Stuff around the web

Philip Jenkis is writing a series on the folk gospels that didn't make it into the bible: no, not the "gnostic" ones that were forgotten but beloved by modern elite "jesus seminar" types, but the stories were known to medieval Catholics. Today's episode is about the ancient texts about the Virgin Mary's body being taken up to heaven. 


and he explains why few scholars want to study them (too 'superstitious" he says: I say it's because they confirm normality was important to ancient and medieval Christianity: Jesus as part of a family, with a really great mom. So these stories were popular because they told folks that you could find holiness in the daily grind of family life, not in monasteries or (nowadays) boring folks with talk of Jesus or meditating to evolve to a higher power.

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Tehran Live posts photos of the Moghandam museum.

Tehran University’s Moghadam Museum, or the house of Moghadam, is considered one of luxury home of Qajar era which belonged to Mohammad Taghi Khan Ehtesabolmolk, a courtier.

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The alqaeda and Taliban weren't the first who wanted to purify the world:

Ah, the good old days when the civilized were attacked by puritanical barbarians who destroyed books, churches and art work.

 I wonder how many remember the British civil wars, against the Scots, or when the Puritans massacred Irish Catholics, or when "reformers" destroyed millions of books in monasteries, and decimated the art world?

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Improbable research links to an article on alternative engery; using Fido to turn the spit when you barbecue a roast.

more HERE. common in pubs, 

the Turnspit dogs usually were similar to dachshunds. but the breed is now extinct.

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 Speaking of Pubs: The World's End is a sleeper hit about a pub crawl that saves the world. For Shaun of the Dead fans, with lots of droll British humor.

Another "end of the world" type movie, with ET robots instead of Zombies. Seems to be a trend.

My take? Bleh. Like Silver Linings playbook, (which is not a zombie movie) the main character is a narcissistic  druggie type, and since I disliked the main character, I couldn't enjoy the movie.

And no, I'm not a horror movie/zombie fan...the only one I really enjoyed was Warm Bodies and (although a bit violent to my taste) Abraham Lincoln, vampire killer...
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Book Review of the Sarejevo assasination of the Hapsburgh heir reveals he was not a rigid person, but actually fought to marry his wife.

  King and Woolmans give us a look at the courtship of Franz Ferdinand and Sophie and their long battle to secure permission to wed, albeit in a morganatic marriage, which denied her and her children imperial rank. The picture of the couple’s life together shows us an almost continuous pattern of petty snubs and deliberate insults from the court, but they have been a happy couple, producing three children who seem to have had a rather normal family life considering the pressures on them.  King and Woolmans make a serious effort to rehabilitate the images of both Franz Ferdinand and Sophie.  For example, they argue that Franz Ferdinand was neither an unimaginative, stiff-necked conservative, nor a starry-eyed liberal, as various authors in the past have depicted him.  Though perhaps more sympathetic than the evidence would suggest, they see him as a realistic conservative, who recognized the need for reforms that would bolster the old order.  Moreover, they point out that he actually had some influence in reshaping the monarchy, helping create a new navy for example.