Don Camillo & Peppone

Giovannino Guareschi (1908 - 1968) was an Italian journalist, humorist, and cartoonist best known for his short stories based on the fictional Catholic priest Don Camillo.

The Don Camillo Stories of Giovannino Guareschi: A Humorist Portrays the Sacred (University of Toronto Press, 2008) is an interesting study by Alan R. Perry that uses a Christian hermeneutic to explore several of the 346 Don Camillo short stories.

"Don Camillo, the cantankerous but beloved priest, and his sidekick, Communist mayor Peppone, continue to entertain viewers and readers," Perry wrote in the preface. "Their Cold War adventures, mishaps, arguments, and reconciliations have a timeless quality, and their actions reflect endearing values that prevail."

"The stories delight, to be sure, earning frequent smiles and giggles. But the best of them, as we laugh and sometimes get teary-eyed, force us to stop and think about how Guareschi so powerfully conveyed Jesus of Nazareth's message of faith, hope, and love. To appreciate the true genius of Guareschi, readers have to delve into the deeper meaning that the stories contain," Perry wrote.

"In reflecting popular understandings of faith, the Don Camillo tales allow us to appreciate a sacred understanding of the world, communicated through objects, gestures, expressions, and actual rites of the Catholic Church. Their author was in a class by himself in this regard, and we do well to appreciate his contribution to Italian literature in this light."

[Pictured above: Fernandel as Don Camillo and Gino Cervi as Peppone in the movie Don Camillo and Hon. Peppone]

Bad Dad

Bruce Wayne – who by night is Batman – gets murdered by a man claiming to be the father he thought was dead.

In a highly controversial new storyline Bruce, who first appeared in 1939, is killed by Simon Hurt – the leader of the shady Black Glove organisation.

Simon claims he is really Dr Thomas Wayne, saying faked his own passing when Bruce was a child.

The superhero dies when he tries to stop his foe escaping by helicopter in the new comic Batman R.I.P.

Batman will live on though, with another character filling his Batsuit.

Two likely contenders are Dick Grayson - the original Robin - or current Boy Wonder, Tim Drake.

[BBC, The Sun]

Knowledge of Life

Good writing is true writing. If a man is making a story up it will be true in proportion to the amount of knowledge of life that he has and how conscientious he is; so that when he makes something up it is as it would truly be. If he doesn't know how many people work in their minds and actions his luck may save him for a while, or he may write fantasy. But if he continues to write about what he does not know about he will find himself faking. After he fakes a few times he cannot write honestly any more.

(Ernest Hemingway, "Monologue to the Maestro: A High Seas Letter," in Esquire, New York, October 1935, reprinted in By-Line)

Darkness... Light...

Ipsa caligo summa est mentis nostrae illuminatio.
(Bonaventurae Bagnoregis Itinerarium Mentis in Deum)

"Darkness itself is the fullest illumination of our mind."
(Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, The Journey of the Mind to God)

International Journalism

'Foreign news', 'world news', or both?

[Sean Maguire, Reuters Editors]

In That Number

'As a famous spiritual song says: "Oh when the Saints, come marching in, oh how I want to be in that number!". May this beautiful aspiration burn within all Christians, and help them to overcome every difficulty, every fear, every tribulation!' (Pope Benedict XVI/Joseph Ratzinger, St Peter's Square)

Bruce Springsteen and the Seeger Sessions Band:

River

It's coming on Christmas
They're cutting down trees
They're putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace
Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on

But it don't snow here
It stays pretty green
I'm going to make a lot of money
Then I'm going to quit this crazy scene
I wish I had a river...

Herbie Hancock feat. Corinne Bailey Rae:

Blowin' in the Wind

The homicide detectives stood in the cold wind yesterday at a quiet Clinton cemetery to bury an infant they named Maria del Pilar. They were the only mourners.

A month ago, the newborn was found alive in a trash bag in the Takoma Park area. She died later that day, and her mother was charged with murder. No one stepped forward to bury her, so Prince George's County police officers gathered yesterday morning to do so themselves.

(Aaron C. Davis and Jenna Johnson, Wash Post)

The Congo Conflict

"This is a big story — a story deserving of front-page, in-depth coverage. Instead, we've gotten broad and relatively short articles on the subject buried in our newspapers of record." [CJR]

The Right to Live

Hannah Jones, the terminally-ill British teenager who has refused a life-saving heart transplant, "is not asking for the right to die, as the misapprehension is, but for the right to live as she wants – at home with her parents and her siblings." [Elizabeth Grice, Telegraph]

Belief

Jason Gideon pays his bill at a small diner.

The waitress asks: "Where are you headed?"

"Nowhere in particular," he replies.

"Then how will you know when you get there?"

"That's a good question, Rose, that's a very good question."

He turns to leave.

As he drives away, Gideon's words resound: "I guess I'm just looking for it again – for the belief I had back in college, the belief I had when I first met Sarah and it all seemed so right. The belief in happy endings."

[Criminal Minds: In Birth and Death. Season 3, Episode 2]

Truth

Especially dedicated to religion reporters:

What is truth? Truth is something so noble that if God could turn aside from it, I could keep to the truth and let God go.

(Meister Eckhart, Sermons, No. 26)

Don't Forget Darfur

A refugee mother and her child who fled the conflict in Sudan's western Darfur region sit on a bed at Djabal camp near Gos Beida in eastern Chad November 2004. Picture courtesy of Nicola Fossella.

When the world turned its back on Darfur:

It was July 31, 2007. The news had just come over the wires that the United Nations had passed Resolution 1769, authorizing a joint United Nations and African Union peacekeeping force to protect the civilians of Darfur. The force would be called UNAMID and would replace a weak African Union peacekeeping force that really had only been able to watch as Janjaweed militias massacred Darfuris from targeted ethnic groups, raped women and burned villages to the ground.

We almost couldn't believe it. Students worldwide had been calling for the intervention of a U.N. peacekeeping force for years, outside of embassies and consulates and Congress. And here we were, three months after a Global Day for Darfur when people in over 40 cities worldwide donned their blue berets and cried for peacekeepers, and the peacekeepers were on their way. We patted one another on the back and said, grinning, "Job well done," and we walked away. In walking away, we turned our backs on Darfur.

While our backs were turned, this is what happened: Of the 26,000 troops promised to the victims of the genocide, only several thousand pairs of boots ever touched the sand of Darfur. Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir denied and delayed visas to the few brave enough to volunteer. The Sudanese government restricted the United Nations' movement and limited the hours its people could fly in and out of airports. Meanwhile, the Darfuris looked hopefully upward towards the white planes with U.N. markings, unaware that the planes were carrying Sudanese soldiers, ready to bomb. All this time, UNAMID did not even have a single helicopter to its name. It lacked even the most basic of equipment. What it did have was either stolen by bandits or had been held up on the long road from Port Sudan. Without this equipment, not only could UNAMID not do its job of protecting civilians, it could barely protect itself. UNAMID has been assaulted repeatedly. Peacekeepers who came to monitor a peace became casualties in a war the world thought was over.

Meanwhile, the attacks against civilians continued. In the first ten months of 2008 alone, over 230,000 Darfuris were forced to flee violence. And even once Darfuris fled their burning villages, they weren't safe. This year, the Sudanese government made a point to surround a camp for displaced Darfuris with 100 tanks and then open fire. UNAMID was denied access to the camps to evacuate the wounded.

It had taken us far too long to realize that ending the genocide in Darfur was not as easy as having one document, Resolution 1769, signed.

And now, here we stand, with a peacekeeping force that can barely protect itself, let alone the victims of genocide in one of the most hostile environments in the world. They're still missing helicopters, they're still missing equipment, they're still missing boots on the ground and every day, hundreds Darfuris are forced to flee their homes.

UNAMID is not hopeless. The men and women in the blue berets are serving bravely in the desert, against the odds, doing the best they can with what they have. UNAMID still accompanies women trying to get firewood, they still run escorts and they still are the only protection offered to the Darfuri people.

We cannot turn our backs again on Darfur. We must learn from our mistakes and accept that there is no magic solution to Darfur's problems. UNAMID is not a complete failure, but it does need our help. It needs troops, it needs equipment and it needs the power to accomplish the job it was created to do. The United Nations created UNAMID because of pressure from us, constituents who demanded a peacekeeping force in Darfur. If UNAMID is to be helped, we must demand it. We have to once again put pressure on the United Nations as constituents who want to end the genocide in Darfur.

This time, however, we must insist that UNAMID be improved. It is not acceptable that UNAMID troops are victims of killings. It is not acceptable that they are ill-equipped and have to fear for their own safety while trying to protect others. And it is not acceptable for us to stand by and watch as UNAMID struggles and Darfuris die. We must stand up against the genocide and insist that the United Nations develop a peacekeeping force with the power to protect citizens and prevent the murder, rape and displacement of Darfuris.

[Sarah Carpenter and Sabina Carlson, Tufts Daily]

Obama Front Pages: Day Two

Here are the front pages from the top US papers.

Meanwhile, in the UK...

Black Man, White House

The historic nature of Tuesday's election of Barack Obama as the first African-American president of the United States was clearly reflected in front pages.

















The New York Times, which used 96-point type only three times in its history, did so again and proclaimed the single last name of the next president in its header today: "OBAMA."

Previously, according to E&P, only the resignation of Richard Nixon, the first man on the moon, and the Sept. 11 attacks sparked such a large Page One font for the paper.

USA Today stated, "America makes history: Obama Wins," The Wall Street Journal declared, "Obama Sweeps to Historic Victory," and The Los Angeles Times proclaimed: "It's Obama."

McCain or Obama

The Last Nun of a Defunct Order

"Many of you may not know that on the girdles we Sisters wear, there are three knots which represent our vows of poverty, chastity and obedience but I have always said that the key vow is obedience."

(Sister Elizabeth, 92, the sole survivor of the Community of the Epiphany, which came to life on All Saints Day in 1883)

[Western Morning News]

Interview with the Lord

"I've made vampires believable to grown women. Now, if I can do that, I can make our Lord Jesus Christ believable to people who've never believed in him. I hope and pray."

(Anne Rice, author of Interview With the Vampire and other books on vampires, demons and witches)

[AP]