Thoughts.
< Here are two humble examples of fortified churches. The thought is when things got bad in the neighborhood the church became a place of refuge. As might be imagined from a quick glance at the Hary edifice maybe the church was built on to an existing tower. There is nothing new in this. Consider the tower at Abbaye de Notre-Dame du Bec, interestingly enough called the Saint Nicolas Tower. There can be little doubt what the tower was intended to do. The Saint Denis Basillica is an even more provocative possible example of what was once something else becoming what it is today.
Hary
Thanks Gilles and Marthe for the Hary and the Burelles photographs. More on the Abbaye might be found here:
http://www.abbayedubec.com/
For the Basillica search: Basillique de Saint-Denis
(Caution on l'Abbaye du Bec-Hellouin. Some of the info on it is a little off date, like for instance where it is which is strange considering it is in Bec-Hellouin.)
posted by Jack at 18:34
13 Comments:
Jack, I tryed Yorktown as you suggested. Why Google gives the answer for military victories is beyond me. Nice pictures, did you take them?
My beau frere, or brother-in-law and his wife, (belle soeur) are the photographers.
Google may give the answers it does because of the western idea of victory. It is arguably possible to loose every battle in a war and still win the war.
They did nice, and you have a point.
I hope this is okay to put on here, Jack. I heard about it the other day and thought you might be interested:
www.uri.edu/nonviolence/about.html
I've also been hearing a lot about
thegroundtruth.net
"Counter recruiting." I haven't seen it, but it's been getting some buzz.
Peace.
You can post what you like here Elsie. About non-violence, well I am not an advocate of non-violence. We are violent creatures.
About the groundtruth thing. I took a quick look and I do not trust it. It is very easy to play black propaganda with a site like that. It is much the same with the likes of Greenpeace and Ralph Nader. These two and others like them have only distracted attention away from serious issues for too many years. Look at the results. What has either accomplished?
I will save you the bother of looking up black propaganda, just in case you may not have heard of it. It is bad guys playing at being good guys and saying things good guys might say but awkwardly. Kind of like what Bush's school chum pulled a few weeks ago. What's his name, Kerry something.
Well, I'm not one of those "your with us or against us" types, so I will assume (or should I not?) that you are not an advocate of violence either. You are a conundrum, Jack, you are.
This world is full of bad guys and gals playing good guys and gals. The problem is how to differentiate between the two. I've been fooled more than once. Shame on me.
...you're...
Friend Elsie, to not advocate only means to not advise others to do whatever. I ask you, would you advise a victim of sexual aggression to be non-violent? We are similar to wolves, young lady. Violence is in us just as it is in them. Society and education can help keep violence down but violence does not go away.
Good guys and bad guys depends on where one looks from, not what one does. There is not much difference between the two, excepting the bad guy is generally the other guy.
Okay, Jack. You've got me there. I suppose/know that I can become violent when I believe the situation calls for it. Having been a victim of sexual aggression (as most women have), I can tell you that I felt I had to be (and was) violent towards my offender. I was young twenties, and this guy simply would not take no for an answer. It appeared that he thought his aggressive behavior would make me change my mind (I never understood that male-type thinking). Now I was a big, strong girl and threw one swift punch right to his nose. Down he went (one lucky punch), which left me bawling my eyes out and apologizing to him! Within a day or two, I threw him out on his ass. Point being, I'd never considered myself violent in any way up until that time. And my ridding my life of him was a reaction to my violence towards him -- I couldn't stand myself or my behavior. Odd that I didn't end it due to HIS behavior.
Later still, and I've never admitted this to anyone, I did something in order to protect someone that I love -- something that would have landed me in jail had I been caught. But I wasn't, and I live with it every day. It felt good, right and just at that time. Now it makes me feel like...I can't even describe it, but it's not good. So, even though at times I still feel like it was deserved, I try to make up for it by living as non-violently as I can.
When I watch my kids grow, I know that inside each of them there is potential. For good, for bad. And I try to harness that potential to steer them toward good. I wonder if I am misguided, but it's the best I can do. Maybe that's all there is.
Well Anonymous, in my case after speaking with someone who might know about such things, because I too have such stories, but after speaking about them, how I felt changed. Why? It may be because in every instance I had obscured the actual circumstances and my listener usually pulled these back into my memory. So talk it out with someone. Do not look for someone you trust, try to find someone who knows what you are talking about. If you need a thief, find a thief. If you can still be prosecuted use the old "I have a friend..." or "Someone told me once..." opening. Nearly everyone will know you haven't such a friend because nearly everyone has used the same ploy. Just do not give a good date or tell where the body is buried.
This has always worked for me, so far.
Fortunately, nobody died. "My friend" wasn't even there. It only took a phone call. And a few bucks.
My friend will never forget the actual circumstances. Said friend will probably never talk of it again, either.
I speak to myself in shorthand skipping over quickly that which I know well. Telling another necessitates telling even the incidental stuff and it is usually in this where the gold is found. Something not forgotten is not something seen through a different set of eyes.
If my friend could talk to you, she probably would. But neither time nor distance will allow for that possibility. There is no one else she can tell. Friend should probably clarify -- she should not be called protector but rather avenger. Not exactly how she sees herself in her mind's eye these days.
Life!
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