Picto Diary - 01 to 06 November 2022 - Freddie in the Snow

Above: Freddie in the snow. Iron Canyon, Park City, UT. 02 November 2022.

Not unprecedented early November snow, but, unusual.

Above: Bear and Bishop. Nature Center. Jordanelle State Park, Rock Cliff. Wasatch County, UT. 04 November 2022.

Above: Jordanelle State Park, Rock Cliff. Wasatch County, UT. 04 November 2022.

TIMDT and Freddie. Walking in peaceful serenity.

Above: La Jolla Groves restaurant. Provo, UT. 04 November 2022.
#17 on Bishop Utah Top Ten restaurant list. Go for the mushroom bisque and the scrumptious, atavistic, deplorable-style dinner rolls. Apex atmosphere tonight. Numerous 30/40 something couples at tables for two, dressed to the nines. Men coat and tie, women cocktail dresses. Date night? Fabulous wait staff. College age, cheerful and competent. Overall dining at its best.

Above: Samba Rio, Covery Center for the Arts, Provo, UT. 04 November 2022
While Brazil itself comes apart at the seams, her music shines in Provo tonight. Top Utah musicians, led by uber kit Jay Lawrence, united for a Latin gig. Hey, wait, these are gringo musicians! Isn't this cultural appropriation? Awesome range for Astrid Gilberto (not) female vocalist. Sergio Mendez. eat your heart out.

Above: Park City High School Bicycle Team. 05 November 2022.

Congratulations Drums.

Above: Freddie at Thomas Child Sculpture. Gilgal Gardens, Salt Lake City, UT. 06 November 2022.

Addendum:

Good review ["With Wings of Eagles" Michael Korda]. When I lived in London (1962-3) I visited two of the key bases for this battle (RAF Biggin Hill-South Sector and Duce in North Sector). The sense and smell were still reminiscent of war.

A few years ago, I was invited to the RAF Club in London for dinner. It was magnificent to see on the walls of several floors the emblems of all the units, pictures of the pilots and crews, citations and awards and to read the capsulated descriptions of individual battles, dogfights and experiences. My host a then Wing Commander, was patient and indulged me for a bit over two hours I took to look at it all.
Dinner was later than planned and the conversation and his reminisces fascinating.
Never forget it.

The Archbishop
Naples, FL

Great reminiscence, Ed. Thanks.

What? Are you intimating that even the lofty elites could be wrong?

The Monk,
Salina, UT

 

Responses to book review on "For Whom the Bell Tolls."

One of my favorite books. I have an original published copy (1940) that was my mothers and have read it 6 or 7 times.

The Archbishop,
Naples, FL

Steve

Am happy you found “For Whom the Bell Tolls” interesting / communicative / illustrative. Have read it a number of times over the years and always found it to be worth the read

After the most recent reread I found myself looking for a better understanding of the war, subsequently ordering Anthony Bever’s “The Battle of Spain”. A wealth of information, however not his best work

Regret I wasn’t able to ride with you this year, perhaps in 2023.

Ciao

Sergeant Preston,
Seattle, WA

A great review. I have added it to my “list”.

Daggett,
Park City, UT

Thanks, I read it early in life!

Howard
Puntarenas, Costa Rica

Thank you for this novel's birds eye perspective and synopsis.
Drummer J.
Lehi, UT

Thanks for the summary.

F16
Park City, UT

IMITATION HEMINGWAY WINNER (from F16)
Men Without Rabbits
Timothy Smight

We sat in Harry’s Bar & American Grill on a drizzly April afternoon in Firenze, drinking rich burgundy pressed from local grapes. The wine was good. Its warmth spread easily from my stomach into my arms and face.

"What did it really take to shoot that lion, Jake?" the countess said.
She looked at me, challenging, her dark eyes sultry and deep. Countess Sonia Parducci belonged on her husband’s vast estate, tucked away deep in the eastern hills.

"Why do you come down here, Sonia?" I said. "You like slumming with us?" Scott O’Farrell, an author friend visiting from New York, lit a cigarette and exhaled deeply. His pale blue eyes projected a mild but jaded curiosity. O’Farrell had just published his second novel, a somewhat vapid account of the demise of a rich young Long Island malcontent.

"You haven’t really hunted until you’ve hunted rabbits," the countess said, ignoring my question. "They are fast, cunning, and hard to shoot."

O’Farrell drew on his cigarette. "Rabbits are known for something else, aren’t they?"

The countess smiled at O’Farrell, then looked at me. "Yes, that too." I drained my glass and refilled it.
"We’re having a rabbit hunt at the estate on Saturday," she said. "You and your writer friend should come."
She flashed me those sultry eyes again, black and glinting, like the midnight sky off the Grand Caymans. She smiled, rose from her chair, and walked out.

Saturday came. We arrived at the estate just after sunrise. A jolt of absinthe from O’Farrell’s flask helped to clear our heads. Sonia was standing outside, waiting for us.
"Horses are saddled and ready at the stables," she said. "Rifles are on the rack inside. We’ll meet back here at 3 o’clock. Rabbit stew for dinner."
Ever so slowly, she gathered her thick, raven hair in her hands and tucked it up under the black suede riding cap she was wearing. I felt my stomach tighten, just like in the hospital at Palermo, when I’d watch Sonia tuck her hair under the starched white nurse’s hat.

The hunting was good. Our horses knew the land, the absinthe sharpened our senses. O’Farrell shot two hares; I bagged four. At 3 p.m. we arrived back at the stables.
Sonia was already there. Rabbits hung from each side of her saddle. I counted 12.

"I think we have enough for a good rabbit stew," the countess said, looking a bit too long at what hung from our saddles. "You can help dress them if you want."
She took off her cap and shook her head briskly, tossing back her shining hair. Then she smiled, patted her horse on the neck, and rode off toward the stables.

O’Farrell lit a cigarette.
"You know something, Jake," he said, gazing after the countess. "That bitch is different from you and me."

"Yes," I replied. "She has more bunnies."


Timothy Smight, a corporate speechwriter and freelance writer, was first infected by the travel and adventure bug when he read Hemingway in high school.
He has been to Italy, Spain, the Florida Keys, and other Hemingway haunts but has never shot a rabbit, tasted absinthe, or dated a nurse.

 

Wow! Thanks

 

From: [email protected] <[email protected]>
Subject: France in Decline. Takeaways for America. (Daily Blog - 08 November 2022)

France in Decline. A Cautionary Tale for America. (Daily Blog - 08 November 2022)

From 1965 to 1968 I served in France for two and one-half years as a Mormon missionary. Eighteen months of that period I lived in the Paris area. Though I met many interesting and cordial French people, the French, by and large, were not interested in the LDS religious message. Nor, were they interested in religion, in general, though most claimed to be nominally Catholic. The Telegraph article linked here How France became trapped in a spiral of chaos and decline (telegraph.co.uk)
describes the consequences for a country forgetting its cultural roots, of which religion is a key element.

In 2016 I read "Beyond Radical Secularism" by Pierre Manent, France's foremost contemporary political philosopher. Manent blames France's walking away from what he calls its "Christian mark" as contributing to French cultural decline. France's cultural problem is exacerbated by the increase in the Muslim population who want to retain their own ways and not be subsumed into the cultural permissiveness that has replaced France's "Christin mark." The Catholic Church, Manent says, is inextricably linked to the development of French culture and its influence needs to be restored to secure French cultural survival. I am reminded of Vladimir Putin's rationale for resisting cultural linkage with secular Europe. Putin has noted that Russian culture suffered greatly when the communist state tried to eliminate God from the peoples' daily lives. Putin, with many problems on his hands following from the communist period... alcoholism, population shrinkage... affirms that a strong Russian culture is like a double helix... where religion and the state work together to create that which can lead a people to identify with a common cultural theme. It is that 'theme" which Manent claims is missing from France today.

In the same way that secular ideas damaged Russia, and now France, they represent a similar risk to America's cultural survival. US Progressives seek a constant intervention of the state in the private sphere with regard to the body where heretofore Christian heritage had set certain boundaries. Progressive successes to date have enabled gay marriage, and the rise of transhumanism, and transgenderism, practices which challenge the boundaries defined by nature. Byproducts of progressive policy include a decline of family formation, a rise in crime and a weakened economy. America needs to ensure its openness to religious traditions as a marker of cultural strength, or else, risk the cultural decline seen in France real time today.

Stephen DeWitt Taylor
[email protected]
www.stephendewitttaylor.com
435 640 6310

Did you keep a diary, Steve?

On my first days visiting Europe in 1963, I stayed in a Youth Hostel, Auf Chapman

My bunkmates were two newly minted Mormon missionaries. I could not think of a more arduous assignment in a patently Lutheran country. I imagine an anti-clerical country like France was no better.

I recall the task before my dad, a newly minted bishop of the Episcopal church at age 35, was assigned to Central America. I recall his missionary work in Colombia, a 99% nominally Catholic County in 1945. (We resided in the Canal Zone where his cathedral was located.) This is a story he told me: traveling in a DC-3 on a visit to Barranquilla, one would go to the customs table which was outside in the hot sun. There an officious agent would open bags and ask questions. He was known to be antagonistic to Protestants. He would always make my father wait in the hot humid sun until the last person cleared. Open dad’s bag and dump the contents on the table to check it out. It was harassment.

After several trips, dad boarded the plane with a troop of nuns. Fluent in Spanish he related his story to the senior nun. She said, “leave it to us, Monsieur.” They were the last to deplane. The nuns waited and got off last but before my dad. When dad came down the stairs, one by one they genuflected and kissed his ring. The Aduana agent was overcome with embarrassment and rushed to my father, apologetically aying: “no sabia,” kissed his ring, and carried his bags into the terminal without inspection. Dad had no issues thereafter. The work grew. First among expatriates from Scotland, England, and the US who were working the gold mines, the embassies, in Magdalena where United Fruit Co. had operations. (see below).
“In 1946, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Geoffrey Fisher, passed the pastoral care of the churches in Colombia and Ecuador to Bishop Henry Sherrill, president of the Episcopal Church in the United States, who placed the two countries under the pastoral care of Bishop Reginal Heber Gooden (1946-1963). The work in Colombia was to grow through Gooden's strategy.
The most important temple in the diocese is that of San Alban, inaugurated on Easter in 1958.
In the early 1960s it became apparent to Bishop Gooden that the ministry had to be extended nationally if further growth of the church was to be achieved. On April 13, l961, the bishop celebrated the first mass in Spanish in Barranquilla. Ten days later, he officiated at a baptism in Spanish in Cali. The English-speaking missionaries who entered Colombia could do so under the condition that they minister pastorally only to foreigners.
In 1963 the Episcopal Diocese of Colombia was erected. Colombia was cut off from the missionary district of Panama and the Canal Zone. At that time the membership of the diocese was, in a very high percentage, foreign, speaking 99 percent in English. The first diocesan convention of the Diocese of Colombia was presided over by Bishop David Reed in Barranquilla between May 18 and 20, 1964. In this convention, Bishop Reed outlined the objectives of his ministry: to create a strongly pastoral church, to make a Colombian church in Spanish, to be an ecumenical church, to participate in God's world mission, to trust in the laity for the exercise of a vanguard ministry in social work. The first Colombian priest, Oscar Pineda Suárez, is ordained in Guayaquil, Ecuador, by Bishop Reed, in 1964. The first Colombian deacon was Samuel Pinzón Gil.
The process of indigenization of the church was achieved gradually. In 1965, the diocese had five North American priests, one British and two Colombians. In 1969 there were six Colombian priests, four North Americans, and one Spaniard. Foreign membership had dropped to 65 percent.”
My father mentored Deacon Reed until he was named bishop. He later became the bishop of Tennessee.

I only mention this as I witnessed firsthand the effort it takes to make a dent in a culture that is not welcoming to incoming faith traditions. Hat tip to the many Protestant and Mormon missionaries my father worked with throughout his diocese. At its largest, it extended from Colombia and Central America through Guatemala and Belize. He worked himself out of a job by preparing indigenous bishops retiring in 1972. The Roman Catholic Church dominated the region in the 20th century and inroads came slowly.

Memories,

Panama,
Los Angeles, CA

Of that period in France my mom kept my letters. I have them and intend to get them digitized.

SDT

Steve,

I certainly agree with you about who makes the call in the doctor patient relationship, the government or the Doctor. The last line of your review of the book.

In a similar vein, when it comes to women's health, in particular, abortion, who makes the call, the government or the Doctor/patient relationship.

Not the government in either case. A rational person cannot argue the government in one case, and not the other.

Tom,
Aspen, CO

Tom, quoted from my review:

"The book raises essential question about who should call the shots in the doctor patient relationship... the government or the doctor?"

In writing the review, I took no position on this issue.