In Memoriam

Michael Jackson, 1958-2009

Rachel's Waltz

"I liken malt to a grand Steinway piano, principally because malt whisky is the most complex spirit in the world. And the grand Steinway piano has the greatest range and intensity of sounds of all instruments. The top notes are like the very delicate fruity floral, in the middle you find this incredible sumptuous malty middle that you can only get from malted barley. In the bass, there are deep chocolates, treacle, and mead, almost Christmas-like flavours . . . I find that different styles of music match different whiskies. For example I liken Glenmorangie Ten Year Old to a Chopin waltz." (Rachel Barrie)

Rachel Barrie from the Glenmorangie Distillery in Scotland was the first woman to earn the title of "Scotch Whisky Master Blender."

A History in Red

At the end of June 1859, the armies of France and Sardinia, led by Napoleon III, confronted the Austrians at Solferino in northern Italy.

Henri Dunant, a Geneva businessman, happened to be passing, and witnessed the battle.

Horrified by what he saw, he documented the slaughter in his book, A Memory of Solferino.

At the end of the battle, the Austrians were defeated and 40,000 men lay dead or dying.

As Dunant discovered, and later recounted, little was done to care for the wounded.

What he saw at Solferino shocked Dunant, and inspired him to develop an organisation dedicated to helping war wounded.

But the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) had modest beginnings; Dunant and four friends met in an apartment in Geneva's old town to discuss possible rules for war, aimed at alleviating suffering.

(Imogen Foulkes, Red Cross Marks Battle Anniversary, BBC News)

The King Is Dead

Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, has died.

The Multimedia Gospel

"I spend my days at Reuters preaching the multimedia gospel to my 2,700 journalists."

(David Schlesinger, Editor-in-Chief Reuters News, here)

A Newspaper in Four Chapters

"Perhaps an editor might begin a reformation in some such way as this. Divide his paper into four chapters. 1st, Truths. 2d, Probabilities. 3d, Possibilities. 4th, Lies.

The first chapter would be very short, as it would contain little more than authentic papers and information from such sources as the editor would be willing to risk his own reputation for their truth.

The second would contain what, from a mature consideration of all circumstances, his judgment should conclude to be probably true. This, however, should rather contain too little than too much.

The third and fourth should be professedly for those readers who would rather have lies for their money than the blank paper they would occupy."

(Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Norvell, Washington, June 14, 1807)

The Vatican Job

"It is not the job of the director of L'Osservatore Romano to conduct the foreign affairs of the Holy See. I just do the newspaper and try to do it as best I can, in a balanced way. I try to correctly inform my readers..." (Gian Maria Vian)

[Vian's Choice, an interview with the editor-in-chief of the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, by Delia Gallagher]

The Bonfire of the Vanities

"Divine Providence," says M. Leon Aubineau, "has so ordered it, that during the course of thirty years, the men of the seventeenth century, so enamoured of all manner of vanities, should come in crowds to do homage to humility and simplicity. While the philosophers of our day have been inveighing against confession and its consequences, the people have replied by flocking to Ars to venerate a confessor."

(Alfred Monnin, Life of the Curé d'Ars - St JBM Vianney)

Black Hole

Hey Papi

Jay-Z & Memphis Bleek...

Chimpanzee Politics

"Males focus on sex and power. Their drive for power derives from the fact that the male hierarchy determines sexual priorities."

(Frans de Waal, Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex among Apes)

More or Less

"What did it matter to the newspapers if they printed a few words more or less?"

(Georges Simenon, The Man Who Watched Trains Go By‎)

Bloomsday

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressing gown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him by the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned: Introibo ad altare Dei.
(James Joyce, Ulysses)

Ulysses is set in Dublin and the action takes place on 16th June 1904, a date celebrated as 'Bloomsday.'

It describes the day as spent by Leopold Bloom and his wife Molly, and Stephen Dedalus.

Bloom works for a Dublin newspaper, Dedalus is a young intellectual whose thoughts are carried away by abstruse philosophy, and Molly Bloom is a bored housewife.

[The James Joyce Page]

Roses

"We should not treat roses like barley." (Muammar Gaddafi, Reuters)

Ah-Ah-Ahmadinejad!

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (Jason Jeffrey)

I'm All Right

Madeleine Peyroux...

Montreux, 1969

I don't believe in frettin' and grievin'
Why mess around with strife
I never was cut out to step and strut out
Give me the simple life.

Some find it pleasant dining on pheasant
Those things roll off my knife
Just serve me tomatoes and mashed potatoes
Give me the simple life.

A cottage small is all I'm after
Not one that's spacious and wide
A home that's full of joy and laughter
and the ones you love inside.

Some like the high road I take the low road
Free from the grief and strife
Sounds corny and seedy but yes indeedy
Give me the simple life.

(Ella Fitzgerald, Give Me the Simple Life, Montreux Jazz Festival)

The Difference

- So you're a reporter?
- Please, a correspondent.
- What's the difference?
- About a hundred dollars a week.

(Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing)

Aaaaaaaaaargh!

"Host in the post."

No Resemblance

It all happened in the "dark ages" of the newspaper game -- when to a reporter "getting that story" justified anything short of murder.

Incidentally you will see in this picture no resemblance to the men and women of the press of today.

Ready?

Well, once upon a time...



(His Girl Friday)

The Fall

"Italy's left has never quite recovered from the fall, in early 2008, of a government supported by a tenuous coalition of nine separate left-leaning movements ranging from Catholics to hard-core communists. Now, most don't believe the left will be a credible alternative to scandal-plagued Silvio Berlusconi's center-right coalition for years to come." [WSJ]

Well Done, Peter!

There are cases when priests' lack of discipline causes grave scandal and wounds the common good. Oh sure. To help quickly remedy these situations, Benedict XVI has extended the faculties of the Congregation for Clergy. [ZENIT]

And 'Piña Colada'...

...is called "Piña" for a reason. [WP]

The Other Bloody Mary

Vodka, tomato juice, Tabasco, Worcestershire sauce, black pepper and . . .

Bloody Mary, the Pulpit, the Press

The reign of Mary Tudor has been remembered as an era of sterile repression, when a reactionary monarch launched a doomed attempt to reimpose Catholicism on an unwilling nation. Above all, the burning alive of more than 280 men and women for their religious beliefs seared the rule of "Bloody Mary" into the protestant imagination as an alien aberration in the onward and upward march of the English-speaking peoples.

In this controversial reassessment, the renowned reformation historian Eamon Duffy argues that Mary's regime was neither inept nor backward looking. Led by the queen's cousin, Cardinal Reginald Pole, Mary's church dramatically reversed the religious revolution imposed under the child king Edward VI. Inspired by the values of the European Counter-Reformation, the cardinal and the queen reinstated the papacy and launched an effective propaganda campaign through pulpit and press.

Even the most notorious aspect of the regime, the burnings, proved devastatingly effective. Only the death of the childless queen and her cardinal on the same day in November 1558 brought the protestant Elizabeth to the throne, thereby changing the course of English history.

Eamon Duffy is professor of the history of Christianity at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of many prize-winning books, including The Stripping of the Altars, Saints and Sinners, The Voices of Morebath, and Marking the Hours, all published by Yale University Press.