Monday, June 30, 2008

Leigh by Naomi Wallace

 
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Tuesday, November 13, 2007

SOFT PASTELS by Naomi Wallace

COLLAGES by Naomi Wallace, May 2007

CHARCOAL DRAWINGS by Naomi Wallace, 2007

OIL PASTELS by Naomi Wallace

Saturday, September 16, 2006

POPE CAN’T SEE BEAM





Extraordinary that the Pope can’t see Catholic Church’s Bloody past, or par for the course?

The Pope has accused Mahomet of encouraging conversion by force, a practise of the Catholic Church since it had the power. This became widespread during the Inquisition on the continent and was used against Jews, Muslims and Christian heretics alike. Generally it’s true the Church, while practising torture, did not give sentences greater than life imprisonment, turning over the “guilty” to secular authorities for burning, but a similar legalism did not save the Jews from accusations of “deicide” after the crucifixion of Jesus by the Romans.

The Catholic Church was responsible for the deaths of thousands in this particularly painful manner. It also spread its way across South America and other parts of the “heathen” world by violence and forced conversion, which almost always led to economic and social advantage to the Church and its supporters, and the impoverishment and enslavement of the aboriginal populations.

Of course the Catholic Church is not unique, very few religious powers have reputations undamaged by historic events, and it would be unproductive to raise this if there were signs that the Church was a reformed character. But in fact it continues to exert its pressure all over the world and almost always to the detriment of the poor and oppressed. The Catholic Church did not have clean hands in the past, and it does not have clean hands in the present. The Pope, with his questionable role in the Second World War and his refusal to address it, is not in a position to cast a stone at anyone.

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Thursday, September 07, 2006

Self Indulgence



Can anybody explain to me why it is self indulgent of people to ask Blair to go, but not self indulgent of him to insist on staying?









BLAIR EXPLAINS

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