Wednesday, December 31, 2014

* Sky Writing Over My Home (Sorry, Not Constantine's 'Sign') December 30, 2014


 
 
 


 

Constantine's Dream (329 x 190 cm) Emperor Constantine the Great, before the battle of Milvian Bridge, is awakened by an angel who shows him the cross in heaven. With the cross on his shield, he slew the enemy, and later converted to Christianity.




* Selfie at Seventy: December 28, 2014


* 70 Years Ago: June 6, 1944 (I was 2 months in the womb)


Thursday, December 25, 2014

* Christmas Past


Saturday, December 20, 2014

* SCARED BLUE IN HOLLYWOOD

Following in the steps of  Yale University's 2009 self censorship, Sony corporation has censored itself in desperate fear of a tyrant's ire.

 See Today's New York Times Op-ed piece, Sony Caved to Terror. No One Else Should.
 
 


 

 

Yale University: Censorship of Mohammed Cartoons at Yale University Press
 
Category: Free Speech
Schools: Yale University


Yale University censored images of Mohammed in author Jytte Klausen’s book, The Cartoons That Shook the World, which discusses the controversy and violence that resulted from the publication of cartoons of Mohammed in a Danish newspaper in 2005. The book, published by the Yale University Press in fall 2009, was to contain images of the cartoons and other images of Mohammed. However, Yale University intervened in the editorial process of its Press, submitted the cartoons out of context to a group of anonymous consultants and, relying on their opinions, decided to remove the cartoons from the book. Despite much criticism of the university’s decision to override academic freedom and avoid controversy, Klausen’s book was published without any of the images.
______________________
On the 2009 Yale decision, see also:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/28/AR2009082803168.html

Friday, December 19, 2014

* Petty Politics


Tuesday, December 16, 2014

* Disturbing the Peace Prize






* An Honest Man




NOTE:  Thanks to Joan A. for this quote and photo.

Monday, December 8, 2014

* The "reasonableness" of Christianity

is the title of tome written by the family friend
after whom I was named,
theologian

Against witchcraft 


Feline Holocaust

QUOTE:

Pope Gregory IX (1147-1241) hated cats and started the feline holocaust that would last almost five hundred years.

In a Papal Bull (1233) he condemned the black cat as diabolic and thereby giving his blessing to the torture and killing/burning of cats. 

 
Pope Innocent VII (1339-1406) and Pope Innocent VIII (1432-1492) both spoke loud and clear giving their blessings to persecution of cats.

Pope Innocent VIII went out of his way to remind the inquisitors to always burn the cats together with the witches.





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Innocent_VIII#Against_witchcraft



QUOTE:

In 1487 Innocent VIII endorsed the Malleus Maleficarum, a treatise on the prosecution of witches.

On the request of German inquisitor Heinrich Kramer, Innocent VIII issued the papal bull Summis desiderantes (5 December 1484), which supported Kramer's investigations against magicians and witches:

"It has recently come to our ears, not without great pain to us, that in some parts of upper Germany, [...] Mainz, Köln, Trier, Salzburg, and Bremen, many persons of both sexes, heedless of their own salvation and forsaking the catholic faith, give themselves over to devils male and female, and by their incantations, charms, and conjurings, and by other abominable superstitions and sortileges, offences, crimes, and misdeeds, ruin and cause to perish the offspring of women, the foal of animals, the products of the earth, the grapes of vines, and the fruits of trees, as well as men and women, cattle and flocks and herds and animals of every kind, vineyards also and orchards, meadows, pastures, harvests, grains and other fruits of the earth; that they afflict and torture with dire pains and anguish, both internal and external, these men, women, cattle, flocks, herds, and animals, and hinder men from begetting [...]"[6]

Kramer would later write the polemic Malleus Maleficarum in 1486, which stated that witchcraft was to blame for bad weather. These remarks are included in Part 2, Chapter XV, which is entitled: "How they Raise and Stir up Hailstorms and Tempests, and Cause Lightning to Blast both Men and Beasts":[7][8]

"Therefore it is reasonable to conclude that, just as easily as they raise hailstorms, so can they cause lightning and storms at sea; and so no doubt at all remains on these points."

Both the papal letter appended to the work and the supposed endorsement of Cologne University for it are problematic. The letter of Innocent VIII is not an approval of the book to which it was appended, but rather a charge to inquisitors to investigate diabolical sorcery and a warning to those who might impede them in their duty, that is, a papal letter in the by then conventional tradition established by John XXII and other popes through Eugenius IV and Nicholas V (1447–55).[9]

Thursday, December 4, 2014

* Dartmouth Renovation Begins







 










 
 
 
 

* Unhidden Agenda


Wednesday, December 3, 2014

* Thanksgiving Weekend, Dartmouth






* Baseball Camp, Leverone Field House