GENE'S SOLUTION TO THE CALAIS MIGRANT CRISIS

GENE'S SOLUTION TO THE CALAIS MIGRANT CRISIS

My suggestion is that we allow all those migrants who seek to come to Britain to come ahead - no restrictions. Once in the country we then send them all to Tyneside. Within two days they will all be queuing up to leave Blighty.

The rise and fall of the Catholic blogosphere

by Damian Thompson

posted Thursday, 30 Jul 2015

Fr Robert Barron: the first Catholic priest who has truly mastered new media [CNS]

During the reign of Benedict XVI, blogging became a mighty instrument in the hands of conservative Catholics. But the medium soon revealed a darker side

A fortnight ago, Pope Francis appointed Fr Robert Barron, rector of Mundelein seminary in Chicago, to be a new auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. The news was greeted with little explosions of delight from conservative-leaning Catholics all over Twitter, including many from Britain. Why?
It wasn’t just because Fr Barron, 55, is himself rather conservative theologically, though he’d prefer to think of himself as simply orthodox. That wouldn’t be big news: plenty of conservative priests get made bishops, even under this supposedly “liberal” Pope (though not so often in England and Wales).
No: Twitter and the blogosphere were excited because Fr Barron is famous. He runs “Word on Fire Ministries”, which sounds to a Brit like an outfit run by an orange-haired US televangelist or one of those pop-up Nigerian “prosperity gospel” churches. He hosts Word on Fire with Father Barron, a half-hour show that airs nationally on WGN America, making him the first Catholic priest to have his own regular television programme on a national commercial channel since Fulton Sheen in the 1950s.
Word on Fire also makes programmes and DVDs for EWTN, the Catholic television network founded by Mother Angelica, and Fr Barron has a weekly radio programme called – you guessed it – Word on Fire. He pops up on NBC and Fox News as a Catholic commentator and writes lots of articles for Catholic publications, including this one. So he’s a media priest, and one who can call on expert advice: his brother John is a former editor-in-chief of the Chicago Sun-Times. (Incidentally, Fr Robert Sirico, distinguished founder of the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, also has a brother in the media: Tony Sirico, the mobster-turned-actor who played Paulie “Walnuts” Gualtieri in The Sopranos.)
But I digress. Robert Barron is not just a television evangelist: he is the first Catholic priest who has truly mastered new media. He blogs; he podcasts; he has a YouTube channel. He even compiles what are known in the trade as “listicles”. For example, “Father Barron’s seven tips for New Evangelisation”. Number Two is “You’ve got to be a person of ardour” and quotes Aristotle’s line that “people only really listen to an excited speaker”. It’s not unusual for Fr Barron to quote Aristotle or Aquinas: he is a professor of systematic theology whose doctoral thesis was “A Study of the De potentia of Thomas Aquinas in Light of the Dogmatik of Paul Tillich”.
Fr Barron’s final tip is to use the new media. He tells his students: “Know it; use it; it’s in your blood. Your generation grew up with this. You grew up with computers, so use them and don’t be afraid of technology.”
Good advice, but I’d be surprised if Chicago seminarians are at all afraid of technology. Young, devout Catholics are, paradoxically, both more conservative theologically than their predecessors and more tech-savvy than liberal believers, possibly because the latter tend to be older. The same is true of Protestantism, now dominated by digitally resourceful Pentecostalists, and perhaps also of Islam. Generally, conservative religion is more dynamic than liberal religion.
But let’s stick with the Church. The internet is a mighty instrument in the hands of conservative and traditionalist Catholics. They have used it to disrupt the power structure envisaged by enthusiasts for the Second Vatican Council, in which enlightened bishops would work through priests and pastoral assistants to implement justice and peace.
You’ll have heard of “the Catholic blogosphere”. It reached its heyday during the reign of Benedict XVI, when it was dominated by supporters of his liturgical reforms – in particular, the removal of restrictions on celebrating the Tridentine Mass.

During those years I wrote a blog for The Daily Telegraph called Holy Smoke. I had no idea it would take off in the way it did: some posts attracted 100,000 page views. To begin with, it was a way of letting off steam. As a young man I’d been tortured by the caterwauling of “folk Masses”. As a religion reporter in the early 1990s I was driven mad by the speak-your-weight lefty platitudes of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, and the spendthrift incompetence of its secretariat.
Payback time! Here was an opportunity to tease the occupants of Eccleston Square, its headquarters, secure in the knowledge that they wouldn’t answer back. Blogs don’t offer much in the way of right to reply and, anyway, their press officers were far too snooty to mount a counter-offensive.
Then came Summorum Pontificum, in which Pope Benedict gave traditionalists everything they could wish for. This woke the bishops from their decades-long slumber. They were horrified by the power it handed to their least favourite priests and lay people. Certain bishops set about blocking the implementation of the Holy Father’s instructions by – it seemed to me – wilfully misinterpreting them.
Holy Smoke now had a mission: to record every attempt to suppress the Extraordinary Form and to make sure Rome knew about it. My teasing became obsessive – but, gosh, it was fun. I waged a joyous campaign against Bishop Arthur Roche of Leeds, who I thought had been particularly unhelpful, shall we say. Someone found a Facebook picture showing the bishop wearing a multi-coloured knitted beanie at a youth event. So that accompanied every blog post about him.
I also invented a “backstory” for the poor man. Before ordination, he’d been a figure skater, but was cruelly cheated of the north-west regional championship when things went wrong at the finals in Blackpool Tower. Oh, and his portly figure wasexplained by his passion for Cinnabons, a massively calorific, syrup-drenched American snack that briefly caught on over here.
I described vans loaded with Cinnabons trundling up to the bishop’s palace every week; to my delight, Louise Mensch, then a mischievous Tory MP, helped spread the stories of “Uncle Arthur” and his favourite pastries on Twitter. All very childish, you may think, but that was nothing compared to the conversations taking place “below the line” on Holy Smoke.
Some readers seemed to spend their whole lives in the threads, bickering and gossiping under pseudonyms. Many were traditionalist Catholics thrilled by the opportunity to settle scores after years of being ignored by control-freak trendy priests. One or two had inside information about the “Magic Circle” of ambitious liberal bishops and monsignors who, despite their opposition to the Pope’s vision of liturgy, mysteriously kept landing plum jobs.
The problem was that the conversations kept turning nasty. The blog was invaded by sneering atheists and – far more damaging – far-right Catholics raging against Jews and “faggots”. I still shudder at the mention of one commenter, a neo-fascist with a shaky grasp of English; in the end we had to block his IP address, whereupon he started up his own blog. It’s still going. As I write, he is fulminating against “Frankie the Evil Clown” and his cohort of “satanic criminals”.
Such people were easy to dismiss, but what about Catholic bloggers who dabbled more gently in conspiracy theories? A lot of my blog’s traffic was driven by devout Americans who worried about a homosexual mafia in the Vatican. As the “Vatileaks” scandal revealed, there was an element of truth to this, just as there was in my speculation about senior liberal English churchmen twisting arms in Rome to secure “jobs for the boys”. But their outpourings did little to improve the reputation of the Catholic blogosphere.
Perhaps it was just as well that the election of Pope Francis took the wind out of our sails. By 2013, one-man blogs in general were in any case flagging. Their authors, myself included, were exhausted by the pressure to serve up a daily dish of sarcasm and spiky opinion. And there was no money it in. Even the Telegraph couldn’t make a profit out of Holy Smoke’s traffic. Those hundreds of thousands of hits were “empty calories”, a social media expert told me.
The English bishops – one of whom had put pressure on my editor to get me sacked – sighed with relief. Likewise their American counterparts. But the Church could not return to the pre-digital days when clerical manoeuverings went unnoticed by the faithful.
A few multi-authored blogging websites, such as the traditionalist Rorate Caeli, are still flourishing. More significantly, conservative Catholic activists have moved on to Facebook and Twitter, where episcopal pronouncements receive instant scrutiny. Catholic newspapers and magazines, deluged with information about the worldwide Church, channel it into rapid-reaction news reports and blog posts.
The first session of the synod on the family showed how much things have changed. It witnessed furious disputes between cardinals over issues central to the lives of Catholics – the eligibility of divorced and remarried people to receive Holy Communion and the place of gay people in the Church. Suddenly senior prelates discovered that they had to use the internet in order to stop their opponents’ version of events becoming the official narrative.
Friendly journalists received urgent text messages from cardinals. This was not the “gossip” denounced by Pope Francis, they told themselves: the faithful had to know what was going on, mid-synod, in order to spread the word online that the proceedings were being hijacked.
There was nothing the Pope could do to stop this leaking by both sides. And there will be nothing he can do to stop it happening again when the synod resumes this October. The laity have been empowered – not by the documents of Vatican II but by digital technology. Moreover, those lay people do not, on the whole, support the liberal agenda of many bishops (including, tentatively, the English hierarchy) and they are implacably opposed to the radical aggiornamento demanded by the secular media. They know how to manipulate the internet and – unlike the Holy Father and the millions of people who greeted him in Latin America – they speak its lingua franca: English.
Whether this state of affairs is a good or a bad thing is difficult to say. Either way, the Church has to deal with it, and this is an area in which it has little expertise. That is why the elevation of Bishop-designate Robert Barron is so important.
If anyone can boost the morale of angry conservative Catholics and redirect their energies towards evangelisation, he can. But it will take the creation of hundreds of orthodox, digitally literate bishops before the Church masters the art of communication in the 21st century. And in the risk-averse culture of the English and Welsh hierarchy that is, sadly, a very distant prospect indeed.
This article first appeared in the latest edition of the Catholic Herald magazine (31/7/15).

Seeing God in Creation

Fr. Killian J. Healy
   

The first way of learning to live with God so as to love Him dearly is to elevate the mind to Him through the visible things around us. Wherever we go, God is there: “If I ascend into Heaven, Thou art there. If I descend into hell, Thou art present. If I take my wings early in the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there also shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall hold me.”
Whatever we look at, God is within it. Look at the sun. It brings light and warmth into our life. It reflects the goodness of God, who has created it. Gaze at the moon and the stars. They are the lanterns placed by God in the heavens to guide the weary traveler. Bless God who has made them, for the heavens and earth are full of His glory: “Look upon the rainbow, and bless Him that made it: it is very beautiful in its brightness. It encompasseth the heaven about with the circle of its glory; the hands of the Most High have displayed it.”
So, the beauty of nature reflects the beauty of God. For those who will not close their eyes, and who harden not their hearts, beautiful things are seen as the finger­prints of God. “A whirlwind and clouds are the dust of His feet.” All things are His messengers, making known His goodness, His justice, and His power.

Even commonplace things reflect God

Even the more commonplace things lead man to God. After eating a well-prepared dinner, most people sing the praises of the cook — and that is as it should be. But why not also praise God? He is the great Provider: from His hands all good things come, the food as well as the cook.

 

There is nothing more commonplace than sickness and death. They, too, can lead us to God. Some people face sickness and death with a resigned, hopeless attitude. It must come, they say, and there is nothing to do about it. Others become angry with God because He permits evil in their lives. A third class recognizes sickness and death as a warning from God, that here we have no last­ing city. These people see the vanity of great wealth and earthly glory, which they cannot take with them. For this group, sickness and death become graces that lead them to think of God, to turn to Him, and to love Him above all the things of this world.
How foolish it is, then, to seek God first in the strange and spectacular. Rather, He is to be found in common, ordinary things. When God became man, He chose for His mother a quiet, unknown woman. His birthplace was not a palace, but a cave. During His life, He walked and talked with ordinary people. He chose fishermen as His companions. He did not dine with Herod, but in the homes of common people. He was crucified between two common thieves. He can be found where the unspiritual least expect to find Him — in common things.
Christ, always the great teacher, taught his Apostles to see and reflect on the attributes of God mirrored in commonplace things. “See how the lilies of the field grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more you, O you of little faith!”
In His parables, the Savior gave earthly things heav­enly meanings: the kingdom of God is like a net cast into the sea, or a mustard seed, or a pearl. And St. Paul brought out the same idea, holding the pagans who did not believe in God inexcusable, “seeing that what may be known about God is manifest to them. For God has man­ifested it to them. For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes are clearly seen — His everlasting power also and divinity — being understood through the things that are made.”
St. Thérèse of Lisieux admired the beauty of God and His glory as it was reflected in flowers. And even as a child, she was carried away by the power of God which she found mirrored in the sea. “I was between six and seven when I saw the sea for the first time. I could not turn away my eyes: its majesty, the roaring of the waves, the whole vast spectacle impressed me deeply and spoke to my soul of God’s power and greatness.”
And St. Ignatius counseled, with regard to the Jesuit students, that they should exercise themselves “in finding God our Lord in all things, in conversation, in walking, seeing, tasting, hearing, thinking, and, in fact, in all kinds of activity, for of a truth the majesty of God is in all things.” Is it not clear that even the most ordinary things in our daily lives can lift us up to God, who made them?
Needless to say, this exercise is not to be exaggerated. We would become nervous and distracted if we continu­ally searched outside of ourselves for things and events that would remind us of God’s presence. We would soon acquire a strong dislike for this exercise. It is sufficient to raise our mind to God when the occasion offers itself. At times, the Holy Spirit will give us these thoughts, and it is then that we should willingly accept them, and never shut them out through our own fault. Progress will be slow at first, because our mind is not yet turned to God, but the more we turn toward Him, the more natural this act will become. Eventually, we will see the hand of God in all things, not only in the rhapsodic beauty of a spring day, but in common events — even in the evils of society and in everyday life.

Daily circumstances can remind you of God

A young college student once told me how he learned to think of God and pray to Him frequently. Every school day, he had to walk a mile and a half to class. Along the way, through the back streets of the city, over hills and down alleys, he met many people hurrying to work or to school. He would pray for the poorly clad or sickly, at the same time thanking God for his own better condition and health. When he passed churches, he thought of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. If there was time, he would make a visit; otherwise, he would think of Jesus as he passed by. He made short acts of adoration, thanksgiving, and petition.
It gave him special delight to say a prayer for small chil­dren playing near their homes or on their way to school. He sought God’s protection upon salesmen opening up their stores and upon businessmen hurrying to work. He prayed for non-Catholics and for their conversion as he passed their churches. He prayed for his teachers, his classmates, and for success in school. And, because he was a very normal young man, and quite attached to a young lady, his thoughts were often of her; he prayed that God would always bless her and that Mary would always protect her.
Naturally, he had many distractions on the way to school. Sometimes, companions would join him; some­times, he would be lost in thought over a school problem or a football game. But he would always come back to think of God. His thoughts were passing; his prayers were short — most of them only a few words. On some days he prayed more than on others, but every day found him see­ing God in the world around him.
Later, before he finished school, he was drafted into the army. Long nights of sentry duty found him alone with his thoughts. Here, the good habit of thinking of God brought comfort and peace to his heart. He prayed to God throughout the long hours of the night, as he walked along beneath the stars.
A train engineer once said that, during his many years of service, he never had an accident. In fact, his whole life was a blessed one. He attributed this blessing of God to an unwavering trust in His Providence. On his nightly run across the country, he passed many Catholic churches. In time he knew them all, and in each one he saluted his eucharistic King. As his train rushed on in the night, he thought of Jesus, who watched over each parish and town from the tabernacle. In many of the churches, he could see the light of the sanctuary lamp reflected on the stained-glass windows, and he would raise his heart in prayer: “O Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, all praise to Thee. Watch over Thy people, and watch over me and those whom Thou hast placed in my care.”
The young college student and the engineer were not far advanced in prayer. There was great room for progress. But they had begun well; with time, their love of God would grow.
What they learned to do, we also can do. Remember always that, wherever we go, God is there. Whatever we look at, God is within it. “For He is not far away from each one of us; in Him we live and move and have our being.”

Mark this year’s Day for Life by defending the rights of the sick and disabled

by David Albert Jones

posted Thursday, 23 Jul 2015

An assisted suicide Bill will be debated in the House of Commons on September 11 (AP)

If assisted suicide is legalised some patients would be regarded as having lives 'not worth living'

This year’s Day for Life, celebrated in England and Wales this Sunday, July 26, is on the topic of “Cherishing Life – Accepting Death”.
There is a great paradox at the heart of the Gospel in that, in a sense, we can all be better off dead! If we die accepting God’s mercy then we can look forward to unimaginable bliss in the next life and eventual glorified bodily reunion with those who have gone before.
Yet, at the same time the Gospel message gives more reason to cherish this life, to recognise the dignity of each person as created in the image of God, as loved by God, and as redeemed by the death of Christ.
The message of Sunday’s Day for Life is one of hope for those preparing to die and of guidance for those caring for people who are dying. In the words of Bishop John Sherrington: “Catholics cherish and celebrate the gift of life but they are not vitalistic in saying that life must be preserved at all costs.”
More details and related links (including reflections from Pope Francis on care of the elderly and on loss of a loved one) are available online. The Day for Life site also gives a brief account of Catholic ethical principles on end of life care. (For further resources, visit the Anscombe Bioethics Centre site and especially the document on the ethics of care of the dying person.
At the same time as the Church is proclaiming a message of hope for a good death and for life everlasting, the care of people who are chronically ill or disabled is being threatened by proposed legislation for assisted suicide in England and Wales. This would divide patients into those judged to have lives “worth living” and those with lives “not worth living”, for whom death would be reasonable. (For more on this see the bishops’ conference website and the Anscombe Bioethics Centre.)
David Albert Jones is director of the Anscombe Bioethics Centre

‘The right to die is somebody else’s duty to kill,’ says Cardinal Nichols

by Staff Reporter

posted Monday, 27 Jul 2015

Cardinal Nichols (PA)

Cardinal Nichols urged pe

ople not to fall for 'great lie' of assisted suicide during homily for the Day for Life

Cardinal Vincent Nichols has strongly re-iterated the Church’s opposition to the legalisation of assisted suicide, saying that “it is a great lie to try and convince people that life lived with serious illness is not worth living.”
Cardinal Nichols made the comments in a homily delivered at the Church of St Bernadette Cote Grotte in Lourdes on Sunday for the annual Day for Life, on which the Church celebrates and affirms life from conception to its natural end.
Affirming that every human life has intrinsic value, regardless of health or disability, Cardinal Nichols said, “this is why we oppose those who wish to pass laws assisting suicide, giving people the right to die when they want.”
He added that “the right to die is somebody else’s duty to kill; and we don’t accept that. We both cherish life and we embrace death.”
Cardinal Nichols’ comments come ahead of a debate in the House of Commons on the second reading of Rob Marris MP’s bill that would legalise assisted suicide for the terminally ill in the UK, which is scheduled to take place on September 11.
Earlier this month, Archbishop Peter Smith of Southwark called on Catholics to write to their MPs about the dangers of legalising assisted suicide.
“This private members Bill, introduced by Rob Marris MP, will have a free vote and it is important that people make their views known to their own MP ahead of this extremely important debate,” he said.
In his homily Cardinal Nichols compared life’s journey to the Lourdes pilgrimage. He said it is “a practice run for our pilgrimage through life. We learn that we gain strength when we walk together; we learn to look out for those in need; we learn that we gain more by giving than by taking.”
In its 26th year, the Westminster pilgrimage to Lourdes takes place from July 27 to July 31.
Full text of the Cardinal Nichols’ homily, Cherishing Life: Sunday Mass at Lourdes:
Welcome everybody to this pilgrimage. Perhaps your journey here has been easy. Perhaps not. But we are here in this precious place. There are many more to join us. Soon we will be all together.
In this Mass we are almost at the start of our pilgrimage. Please understand this pilgrimage as a practice run for life in this world. It’s a kind of training camp in which we can learn a lot about our pilgrimage through life. Very briefly, we learn we have to get on together; we learn that we gain strength when we walk together; we learn that we need time quietly for ourselves; we learn to look out for those in need; we learn that we gain more by giving that by taking. On pilgrimage we learn all sorts of lessons, as I hope we do this week, so that we’re better equipped for our journey through life.
Today, at home, we keep our annual Day for Life. The theme this year is this: cherish life; accept death. Cherish life indeed. And I would say, embrace death when it comes. You might remember the words of the prayer of our Mass this evening. We asked God for the grace to use the good things that pass so as to be prepared for those that last forever.The life we have in this world is this good, so good, but it will pass. And then we will enter a life that lasts forever through the doorway of death.
The Pope in his message to us for today said this: ‘It is a great lie to try and convince people that life lived with serious illness is not worth living.’ We understand that clearly which is why we oppose those who wish to pass laws assisting suicide, giving people the right to die when they want. One person’s right to die is somebody else’s duty to kill. We do not accept that. We both cherish life until it’s end and we embrace death.
Finally, in the reading of the Gospel this evening, we heard the words of Jesus telling us that he gives us the bread of life. And this bread which he gives is his body and his blood. He gives us bread for our life on this earth and, in the same gift, he gives us bread for eternal life. In this gift he comes to us, established his life in us which grows in us so that we become ready for the life after death, a life that is forever.
On this pilgrimage, then, we’re on a practice run for life. We learn to cherish this life more and more, how precious it is! We learn to look forward to the life of heaven and embrace that moment when God calls us to himself. This evening we ask God’s blessing on our pilgrimage. We pray that we will always cherish life and defend life from its beginning to its natural end and we pray that we will be ready, when our moment comes, to go to the Lord. Amen

When Mary Told Marshall McLuhan “the Medium is the Message”

              

If you haven’t heard of Marshall McLuhan, you’ve probably heard his great aphorism, “the medium is the message.”


Quite the celebrity in the 1960s for his incisive commentary on media, he was a frequent guest on radio and TV, his books sold millions of copies, and he even had a cameo in Woody Allen’s film Annie Hall in which he famously said, “You know nothing of my work!”
All the while, few people knew that he was a devout Christian – and that the Blessed Virgin Mary had personally given him confirmation of his radical ideas.

Another Chesterton Convert

Born in Alberta, Canada to Christian parents, Herbert Marshall McLuhan (he went by his middle name, ostensibly to distinguish himself from his father Herbert) found himself struggling with agnosticism in college. Though he first studied engineering, he turned to literature to “gratify his soul’s hunger for truth and beauty.”
After completing a B.A. and M.A. at the University of Manitoba, he traveled to England to pursue doctoral studies at the University of Cambridge. While studying the history of the classical trivium, he read the early Church fathers and medieval thinkers, which influenced his conversion to Catholicism. But he gave special credit to the writings of G.K. Chesterton: “[H]ad I not encountered Chesterton, I would have remained agnostic for many years at least.”
Though he didn’t talk about it publicly, he took his newfound Catholic faith very seriously. Douglas Coupland describes McLuhan’s faith as having been “hard core”:

Marshall, like most converts, quickly became hard core. He went to Mass almost daily every day for the rest of his life. He recited the rosary. He was a firm believer in Hell. He was disgusted that other Catholics weren’t Catholic enough. Above all, he believed that because God made the world, it must, in the end, be comprehensible, and that a sense of the divine could lead to an understanding of the mundane.

After completing his doctorate in the midst of the Second World War, he taught at various small colleges until he took a position at the University of Toronto, where he stayed for the rest of his career.

Media Mystic?

His fame grew in the 1950s and ’60s, but so did controversy around his ideas. Critics disliked his rhetorical style, pointed out apparent contradictions in his works, and accused him of overemphasizing the importance of technology.
But McLuhan remained unfazed because he had someone more important on his side: the Mother of God.
This story was passed on from one of his associates:

He alluded to it very briefly once, almost fearfully, in a please-don’t-laugh-at-me tone. He didn’t say, “I know this because the Blessed Virgin Mary told me” but it was clear from what he said that he was interrogating her about his ideas and one of the reasons he was so sure about certain things was that the Virgin had certified his understanding of them.

Was he visited by her? Did he have mystical experiences? Or did he simply feel that he received confirmation in prayer?
If McLuhan really did receive supernatural aid in his intellectual pursuits, he wouldn’t necessarily be the first: e.g., it is said that the Holy Spirit dictated to St. Gregory the Great the chants which now bear his name.
It’s not clear what the precise nature was of McLuhan’s claimed interactions with the Blessed Mother. But it’s nonetheless a fascinating insight into both the spiritual and academic life of one of the 20th century’s most influential thinkers.

GRANNY BARKES FELL IN WOOLWORTHS

GRANNY BARKES FELL IN WOOLWORTHS

Granny Barkes fell in Woolworths ... she'll get a free ride in the  ambulance. Ha! Ha! Ha! The just man falls seven times.  Look! See the tracks of Santa's feet on the hearth. I'll break your ould desk. Say what may the tidings be, on this glorious Christmas morn? He's lost his apple cake. Look! Look what Mairead has made! That would bury Dick and Diamond. Indeed he went all the way to the whiney nough. I'm getting a wheelbarrow tomorrow. It's brand new ... I can't sleep with excitement. This is a day above all days. No.... we are off to school, c'mon Eddie. I heard a roar between  two hills. L to the water Jimmy Harte. I wish that day would come back again. And flying my kite. What happened to your lorry Jim? Lay on MacDuff. Edward's day out. He cut down a tree from the hedge of the car road with a hatchet - yes, but it's his birthday. I don't know ... maybe so. I think they did. Look at the size of the flakes! Look at the size of the flakes! He stole matches. Time waits for no man ... not even John Roy. Jeremiah, blow the fire; puff, puff, puff. Blue ink, black ink, and good red ink. Secundam scripturas. Has he no ears? The waters wild went o'er his child and he was left lamenting. There's a yellow rose in Texas. A field in Larne. The Minster-clock has just struck two, And yonder is the Moon. And the hunter home from the hills. Wait 'til I get another stone for you Cyril. McAree, McAra, Mc Avarn K-Kunny, put in your white foot 'til I see if you're my mummy. Patch upon patch sown without stitches; come riddle me this and I'll give you my britches. Joe Worthington, Joe Worthington you'd sit till you'd rot. I washed my hands in water; water never run ... and I dried them in a towel that was neither wove nor spun. Here comes I Wee Devil Doubt... the pain within, the pain without. When I was a lad so was me Dad. Ta Ra Ra Bam... Ta Ra Ra Ching ... Ta Ra Ra Bam ... Ta Ra Ra. 'Twas on a Sunday evening that Barlow's it was robbed: Mrs Barlow went down to the room to get a treacle scone, but when she saw the moneybox, the money it was gone.  Water! Water! ... er ... Tea! Tea!... with two lumps of sugar and a spot of milk. I wonder, yes I wonder, will the angels way up yonder, will the angels play their harps for me? Willie Ruckie. Milled today, fed tomorrow. It's long and it's narrow, it's not very wide, it wears a green selvage on every side. Yes and truly you are best. No more tomorrows in your career. Dr Whitehead. Piss, Piss  Iceland dog! Tickets are sixpence each and I hope you all win. Andera Keck K-Keck K-Keck K-Keck. We sell only the best E..E..English C..C..Coca Cola. Aye but, naw but, could you cut turf? Hollyhocks! Hollyhocks! over Bobby Lyttle's garden wall.  "You took the coat hanger to it." The seas obey, the fetters break and lifeless limbs thou dost restore. You could easily stand on Kelly's hills and count his skinny ribs. Barefooted thatcher ... Pa Bunty. Have you got a wagon to put these wheels on? Lauda Jerusalem Dominum,  Lauda Deum tuum Sion. Man attacked and thoroughly beaten ... attackers make off in a posh car. Swiftly, silently and unseen. You see Missus; there's the cow and there's the gate. Ecce Panis Angelorum. Dee daw Marjorie Raw. You're idle for stelk. Saucepan gossiper. Corduroy for every boy, cordurat for every cat. We're the boys that fears no noise, we are the bold Drumarda boys. On Saturday night we all got tight and Cassidy brought us over.  Silver Saturday, jink night. Listening to the footsteps of the boys from Tedd. Dick Nan's: just the spot for a picnic. Listen to me George: "Would you like white stones on your grave?" The bespectacled roadman.  Chick a boom ...  chick a rack ... chick a boom ... chick a rack ... and the yellow skirt goes swinging.  Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years, Scrooge replied. He died seven years ago, this very night. Too strong Grandad, too strong. Go on Balfour! Santa Agatha, ora pro nobis. "Pope Pius XII died during the night." The Ypres Salient at Night. Histracy. Wherefore have you left your sheep on that stony mountain steep? Hi for a toffer  and hi for it still; and hi for the wee lad lies over the hill. The river eddy  whirls. Beati Michaeli archangelo. Put a table in the hall and it will do fine. And he fully did. Jimmy Hicks is not in hell. Rushe came down last night. I know my nick name. Uncle Merry. For aye for guide: very good neighbours, but keep your back to us. Apostrophe at the Post  Office today. Let the reindeers go. Let them go! Good morrow Mick. No-one will  read your papers. Oh! Hugh is staunch. Jack's in Diviney. Smithers. You're only making a faddle (fardel) of yourself. The image of a girl. Deeper than the wishing well. Ballina, Balnabroka, Anahinahola, don't show the white feather wherever you go. Carolina  moon. What a beautiful day! What must heaven be like? Do you know our d'Brian?  You're nice Miss Rice. I see said the blind man. The fish in the pond are seeing  red as Bobby is fishing with Coates strong thread. And those who come from  distance far are always late for tea. Oh! to be in Doonaree. All day all night  Marianne; down by the seaside sifting sand. Look at the way he's twisting that  stick. He won't know himself in this lovely place. You've given me a taste of fame. There was a wild colonial boy  Jack Saltey was his name. Geoff Duke. I win a pound. The ancient ring post snapped like a matchstick. I think, I think, that she's the mostest of the lot, and furthermore she is the only chick I got. Nicolette ... I can pick 'em! Raddle diddle da ha ha. They all wore black coats and black top hats and they turned and went up to your room. Deep, deep river... away, away. Early morning light ... Rat ta-tat ta-tat ta-tat. Rat ta-tat ta-tat ta-tat.

The 15 Diseases of Leadership, According to Pope Francis

Pope Francis has made no secret of his intention to radically reform the administrative structures of the Catholic church, which he regards as insular, imperious, and bureaucratic. He understands that in a hyper-kinetic world, inward-looking and self-obsessed leaders are a liability.
Last year, just before Christmas, the Pope addressed the leaders of the Roman Curia — the Cardinals and other officials who are charged with running the church’s byzantine network of administrative bodies. The Pope’s message to his colleagues was blunt. Leaders are susceptible to an array of debilitating maladies, including arrogance, intolerance, myopia, and pettiness. When those diseases go untreated, the organization itself is enfeebled. To have a healthy church, we need healthy leaders.
Through the years, I’ve heard dozens of management experts enumerate the qualities of great leaders. Seldom, though, do they speak plainly about the “diseases” of leadership. The Pope is more forthright. He understands that as human beings we have certain proclivities — not all of them noble. Nevertheless, leaders should be held to a high standard, since their scope of influence makes their ailments particularly infectious.
The Catholic Church is a bureaucracy: a hierarchy populated by good-hearted, but less-than-perfect souls. In that sense, it’s not much different than your organization. That’s why the Pope’s counsel is relevant to leaders everywhere.
With that in mind, I spent a couple of hours translating the Pope’s address into something a little closer to corporate-speak. (I don’t know if there’s a prohibition on paraphrasing Papal pronouncements, but since I’m not Catholic, I’m willing to take the risk.)
Herewith, then, the Pope (more or less):
____________________
The leadership team is called constantly to improve and to grow in rapport and wisdom, in order to carry out fully its mission. And yet, like any body, like any human body, it is also exposed to diseases, malfunctioning, infirmity. Here I would like to mention some of these “[leadership] diseases.” They are diseases and temptations which can dangerously weaken the effectiveness of any organization.

1. The disease of thinking we are immortal, immune, or downright indispensable, [and therefore] neglecting the need for regular check-ups. A leadership team which is not self-critical, which does not keep up with things, which does not seek to be more fit, is a sick body. A simple visit to the cemetery might help us see the names of many people who thought they were immortal, immune, and indispensable! It is the disease of those who turn into lords and masters, who think of themselves as above others and not at their service. It is the pathology of power and comes from a superiority complex, from a narcissism which passionately gazes at its own image and does not see the face of others, especially the weakest and those most in need. The antidote to this plague is humility; to say heartily, “I am merely a servant. I have only done what was my duty.”

2. Another disease is excessive busyness. It is found in those who immerse themselves in work and inevitably neglect to “rest a while.” Neglecting needed rest leads to stress and agitation. A time of rest, for those who have completed their work, is necessary, obligatory and should be taken seriously: by spending time with one’s family and respecting holidays as moments for recharging.

3. Then there is the disease of mental and [emotional] “petrification.” It is found in leaders who have a heart of stone, the “stiff-necked;” in those who in the course of time lose their interior serenity, alertness and daring, and hide under a pile of papers, turning into paper pushers and not men and women of compassion. It is dangerous to lose the human sensitivity that enables us to weep with those who weep and to rejoice with those who rejoice! Because as time goes on, our hearts grow hard and become incapable of loving all those around us. Being a humane leader means having the sentiments of humility and unselfishness, of detachment and generosity.

4. The disease of excessive planning and of functionalism. When a leader plans everything down to the last detail and believes that with perfect planning things will fall into place, he or she becomes an accountant or an office manager. Things need to be prepared well, but without ever falling into the temptation of trying to eliminate spontaneity and serendipity, which is always more flexible than any human planning. We contract this disease because it is easy and comfortable to settle in our own sedentary and unchanging ways.

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5. The disease of poor coordination. Once leaders lose a sense of community among themselves, the body loses its harmonious functioning and its equilibrium; it then becomes an orchestra that produces noise: its members do not work together and lose the spirit of camaraderie and teamwork. When the foot says to the arm: ‘I don’t need you,’ or the hand says to the head, ‘I’m in charge,’ they create discomfort and parochialism.

6. There is also a sort of “leadership Alzheimer’s disease.” It consists in losing the memory of those who nurtured, mentored and supported us in our own journeys. We see this in those who have lost the memory of their encounters with the great leaders who inspired them; in those who are completely caught up in the present moment, in their passions, whims and obsessions; in those who build walls and routines around themselves, and thus become more and more the slaves of idols carved by their own hands.

7. The disease of rivalry and vainglory. When appearances, our perks, and our titles become the primary object in life, we forget our fundamental duty as leaders—to “do nothing from selfishness or conceit but in humility count others better than ourselves.” [As leaders, we must] look not only to [our] own interests, but also to the interests of others.

8. The disease of existential schizophrenia. This is the disease of those who live a double life, the fruit of that hypocrisy typical of the mediocre and of a progressive emotional emptiness which no [accomplishment or] title can fill. It is a disease which often strikes those who are no longer directly in touch with customers and “ordinary” employees, and restrict themselves to bureaucratic matters, thus losing contact with reality, with concrete people.

9. The disease of gossiping, grumbling, and back-biting. This is a grave illness which begins simply, perhaps even in small talk, and takes over a person, making him become a “sower of weeds” and in many cases, a cold-blooded killer of the good name of colleagues. It is the disease of cowardly persons who lack the courage to speak out directly, but instead speak behind other people’s backs. Let us be on our guard against the terrorism of gossip!

10. The disease of idolizing superiors. This is the disease of those who court their superiors in the hope of gaining their favor. They are victims of careerism and opportunism; they honor persons [rather than the larger mission of the organization]. They think only of what they can get and not of what they should give; small-minded persons, unhappy and inspired only by their own lethal selfishness. Superiors themselves can be affected by this disease, when they try to obtain the submission, loyalty and psychological dependency of their subordinates, but the end result is unhealthy complicity.

11. The disease of indifference to others. This is where each leader thinks only of himself or herself, and loses the sincerity and warmth of [genuine] human relationships. This can happen in many ways: When the most knowledgeable person does not put that knowledge at the service of less knowledgeable colleagues, when you learn something and then keep it to yourself rather than sharing it in a helpful way with others; when out of jealousy or deceit you take joy in seeing others fall instead of helping them up and encouraging them.

12. The disease of a downcast face. You see this disease in those glum and dour persons who think that to be serious you have to put on a face of melancholy and severity, and treat others—especially those we consider our inferiors—with rigor, brusqueness and arrogance. In fact, a show of severity and sterile pessimism are frequently symptoms of fear and insecurity. A leader must make an effort to be courteous, serene, enthusiastic and joyful, a person who transmits joy everywhere he goes. A happy heart radiates an infectious joy: it is immediately evident! So a leader should never lose that joyful, humorous and even self-deprecating spirit which makes people amiable even in difficult situations. How beneficial is a good dose of humor! …

13. The disease of hoarding. This occurs when a leader tries to fill an existential void in his or her heart by accumulating material goods, not out of need but only in order to feel secure. The fact is that we are not able to bring material goods with us when we leave this life, since “the winding sheet does not have pockets” and all our treasures will never be able to fill that void; instead, they will only make it deeper and more demanding. Accumulating goods only burdens and inexorably slows down the journey!

14. The disease of closed circles, where belonging to a clique becomes more powerful than our shared identity. This disease too always begins with good intentions, but with the passing of time it enslaves its members and becomes a cancer which threatens the harmony of the organization and causes immense evil, especially to those we treat as outsiders. “Friendly fire” from our fellow soldiers, is the most insidious danger. It is the evil which strikes from within. As it says in the bible, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste.”

15. Lastly: the disease of extravagance and self-exhibition. This happens when a leader turns his or her service into power, and uses that power for material gain, or to acquire even greater power. This is the disease of persons who insatiably try to accumulate power and to this end are ready to slander, defame and discredit others; who put themselves on display to show that they are more capable than others. This disease does great harm because it leads people to justify the use of any means whatsoever to attain their goal, often in the name of justice and transparency! Here I remember a leader who used to call journalists to tell and invent private and confidential matters involving his colleagues. The only thing he was concerned about was being able to see himself on the front page, since this made him feel powerful and glamorous, while causing great harm to others and to the organization.

Planned Parenthood video is ‘horrifying and heartbreaking,’ says congresswoman

by Catholic News Service

posted Monday, 20 Jul 2015

Rep Ann Wagner speaking in Washington DC (PA)

   

Rep Ann Wagner and other US politicians speak out after the release of controversial video secretly filmed by the Center for Medical Progress

A video of a Planned Parenthood physician describing her procedures for keeping foetal organs intact during an abortion is “horrifying and heartbreaking,” a US congresswoman has said.
Rep Ann Wagner, Republican representative for Missouri’s second congressional district, made the comments at a news conference held last week on Capitol Hill by several House members a day after the video was released.
Filmed undercover and produced by the Center for Medical Progress, the video shows Dr Deborah Nucatola, senior director of Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s Medical Services, discussing ways the abortion procedure can be altered to preserve body parts requested for use in research.
Nucatola is shown casually describing to actors posing as buyers from a human biologics company how Planned Parenthood sells the body parts of aborted, unborn children. The video was shot at a business lunch in the Los Angeles area on July 25 2014.
“This organisation, and others, have been accused of atrocities before, but this is the first time it has been captured in their own words, in such a cold and callous way (as) she was shoving salad in her mouth,” said Wagner,.
She was joined at the news conference by other pro-life members of Congress, including US Reps Chris Smith (R-New Jersey); Sean Duffy (R-Wisconsin); and Martha Roby (R-Alabama). Smith is the co-chair of the bi-partisan Congressional Pro-Life Caucus.
Duffy called the video “shockingly inhumane” and “frankly disgusting”.
“I am a dad of seven kids. I have been there for all the births of my children and I think of all of the people who have had a child, and who hear their baby for the first time, it is absolutely priceless. Now we know Planned Parenthood has put a price on those little babies,” he told reporters.
“This is unacceptable in 2015 American society,” he continued. “We need to stand together. This is not a Republican or a Democrat issue, this is an American issue.”
Smith stated that 15 years ago he wrote the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, “the landmark law that combats the exploitation of human beings, mostly women and children, a cruelty that reduces victims to commodities for sale.”

He added: “Planned Parenthood is trafficking in baby body parts and intact organ like livers and hearts, charging up to $100 or more per body part. Congress must, and will, investigate and believe we will put an end to these horrific acts.”
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) announced later that day that Congress would investigate Planned Parenthood’s abortion practices.
“Nothing is more precious than life, especially an unborn child. When anyone diminishes an unborn child, we are all hurt, irreversibly so,” he said in a statement.
“When an organisation monetises an unborn child — and with the cavalier attitude portrayed in this horrific video — we must all act,” he said, adding that “I have asked our relevant committees to look into this matter.”
“I am also calling on President Obama and Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell to denounce, and stop, these gruesome practices,” added Boehner.
At least one governor has launched a state-wide investigation, Republican Gov Bobby Jindal of Louisiana.
Planned Parenthood acknowledged it sometimes charges for aborted foetuses’ body parts used for research, but said the money Nucatola mentioned is for actual costs such as transportation costs.
Erin Ferrero, Planned Parenthood’s vice president of communications, said in a July 14 statement: “There is no financial benefit for tissue donation for either the patient or Planned Parenthood.”
Ferrero questioned the video’s credibility, calling it “heavily edited.”
On July 16 in a video statement posted on YouTube, Cecile Richards, Planned Parenthood’s president, apologised for Nucatola’s “tone and statements” but also emphasised that “the allegation that Planned Parenthood profits in any way from tissue donation is not true”.
As head of Planned Parenthood’s Medical Services Department, Nucatola has overseen medical practice at of the federation’s locations since 2009. She also trains new Planned Parenthood abortion doctors and performs abortions herself at Planned Parenthood in Los Angeles on women who are up to 24 weeks pregnant, according to Center for Medical Progress.
In the video, she says: “We’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know that, so I’m not gonna crush that part, I’m gonna basically crush below, I’m gonna crush above, and I’m gonna see if I can get it all intact.”
At the Capitol Hill news conference, Roby became emotional and began to cry, saying the situation warrants a criminal investigation.
“I do not care how much weight Planned Parenthood throws around this town, no one is above the law. We are not going to look the other way while babies are being brutally killed and organs harvested,” she stated.
Nucatola is heard in the video saying concerns have been expressed at Planned Parenthood’s national office regarding liability for the sale of foetal parts.
“At the national office, we have a Litigation and Law Department which just really doesn’t want us to be the middle people for this issue right now,” she says. “But I will tell you that behind closed doors these conversations are happening with the affiliates.”
Duffy said that Planned Parenthood fights any bill Congress might consider about restricting abortion beyond the time a fetus can feel pain, which many scientists say is at about 20 weeks.
Planned Parenthood claims, he said, to be for women and for their health, but “it’s not about health. We know it’s about money. We know they make money the longer the baby is in the womb.”
At least three federal laws make it illegal to buy and sell human foetal tissue or organs in the US. Money can change hands only to reimburse for expenses incurred.

The short life and mysterious death of Bobby Fuller, rock'n'roll king of Texas

The short life and mysterious death of Bobby Fuller, rock'n'roll king of Texas

If the I Fought the Law singer hadn’t died in strange circumstances just as his band was taking off, he might have altered the history of pop as we know it

The Bobby Fuller Four, with Bobby at the front. Photograph: Michael Ochs Archives

Chris Campion

Thursday 16 July 2015 18.53 BST Last modified on Friday 17 July 2015 00.00 BST

Imagine that the British Invasion of the US never happened, that the Beatles’ three-night stand on The Ed Sullivan Show never aired, and that American popular music in the 1960s developed on its own, without the introduction of a viral strain from across the Atlantic. What might it have sounded like?

Maybe the answer lies in the music of Bobby Fuller, self-styled “Rock’n’Roll King of the Southwest”, who died on 18 July 1966, aged 23, in mysterious circumstances. Throughout the early 60s – working variously as a songwriter, performer, producer, label-owner and impresario – Fuller carved out a unique sound, blending southern styles and drawing heavily on the stripped-down, raw, heart-on-sleeve rock’n’roll of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and Eddie Cochran. To those elements he added vocal harmonies styled on the Everly Brothers and searing blasts of surf guitar and garage rock fuzz bass. It was a purely American music – one that didn’t acknowledge the Beatles or other British bands then making an impact in America.
“Contrary to popular belief, American music was alive and well before the British Invasion,” says Miriam Linna. Her book I Fought the Law: the Life and Strange Death of Bobby Fuller, titled after its subject’s biggest hit, makes a compelling case for a re-evaluation of Fuller as a pivotal figure in American pop music. “My brother was ahead of his time,” says Randy Fuller, Bobby’s younger sibling and bass player for the Bobby Fuller Four, who co-wrote the book with Linna.
Randy recalls that his brother liked to say the Beatles would “never be able to do Buddy Holly like Buddy Holly because they’re not from Texas”. In other words, they didn’t have the cadence or the swing; unable to tap into a rich vein of regional music that included southern blues and R&B, western swing and Tejano, from south of the border, they couldn’t rock’n’roll like boys from the south. That propulsive rhythm is what drives I Fought the Law, a top 10 hit in March 1966 for the Bobby Fuller Four, who gamely performed it on TV shows such as Hullabaloo and Shivaree, in jailhouse sets or backed by hot-stepping cowgirl go-go dancers brandishing six-shooters. With their distinctive Jay Sebring haircuts, Beatle boots and tailored suits, the Bobby Fuller Four looked curiously out-of-step with their shaggier and more outre peers on the Los Angeles music scene.

I Fought the Law has become the archetypal outlaw rock’n’roll anthem, and has been covered more than 50 times, by the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty and, most famously, the Clash. Although the song was written by Buddy Holly’s friend Sonny Curtis and originally performed by the Crickets in 1960, it was Fuller’s version, with its intense, frenetic energy, that popularised the song and drew generations of punks and rockers to it. The song’s success served to overshadow Fuller’s own formidable talents as a writer and arranger of pounding, anthemic odes to teenage heartbreak, such as Let Her Dance and Never to Be Forgotten. Bob Dylan was apparently so enamoured with Fuller’s slow-burning ballad A New Shade of Blue that he applied new lyrics to the melody to make Soon After Midnight on his 2012 album, Tempest – claiming the songwriting credits for himself.
Fuller was a hometown hero in El Paso long before he hit the national charts. In 1961, aged 19, he built his own studio in the den of his parents’ three-bedroom, two-bathroom home there, recording initially on a Viking reel-to-reel tape deck, before gradually acquiring more and better equipment. “If it was the tape recorder that Bob Keane used to do La Bamba with, he got it,” Randy says. “And he would talk my mom and dad into buying it for him.” The brothers built their own control booth and echo chamber, and Fuller started two labels, Eastwood and Exeter, to release his music. In 1964, inspired by what he saw and heard at surf music pioneer Dick Dale’s Rendezvous Ballroom on a trip to California, Fuller opened his own teen club in El Paso (also called the Rendezvous). His group, then known as the Fanatics, were the house band. “It was a sight to behold,” says Randy, “playing surf music in El Paso at our teen club.”

Teenage desert rats flocked to the club dressed as surfers and beach bums. Bobby became a local sensation. “England has the Beatles but El Paso has Bobby,” the El Paso Herald Post crowed in September 1964. The group experienced Beatles-style teen adulation on a local level. An appearance at a local shopping center drew “6,000 screaming and cheering boys and girls”, the paper noted. “It was like something was about to happen and you knew it,” Randy says.

By the close of 1964, they had outgrown El Paso and upped sticks to California, where they looked up Bob Keane, owner of Del-Fi Records, who had discovered and produced Valens and had expressed a prior interest in the band. Keane duly signed them, becoming their manager, booker, producer, label boss and publisher. Years of playing across the southwest had honed the newly christened Bobby Fuller Four into a formidable live group who wowed the Hollywood music scene. The top 10 success of I Fought the Law in the spring of 1966 turned them into teen idols almost overnight.
Things quickly soured, though. Keane’s attempts to mould Fuller into a Valens-style star alienated the rest of the band, and Fuller himself became dissatisfied with the direction in which Keane was pushing the group and with a punishing tour schedule that kept them out of the studio. Although known to eschew gimmicks and overdubs in favour of producing recordings that could be recreated on stage, it was gimmicks that would ultimately stifle Fuller’s career. Keane came up with a succession of dumb marketing ideas for the group: a single released as the Shindigs to secure a slot on the music TV show Shindig!; a drag racing-themed debut long-player, branded with the name of the Los Angeles radio station KRLA; a cameo in The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini – a goofy beach party movie starring Boris Karloff – lip-synching to songs behind Nancy Sinatra. And, it may have been gimmicks that killed Bobby Fuller, too.

On the afternoon of 18 July 1966, Fuller was found dead by his mother in her blue Oldsmobile. Initial reports pointed to suicide: “Musician Robert Fuller, 23, was found dead on the parking lot at his Hollywood apartment house with a plastic hose in his hands leading to a gasoline can,” the LA Times reported. That’s how the police saw it, too, closing the case without even brushing for fingerprints or interviewing anyone. The details told a different story. The car had not been in the lot 30 minutes before his mother found it, yet Fuller’s body was in an advanced state of rigor mortis, suggesting he had died elsewhere.

Various theories have been advanced about Fuller’s death, most wildly implausible: an accident following a bad reaction to LSD; knocked off by the Manson family; retribution for a dalliance with the girlfriend of a mob-connected Los Angeles nightclub owner. One theory even implicated Keane, noting that Fuller was the third artist under his charge, after Valens and Sam Cooke, to die in disputed circumstances.
While Linna’s book doesn’t solve the mystery, it does offer up the name of somebody whose entry into Fuller’s life was a bad omen: Morris Levy, owner of Roulette Records, a notorious figure once described as the “Godfather of the American music business”. Levy’s business partners and associates read like a roll call of the east-coast mafia, and included members of the Gambino, Genovese and DeCavalcante crime families. The book catalogues the grim history of beatings, threats and deaths of those associated with Levy.
Shortly before Fuller’s death, Keane’s label had signed an exclusive distribution deal with Roulette, and the Bobby Fuller Four’s last single, The Magic Touch, a Motown-style soul number picked by Keane to piggyback another musical fad, was penned by a songwriter associated with Roulette. Randy believes it is likely that his brother’s death was connected to a business deal he wanted to back out of. He recalled seeing his brother and Keane in the company of a third man during the Bobby Fuller Four’s spring 1966 stay in New York, although he could not remember who it was. When shown a photo of Levy by Linna, Randy identified him without knowing his name.
Randy believes that, had he lived, Bobby might have returned to El Paso, opened a new teen club and continued his experiments in the studio, free from interference and commercial pressures. If so, he would almost certainly be thought of now as a seminal and visionary figure, along the lines of Brian Wilson, Phil Spector or Joe Meek. Linna, too, is convinced Fuller was destined for more than cult success, pointing to the fact that a UK tour had been booked for the Bobby Fuller Four. “If that had happened, I honestly believe today’s music scene would be vastly different,” she says. “[Fuller] would have represented the second coming of Buddy Holly, who eight years earlier had toured Britain, inspiring everyone from the fledgling Beatles to those guys who ended up being in a band called the Rolling Stones.”
And maybe, just maybe, the Bobby Fuller Four would have spearheaded an American Invasion of Britain.
• I Fought The Law: The Life and Strange Death of Bobby Fuller is available from Kicks Books.

Frank Auerbach in his own words

Frank Auerbach in his own words

E.O.W. on Her Blue Eiderdown II 1965, by Frank Auerbach. 

     

  

Frank Auerbach, now 81, is recognised as one of the outstanding painters of his generation. His early reputation has been linked to his paintings of building sites of the bomb-damaged city, although he remembers that, as a young painter, he found the London of the post-war years was “a marvellous landscape with precipice and mountain and crags, full of drama”.

In the mid-Sixties he also began to work with another focus and scale. Eighteen of his first paintings of people can be seen in a new exhibition; they show that drama becoming more intimate, tangible and sensual, the paint surprisingly colourful and luscious. “Like time travel these things unlock memories for me,” Auerbach told me. “It takes me back to a time 45-50 years ago. It does what painting is supposed to do – drag the past into the present and reanimate it.”

His principle subject for 20 years was E.O.W. (Estella Olive West). They met while in the same play at the Unity Theatre in 1948; Stella was a widow with three children, he was 17, she 32. Three evenings a week, she posed for him in her house. Although he now paints other people, and other scenes, Auerbach still abides by an unvarying, rigorous routine, continuing to work from a handful of familiar models and to find subjects in the area around his studio in Mornington Crescent (three 2012 paintings titled Next Door record his wife, Julia, standing in front of a large white gate).

Early on it became this artist’s habit to live as much as possible with a brush in his hand, to work quickly and scrape off failed attempts before beginning again. He discovered that “the only way which I could, with luck, make a tiny contribution to art was to just simply work as hard and as much as I possibly could. I was always aware that I was very, very slow and that if a painting came together, or seemed to me to be satisfactory and not in any sense manufactured, it would always have happened unexpectedly, at any time, without me being able to foresee when.” Catherine Lampert

            

E.O.W. on Her Blue Eiderdown II 1965

“Stella was marvellous. She sat three times a week, she brought up three children, she worked as a social worker all day and got quite tired in the evenings, so lying on the bed and very often falling asleep was a good situation both for her and for me.
“I worked in Stella’s bedroom then because the children were growing up and I didn’t have quite the freedom to muck up the rest of the house in those days. I would have lots of paint around me, with the painting resting on a very, very painty chair. Stella would lie on the blue eiderdown thrown across her bed. And I have to say the painting brings the whole situation back to me very vividly indeed. These conditions, which I think most artists would complain about, I never found irksome, working in a crowded small room, to be on my knees and not able to get too far away from the painting, because finally, I think, all that thing of unity is in one’s head as much as it is found by looking.”
Studio with Figure on a Bed II 1966

“This is actually quite ambitious. sometimes one does the same thing three or four times then reacts against it. I became tired of the fact that the paintings tended to be of one object, and here I tried to make a sort of inventory of that corner of the studio, obviously interpreted and changed.
“It was a record of the paintings on the wall and of the picture rail and of the Masonite put on the wall to stop it absorbing the damp. There were two works by Leon Kossoff, a print of St Paul’s and a gouache of a hospital scene, and I think I had hung some pseudo-etchings by Rembrandt, a little one of a dark nude. It looks a success to me. It also works as a record of the place. I hope that the proportions and intervals are not as banal as they would be if I had simply done something arbitrary. The point of reality is that it always contradicts one’s preconceptions.”
J.Y.M. in the Studio II 1964

“J.Y.M. was a professional model I met while teaching at Sidcup College of Art, and suddenly she said: 'If you’d ever like me to pose for you privately, I will.’ She posed twice a week for many years, and was able to sit for an infinite time, sometimes five hours without a break.
“J.Y.M.’s willingness to pose, I think, gave me a greater variety of possibilities so that I’d paint heads, and figures on a bed, and seated figures. The studio was a very bare box, 85 per cent of the room was taken up by painting paraphernalia, 15 per cent by living conveniences, so many of the paintings have in the foreground the paraffin stove which was the only way of heating that damp and crumbling space and the chair which has served me for many years, although when it finally gave up the ghost was replicated by an identical one.
“She looked a very harmonious, pale figure. There was something about the way she posed that was curiously Victorian, like those women in 19th-century French photographs, but I wouldn’t have been influenced by that when I was painting, and of course, she’s not playing a part and it’s not made up, so what one is painting is one’s reaction to this human animal.”
E.O.W. 1972

“A tiny painting done fairly late in my relationship with Stella, it is like the others, done in the bedroom and they all took ages. I was doing a number of paintings in just blue, white and black; again it’s always a reaction, it is not planned, though in the sense of a daydream, perhaps I wanted a more austere language.
“I’m not self-analytical, however, looking at the paintings now, it seems to me, that one could say, although if I were a curator or art historian I wouldn’t have the cheek, 'a more dynamic way of drawing was searched for by Mr Auerbach and therefore he used a more restricted palette so he could concentrate on that’. And, the black is a way of drawing.”

Catholic priest is a biker with a message

Catholic priest is a biker with a message

Biker priest

Nate Guidry,Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Father Lou Vallone, pastor of Saint John of God Parish in McKees Rocks, Pa., says riding a motorcycle is who he is. "What you see is what you get," he said.

Lou Vallone

Nate Guidry,Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Father Lou Vallone said he sometimes incorporates experiences from his motorcycle rides into his Sunday sermons.

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Waterloo Region Record

               

By Andrew Goldstein

PITTSBURGH — A priest walks into a motorcycle club.

Don't bother reading further if you've heard this one before.

Then again, if you know the Rev. Lou Vallone, perhaps you've seen it happen.

The pastor of St. John of God in McKees Rocks, Pa., and St. Catherine of Siena in suburban Crescent is a man of many gears. A master scuba diver, a self-proclaimed barbecue expert — and a man of God.

But above all else (under the heavens, that is), Father Vallone prefers to sit back, rev up his full-dress police edition 2003 Harley Davidson Electra Glide Standard, turn up the tunes and take on some two-lane blacktop. Two hours on the bike, he says, is better than a three-day vacation.

"Being a biker is who I am. Who I am is who I put out there to my people. Who I am is who God chose to use as his instrument," says the 67-year-old who sports a short grey ponytail. "So if anything positive's coming from it, it's because it's an authentic thing and it's not a gimmick. What you see is what you get."

Father Vallone was 14 years old when he first rented a 50cc motorbike and rode it through a county park.

"That had me hooked," he said.

Despite some disapproval from his parents and his superiors in the clergy, there was no making a U-turn by the time he was ordained by the Diocese of Pittsburgh in 1973.

"The diocese wasn't overwhelmingly pleased with it," he said. "I'm not sure of whether it was a perceptual issue or whether (the bishop) figured he invested 12 years of education in me and didn't want to lose it too quick in a motorcycle accident. But the diocese has never been completely at ease with my being a biker."

His parishioners, he says, believe otherwise. The pastor often cites his motorcycle experiences in his homilies, attempting to convey the Scriptures so that they will relate in the modern world.

"I tell them weather reports are very important to motorcycle riders. If you're going to be out for a couple of hours, you can't just look out the window. What's it going to be like two hours from now when I come back? There's a 50 per cent chance of rain, but if it rains, you get 100 per cent wet," he said.

"So the Lord tells you, 'not the day nor the hour.' You know, the odds may be 50 per cent that you're not going to get caught doing something wrong. But if you get caught doing something wrong, you're 100 per cent guilty."

Mark Woods, 47, of occasionally attends Mass at St. John of God and has had his Harley-Davidson 1200 Sportster Custom blessed by Father Vallone. Earlier this spring he had the chance to ride with a small group with Father Vallone as the road captain, or leader.

"He was telling us all the signals and my friend Dan Fleet says to me, 'I know he's ridden before,'" noting that the priest knew the biker signals for potholes, road kill and other hazards.

This would not be the first time or place Father Vallone has led. The Rev. John Boeckman, whom Father Vallone mentored in the 1980s, said that the pastor was a life coach before that became a popular buzzword.

"Someone when they're starting out has to have someone like that, that's going to show you: 'Here's what the priesthood is like and here's what you need to do when this comes up,'" he said. "You need that go-to person, and that's what he was always, on everything."

Other bikers do a double-take when they see his priest's collar.

"I have passed packs of outlaw bikers who ... quite unexpectedly would form up around me and ride with me for a while," Father Vallone said. "(They say,) 'Hi, padre. How are you, preacher, what's going on?'

"It's kind of like an evangelizing moment in a way. Rather than totally rejecting them because of their reputation, I'm still seeing them as a priest. They're the lost sheep, and so I find that a great chance to see the smiles on their face and to see this interaction in their lives."

For Father Vallone, it's all about enriching the lives of others — and his own.

"I believe in God, but I also believe in having fun on my motorcycle. These two things are not incompatible.

"I'm not out after everything mystical, sanctifying. Gas fumes are more likely to be around me than incense, but that is the holy as far as I'm concerned."

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette