[NOTE: Tom Friedman interrupts his New York Times column today, which is about Ukraine & Israel, to quote a jibe he’s hearing often these days]:
Hey, Friedman, all you seem to write about these days is Ukraine and Israel. Don’t you have anything else to say? Continue reading Quote of the Day: Tom Friedman on the Top Two Crises
Attention, Quaker (and other Friendly Romantics)—Yes! It’s okay to think about Valentine’s Day again.
And so . . . Coming Tomorrow, February (Err, Second Month) 14: this blog will feature a Quaker Valentine Story Continue reading Exclusive-Coming Tomorrow: A Quaker Valentine Story
The Living Remnant & Other Quaker Tales. By “KKK,” (Edith Florence O’Brien.) Published by Headley Brothers in UK, 1900.
A Friend came across this book and passed along a link. It’s a series of four related stories about a tightly-knit (i. e., very insular) British Quaker meeting community, in about 1875. The “tales” portray, in sequence: an old-fashioned courtship; the subsequent wedding; the final dissolution of a stubbornly backward-looking Quaker faction, fixated on a version of the faith that time has quietly but remorselessly passed by; and then closes with the prospect of possible renewal as well as change.
Continue reading Quaker Book Review: “The Living Remnant” Rides Again
[NOTE: The news here is not so much the Senate’s passage of the same sex marriage bill, but the big shift in its denominational support: the switch of the Mormon church (aka LDS) to supporting it, after decades of being a pillar of opposition.
This carefully modulated change deserves further explication. As the article details, Mormon officials say they will keep their anti-same sex marriage doctrine, but now accept the practice as a cultural/legal reality. Continue reading Religious Groups Face Off For & Against Senate Same Sex Marriage Bill
The Guardian
Zoe and Jack met in the 5-mile line for the Queen’s lying in state, then spent 13 hours bonding over crisps and chat. Before long, their so-called ‘love affair’ had gone viral …
Name: Queue romance.
Age: Newly sprung, but short-lived.
Appearance: Like love, but also like a journey.
Isn’t love already a journey of sorts? Yes, but this was an actual 13-hour journey. On foot.
Where to? To pay one’s respects to the late Queen Elizabeth II.
And did people find love in the queue then? Is that what’s going on here? Well, that’s what everyone wanted to believe. There was one couple, Jack and Zoe, who met in line to see the Queen’s lying in state at 10.30pm on Friday, when the growing queue was already edging over the 5-mile mark.
And they hit it off? By the time they were interviewed by Channel 4 the next day, they had been together in the queue all night.
It’s not as if they had a choice. Maybe not, but as they bonded over “crisps and chat”, there was clearly a spark. Zoe called their chance meeting “a blessing in disguise”.
Any awkward moments? Apparently not. “I thought I was going to be exhausted but it’s just gone so quickly in the queue,” said Zoe.
Which left the British public rooting for them? Absolutely. As you can imagine, the news clip of the smitten couple became a bit of a viral hit.
With people making jokes about the romcom possibilities offered by this unlikely meeting? Exactly: “Queue, Actually”, “Four Queues and a Funeral”, etc.
That doesn’t really work, because there was only one queue. How about “14-Hour Queue and a Funeral”?
It’s better, except earlier you made it clear the queue was only 13 hours. This is Richard Curtis’s job, not mine.
So will Jack and Zoe meet again? They already have! The pair went to watch the Queen’s state funeral in Hyde Park together.
That’s quite a weird second date. Ah, but here is where the romance ends. It turns out that they both have long-term partners and met up just as friends.
Gutted! I know, right? “Jack is a great guy, we get on brilliantly, but we both have long-term partners – in fact, I am getting married next year. Not only that, but there’s also a 10-year age gap between Jack and I!” Zoe told the Daily Mail.
Devastating. As a nation we needed this. “It is nice to think we may have cheered people up during a period of mourning, but I am sorry for anyone who hoped that we might get together to say that it is purely platonic between us,” added Jack.
Well, hopefully another couple who met in the record-shattering queue to view a long-serving British monarch’s coffin will come forward? We’ll have to wait and see.
Do say: “And I will walk 5.1 miles, and I will walk 5.1 more …”
Don’t say: “She went to the loo and never came back, but I’ll search the kingdom until I find the girl who fits this wristband.”
19 September 2022