Povey Prattle

Charles Gibson and George Stephanapolis conducted a KKK/Inquisition/ Senator Joe McCarthy-ish "debate" with Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton this week. It was horrible. Barack Obama was asked "Does Jeremiah Wright (his now-retired Pastor) love America more than you do?". They might well have asked "Senator Obama, have you stopped beating your wife?" Or "Senator Clinton, is your husband still getting bl-w j-bs? And Senator Clinton did not protest this disgusting line of questioning. That says much about her dishonour. Let's boycott ABC News, the originator of this "trial by fire", and Disney, its parent Corporation. Let's send money to Barack Obama's campaign! And send an e-mail to the Editor of the Boston Globe, thanking him/her for Derrick Jackson's apposite column today. jmp --------------------------------------------------- Published on Saturday, April 19, 2008 by the Boston Globe Tough Questions or Just Plain Bias? By...

Sometimes my ministry at Resurrection House takes me into sad territory. J is a cool and relaxed 50 something. He’s not been around all week. I checked the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Dept. “log of arrests“, and there I saw his good face. Arrested for “urinating in public”, and “resisting arrest”. Urinating in public? Well, where else can you do it in downtown SRQ, unless you have money enough to eat in café or restaurant? We have no public bathrooms. (I urinated in public yesterday morning, when I was caught short on my morning walk. What else was I to do except to find a convenient tree?) And if J resisted arrest, you can be sure in SRQ that the arresting officer was not exactly sweetness and light. Then there is W . He is in his early forties, and is a charmer. Last Saturday he helped me and J.J-B to move some free furniture into J.J-B’s new apartment. He did this for twenty bucks and a free lunch. Mind you, he began drinking early in the day. And by the time we finish...

I've been using "Carac" cream to destroy some pre-cancerous spots on my physog. During last night, the cream over worked, and I awoke with a bloody face! So I did not go out of town today!

Too tired to blog today (April 16th) Away tomorrow (April 17th) Look for a new entry on April 18th

Richard Marsden and Stephen Meyer. They were to become my school chums. Richard was eccentric, to say the least. He came from a fairly prosperous middle class family. At one time his father bought a little grocery store in my neighbourhood, on the corner of Victoria Parade and Whitehall Road. I suspect that the store was a “time filler” for Richard’s Mum. It failed dismally. Richard affected to be a Jehovah’s Witness. Later he joined a N-zi Party in Great Britain. He once tried to rape me. In due course, Richard committed suicide. Stephen was a different kettle of fish. His parents were Jews who’d escaped from Germany in 1939. Stephen was/is very bright, and he lives in retirement in Shropshire. I loved to be in the Meyer home. Dad, Martin Meyer, was a bit taciturn, but always gracious to me. He was the only Kosher butcher in Bristol. Mum, Greta Meyer, was a total sweetheart. I will never forget her gentle accent, and her all embracing hospitality. Nor will I forget my...

Form 1D at FGS. F.G.S. had a handsome building. The school has moved from them to new premises and is now know as Fairfield High School. Old Fairfieldians such as I, even though we hated the School, are glad that the name has continued. See http://www.fairfield.bristol.sch.uk/ We hope that the old premises will be preserved one way or another. They are lovely buildings. ** And we even have an Old Fairfieldians Society. http://www.oldfairfieldians.org.uk/ I am an overseas member, and by dint of coincidence, have been able to attend a couple of reunions in Bristol. At the first, (1991?) wearing my clerical collar, folks wondered “who is this American Priest, and why is he here?” I sat at dinner with a woman I did not remember, but she was good company. Her father, of whom I had known, had been Vicar of a very “low” Church in Cotham, Bristol. She now lived in New Zealand, and is a Bahai. At the second, (1998?) my old object of “crush”, Clive Hargett was present. He had ta...

And so I entered Fairfield Grammar School at aged 11 years, and three and a bit months. Others had blazed the trail. My Great-Aunt Bess (she who had promised to finance my education - but died penniless) had been a scholar there, when it had been known as Fairfield Higher Grade School. Archie Leach had also been a Fairfieldian. Surely you all know Archie Leach by another name! First I had to get used to wearing a school uniform. Short trousers (pants) until puberty; blue or black blazer with a school badge; gray calf length socks with Fairfield colours at the top; school tie and school cap. A “Prefect” (an older scholar in the lower or upper 6th forms) could discipline you if you were caught on the way to or from school without wearing the hat. (I still have my school hat and tie!). At aged 11+ I was now in the “First Form”. There were probably some 100 first-formers, and we were arbitrarily divided into four groups (home rooms in the U.S.A.), form rooms in England, named 1...