Artists are very often not normal people. They can be louder, and more aggressive. They can sometimes display anti-social behavior. And sometimes their art is also purposefully not designed to be pleasing to the crowds.

But in this case, the art is unintentionally aggressive.

Headline Telegraph: Litter bins that kept crashing into things

A £110,000 art project involving moving benches and roaming litter bins has had to be shut down because of repeated crashes.

The solar-powered, robotic street furniture was supposed to keep on the move outside the Junction music venue in Cambridge for 24 hours a day, with sensors supposed to prevent collisions.

But the display, part-funded by the Arts Council and National Lottery, was called off after only three hours after the benches and bins kept smashing into each other, along with anything else in the vicinity.

“On the launch day they were showing signs of some anti-social behaviour and kept on being intimate with the bike racks and with each other,” said Gordon Glass, a spokesman for the Junction. “The artists felt there was no other option but to take them away,”

The five metal bins, which do not take rubbish, and the four wooden benches, which are supposed to stop for people to sit down on, are now back in the hands of their creators, Greyworld, a London-based artistic collective.

It is hoped that they can sort out the steering problems and the machines be re-released on the site in the old Cattle Market within a fortnight.

There is hope. If the out of control benches and non-functional garbage cans are successfully caught and tamed, breaking them of their anti-social behavior, they can be re-released into the wilds of the Junction. But if they are untamable, perhaps the benches and garbage cans will have to be put down.

According to extensive research done by the Monty Python troupe, the British Army was involved in joke warfare during the Second World War.

All through the winter of ’43 we had translators working, in joke-proof conditions, to try and produce a German version of the [world's funniest] joke. They worked on one word each for greater safety. One of them saw two words of the joke and spent several weeks in hospital. But apart from that things went pretty quickly, and we soon had the joke by January, in a form which our troops couldn’t understand but which the Germans could….

In 1945 Peace broke out. It was the end of the Joke.

Joke warfare was banned at a special session of the Geneva Convention, and in 1950 the last remaining copy of the joke was laid to rest here in the Berkshire countryside, never to be told again.

The world is a much safer place now that joke warfare has been banned. But a new menace has appeared to take it’s place: incapacitating horror stories.

On the promotional tour for my last novel, I read a short story called Guts for the first time in public. I planned to include it in a new novel to be called Haunted. My goal was to create horror around very ordinary things: carrots, candles, swimming pools, microwave popcorn, bowling balls.

It was in a crowded bookstore in Portland, Oregon. About 800 people filled the store to fire-code capacity. Reading Guts takes a full head of steam, you don’t get many moments to look up from the page. But when I did, the faces in the front row looked a little grey.

It wasn’t until I’d finished signing copies that a clerk said two young men had fainted. They’d both dropped to the concrete floor, and had no memory of anything between standing, listening, and waking up surrounded by people’s feet. The bookstore was hot and stuffy. It was a fluke, nothing to worry about.

The next night, at an air-conditioned Borders bookstore, another big crowd listened to Guts – and another two people fainted. A man and a woman.

The next day in Seattle, at a lunchtime reading, two more men fainted. At the same moment in the story, both of them fell so hard that their chrome chairs flipped and clattered loud on the polished hardwood floor of the auditorium. The event broke down for a few moments while the fainters were coaxed back to life. By now, we had a pattern.

The next night, in San Francisco, three more people fainted.

The night after, in Berkeley, three more. The publicist who watched all three events said the people fell the moment I read the words “corn and peanuts”.

It was that detail that made seated people go limp. First, their hands slid off their laps. Their shoulders sagged. Their heads flopped to one side, and their weight carried them to the floor.

In the Beverly Hills library in Los Angeles, a woman near the rear of the hall screamed for paramedics and an ambulance, crying so hard that her blouse was soaked with tears as her husband twitched on the floor.

In the men’s bathroom, where another man escaped the story, as he bent to splash cold water on his face, he fainted, cracking his head on the sink.

A reporter for Publishers Weekly wrote an article headlined, “Fight Club author knocks them out without a punch”.

At Columbia University, the next day, two students fell. As the ambulance took one of them to hospital, my editor walked to the edge of the stage, waved me over, and said: “I think you’ve done enough damage with this story. Don’t finish reading it.”

In Britain, people fainted at readings in Leeds and Cambridge. In London, the bathrooms were crowded with well-dressed people who escaped the story to lie on the cold tile floors and recover from what little they’d heard.

So far, 67 people have fainted while I’ve read Guts.

The Geneva Convention needs to be updated to cover this new threat to civilization.

With all the talk lately about the rich tradition of the Senate filibuster, here’s one legacy of the filibuster we don’t hear much about.

Headline AP: Senate Apologizes for Lynching-Ban Delays

WASHINGTON – The Senate on Monday acknowledged its own failure to stand against the lynching of thousands of black people, a practice that continued well into the 20th century….

During that time [1882 to 1968], nearly 200 anti-lynching bills were introduced in Congress, and three passed the House. Seven presidents between 1890 and 1952 petitioned Congress to pass a federal law.

But the Senate, with Southern conservatives wielding their filibuster powers, refused to act. With the enactment of civil rights laws in the 1960s and changes in national attitudes, the issue faded away.

Q.36. What benefits in this life go with or come from justification, adoption, and sanctification?

A. The benefits that in this life go with or come from justification, adoption, and sanctification are: the assurance of God’s love, peace of conscience, joy in the Holy Spirit, and growing and persevering in grace to the end of our lives.

As Christians, we do not just look forward to what God will do for us after death. The catechism tells us that we now enjoy the benefits of justification, adoption and sanctification. This week’s question deals with the additional benefits we receive in this life. But it is worth taking a moment to realize that God provides all these benefits to His people as they live their lives here and now. We have a glorious future to look forward to, but there are great benefits now also.

Romans 5:1-5

¹ Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. ² Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. ³ More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, ⁴ and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, ⁵ and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Romans 14:17

For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

Proverbs 4:18

But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn,
which shines brighter and brighter until full day.

1 John 5:13

I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life.

1 Peter 1:5

who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

Like they say, no one’s ever made their first jump.

AP Photo:

Caption: “Clay celebration : Spanish Rafael Nadal celebrates winning against Argentinian Mariano Puertaduring their men’s final match of the tennis French Open at Roland Garros, in Paris. Nadal won 6-7(6) 6-3 6-1 7-5. (AFP/Christophe Simon)”

From Iraq to Germany, and now to France, no one’s ever made their first jump.

AP Photo:

Caption: “On the trampoline : A French athlete performs on a trampoline installed on the Champs-Elysees, in Paris, during an event to promote the Paris 2012 Olympic bid. (AFP/Olivier Laban-Mattei) “

NICHOLAS FLAMEL

The story of this alchymist, as handed down by tradition, and enshrined in the pages of Lenglet du Fresnoy, is not a little marvellous. He was born at Pontoise of a poor but respectable family, at the end of the thirteenth, or beginning of the fourteenth, century. Having no patrimony, he set out for Paris at an early age, to try his fortune as a public scribe. He had received a good education, was well skilled in the learned languages, and was an excellent penman. He soon procured occupation as a letter-writer and copyist, and used to sit at the corner of the Rue de Marivaux, and practise his calling: but he hardly made profits enough to keep body and soul together. To mend his fortunes he tried poetry; but this was a more wretched occupation still. As a transcriber he had at least gained bread and cheese; but his rhymes were not worth a crust. He then tried painting with as little success; and as a last resource, began to search for the philosopher’s stone, and tell fortunes. This was a happier idea; he soon increased in substance, and had wherewithal to live comfortably. He, therefore, took unto himself his wife Petronella, and began to save money; but continued to all outward appearance as poor and miserable as before. In the course of a few years, he became desperately addicted to the study of alchymy, and thought of nothing but the philosopher’s stone, the elixir of life, and the universal alkahest. In the year 1257, he bought by chance an old book for two florins, which soon became the sole study and object of his life. It was written with a steel instrument upon the bark of trees, and contained twenty-one, or as he himself always expressed it, three times seven, leaves. The writing was very elegant and in the Latin language. Each seventh leaf contained a picture and no writing. On the first of these was a serpent swallowing rods; on the second, a cross with a serpent crucified; and on the third, the representation of a desert, in the midst of which was a fountain with serpents crawling from side to side. It purported to be written by no less a personage than “Abraham, patriarch, Jew, prince, philosopher, priest, Levite, and astrologer;” and invoked curses upon any one who should cast eyes upon it, without being a sacrificer or a scribe. Nicholas Flamel never thought it extraordinary that Abraham should have known Latin, and was convinced that the characters on his book had been traced by the hands of that great patriarch himself. He was at first afraid to read it, after he became aware of the curse it contained; but he got over that difficulty by recollecting that, although he was not a sacrificer, he had practised as a scribe. As he read he was filled with admiration, and found that it was a perfect treatise upon the transmutation of metals. All the process was clearly explained; the vessels, the retorts, the mixtures, and the proper times and seasons for the experiment. But as ill-luck would have it, the possession of the philosopher’s stone or prime agent in the work was presupposed. This was a difficulty which was not to be got over. It was like telling a starving man how to cook a beefsteak, instead of giving him the money to buy one. But Nicholas did not despair; and set about studying the hieroglyphics and allegorical representations with which the book abounded. He soon convinced himself that it had been one of the sacred books of the Jews, and that it was taken from the temple of Jerusalem on its destruction by Titus. The process of reasoning by which he arrived at this conclusion is not stated.

From some expression in the treatise, he learned that the allegorical drawings on the fourth and fifth leaves, enshrined the secret of the philosopher’s stone, without which all the fine Latin of the directions was utterly unavailing. He invited all the alchymists and learned men of Paris to come and examine them, but they all departed as wise as they came. Nobody could make anything either of Nicholas or his pictures; and some even went so far as to say that his invaluable book was not worth a farthing. This was not to be borne; and Nicholas resolved to discover the great secret by himself, without troubling the philosophers. He found on the first page, of the fourth leaf, the picture of Mercury, attacked by an old man resembling Saturn or Time. The latter had an hourglass on his head, and in his hand a scythe, with which he aimed a blow at Mercury’s feet. The reverse of the leaf represented a flower growing on a mountain top, shaken rudely by the wind, with a blue stalk, red and white blossoms, and leaves of pure gold. Around it were a great number of dragons and griffins. On the first page of the fifth leaf was a fine garden, in the midst of which was a rose tree in full bloom, supported against the trunk of a gigantic oak. At the foot of this there bubbled up a fountain of milk-white water, which forming a small stream, flowed through the garden, and was afterwards lost in the sands. On the second page was a King, with a sword in his hand, superintending a number of soldiers, who, in execution of his orders, were killing a great multitude of young children, spurning the prayers and tears of their mothers, who tried to save them from destruction. The blood of the children was carefully collected by another party of soldiers, and put into a large vessel, in which two allegorical figures of the Sun and Moon were bathing themselves.

For twenty-one years poor Nicholas wearied himself with the study of these pictures, but still he could make nothing of them. His wife Petronella at last persuaded him to find out some learned Rabbi; but there was no Rabbi in Paris learned enough to be of any service to him. The Jews met but small encouragement to fix their abode in France, and all the chiefs of that people were located in Spain. To Spain accordingly Nicholas Flamel repaired. He left his book in Paris for fear, perhaps, that he might be robbed of it on the road; and telling his neighbours that he was going on a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. James of Compostello, he trudged on foot towards Madrid in search of a Rabbi. He was absent two years in that country, and made himself known to a great number of Jews, descendants of those who had been expelled from France in the reign of Philip Augustus. The believers in the philosopher’s stone give the following account of his adventures: — They say that at Leon he made the acquaintance of a converted Jew, named Cauches, a very learned physician, to whom he explained the title and the nature of his little book. The Doctor was transported with joy as soon as he heard it named, and immediately resolved to accompany Nicholas to Paris, that he might have a sight of it. The two set out together; the Doctor on the way entertaining his companion with the history of his book, which, if the genuine book he thought it to be, from the description he had heard of it, was in the handwriting of Abraham himself, and had been in the possession of personages no less distinguished than Moses, Joshua, Solomon, and Esdras. It contained all the secrets of alchymy and of many other sciences, and was the most valuable book that had ever existed in this world. The Doctor was himself no mean adept, and Nicholas profited greatly by his discourse, as in the garb of poor pilgrims they wended their way to Paris, convinced of their power to turn every old shovel in that capital into pure gold. But, unfortunately, when they reached Orleans, the Doctor was taken dangerously ill. Nicholas watched by his bedside, and acted the double part of a physician and nurse to him; but he died after a few days, lamenting with his last breath that he had not lived long enough to see the precious volume. Nicholas rendered the last honours to his body; and with a sorrowful heart, and not one sous in his pocket, proceeded home to his wife Petronella. He immediately recommenced the study of his pictures; but for two whole years he was as far from understanding them as ever. At last, in the third year, a glimmer of light stole over his understanding. He recalled some expression of his friend, the Doctor, which had hitherto escaped his memory, and he found that all his previous experiments had been conducted on a wrong basis. He recommenced them now with renewed energy, and at the end of the year had the satisfaction to see all his toils rewarded. On the 13th January 1382, says Lenglet, he made a projection on mercury, and had some very excellent silver. On the 25th April following, he converted a large quantity of mercury into gold, and the great secret was his.

Nicholas was now about eighty years of age, and still a hale and stout old man. His friends say that, by the simultaneous discovery of the elixir of life, he found means to keep death at a distance for another quarter of a century; and that he died in 1415, at the age of 116. In this interval he had made immense quantities of gold, though to all outward appearance he was as poor as a mouse. At an early period of his changed fortune, he had, like a worthy man, taken counsel with his old wife Petronella, as to the best use he could make of his wealth. Petronella replied, that as unfortunately they had no children, the best thing he could do, was to build hospitals and endow churches. Nicholas thought so too, especially when he began to find that his elixir could not keep off death, and that the grim foe was making rapid advances upon him. He richly endowed the church of St. Jacques de la Boucherie, near the Rue de Marivaux, where he had all his life resided, besides seven others in different parts of the kingdom. He also endowed fourteen hospitals, and built three chapels.

The fame of his great wealth and his munificent benefactions soon spread over all the country, and he was visited, among others, by the celebrated Doctors of that day, Jean Gerson, Jean de Courtecuisse, and Pierre d’Ailli. They found him in his humble apartment, meanly clad, and eating porridge out of an earthen vessel; and with regard to his secret, as impenetrable as all his predecessors in alchymy. His fame reached the ears of the King, Charles VI, who sent M. de Cramoisi, the Master of Requests, to find out whether Nicholas had indeed discovered the philosopher’s stone. But M. de Cramoisi took nothing by his visit; all his attempts to sound the alchymist were unavailing, and he returned to his royal master no wiser than he came. It was in this year, 1414, that he lost his faithful Petronella. He did not long survive her; but died in the following year, and was buried with great pomp by the grateful priests of St. Jacques de la Boucherie.

The great wealth of Nicholas Flamel is undoubted, as the records of several churches and hospitals in France can testify. That he practised alchymy is equally certain, as he left behind several works upon the subject.

Those who knew him well, and who were incredulous about the philosopher’s stone, give a very satisfactory solution of the secret of his wealth. They say that he was always a miser and a usurer; that his journey to Spain was undertaken with very different motives from those pretended by the alchymists; that, in fact, he went to collect debts due from Jews in that country to their brethren in Paris, and that he charged a commission of fully cent. per cent. in consideration of the difficulty of collecting and the dangers of the road; that when he possessed thousands, he lived upon almost nothing; and was the general money-lender, at enormous profits, of all the dissipated young men at the French court.

Among the works written by Nicholas Flamel on the subject of alchymy, is “The Philosophic Summary,” a poem, reprinted in 1735, as an appendix to the third volume of the “Roman de la Rose.” He also wrote three treatises upon natural philosophy, and an alchymic allegory, entitled “Le Desir desire.” Specimens of his writing, and a fac-simile of the drawings in his book of Abraham, may be seen in Salmon’s “Bibliotheque des Philosophes Chimiques.” The writer of the article, “Flamel,” in the “Biographie Universelle,” says that, for a hundred years after the death of Flamel, many of the adepts believed that he was still alive, and that he would live for upwards of six hundred years. The house he formerly occupied, at the corner of the Rue de Marivaux, has been often taken by credulous speculators, and ransacked from top to bottom, in the hopes that gold might be found. A report was current in Paris, not long previous to the year 1816, that some lodgers had found in the cellars several jars filled with a dark-coloured ponderous matter. Upon the strength of the rumour, a believer in all the wondrous tales told of Nicholas Flamel bought the house, and nearly pulled it to pieces in ransacking the walls and wainscotting for hidden gold. He got nothing for his pains, however, and had a heavy bill to pay to restore his dilapidations.

– Charles Mackay in Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

For years, this was the official teaching on the life of Nicholas Flamel. He lived a colorful life, and had the reputation of having discovered the Sorcerer’s Stone. But he and his wife died, disproving the fact that he possessed the source for the elixir of life.

But recently, author J.K. Rowlings has discovered a document that contradict’s Mackay’s account.

The ancient study of alchemy is concerned with making the Sorcerer’s Stone, a legendary substance with astonishing powers. The stone will transform any metal into pure gold. It also produces the Elixir of Life, which will make the drinker immortal.

There have been many reports of the Sorcerer’s Stone over the centuries, but the only Stone currently in existence belongs to Mr. Nicolas Flamel, the noted alchemist and opera lover. Mr. Flamel, who celebrated his six hundred and sixty-fifth birthday last year, enjoys a quiet life in Devon with his wife, Perenella (six hundred and fifty-eight).

– J.K. Rowlings in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

Headline Washington Times: More than jus twar and peace

Headline Reuters: Early school bell costs teens vital sleep-US study

CHICAGO (Reuters) – The early start to classes causes American teenagers to lose much needed sleep that puts them at risk of becoming moody and performing poorly in school, researchers said on Monday.

I know it was a long, long time ago, but back last century, when I was a teenager, my parents had an effective solution to the this problem of early morning classes. They would say to me, “Knilram, go to bed earlier.”

My parents were rather old fashioned. They believed that you were responsible for your own behavior and didn’t know they could blame my the school for my faults.

Q.34.What is sanctification?

A. Sanctification is the work of God’s free grace by which our whole person is made new in the image of God, and we are made more and more able to become dead to sin and alive to righteousness.

Sanctification is a work. It is a process. Sanctification isn’t an event that takes place at a point in time, like justification and adoption. Rather, sanctification takes our whole Christian life. As long as we are living here on earth, we are to be growing in our obedience to God’s commands.

But notice also that according to our catechism question, sanctification is a work of God. To be sure, we are involved. We are the ones who are changing our conduct. We are sinning less as we grow in sanctification. Nevertheless, scripture presents sanctification as a work of God.

1 Thessalonians 5:23-24

²³ Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. ²⁴ He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.