Author Topic: In the New Yorker...  (Read 1922375 times)

Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #1260 on: September 13, 2015, 03:05:01 pm »
One interesting factoid: Centuries before the big witch hunts started, the Christian church had tried to debunk the idea that witches existed!

I remember reading that somewhere, too.

Quote
Then it sounds like Catholic clergy and people found to be practicing Catholicism were just as persecuted as witches were.

Well, they were, because Catholicism became linked with treason, after 1570, when the Pope excommunicated Elizabeth I and absolved her subjects of their allegiance to her. The Protestants in power believed that the Catholics were told they would not be committing a sin if they assassinated the queen--I can't remember if that was true or not, but the Protestant English certainly believed it, so maybe it doesn't matter whether or not it was true. All of the plots against the queen were Catholic-based. And then in 1572. just across the Channel in France, occurred the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, when thousands of French Protestants were murdered by their Catholic fellow countrymen. All of this built on memories of the persecution of ordinary Protestant folks, housewives and shoemakers and so forth, during Bloody Mary's reign--memories that were kept alive by the best-selling Acts and Monuments, by John Foxe, more familiarly known as Foxe's Book of Martyrs. So Roman Catholicism became equated with treason and murder in the popular mind.

Anyway, meanwhile, I just read the short personal memoir about "filter fish," by the late Oliver Sacks, in the Sept. 14 issue, and also Atul Gawande's appreciation for Sacks, in The Talk of the Town. I recommend them both.
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #1261 on: September 14, 2015, 09:56:39 am »
To close the loop a bit, last night I was reading the article about Pope Francis. I'm not finished, but so far there is too much about the ex-pope Benedict and not enough about Francis.
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Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #1262 on: September 14, 2015, 10:58:47 am »
To close the loop a bit, last night I was reading the article about Pope Francis. I'm not finished, but so far there is too much about the ex-pope Benedict and not enough about Francis.

I just started that one. I'll read more of it at lunch today.

Meanwhile, I neglected to mention that I found "An Exile in the Corn Belt," about the Arab Israeli writer (Sept. 7), interesting.
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #1263 on: September 14, 2015, 01:42:03 pm »
To close the loop a bit, last night I was reading the article about Pope Francis. I'm not finished, but so far there is too much about the ex-pope Benedict and not enough about Francis.

The title does seem to suggest that the article would have more about Francis, but maybe the problem is with the title, not the article.

I did, however, smile at this statement: "It is the particular genius of Catholicism that it continues to change while insisting that it has never changed." I've heard that before, and it sticks in my mind that the Jesuits are particularly good at it. And let us not forget that Francis is a Jesuit.
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #1264 on: September 15, 2015, 04:19:14 pm »
I see the last part of the sentence, that Catholicism stays true to its core values, more than the first part, that the church changes. But I'm looking at it from the outside. Someone who is close to the church would of course see that it has changed a lot over the years.
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Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #1265 on: September 15, 2015, 04:47:07 pm »
I see the last part of the sentence, that Catholicism stays true to its core values, more than the first part, that the church changes. But I'm looking at it from the outside. Someone who is close to the church would of course see that it has changed a lot over the years.

Some changes you can see even from the outside. For example, with Vatican II, the Roman Church decided that Mass could be said in the vernacular, and it was OK for the laity to receive Communion "in both kinds"--450 years after the Protestant Reformation.
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #1266 on: September 16, 2015, 01:49:22 pm »
I'm now reading the Sept. 14 article about the attorney who got life imprisonment for defended the Boston Marathon bomber, and other clients as well, and I'm finding the article riveting.
« Last Edit: September 22, 2015, 01:24:29 pm by Jeff Wrangler »
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Online serious crayons

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #1267 on: September 17, 2015, 12:58:23 pm »
I'm now reading the Sept. 14 article about the attorney who got life imprisonment for the Boston Marathon bomber, and other clients as well, and I'm finding the article riveting.

Oh! I saw that and wanted to read it. Thanks for the reminder.



Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #1268 on: September 17, 2015, 01:53:41 pm »
I'm now reading the Sept. 14 article about the attorney who got life imprisonment for defended the Boston Marathon bomber, and other clients as well, and I'm finding the article riveting.

Oh! I saw that and wanted to read it. Thanks for the reminder.

I finished it today at lunch. I think it's very, very good. And my earlier comment was based on faulty memory. I thought I remembered that she got him "life." He did not get "life." I seem to have confused that case with another recent case where somebody got "life" because the jury couldn't agree on "death," but I can't remember which case that one was.
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Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #1269 on: September 22, 2015, 12:45:11 pm »
I'm now reading the Sept. 14 article about the attorney who got life imprisonment for the Boston Marathon bomber, and other clients as well, and I'm finding the article riveting.

I'm reading it now, and I agree! I love her statement, "Legalized homicide is not a good idea in a civilized society." Kind of understated, but that's exactly how I feel. It's less about whether the person might actually be innocent (though of course that's a giant problem, too), but that the government should not be in the business of killing, even if the people are killers. One never knows for sure, but I'd like to think I'd feel the same even if [knock, knock] someone I knew were a victim.

However, the article contains one of their more egregious examples of the New Yorker's refusal to put an attribution verb before the subject and creating incredibly awkward writing as a result [ellipses mine]:

"You could count the number of women ... on one hand," Elizabeth Semel, who met Clarke during this period and now runs the death-penalty clinic at the University of California-Berkeley School of Law, recalls.