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[duke_aldhein]

There are many things in life which seem perfectly sensible until you think about them. School, for example.

Today's Observer features an example of the kind of "new research" without which newspapers (and radio news bulletins) wouldn't know what to do:Hundreds of thousands of parents are risking hefty fines by taking their children out of school

Comments

[cool_moose]

I'll watch for it with interest.

I was somewhat shocked and disappointed recently, on a trip to my original hometown, Montreal - and decided to go to St. Raphael's parish, where, a lifetime ago, I was a 'Latin-spouting' altarboy. The Mass had about 20 people there ... versus the 600 that attended High Mass on Sunday, in my day.

Quebec was a near-theocracy when I grew up there - not so much in a theological sense, but certainly in a social sense. Not so today.

I guess I lost interest in my RC past in my 20's - but, decades later, when I was heavily
involved in Chile (another "CH"), I encountered it all again - through an "hogar" (group home) that I became interested in (36 kids, 2-18, run by the Santa Cruz gang - many of them Canadians). It helped that the Mass sounded 'familiar' again - since Spanish is so like Latin. I used to say (after Vatican-II) that listening to the Mass in English was like listening to Aida or Rigoletto sung in English.

Humans are a curious species - who seem to learn little over the centuries. Beirut this week reminds me that the Christians, Muslims and Jews probably deserve each other.

Although a Canadian, I lived in Bristol (for college) for three years (1955-58) - probably the best three years in many ways. That's where I dicovered my other "CH" - Thomas Chatterton, Bristol's "Marvelous Boy".