The Pope's Exorcism?

 

During Sunday Mass, shown on TV, the Pope apparently and unintentionally performed an

exorcism, according to some experts.  The footage shows a young man, who is in a wheelchair, opening his mouth and either screaming or breathing deeply as the Pope puts his hands on his head and prays for him during the Mass in St Peter's Square. The man then convulses and slumps in his chair.  The Pope frequently reaches out to the sick during Sunday services.
While the Church makes no claim of an 'exorcism,' religious figures in Rome, including Gabriele Amorth, the Vatican’s former chief exorcists, insisted the act had been an exorcism.  Exorcism remains one of the more controversial elements of Christianity.

Goober Peas

"Goober Peas" is a traditional folk song probably originating in the Southern United States. It was popular with Confederate soldiers during the American Civil War, and is still sung frequently in the South to this day. 

Sitting by the roadside on a summer's day

Chatting with my mess-mates, passing time away

Lying in the shadows underneath the trees

Goodness, how delicious, eating goober peas.

Peas, peas, peas, peas

Eating goober peas

Goodness, how delicious,

Eating goober peas.

listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBOxw6vbDyo

jpr: We sang this in Sr Anna Veronica's Grade School Choir.

Misogyny is a contact sport!

how twisters really work

jpr: My father drove us through the mid west to a college for my freshman year. A tornado had recently (the week prior) passed along the interstate somewhere in farm lands of Indiana. The "scrape" left by the tornado was 50 ft? wide. It left it's mark for several miles in our view. Just vast farm lands with an occasional building.The twister swayed from home to home as it past. Not one structure in its front escaped!

Human Oddity? Jason Statham

Super Actor!  I love his movies.  But have you ever seen a beard line like this that wasn't on a gorilla?

If Geo Political History is of Interest to You...If not then this will be a very boring post.

I used to go to the library at noon every day.  1972 - 73.  I liked to read Saturday Review (defunct), Smithsonian, Natural History, and a publication of speeches, essays, and commentary on socio-political events around the world.  I can't remember the name of the publication and haven't been able to track it down and really wish I could.  It published a lot of "think-tank" work, making me wish I could work for a think-tank.  I was able to tank my thinking but that's another story.

One article I cannot forget related to a geo-political analysis of the USSR, which at that time was our major superpower foe spelled FOE!  This was a '72 article that Predicted that the Soviet Union would soon become Unstable, very unstable.  The article did not specifically predict its downfall but it posited the notion that it would be unlikely that the Russians could sustain the Soviet Union.  Here's the reasoning it gave:  literally hundreds of ethnic groups that were populating faster than Russia;  many of the ethnic groups in conflict that only a major commitment of money and resources could contain;  hundreds of different languages, customs, etc.  The article predicted major outbreaks of intra-Soviet chaos, rebellion, conflict, and deterioration of civil and political order.  This was 1972.  The cost in terms of money, military resources (which was already putting a strain on the Soviet Economy), and reasonable solutions  far exceeded what could be done. They could not maintain a costly Cold War and maintain order within their own borders.  The Soviet Union folded not because of Ronald McDonald Reagan but because they had become a leviathan that could not hold up its own weight.  Gorbachev was only too happy to "tear down that wall", which parenthetically it should be noted, placed a major economic strain on Germany, for one.  Then consider the inter ethnic wars that occurred throughout the next 20 years.  The cost of containing those were placed on the US, UN, Nato, and others but NOT Russia.