Monthly Archives: February 2015
The Epidemic
North America has been seized by a measles hysteria. Should I admit I have never received the measles vaccination? Or would that admission cause panic? In Ontario there have been 15 cases reported (in a population of about 10 million) and that fact leads the radio newscasts. I am a little puzzled about that. I […]
Waiting for Summer
Another brutally cold day. Environment Canada tells me there is an “Extreme Cold Warning in Effect.” I’m thinking of summer vacation and the Atlantic Ocean at Ocean Park, Maine.
Global Warming?
It is the middle of February, and Canadians are all in favour of global warming. Yes, I know what the scientists say – but the doomsayers of climate change don’t live here. If they did they would join the majority of my fellow countrymen who don’t see what the problem is if the world warms […]
Hagia Sophia III – Looking Around
Just some random pictures taken at the Hagia Sophia to give you a bit more of the flavour of the place. I am a big fan of digital photography, though I admit mine was a forced conversion: my beloved Canon FTb camera, which I had owned for more than 20 years, was stolen a few […]
Hagia Sophia II – Frescoes and Mosaics
Christian art can be an inconvenient truth at times. When Constantinople fell, and the Hagia Sophia was converted from a church into a mosque in 1453, the conquerors had to decide what to do about the frescoes and mosaics. With all the publicity in recent years over the various drawings of Mohammed that have spawned […]
Hagia Sophia I
It has had multiple uses: first as a church, then converted to a mosque and now is a museum. Whatever its function, one thing is certain: the Hagia Sophia is impressive. We tend to forget that Turkey, which is today 98 per cent or so Muslim, was once the centre of the Christian church, and […]
The Costs of War
When we toured the First World War battlefields in the Ypres area of Belgium last summer, the enormity of the human toll was apparent. The numbers are staggering. Daily casualty figures were measured in hundreds or thousands as more than a half a million men died in combat on Flanders fields in four years of […]
Stuff Happens
Went to Canada’s National Arts Centre on Saturday night to take in the play Stuff Happens, which is a look at the players and their actions surrounding the 2003 invasion of Iraq. You know the war – the United Nations decided Saddam Hussein could be given more time, so George W. Bush put together his […]
Traffic Signs
Once again today I am going to let the picture do most of the talking. It’s been posted on my home office desk for more than a decade. The signs are at Oceanwood, a Baptist camp in Ocean Park, Maine. I first noticed them when we were walking through the camp to take one of […]
The Parable of the Two Daughters – II
We have all heard that you can’t legislate morality; government should not even try. Many social changes of the past half century, from the legalization of gambling and liberalization of drug laws to changes in how sexuality is regarded, have come from government abandoning its role in areas once thought to be proper for it. […]
random thoughts from lorne 
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