Ransen's Blog

These days, in Northern Italy, when it is too hot and muggy to sleep I simply get up. But in the other three seasons I have a method for getting back to sleep which sometimes work... I've been learning poems by heart, started off by this book: ...and trying to remember the poems as I lie awake in the middle of the night can sometimes get me back to oblivion. Sleep is important, so I say to myself that I can only get the "reward" of getting up once I've recited, in my mind, all the poems I know. Often I don't get to the end of the list before I'm back in the land of Nod. Actually I do not know any of the poems in that book, I've ended up choosing my own. It has taken me two years to learn 10 poems. Almost all of them have both rhyme and rhythm, much modern poetry seems self indulgent, deliberately obscure and without any artistic discipline. So here's my choice, not in any particular order. Tiger by William Blake. The Peasant Poet by Joh...

Monsignor Negri (Vescoco of Ferrara) of has said of the victims   ( VICTIMS ) of the Manchester bomb attack that they: "...lived without reason and they died without reason..." So this Catholic priest, who did not know either the families of the victims or the victims themselves, is ready to judge them. He says that they were products of a consumer society. Presumably he thinks that since they went to a concert to enjoy themselves they were sinners. Presumably, according to him, they should have been at home or in church praying. He also says this is a war of religion. I bet he'd know what to do with a few nuclear bombs, look at those clenched fists: (photo by di Barbara Andolfi) So in addition to the full evil of attacks on children by Islamic terrorists we have Catholic priests who blame the victims.  Isn't religion great?