Seven or eight years ago, I was walking in the University District in Seattle, and there he was, huddled in the doorway, his hair matted, toenails black.
My brother Matt. Read More
I started obsessively collecting these little healing pamphlets the last week of my stay in South Africa. (That’s one reason why these two are from Cape Town, though I have a few from Pretoria. I didn’t notice these in Durban or Pietermaritzburg.) I’m sorry they don’t show up really well with this white background. However, as you will see, if you click on these to blow them up so you can see the full pamphlet and read the promises they make, all of them claim to be a “Dr.” and all promise wonderful things (penis growth, relief from bad luck, relief from witchcraft, relief from the Tokoloshe–an elf-sized-creature with an enormous penis that bewitches people, esp. women). Also notice that “Dr. Shmal” claims expertise abroad–a great example of the “nothing good can come out of Galilee” syndrome, where outsiders and expertise learned elsewhere or non-locals are offered more clout than locals.
The Guardian reports on how Guinea-Bissau, a former Portuguese colony, has become the world’s first declared narco-state…suggesting that Europe’s hunger for cocaine may destroy West Africa “again” the way its hunger for slaves destroyed it up through the 19th century.
I had heard about this exorcism death a couple of months ago but just now took the time to look it up. Man, it reminds me of a few horror films I wish I’d never seen. What happened? A few local nuns and priests in an Orthodox monastery in Romania decided that a woman recently diagnosed with schizophrenia was actually possessed by Satan. They chained her to a makeshift cross for three days, trying to cast demons out of her. She died. The 29-year-old priest in charge of the exorcism, Daniel Petre Corogeanu, told local media that “You can’t take the Devil out with pills.” 
He has been defrocked and charged with murder and the monastery shut down. THANK GOD. The article appears to argue that because the church had burgeoned since the fall of Communism, the Orthodox hierarchy has insufficient control of rogue congregations . Interesting argument, NY Times….It also argues that the young nuns who joined the monastery were “devoted” to the young priest, Fr. Corogeanu, pictured to the left. Not sure WHAT exactly they mean by that.
Here I’m quoting directly from the NY Times article: Read More
Let me put in another plug for City of Men (Cidade dos homens), 
my favorite tv series.
Link here for a BBC description.
If you like The Wire, you’ll like City of Men.
