows Holden too many of his cards and finally outsmarts himself. The longer UK cut retains the full depth of his character.

Karswell has tapped into the secrets of demonology to gain riches and power, yet he tragically recognizes that he is as vulnerable to the forces of Hell as are the cowering minions he controls through fear. Karswell's coven means business. It's an entirely different conception from the aesthetic salon coffee klatch of The Seventh Victim, where nothing really supernatural happens and the only menace comes from a secret society committing new crimes to hide old ones.

Karswell keeps his vast following living in fear, and supporting his extravagant lifestyle under the idea that Evil is Good, and Good Evil. At first the Hobart Farm seems to harbor religious Christian fundamentalists who have turned their backs on their son. Then we find out that they're Karswell followers, living blighted lives on cursed acreage and bled dry by their cultist "leader." Karswell's mum (Athene Seyler) is an inversion of the usual insane Hitchcock mother. She lovingly resists her son's philosophy and actively tries to help the heroes. That's in the Night version, of course. In the shorter American cut she only makes silly attempts to interest Joanna in her available son and arranges for a séance. Concerned by his "negativity", Mother confronts Julian on the stairs. He has no friends, no wife, no family. He may be a mass extortionist but he's still her baby. Karswell explains that by exploiting his occult knowledge, he's immersed himself forever in Evil. "You get nothing for nothing"

Karswell is like the Devil on Earth, a force with very limited powers that he can't always control. By definition he cannot trust any of his own minions. They're unreliable, weak and prone to double-cross each other, and they attract publicity that makes a secret society difficult to conceal. He can't just kill Holden, as he hasn't a single henchman on the payroll. He instead summons the demon, a magic trick he's only recently mastered. When Karswell turns Harrington away in the first scene we can sense his loneliness. The only person who can possibly understand is right before him, finally willing to admit his power and perhaps even tolerate him. Karswell has no choice but to surrender Harrington over to the un-recallable Demon. In his dealings with the cult-debunker Holden, Karswell defends his turf but is also attempting to justify himself to a peer, another man who might be a potential equal. It's more than a duel of egos between a James Bond and a Goldfinger, with arrogance and aggression masking a mutual respect; Karswell knows he's taken Lewton's "wrong turning in life," and will have to pay for it eventually.

Karswell eventually earns Holden's respect, especially after the fearful testimony of Rand Hobart. It's taken an extreme demonstration to do it, but Holden budges from his smug position. He may not buy all of the demonology hocus-pocus but it's plain enough that Karswell or his "demon" is going to somehow rub him out. Seeking to sneak the parchment back into Karswell's possession, Holden becomes a worthy hero because he's found the maturity to question his own preconceptions. Armed with his rational, cool head, he's a force that makes Karswell -- without his demon, of course -- a relative weakling. Curse of the Demon ends in a classic ghost story twist, with just desserts dished out and balance recovered. The good characters are less sure of their world than when they started, but they're still able to cope. Evil has been defeated not by love or faith, but by intellect.

Curse of the Demon has the Val Lewton sensibility as has often been cited in Tourneur's frequent (and very effective) use of the device called the Lewton "Bus" -- a wholly artificial jolt of fast motion and noise interrupting a tense scene. There's an ultimate "bus" at the end when a train blasts in and sets us up for the end title. It "erases" the embracing actors behind it and I've always thought it had to be an inspiration for the last shot of North by NorthWest. The ever-playful Hitchcock was reportedly a big viewer of fantastic films, from which he seems to have gotten many ideas. He's said to have dined with Lewton on more than one occasion (makes sense, they were at one time both Selznick contractees) and carried on a covert competition with William Castle, of all people.

Visually, Tourneur's film is marvelous, effortlessly conjuring menacing forests lit in the fantastic Mario Bava mode by Ted Scaife, who was not known as a genre stylist. There are more than a few perfunctory sets, with some unflattering mattes used for airport interiors, etc.. Elsewhere we see beautiful designs by Ken Adam in one of his earliest outings. Karswell's ornate floor and central staircase evoke an Escher print, especially when visible/invisible hands appear on the banister. A hypnotic, maze-like set for a hotel corridor is also tainted by Escher and evokes a sense of the uncanny even better than the horrid sounds Holden hears. The build-up of terror is so effective that one rather unconvincing episode (a fight with a Cat People - like transforming cat) does no harm. Other effects, such as the demon footprints appearing in the forest, work beautifully.

In his Encyclopedia of Horror Movies Phil Hardy very rightly relates Curse of the Demon's emphasis on the visual to the then just-beginning Euro-horror subgenre. The works of Bava, Margheriti and Freda would make the photographic texture of the screen the prime element of their films, sometimes above acting and story logic.

Columbia TriStar's DVD of Curse of the Demon / Night of the Demon presents both versions of this classic in one package. American viewers saw an effective but abbreviated cut-down. If you've seen Curse of the Demon on cable TV or rented a VHS or a laser anytime after 1987, you're not going to see anything different in the film. In 1987 Columbia happened to pull out the English cut when it went to re-master. When the title came up as Night of the Demon, they just slugged in the Curse main title card and let it go.

From such a happy accident (believe me, nobody in charge at Columbia at the time would have purposely given a film like this a second glance) came a restoration at least as wonderful as the earlier reversion of The Fearless Vampire Killers to its original form. Genre fans were taken by surprise and the Laserdisc became a hot item that often traded for hundreds of dollars. 6

Back in film school Savant had been convinced that ever seeing the long, original Night cut was a lost cause. An excellent article in the old Photon magazine in the early '70s 5, before such analytical work was common, accurately laid out the differences between the two versions, something Savant needs to do sometime with The Damned and These Are the Damned. The Photon article very accurately describes the cut scenes and what the film lost without them, and certainly inspired many of the ideas here.

Being able to see the two versions back-to-back shows exactly how they differ. Curse omits some scenes and rearranges others. Gone is some narration from the title sequence, most of the airplane ride, some dialogue on the ground with the newsmen and several scenes with Karswell talking to his mother. Most crucially missing are Karswell's mother showing Joanna the cabalistic book everyone talks so much about and Holden's entire visit to the Hobart farm to secure a release for his examination of Rand Hobart. Of course the cut film still works (we loved the cut Curse at UCLA screenings and there are people who actually think it's better) but it's nowhere near as involving as the complete UK version. Curse also reshuffles some events, moving Holden's phantom encounter in the hallway nearer the beginning, which may have been to get a spooky scene in the middle section or to better disguise the loss of whole scenes later. The chop-job should have been obvious. The newly imposed fades and dissolves look awkward. One cut very sloppily happens right in the middle of a previous dissolve.

Night places both Andrews and Cummins' credits above the title and gives McGinnis an "also starring" credit immediately afterwards. Oddly, Curse sticks Cummins afterwards and relegates McGinnis to the top of the "also with" cast list. Maybe with his role chopped down, some Columbia executive thought he didn't deserve the billing?

Technically, both versions look just fine, very sharp and free of digital funk that would spoil the film's spooky visual texture. Night of the Demon is the version to watch for both content and quality. It's not perfect but has better contrast and less dirt than the American version. Curse has more emulsion scratches and flecking white dandruff in its dark scenes, yet looks fine until one sees the improvement of Night. Both shows are widescreen enhanced (hosanna), framing the action at its original tighter aspect ratio.

It's terrific that Columbia TriStar has brought out this film so thoughtfully, even though some viewers are going to be confused when their "double feature" disc appears to be two copies of the same movie. Let 'em stew. This is Savant's favorite release so far this year.

On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, Curse of the Demon / Night of the Demon rates:

Movie: Excellent

Footnotes:

Made very close to Curse of the Demon and starring Dana Andrews, The Fearmakers (great title) was a Savant must-see until he caught up with it in the UA collection at MGM. It's a pitiful no-budgeter that claims Madison Avenue was providing public relations for foreign subversives, and is negligible even in the lists of '50s anti-Commie films.

Return

Curse of the Demon's Demon has been the subject of debate ever since the heyday of Famous Monsters of Filmland. From what's on record it's clear that producer Chester added or maximized the shots of the creature, a literal visualization of a fiery, brimstone-smoking classical woodcut demon that some viewers think looks ridiculous. Bennett and Tourneur's original idea was to never show a demon but the producer changed that. Tourneur probably directed most of the shots, only to have Chester over-use them. To Savant's thinking, the demon looks great. It is first perceived as an ominous sound, a less strident version of the disturbing noise made by Them! Then it manifests itself visually as a strange disturbance in the sky (bubbles? sparks? early slit-scan?) followed by a billowing cloud of sulphurous smoke (a dandy effect not exploited again until Close Encounters of the Third Kind). The long-shot demon is sometimes called the bicycle demon because he's a rod puppet with legs that move on a wheel-rig. Smoke belches from all over his scaly body. Close-ups are provided by a wonderfully sculpted head 'n' shoulders demon with articulated eyes and lips, a full decade or so before Carlo Rambaldi started engineering such devices.

Most of the debate centers on how much Demon should have been shown with the general consensus that less would have been better. People who dote on Lewton-esque ambivalence say that the film's slow buildup of rationality-versus demonology is destroyed by the very real Demon's appearance in the first scene, and that's where they'd like it removed or radically reduced. The Demon is so nicely integrated into the cutting (the giant foot in the first scene is a real jolt) that it's likely that Tourneur himself filmed it all, perhaps expecting the shots to be shorter or more obscured. It is also possible that the giant head was a post-Tourneur addition - it doesn't tie in with the other shots as well (especially when it rolls forward rather stiffly) and is rather blunt. Detractors lump it in with the gawd-awful head of The Black Scorpion, which is filmed the same way and almost certainly was an afterthought - and also became a key poster image. This demon head matches the surrounding action a lot better than did the drooling Scorpion.

Savant wouldn't change Curse of the Demon but if you put a gun to my head I'd shorten most of the shots in its first appearance, perhaps eliminating all close-ups except for the final, superb shot of the the giant claw reaching for Harrington / us.

Kumar, played (I assume) by an Anglo actor, immediately evokes all those Indian and other Third World characters in Hammer films whose indigenous cultures invariably hold all manner of black magic and insidious horror. When Hammer films are repetitious it's because they take eighty minutes or so to convince the imagination-challenged English heroes to even consider the premise of the film as being real. In Curse of the Demon, Holden's smart-tongued dismissal of outside viewpoints seems much more pigheaded now than it did in 1957, when heroes confidently defended conformist values without being challenged. Kumar is a scientist but also probably a Hindu or a Sikh. He has no difficulty reconciling his faith with his scientific detachment. Holden is far too tactful to call Kumar a crazy third-world guru but that's probably what he's thinking. He instead politely ignores him. Good old Kumar then saves Holden's hide with some timely information. I hope Holden remembered to thank him.

There's an unstated conclusion in Curse of the Demon: Holden's rigid disbelief of the supernatural means he also does not believe in a Christian God with its fundamentally spiritual faith system of Good and Evil, saints and devils, angels and demons. Horror movies that deal directly with religious symbolism and "real faith" can be hypocritical in their exploitation and brutal in their cheap toying with what are for many people sacred personal concepts. I'm thinking of course of The Exorcist here. That movie has all the grace of a reporter who shows a serial killer's atrocity photos to a mother whose child has just been kidnapped. Curse of the Demon hasn't The Exorcist's ruthless commercial instincts but instead has the modesty not to pretend to be profound, or even "real." Yet it expresses our basic human conflict between rationality and faith very nicely.

Savant called Jim Wyrnoski, who was associated with Photon, in an effort to find out more about the article, namely who wrote it. It was very well done and I've never forgotten it; I unfortunately loaned my copy out to good old Jim Ursini and it disappeared. Obviously, a lot of the ideas here, I first read there. Perhaps a reader who knows better how to take care of their belongings can help me with the info? Ursini and Alain Silvers' More Things than are Dreamt Of Limelight, 1994, analyzes Curse of the Demon (and many other horror movies) in the context of its source story.

This is a true story: Cut to 2000. Columbia goes to re-master Curse of the Demon and finds that the fine-grain original of the English version is missing. The original long version of the movie may be lost forever. A few months later a collector appears who says he bought it from another unnamed collector and offers to trade it for a print copy of the American version, which he prefers. Luckily, an intermediary helps the collector follow up on his offer and the authorities are not contacted about what some would certainly call stolen property. The long version is now once again safe. Studios clearly need to defend their property but many collectors have "items" they personally have acquired legally. More often than you might think, such finds come about because studios throw away important elements. If the studios threaten prosecution, they will find that collectors will never approach them. They'd probably prefer to destroy irreplaceable film to avoid being criminalized.

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 1602, 1961. Honor Blackman in The Delavine Affair (Douglas Peirce, 1954).

Yesterday, 6 April 2020, British actress Honor Blackman (1925-2020) passed away at the age of 94. She was best known for playing the Bond girl Pussy Galore opposite Sean Connery in Goldfinger (1964). Blackman became a household name in the 1960s as Cathy Gale in The Avengers in which she showed an extraordinary combination of beauty, brains and physical prowess. After a career spanning eight decades, she died of natural causes unrelated to coronavirus.

Honor Blackman was born one of four children of a middle-class family in London's East End. Her father, Frederick Blackman, was a civil service statistician. For her 15th birthday, her parents gave her acting lessons and she began her training at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 1940. Blackman received her first acting work on stage in London's West End as an understudy for 'The Guinea Pig'. She continued with roles in 'The Gleam' (1946) and 'The Blind Goddess' (1947), before moving into film. She debuted with Fame Is the Spur (1947), starring Michael Redgrave. Signed up with the Rank Organisation, Blackman joined several other starlet hopefuls who were being groomed for greater fame. She played small roles in the anthology film Quartet (Ken Annakin, Arthur Crabtree, Harold French, Ralph Smart, 1948), based on short stories by W. Somerset Maugham, the thriller So Long at the Fair (Terence Fisher, Antony Darnborough,1950), with Dirk Bogarde, and the Titanic drama A Night to Remember (Roy Ward Baker, 1958). Developing a solid footing, she filmed The Square Peg (John Paddy Carstairs, 1958) with comedian Norman Wisdom and A Matter of WHO (Don Chaffey, 1961) with Terry-Thomas. On television, she played in the Edgar Wallace vigilante series The Four Just Men (1959-1960). She secured her breakthrough when she was cast in 1962 as the leather-clad crimefighter Cathy Gale in the hit British show The Avengers (1962-1964), alongside Patrick Macnee as the bowler-hatted John Steed. Blackman had to learn judo for the role, and her tough persona allied to then daring costume choices – boots and figure-hugging catsuits – ensured she quickly assumed star status. One of its unlikely results was a hit single, 'Kinky Boots', recorded in 1964 with Macnee, which became a Top 10 hit in the U.K. in 1990. Blackman’s proficiency in martial arts helped her land what became her signature role, that of Pussy Galore, the glamorous villain assisting in Goldfinger’s plot to rob Fort Knox. Goldfinger (Guy Hamilton, 1964) was the third Bond film and was a global hit. Gary Brumburgh at IMDb: "Blackman went toe to toe with Sean Connery's womanizing "007" and created major sparks on screen, managing to outclass the (wink-wink) double meaning of her character's name."

After her rise to mainstream fame, Honor Blackman made noticeable appearances in such films as Jason and the Argonauts (Don Chaffey, 1963) as the vengeful goddess Hera, the Western Shalako (Edward Dmytryk, 1968) and The Virgin and the Gypsy (Christopher Miles, 1970) with Franco Nero. Simon Murphy and Andrew Pulver in The Guardian: "while she worked steadily in film, her TV work was higher profile, and included guest appearances in Columbo, Minder and Doctor Who. In 1990, she was cast in a regular role in the ITV sitcom The Upper Hand, playing the glamorous mother of the lead female character. Blackman expressed her fondness for the role, saying it “made women who had just retired and felt they’d been put on the backburner realise they had a lot of life left to live”." She earned raves on stage as the blind heroine of the thriller 'Wait Until Dark' as well as for her dual roles in 'Mr. and Mrs.', a production based on two of Noël Coward's plays. She also appeared on stage in The Sound of Music (1981), My Fair Lady (2005-2006) and Cabaret (2007). She was a staunch republican and turned down a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 2002 to avoid being a “hypocrite”. More recently, she joined a campaign to demand compensation payments for pensioners who lost savings in the Equitable Life scandal. Honor Blackman was married to Bill Sankey from 1948 to 1956. After their divorce, she married British actor Maurice Kaufmann (1961–1975). They appeared together in the slasher film Fright (Peter Collinson, 1971) and some stage productions. They adopted two children, Lottie (1967) and Barnaby (1968). After her divorce from Kaufmann, she did not remarry and stated that she preferred being single. She enjoyed watching football. Blackman died at her home in Lewes in 2020, aged 94, from natural causes.

Sources: Simon Murphy and Andrew Pulver (The Guardian), Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

it tooks half month

The Future Of Drag Racing, Anti-Drag Racism & Bigotry, And Fibbing. Is It George Santos & The Republicans?! - IMRAN™

There have been huge liars in every phase of history. But a bigger fibber always come around.

Just like previous dumbest American President George W. Bush was thrilled that Trump came on the scene to be the dumbest ever, and worst ever, person to be in the White House, the biggest liar Donald Trump is relieved that an even bigger liar, Republican Congressman George Santos, is in the limelight.

Not only is George Santos so full of $#!T in the stories he tells about himself, the irony is how much a source of amusement his real life & his lies to deny the actual truth are. Easiest source of comedy bits in modern history, even counting the Donny Drumpf presence in society.

As always, Republicans have been showing their hate of gays and others, especially by targeting drag-queens with their vitriolic attacks. Ironic now they are defending Santos, a known liar AND a known drag queen!

When I saw a drag racing video clip in my newsfeed recently, the caption on it made me laugh. I would not be surprised if George Santos claims to the champion of drag racing. Meanwhile, current Republicans are masters of anti-drag / racism.

© 2023 IMRAN™

#cars, #dragracing, #entertainment, #GerorgeSantos, #IMHO, #IMRAN, #InMyHumbleOpinion, #liars, #Meme, #politics, #Republicans, #traitors, #wordplay, #irony, #hypocrites, #NoShame,

L'Origine du monde was painted in an era when moral values were being questioned. By the very nature of its realistic, graphic eroticism, the painting still has the power to shock.

During the 19th century, the display of the nude body underwent a revolution whose main activists were Courbet and Manet. Courbet rejected academic painting and its smooth, idealized nudes, but he also directly recriminated the hypocritical social conventions of the Second Empire, where eroticism and even pornography were acceptable in mythological paintings.

Courbet later insisted he never lied in his paintings, and his realism pushed the limits of what was considered presentable. With L'Origine du monde he has made even more explicit the eroticism of Manet's Olympia. Maxime Du Camp, in a harsh tirade, reported his visit of the work's purchaser, and his sight of a painting "giving realism's last word".

The commission for L'Origine du monde is believed to have come from Khalil-Bey, a Turkish diplomat, former ambassador of the Ottoman Empire in Athens and Saint Petersburg who had just moved to Paris. Sainte-Beuve introduced him to Courbet and he ordered a painting to add to his personal collection of erotic pictures, which already included Le Bain turc (The Turkish Bath) from Ingres and another painting by Courbet, Les Dormeuses (The Sleepers), for which it is supposed that Hiffernan was one of the models.

After Khalil-Bey's finances were ruined by gambling, the painting subsequently passed through a series of private collections. It was first bought during the sale of the Khalil-Bey collection in 1868, by antique dealer Antoine de la Narde. Edmond de Goncourt hit upon it in an antique shop 1889, hidden behind a wooden pane decorated with the painting of a castle or a church in a snowy landscape. According to Robert Fernier, Hungarian collector Baron Ferenc Hatvany bought it at the Bernheim-Jeune gallery in 1910 and took it with him to Budapest. Towards the end of the Second World War the painting was looted by Soviet troops but ransomed by Hatvany who when he emigrated was allowed to take only one art work with him, and he took L'Origine to Paris.

In 1955 L'Origine du monde was sold at auction for 1.5 million francs. Its new owner was the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. Together with his wife, actress Sylvia Bataille, he installed it in their country house in Guitrancourt. Lacan asked André Masson, his stepbrother, to build a double bottom frame and draw another picture thereon. Masson painted a surrealist, allusive version of L'Origine du monde. The New York public had the opportunity to admire L'Origine du monde in 1988 during the Courbet Reconsidered show at the Brooklyn Museum; the painting was also included in the exhibition Gustave Courbet at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2008. After Lacan died in 1981, the French Minister of Economy and Finances agreed to settle the family's inheritance tax bill through the transfer of the work (dation en lieu in French law) to the Musée d'Orsay, an act which was finalized in 1995.

St Mary, Woolpit, Suffolk

Woolpit is perhaps the most perfect of all Suffolk villages. Not particularly sleepy, and only a little chocolate boxy, but somewhere people actually actually live in. Its shops and pubs are arranged around the pleasant village square, and Phipson's crazy spire towers above them. Woolpit still has its school, and you wouldn't need to get in the car every time you needed to go shopping, as you'd have to do in some of Suffolk's more famously picturesque villages, like Kersey, Rattlesden and Tuddenham. Further, Woolpit has its mythology; the two green children, who climbed out of the ground, speaking a strange language and afraid of the sunlight. The boy died soon after, but the girl grew up and married; she learned to speak English, and told of St Martin's Land, from where she and her brother had emerged. There are holes in the ground around Woolpit, quarries where bricks were made in the 19th century. But perhaps there was once something much older, for every Suffolk schoolchild knows that the name 'Woolpit' is nothing to do with wool, but with the wolves that once haunted the pits here...

Your first sight of St Mary will be Phipson's crazy spire, visible from miles away, and quite unlike anything else in East Anglia. Suffolk is a county where spires are rare enough anyway. From the far side of the Gipping valley you can see this one and two others, piercing the soft harvest mist in autumn. They are Phipson's equally absurd Great Finborough, and the 1990s blade of St Peter and St Mary, Stowmarket. There are only about a dozen more in the whole of the county. The excuse for this one was that the tower was struck by lightning in 1852, bringing down the previous lead and timber affair (presumably like the one at Hadleigh). The font is contemporary with the tower, suggesting that the old one was destroyed by the fall.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the artist John Piper produced a series of screen prints of aspects of Suffolk churches; for most, he used the fine perpendicular tower, ramifying it in bold Festival of Britain primary colours. But for Woolpit, he chose the porch, because it is Suffolk's finest. Cautley thought it the best in all England. It is two-storey, 15th century, contemporary with the nave. Mortlock tells us that they were both built by wealthy Bury Abbey, who owned the living here. As at Beccles, it rises way above the south aisle, tower-like in itself.

A rood group of niches surmounts the shields of East Anglia above the door. More flank them. Mortlock says that the work began in the early 1430s, and the niches were filled by a bequest of 1473, suggesting that the porch was forty years in the making. The south aisle and chancel are slightly earlier, the north aisle slightly later, so it is the nave that promises us great things, and doesn't disappoint.

You step into cool darkness, and look up. It is breathtaking. This is Suffolk's most perfectly restored angel hammerbeam roof. It may not have the drama of Mildenhall, the exquisiteness of Blythburgh, the sheer mathematics of Needham Market, but it shows us in detail more than any other what the medieval imagination was aiming at, the summa cum laude of the genre. From the still, small silence of the church floor below, you look up into a great shout of praise. Here are hundreds of figures, both angelic and human. The profusion is ordered, as if some mighty hymn were in progress.

Perhaps it is a representation of the Te Deum Laudamus: We praise thee, O God, we acknowledge thee to be the Lord... To thee all Angels cry aloud, the Heavens, and all the Powers therein. To thee Cherubim and Seraphim continually do cry Holy Holy Holy Lord God of Sabaoth... The glorious company of the Apostles praise thee, the goodly fellowship of the Prophets praise thee, the noble army of Martyrs praise thee...

The wallposts contain Saints, some with apostolic symbols, some with books, and some with martyr's palms. There are angels on the hammerbeams above, and bearing symbols below. John Blatchly counted 128 angels alone. Some of the shields have letters on them. Are they an acrostic, as on the east chancel wall at Blythburgh? Do they indicate individual Saints? The great Henry Ringham completely restored this roof in 1862, but Mortlock thinks that one of the angels is not his, and I agree - you'll find it in the south west corner.

Henry Ringham also restored the range of bench ends, by duplicating some of the medieval ones, as he did at Great Bealings and Tuddenham St Martin. All are rendered with his customary skill. If Ringham did restore this roof, then the imagery must have been destroyed at some point. One instinctively thinks of William Dowsing, the Puritan inspector of the churches of Cambridgeshire and Suffolk, who progressed across the counties during the course of 1644. His naked delight in the destruction of angel roofs was matched only by that at the destruction of stained glass.

And Dowsing did visit this church. He arrived here in the afternoon of February 29th 1644. It was a Thursday, and he had come here across country from Helmingham, where he had found much to do. He also planned to visit Beyton that day, but in the end stayed overnight at the Bull hotel, and inspected All Saints there in the morning. He then rested for the weekend - the following week, he had a busy tour of southern Cambridgeshire ahead of him.

Dowsing records in great detail what he found to do at each church. In the case of Woolpit, the angel roof is the Dog That Didn't Bark: My Deputy. 80 superstitious pictures; some he brake down, and the rest he gave order to take down; and three crosses to be taken down in 20 days. 8s 6d. There are only two possible reasons why Dowsing doesn't mention the roof. Either he didn't notice it (extremely unlikely) or it had already been destroyed. This second option seems certain; mid-Suffolk was a strongly protestant area, and nearby Rougham, which clearly had a similar roof, was not visited by Dowsing, but was vandalised even more comprehensively than Woolpit. Most likely, the destruction at both churches dated from a hundred years earlier than Dowsing's visit, although it is possible that the Rougham and Woolpit congregations had been puritan enough in the 1630s to do it to their own churches themselves.

Beneath the roof, the church is broad, its two aisles giving room for the panoply of medieval liturgical processions. At the east end of the south aisle was once the shrine of Our Lady of Woolpit, a site of medieval pilgrimage in connection with a nearby holy well. Apart from the front rows, many of the benches appear to be in their original positions. Some of the bench ends are 15th century, others are Ringham's 19th century copies. I wandered around the medieval bench ends, running my hands over them, crouching down and engaging them, face to face. For anyone educated in a Marxist or Weberian historical tradition, as most of my generation were, interpreting the less-obviously liturgical or theological features of a medieval church is fraught with difficulties. One possibility is to do a Cautley, and try not to interpret them at all. But it is more fun to try to do so, don't you think?

The bench ends of Woolpit are remarkable for their abundance. They are not representations of sacraments, virtues and vices as at Tannington and elsewhere, or Saints as at Ufford and Athelington. They are almost all non-allegorical animals, although not the art objects we find at Stowlangtoft, or the mysterious beasts of Lakenheath. Perhaps a good comparison is the similar body of work at nearby Combs. Indeed, although they do not appear to be from the same workshop, it is likely that their creators knew of each others' work. There are dogs, with geese hanging from their mouths, and another which may be a cat with a rat or lizard. There are lions and bears, and a chained monkey, and birds in profusion. So who did them, and why are they here?

There is one school of thought that says that they are simply there to beautify the church, and that they were made by local craftsmen doing what they were best at. If they could do lions, they did lions. If they could render a decent rabbit, then that is what they did. And so on.

But I think that there is rather more to it than that. On a recent journey down through France, I had spent an afternoon in one of my favourite towns, Autun, in Burgundy. One of the reasons I like Autun is its 11th century Cathedral of St-Lazaire; this is Lazurus, raised by Christ from the dead, and until the 18th century his relics were venerated at a shrine here. St-Lazaire is most famous for its great tympanum above the west door, generally recognised as one of the greatest Romanesque art treasures in the world, and with International Heritage status. It was created during the middle years of the 12th century, and shows the Last Judgement. To emphasise Christ's majesty over all the world, it features all manner of beasts, domestic, wild and mythical.

Throughout the Cathedral, animals infest the famous capitals, which tell the Gospel story. Abbe Denis Grivot, in his Un Bestiaire de la Cathedrale D'Autun (Lyon, 1973) argues that the 12th century creators of all this filled it with animals to echo the final verse of the 150th Psalm, the crowning point of that great sequence of hymns of praise: Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord!

Standing in the nave at Autun, I instantly recalledthe theory that the roof at Woolpit was intended as a representation of the Te Deum Laudamus. The Te Deum is one of the canticles; another is the Benedicite, traditionally sung through Lent: Oh all ye Works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord; praise him and magnify him for ever... O ye whales, and all that move in the Waters, bless ye the Lord... O all ye Fowls of the air, bless ye the Lord... O all ye beasts and Cattle, bless ye the Lord: praise him, and magnify him for ever! Could it be that the bench ends at Woolpit, and elsewhere in Suffolk, were intended to reflect and represent the praise defined in the canticles and psalms? Both would have been central to the liturgy of the medieval Catholic church. Perhaps the bench ends of Woolpit are liturgical and theological after all.

How would a carpenter, or group of carpenters, go about creating a set of benches like the ones at Woolpit? Who were they? Almost certainly, they were locals. They might have been itinerant jobbing carpenters, but I don't think so. The bench ends at adjacent Tostock are clearly by the same hand. But those at nearby Stowlangtoft and Norton are not, and a third hand seems to be responsible for those at Combs, as I previously mentioned. I do not think that the mutilated ones at Rougham and Elmswell are either; they were probably from the same workshop as each other.

So, we have a conscious attempt by skilled members of a community to create a hymn of praise in carved oak, by representing as many beasts as they felt capable of making. Where did they get their ideas from? They would have had no problems with oxen, cocks, conies - these were all around them, in their daily lives. The person who carved the hunting dog here was very familiar with it. Perhaps it was his own. What about monkeys and lions? These are more problematic. In medieval bestiaries, exotic creatures had fabulous legends attached to them, which gave them a theological symbolism.

But this symbolism doesn't usually seem intended when we see them on bench ends. Sometimes they are rendered accurately, but more often wild animals are fairly imaginary; I think particularly of Barningham's camel, and Hadleigh's wolf. It isn't enough to say that the carvers could have seen pictures of exotic beasts. This is fairly unlikely. Probably, the ordinary people of Woolpit never saw a book other than the missals, lectionaries and hagiographies used in church.

They might have seen pictures of lions and monkeys in wall paintings, either in other churches or here at Woolpit. They might have seen them carved in bench ends, for the same reason. In fact, the representation of wild animals varies so much as to suggest that this is not the case - compare, for example, the lions of Combs with those of Stowlangtoft. Probably, they were created in the imagination from descriptions and attributes in stories. But I think that there is a strong possibility that the woodcarvers of Woolpit did see lions and monkeys in real life.

In Catholic Southern Europe there are many remote small towns which, by virtue of being so very far from each other, take on a rich and complex life of their own. Even small villages have their shops, their craftsmen, their tradespeople; they replicate a situation that existed in Suffolk until well into the 19th century, and in some cases beyond, before the great industrialisation and easy transport swept it away. Further, there are traditions here still that we have lost. Whenever I come to rural southern Europe I am fascinated by the itinerant entertainers, who move from village to village, giving a single performance before moving on. This must also once have been true of England. The thing that fascinates me most is the multitude of small family circuses.

Many of them seem to be of Italian or Romany origin; all family members have multiple roles, from the oldest grandparent to the youngest child, selling tickets, doing acrobatics, being the straight men to the clown (who is typically Grandpa). They all put up the tent before the performance, and take it down afterwards. They move on, through the remote hills of Provence and the Languedoc, performing on village greens, wastegrounds, the corners of fields, even traffic islands.

Performing animals are still often chosen for their curiosity value, if you can call running around in a circle to the crack of a whip 'performing', poor things. The choices are strange indeed; camels and zebras often feature; I have seen an old bear on a chain, and at one circus in remote Languedoc a hippopotamus of all things - it caught bread thrown by the crowd. There was no safety fence between the seats and the ring, no Health and Safety Executive to penetrate these lost valleys. I do not know if such circuses existed in medieval Suffolk. But I think that they probably did. Suffolk is a maritime county, and exotic animals were widely known and exhibited in medieval Europe. Before the Protestant Reformation cut us of from the mainland, clerics and merchants thought of themselves as European, and travelled widely - English sovereignty was a hazy concept at best, and 'Britishness' was still centuries away from being formulated as an idea. People owed allegiance to their husband or wife, their village, their parish, and their lord, not to the Crown and Parliament in London.

Were the woodcarvers of Woolpit and Tostock remembering this? A circus visit, perhaps back in their childhood? Exotic animals rendered inaccurately, to be sure, but with an enthusiastic nostalgia for that exciting moment in their lives? Was there a lion? A monkey, or a bear? How much more powerful if they also knew the fabulous legends about the beasts - and had seen them in real life!

Some of the carvings at Woolpit are allegorical. One shows a monkey dressed in monk's robes. This, I think, is a joke at the expense of the itinerant friars who went from parish to parish, preaching repentance in the streets. They were sanctioned by the Pope, but were beyond the jurisdiction of the local Bishop. They didn't always go down well with the local Priest and congregation, who considered the Friars nosey and hypocritical. A monkey is often a symbol of foolish vanity - hence, a Friar thinking he was better than anyone else. What better way to make the point than to slip him in as one of the creatures praising the Lord?

How did they survive? But why should they have been destroyed? We make the mistake of thinking of the Puritans as vandals. But the more you read about William Dowsing, the more he emerges as being a principled, conservative kind of chap, despite his fundamentalist theological opinions. He had no reason to destroy animal bench ends. They weren't superstitious - even Dowsing didn't think Catholics worshipped animals. If he didn't think they were meant to represent the canticles, he wouldn't even have considered them religious. Amen to that.

So much for the 17th century. What about the 19th? St Mary is one of the most enthusiastically restored of Suffolk's churches, despite its surviving medieval detail. But it was done well. Mortlock thought that the 19th century pulpit was the work of Ringham - but the brass lectern is pre-Reformation, a fine example. The rood screen dado panels have sentimental 19th century Saints on them, that may or may not duplicate what was there before. They are actually very good, particularly the gorgeous Mary of Magdala. They have their names painted on the cross beams for the less hagiologically articulate Victorians - from left to right across the aisle they are Saints Barbara, Felix, Mary of Magdala, Peter, Paul, Mary, Edmund and Etheldreda. It is unlikely that Saint Felix would have been on a medieval roodscreen, and Mary almost certainly wasn't - it would have relegated her to a position of no more importance than the others. If it reflects anything of what was there before, it was probably St Anne with the infant Virgin.

The top part of the screen was renewed in 1750, and dated so. The gates are probably a Laudian imposition of 120 years earlier, as at Kedington. This may suggest that, by the time of Dowsing's visit, the chancel was being used for some other practical purpose. Above, high above, set in the east nave wall over the chancel arch, is one of the weirdest objects I've seen in a medieval church. It was installed in the 1870s, and is clearly meant to echo the coving of a rood loft. Goodness knows what it actually is, but it is painted in garish colours, and inscribed with texts. In one of those moments where Cautley and credibility part company, he describes anyone who doesn't think it is a genuine medieval canopy of honour as 'stupid'. I suppose that it has a certain curiosity value.

The three-light window above it would have given light to the rood. The east window contains one of Suffolk's best modern Madonna and child images which was made by the artist Ian Keen for the King workshop in the early 1960s. Ian Keen was also responsible for the beautiful St Margaret in St Margaret's church in Norwich, and for the memorable window of St Francis with a labrador at Somerleyton near Lowestoft.

I turned back westwards, past a superb medieval bench end of the three Marys. This is a delight, and you'd travel to London to see it if it was in the V&A. Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary the mother of James and Mary of Magdala huddle together, perhaps on the morning of the Resurrection. One of them has a lily of the Annunciation. One head is destroyed - but was it vandalised? Or is it the result of carelessness, the wear and tear of the centuries? Would 17th century puritans have destroyed it if they'd seen it?

Dowsing rarely mentions bench ends, so perhaps few were left by then anyway. So how could it possibly have survived the violent zeal of the 16th century Protestants, battering the Church of England into existence with their axes, pikes and bonfires? How, even after the 1547 edict which ordered the destruction of all statues and images of Saints, especially those of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is it still there at all?

“Now people are dying we’ve got nothing else to live for. What needs to happen is for the killing to stop. But that won’t happen until he [Gaddafi] is out. We just want to be able to live like human beings. Nothing will happen until protests really kick off in Tripoli, the capital. It’s like a pressure cooker. People are boiling up inside. I’m not even afraid any more. Once I wouldn’t have spoken at all by phone. Now I don’t care. Now enough is enough.”

These are the words of a young woman in Libya — a student , a blogger and a member of the youth protest movement in Libya that is part of a growing uprising against the tyrannical 41-year reign of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. Speaking to the Guardian by phone from her home on the outskirts of Benghazi, the eastern city where the revolution in Libya began just six days ago, and where hundreds of protestors have been killed by Gaddafi’s security forces, she said, “I’ve seen violent movies and video games that are nothing compared to this. I can hear gunshots, helicopters circling overhead, then I hear the voices screaming. I can hear the screeching of four-by-fours in the street. No one has that type of car except his [Gaddafi's] people. My brother went to get bread, he’s not back; we don’t know if he’ll get back. The family is up all night every night, keeping watch, no one can sleep.”

www.andyworthington.co.uk/2011/02/21/revolution-in-libya-...

Feb. 25: NYC Rally in Solidarity with the people of Bahrain, Libya, & Yemen

al-awdany.org/wp/2011/02/feb-25-nyc-rally-in-solidarity-w...

Libya Protest Salute

vimeo.com/19615325

english.aljazeera.net/

Newport Beach, Calif.

I see Sir Richard Branson made the media yesterday. Never shy of an opportunity, Branson weighed in on the idea that the sale of new petrol and diesel cars should be outlawed by 2040. He'd like it to go further, by banning the sale of diesel cars by 2025.

All very laudable, I've never owned a diesel car, probably never will.

But Sir Richard, three things mate. Firstly, you need to understand that the vast majority of us don't have the disposable income that you do, chucking our cars in the bin on New Years Eve 2024, may not be a viable position for all.

Secondly, turn it down a bit! You don't half come over as a preachy twat these days, Brexit, Labour, diesel. Yawn.

And thirdly, and most importantly, you are a hypocrite. When you cease to use diesel trains under the wires for the entirety of their journey, like you do on the Euston-Birmingham-Scotland trains, I'll be a lot more inclined to support your cause.

Until that glorious day dawns...

Winwick Junction, 14 August 2011.

#A #TheCapitolBuilding #WashingtonDC #TrumpIncitesViolence #DomesticTerrorism #Terrorist #Coup #Sedition #HeadTerrorist #Riot #CapitolPolice #Curfew #TakeOver #ElectoralVote #HornedTerrorist #JakeAngeli #QAnon #Facebook #Instagram #Twitter #Shopify #blocked #banned #RudyGiuliani #Gold #Coins #HairDye #Farts #Fart #AirFreshener #HorribleSmell #Flatulence #TheVapors #Borat #AffordableHealthcareAct. #Obamacare #Masturbation #Twitter #TemperTantrum #BarackObama #statue #ovaloffice #disinfectant #bleach #chlorox #lysol #chlorinebleach #101 #wipes #DrTrump #Medusa #ClashoftheTitans #Snake #Rattlesnake #Slimeball #ForkedTongue #scales #hairdye #eastereggdye #PAAS #loreal #missclairol #DonaldTrump #narcissisticpersonalitydisorder #JaredKushner #DonaldTrumpJr #COVID19 #Coronavirus #Pandemic #DrAnthonySFauci #MikePence #testicle #penis #dick #balls #AsktheMortician #disease #pneumonia #infection #flu #JimmyKimmel #JimmyFallon #StephenColbert #SethMyer #minilogue #quarantine #sociadistancing #6feet #MitchMcConnell #handsanitizer #novelcoronavirus #trumplies #wipes #stayathome #workfromhome #homeschooling #deathtoll #StevenMnuchin #MikePompeo #testspositive #testsnegative #farright #freaks #ventilator #medicalmask #hospitalbed #temporarymorgue #WuhanChina, #novelcoronavirus #sociallydistant #selfquarantine #SeanHannity #FakeNews #infectiousdisease #FoxNews #epidemic #publichealthemergency #CDC #AndrewCuomo #CenterForDiseaseControl #CNN #flatteningthecurve #worldhealthorganization #recession #depression #contagious #WHO #narcissisticpersonalitydisorder #positive #negative #coronavirus #pandemic #COVID19 #infection #Dr.AnthonyFauci #trumpcausescancer #windmill #windpower #windturbine #antivaxxer #bigfoot #UFO #lochnessmonster #flyingsaucer #mythology #atlantis #bermudatriangle #flatearth #wikileaks #angels #fallenangels #45 #BiggestBaby #dirtydiaper #TheMuellerInvestigation #WilliamBarr #AttorneyGeneral #Report #TheEmperorsNewClothes #TheExorcist #Pazuzu #God #JesusChrist #LindaBlair #possessed #KingofDemons #SarahSanders #hypocrite #Exorcism #Pampers #TheWall #NeverGiveIn #Bullshit #dirtydiaper #diaperrash #PooPooBaDoop #Clemson #Wendys #burgerking #football #KellyanneConway #SarahHuckabee #Trolls #Kremlin #KremlinTroll #RussianTroll #RobertMueller #FISA #SteveBannon #MikePence #Twitter #Tweet #wiretap #Twit #wiretapped #Twat #dontaldtrump #WashingtonDC #MamaAyeshas #wallofpresidents #CIA #GOP #KKK #ISIS #FBI #BLM #LGBT #Russia #VladimirPutin #Russianinterference #AlternativeFacts #MicrowaveOven #Camera #sexdrugsandrockandroll #HillaryClinton #BernieSanders #BarackObama #PresidentoftheUnited #plannedparenthood #bigot #jihad #OsamabinLaden #DumpTrump #NotMyPresident #Dontee #DonteesInferno #thewalkingdead #republican #pedophile #WomensMarch #badhombre #conservative #rape #RiencePriebus #DonaldMcGahn #FrankGaffney #JeffSessions #GeneralJamesMattis #GeneralJohnKelly #StevenMnuchin #AndyPuzder #WilburRoss #CathyMcMorrisRodgers #MitchMcConnell #KTMcFarland #MikePompeo #NikkiHaley #LtGenMichaelFlynn #BenCarson #BetsyDeVos #TomPrice #ScottPruitt #SeemaVerma #PaulRyan #TrumpTower #MarriageEquality #KuKluxKlan #NewYorkCity #Hanksy #MelaniaTrump #BarronTrump #IvankaTrump #TiffanyTrump #EricTrump #DonaldTrumpJr #JaredKushner #conflictofinterest #emolument #RiggedElection #TemperTantrum #Tweet #Twitter #Twit #ManChild #DiaperBlowout #Trump #poop #turd #bigbaby #manindiapers #Inauguration #ScottBaio #TedNugent #TheRockettes #RadioCityMusicHall #MormonTabernacleChoir #Medusa #breitbart #lies #NationalEnquirer #douchebag #POS #Pussy #PussyGrabber

#terrorist #Taliban #jihad #MexicanWall #racism #jihad #nobannowall #confederateflag #Nazi #Islam #Freedom #AmericanNaziParty #TheRollingStones #Democrat #CivilRights #Idiot #abortion #tinfoilhatsociety #tyrant #foxnews #MerylStreep #Liberal #SaturdayNightLive #AlecBaldwin #MelissaMcCarthy #AdolfHitler #BenitoMussolini #Dictator #Megalomaniac #KingComplex #Demagogue #Narcissist #Delusional #Nuts #Oligarch #Populist #tyrant #Narcissistic #Autocracy #Oligarchy #DelusionsofGrandeur #GodComplex #MangoMussolini #DerPumpkinfuhrer #Apocalypse #NuclearButton #OvalOffice #civilliberties #goldenshowers #tinyhands #discrimination #TrumpGate #freedomandjusticeforall #TheBible #JesusChrist #The12Apostles #FredPhelps #GodHatesFags #WestboroBaptistChurch #RedNeck #ScienceFiction, #rapistsandmurderers #antiGay #homophobe #dinosaurs #religiousright #AmericanFamilyAssociation #hategroup #BruceJenner #CaitlynJenner #BarbieandKen #Mattel #PopeFrancis #QueenElizabeth #KeepYourPeckerUp #PatRobertson 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#sexdrugsandrockandroll #Death #Dying #GrimReaper #AlternativeFacts #liarliarpantsonfire #masturbation #jerkoff #Disinfectant #Purell #Re-election2020 #God #Lysol #Coronavirus #SteveBannon #syphiliticskinlesions #Pandemic #DrAnthonySFauci #MikePence #Death #dying #AsktheMortician #pneumonia #infection #flu, #influenza, #quarantine #socialdistancing #6feet #HopeHicks #WilliamBarr #handsanitizer #trumpslies #wipes #narcissisticpersonalitydisorder #deathtoll #stayathome #workfromhome #homeschooling #ventilator #medicalmask #novelcoronavirus #sociallydistant #SeanHannity #FakeNews #TuckerCarlson #infectiousdisease #FoxNews #CNN #epidemic #CDC #AndrewCuomo #CenterForDiseaseControl #worldhealthorganization #recession #depression #contagious #ProudBoys #AffordableHealthcareAct. #Obamacare #Masturbation #Twitter #TemperTantrum #BarackObama #statue #ovaloffice #disinfectant #bleach #chlorox #lysol #chlorinebleach #101 #wipes #DrTrump #Medusa #ClashoftheTitans #Snake #Rattlesnake #Slimeball #ForkedTongue #scales #hairdye #eastereggdye #PAAS #loreal #missclairol #DonaldTrump #narcissisticpersonalitydisorder #JaredKushner #DonaldTrumpJr #COVID19 #Coronavirus #Pandemic #DrAnthonySFauci #MikePence #testicle #penis #dick #balls #AsktheMortician #disease #pneumonia #infection #flu #JimmyKimmel #JimmyFallon #StephenColbert #SethMyer #minilogue #quarantine #sociadistancing #6feet #MitchMcConnell #handsanitizer #novelcoronavirus #trumplies #wipes #stayathome #workfromhome #homeschooling #deathtoll #StevenMnuchin #MikePompeo #testspositive #testsnegative #farright #freaks #ventilator #medicalmask #hospitalbed #temporarymorgue #WuhanChina, #novelcoronavirus #sociallydistant #selfquarantine #SeanHannity #FakeNews #infectiousdisease #FoxNews #epidemic #publichealthemergency #CDC #AndrewCuomo #CenterForDiseaseControl #CNN #flatteningthecurve #worldhealthorganization #recession #depression #contagious #WHO #narcissisticpersonalitydisorder #positive #negative #coronavirus #pandemic #COVID19 #infection #Dr.AnthonyFauci #trumpcausescancer #windmill #windpower #windturbine #antivaxxer #bigfoot #UFO #lochnessmonster #flyingsaucer #mythology #atlantis #bermudatriangle #flatearth #wikileaks #angels #fallenangels #45 #BiggestBaby #dirtydiaper #TheMuellerInvestigation #WilliamBarr #AttorneyGeneral #Report #TheEmperorsNewClothes #TheExorcist #Pazuzu #God #JesusChrist #LindaBlair #possessed #KingofDemons #SarahSanders #hypocrite #Exorcism #Pampers #TheWall #NeverGiveIn #Bullshit #dirtydiaper #diaperrash #PooPooBaDoop #Clemson #Wendys #burgerking #football #KellyanneConway #SarahHuckabee #Trolls #Kremlin #KremlinTroll #RussianTroll #RobertMueller #FISA #SteveBannon #MikePence #Twitter #Tweet #wiretap #Twit #wiretapped #Twat #dontaldtrump #WashingtonDC #MamaAyeshas #wallofpresidents #CIA #GOP #KKK #ISIS #FBI #BLM #LGBT #Russia #VladimirPutin #Russianinterference #AlternativeFacts #MicrowaveOven #Camera #sexdrugsandrockandroll #HillaryClinton #BernieSanders #BarackObama #PresidentoftheUnited #plannedparenthood #bigot #jihad #OsamabinLaden #DumpTrump #NotMyPresident #Dontee #DonteesInferno #thewalkingdead #republican #pedophile #WomensMarch #badhombre #conservative #rape #RiencePriebus #DonaldMcGahn #FrankGaffney #JeffSessions #GeneralJamesMattis #GeneralJohnKelly #StevenMnuchin #AndyPuzder #WilburRoss #CathyMcMorrisRodgers #MitchMcConnell #KTMcFarland #MikePompeo #NikkiHaley #LtGenMichaelFlynn #BenCarson #BetsyDeVos #TomPrice #ScottPruitt #SeemaVerma #PaulRyan #TrumpTower #MarriageEquality #KuKluxKlan #NewYorkCity #Hanksy #MelaniaTrump #BarronTrump #IvankaTrump #TiffanyTrump #EricTrump #DonaldTrumpJr #JaredKushner #conflictofinterest #emolument #RiggedElection #TemperTantrum #Tweet #Twitter #Twit #ManChild #DiaperBlowout #Trump #poop #turd #bigbaby #manindiapers #Inauguration #ScottBaio #TedNugent #TheRockettes #RadioCityMusicHall #MormonTabernacleChoir #Medusa #breitbart #lies #NationalEnquirer #douchebag #POS #Pussy #PussyGrabber

A #terrorist #Taliban #jihad #MexicanWall #racism #jihad #nobannowall #confederateflag #Nazi #Islam #Freedom #AmericanNaziParty #TheRollingStones #Democrat #CivilRights #Idiot #abortion #tinfoilhatsociety #tyrant #foxnews #MerylStreep #Liberal #SaturdayNightLive #AlecBaldwin #MelissaMcCarthy #AdolfHitler #BenitoMussolini #Dictator #Megalomaniac #KingComplex #Demagogue #Narcissist #Delusional #Nuts #Oligarch #Populist #tyrant #Narcissistic #Autocracy #Oligarchy #DelusionsofGrandeur #GodComplex #MangoMussolini #DerPumpkinfuhrer #Apocalypse #NuclearButton #OvalOffice #civilliberties #goldenshowers #tinyhands #discrimination #TrumpGate #freedomandjusticeforall #TheBible #JesusChrist #The12Apostles #FredPhelps #GodHatesFags #WestboroBaptistChurch #RedNeck #ScienceFiction, #rapistsandmurderers #antiGay #homophobe #dinosaurs #religiousright #AmericanFamilyAssociation #hategroup #BruceJenner #CaitlynJenner #BarbieandKen #Mattel #PopeFrancis #QueenElizabeth #KeepYourPeckerUp #PatRobertson #BatteredWomanSyndrome #FranklinGraham #Cracker #JudyGarland #TheWizardofOz #BarbraStreisand #BettyWhite #MarilynMonroe #ValleyoftheDolls #PeytonPlace #DowntonAbbey #MaggieSmith #JudyDench #EvaGreen #MissPeregrine #DarylDixon #jabbathehutt #EmperorPalpatine #StarWars #StarTrek #RickGrimes #TeaParty #GlennBeck #RushLimbaugh #fakeNews #politicallyincorrect #BillMaher #AngelaMerkel #TheresaMay #RosieODonnell #MegynKelly #TheManchurianCandidate #BadCombOver #commemorativecoin #collectorsitem #ebay #buffalonewyork #artvoice #carlpaladino #byecarl #OutrageFatigue #hotair #weaponsofmassdestruction #motherofallbombs #farts #farting #robertmueller #bombingsyria #kellyanneconway #brettkavanaugh #sexualassault #harrassment #metoo #supremecourt #kanyewest #kimkardashian #idiot #incoherent #dumptrump2020 #rosegardenmassacre #ivankatrump #jaredKushner #Donaldtrumpjr #erictrump #Stephenmiller #mitchMcConnell #Williambarr #KellyAnneConway #KayleighMcEnany #LyingBitches #sarahhuckabeesanders #sexdrugsandrockandroll #Death #Dying #GrimReaper #AlternativeFacts #liarliarpantsonfire #masturbation #jerkoff #Disinfectant #Purell #Re-election2020 #God #Lysol #Coronavirus #SteveBannon #syphiliticskinlesions #Pandemic #DrAnthonySFauci #MikePence #Death #dying #AsktheMortician #pneumonia #infection #flu, #influenza, #quarantine #socialdistancing #6feet #HopeHicks #WilliamBarr #handsanitizer #trumpslies #wipes #narcissisticpersonalitydisorder #deathtoll #stayathome #workfromhome #homeschooling #ventilator #medicalmask #novelcoronavirus #sociallydistant #SeanHannity #FakeNews #TuckerCarlson #infectiousdisease #FoxNews #CNN #epidemic #CDC #AndrewCuomo #CenterForDiseaseControl #worldhealthorganization #recession #depression #contagious #ProudBoys

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TRUMP didn't invent Mexico fences. The Liberal Hypocrite have been erecting fences a long time ago! Under Obama administration several fences have secretly been built, but he was not honest enough to say it…

A woman talks to her relatives across a fence separating Mexico and the United States, in Tijuana, Mexico, November 12, 2016.

Courtesy REUTERS/Jorge Duenes - more fences

www.reuters.com/news/picture/the-us-mexico-border-now?art...

Popular graffiti stencil found all about Buenos Aires.

Le sens du devoir sans amour rend irritable, mécontent. La responsabilité sans amour rend Inflexible, sans égard envers autrui. La justice sans amour rend sévère, impitoyable, moraliste. La vérité sans amour rend critique, légaliste L’éducation sans amour rend insensible, contradictoire et présomptueux L’intelligence sans amour rend rusé. L’amabilité sans amour rend hypocrite L’expérience sans amour rend orgueilleux, insociable. Le savoir sans amour rend prétentieux, stupide. La richesse sans amour rend avare, spéculateur. La sagesse sans amour rend irritable, pénible. L’activité sans amour rend stérile, vide. Le dévouement sans amour rend injuste. Le devoir sans amour rend insatisfait. La foi sans amour rend fanatique. L’ordre sans amour rend tatillon. La compétence sans amour suscite la volonté d’avoir toujours raison. La force sans amour rend violent, querelleur. L’honneur sans amour rend hautain, suffisant. La vie sans amour est vide, absente Les paroles sans amour sont comme un vent violent et détruisent. Les bonnes œuvres sans amour ne servent qu’à nous glorifier. L’amour ne périt jamais. (Auteur inconnu)

The sense of duty without love makes irritable, angry. Responsibility without love makes Inflexible, without regard to others. Justice without love is harsh, unforgiving moralist. Truth without love is critical, legalistic Education without love makes insensitive, arrogant and contradictory intelligence without love makes it tricky. The friendliness without love makes hypocritical experience without love makes arrogant, unsociable. Knowledge without love makes arrogant, stupid. Wealth without love makes avaricious, speculator. Wisdom without love is irritable, painful. The activity without love is sterile and empty. Devotion without love makes unfair. The duty without love makes dissatisfied. Faith without love makes fanatic. The order without love makes fussy. Competence without love arouses the desire to always be right. Strength without love makes people violent, quarrelsome. Honor without love makes arrogant, enough. Life without love is empty, absent Words without love is like a violent wind and destroy. Good works without love are only glorify us. Love never fails. (Author unknown)

This is a serious metaphor for my life right now.

Sometimes there is negativity surrounding us, sometimes there are toxic people amongst us, and sometimes we turn a blind eye to them.

I can't do that anymore. Yesterday something happened that made me realize i have put up with some of this for far to long, and it is time to be rid of it/them.

It is eating at me, and bugging me, even though i know it is for the best. But that will pass in time. Like it always does.

This is a very good thing, for that i am happy and proud of myself.

That is all.

Oh and i have wantedto do a shot like this for ages, there is this photographer who has a model who is FANFUCKINGTASTIC at doing these motion with scarves and fabric shots, i am about to find a link for all. www.ibarraphoto.com/

i've heard bigger is better ;)