From the NY Sun:

WALTER HALLORAN, 83, 'EXORCIST' PRIEST

The Rev. Walter H. Halloran, a priest who took part in an exorcism that spawned the book and move "The exorcist," died Tuesday in Milwaukee. He was age 83.

Halloran was the last living Jesuit who assisted in the exorcism in 1949 at a psychiatric unit in St. Louis. He was a 27-year-old Jesuit scholastic at Saint Louis University when a priest called him to the psychiatric wing at Alexian Brothers Hospital.

The Rev. William S. Bowdern was trying to help a 14-year-old boy who he believed was possessed by a demon, and he needed a strong man to help control the boy.

"The little boy would go into a seizure and get quite violent," Halloran told the St. Louis Post Dispatch in 1988. "So Father Bowdern asked me to hold him. Yes he did break my nose." Halloran said he saw streaks and arrows and words like "hell" on the boy's skin.

A three-paragraph news account of the incident inspired William Peter Blatty to write his 1971 best seller "The Exorcist," which led to the movie a few years latter. Blatty's story featured a 12-year-old girl.

Halloran earned two Bronze Stars for serving as a paratrooper chaplain during the Vietnam War, the oldest airborne chaplain at the time at 48.

Category IV - The
Musketeer

You have a small, highly edited social group, and
you like it that way.


What Type of Social Entity are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Rich Lowry on National Review Online:
(following emphasis mine)

The Texas case came about because in 2002 a homeless man named Thomas Van Orden — on his way to idling the day away at the State Law Library — noticed the display on the grounds of the Texas state capitol. As it happens, Van Orden has a law degree (is this an over-lawyered country or what?). With nothing else to do with his time, he sued. The display had been up since 1961, and in 40 years, no one in Texas had noticed the state was trying to establish a religion.

I am Kong. Strong and passionate, I tend to be misunderstood, sometimes even feared. I don't want to fight, I don't want to cause trouble, all I ask is a little love, and a little peace. If I don't get what I want, I get angry, and throw barrels and flaming oil at whatever's stopping me. What Video Game Character Are You?

Book Game
Here are the rules:
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog along with these instructions.
5. Don’t you dare dig for that “cool” or “intellectual” book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.

This, however, neither interrupted their mirth nor their diversion, nor gave the least truce to the lamentations of Sancho, who prayed and cursed by turns as he flew. Indeed, nothing of this sort, either could or did avail him, until, leaving off, out of pure weariness, they thought fit to wrap him up in his great coat, and set him on his donkey again. The compassionate Maritornes seeing him so much fatigued, thought he would be the better for a drink of water, which, that it might be cooler, she fetched from the well; and Sancho had just put the mug to his lips, when his drink was halted, by the voice of his master, who cried aloud, "Son Sancho, drink not water, drink not that which will be the occasion of thy death, my son; behold this most sacred balsam, (holding up the cruet of potion in his hand) two drops of which will effectually cure thee."

Don Quixote by Miquel de Cervantes, translated by Tobias Smollett

(from JMT)

I believe I've done one of these before, but here it is again.

You're Cambodia!

Life's been really rough, but it's slowly improving.  You know
way too much about the skeletal structure of humans, mostly from being forced to study
it.  This has given you a fear of many things, most especially the color red.
 The future has to be more promising though, and your greatest adversary can now
never come back to hurt you any more.
Take
the Country Quiz at the href="http://bluepyramid.org">Blue Pyramid

In honor of Academy Awards night:

Michael Judge in the Wednesday, Febuary 2 Wall Street Journal:

As live entertainment, the River Rats [Albany, NY's minor league hockey team] games are worth every penny. Who wants to shell out $10 to see Leanardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes when you can come to the Pepsi Arena and see world class athletes pound one another silly and a giant rat on skates named Rowdy?

Times Online - Sunday Times

And finally, Mirror columnist Sue Carroll’s verdict on the recent Ikea riot: “Police had their orders, but they couldn’t understand the instructions.”

Now take that joke and try to reassemble it. Bet you there’ll always be a word left over.

You are a guitar. You are a musical genius... congratulations. Most people think you are a little obsessed with music, but that's okay. You don't care what other people think. You are independent, and would rather have a few good (and weird) friends than a lot of not-so-good ones. You may feel that people run down your eccentricity, but that's only because they're jealous. You will most likely become very successful with your musical talent. Rock on! Most compatible with: Drumstick. Click here -- What Random Object Represents Your Inner Self?

Boy, in NYC when they say "Hard Salami" they mean something with a Mohs' Scale number.

Daniel Brondel, formerly of St. Anne's Church in Rochester, is the new Director of Music at St Malachy's on West 49th Street, between Broadway and Eighth Avenue. How much of the old St. Anne's gang can we put together in NYC? Fr. Lioi's busy, I guess, but I wonder what the reflexologist woman is up to these days?

I'm on the evening shift at work, so I'm working 4-1 or there abouts. I'm working W-Sunday, so people looking to make plans with me might consider Monday or Sunday evenings or lunches on other days.

Blogging this from my new digs after getting home from working extra late, loafing at work off the clock catching up on some email as I wasn't sure if I'd be able to connect here, a late bite, and missing my subway stop and having to go one more north and wait for a late night train to come to take me back one more south, adding about an extra twenty or thirty minutes to the commute.

I'm adding the DutchReport to the blogroll. I'm planning on learning Dutch too (long and probably boring story).

The Slob Culture

"It has never occurred to me, in nearly 25 years of working in London, to turn up at my place of work or to a business lunch without being properly dressed. Our greatest living playwright, Ronald Harwood, noted recently that his mother had told him always to wear a tie when out in London ‘as it is the respect a man shows to a great city’."

The Spectator.co.uk:

"For the sixth time in as many months, a woman has cancelled our dinner. In and of itself, a cancelled dinner is a trifle. The cancellations themselves were less surprising than the timing and the method. Did the women, all of whom are friends, give me time to make alternative arrangements? Did they call? Did they explain or apologise? Did they hell! Each of these grown women sent a message via text or SMS to my mobile telephone. Average warning time pre-dinner: nine minutes. One message arrived after dinner. When it happens six times, you wonder whether you have stumbled upon a phenomenon. The aberration becomes the trend."

Which Website are You?

OK, now HR says it's going to go through. On Monday, I'm supposed to finalize the schedule for when I start.

Salon.com Arts & Entertainment | The Fix:

"Vanity Fair reports that Marlon Brando initially didn't want to play Don Corleone in 'The Godfather,' telling an assistant, 'It's about the Mafia. I won't glorify the Mafia.' (Vanity Fair via Reuters)"

Ok, job seems very up in the air now. Arghh.