Maria Himmelfahrt

Wednesday was the Catholic Feast of the Assumption, a holy day of obligation. Mary’s body is up there physically in heaven. Jesus Christ is also bodily up there in the clouds; that is the Feast of the Ascension, celebrated forty days after Easter. Easter Sunday Jesus rose from the dead. But Jesus is not merely immortal. He is God. Or did you know that already? But the true test of the Catholic believer is His Virgin Mother. It’s hard sometimes to swallow this stuff. But, somehow, the Holy Father in Rome grabs the faint-of-faith by the hair and rams it in.

Notes towards an histoire of George's underpants

The news from the Middle East is dismaying. I can’t bear to listen to the BBC go from one scene of carnage to the next. But it is curious that for the last six years France has been the voice of reason. After Canada and the United States, France is my third home. The French think of themselves as preeminently reasonable; in fact they consent to a rigid authoritarianism. For instance, the first few months I lived there back in 1967 everyone wore exactly the same extreme fashion. That’s what “fashionable“ meant. It was the mode. My friend Suzanne spent a dozen married years in Paris back then. Every year every French person bought two new outfits and wore them out. However, their underwear was generally many years old, and looked it. Anyway, a certain Texan is the antithesis of everything French. Starting with the Middle East, he’s wrecking the planet.

Kittens

If there were more kittens and fewer people there'd be less war.

Free Kittens!

I have decided to offer kitten Renaming Rights. The next three subscribers to Unmuzzled OX will receive the usual 4 books-- plus a free kitten! Please send $20 to Unmuzzled OX, 105 Hudson Street New York NY 10013. Your $20 gift to Unmuzzled OX is, of course, tax-deductible. The kitten and the four books are just our way of saying, Thanks!

Call the cat whatever you want, it will still own you.