The above is the tomato fight at the Tomato Festival on Friendship Day in Hyderabad in India on Sunday 7 August 2011. The below vid is uneven in quality (it has about a 30 second intro, to begin with), but it’s the only thing that I found that illustrated this “event”:
I think that I’d fit right in (it looks like right good CLEAN fun to me)… what about you?
BMD
RIA-Novosti has a nice presentation on five different forms of borshch here:
http://en.rian.ru/infographics/20110814/165704649.html
Couldn’t download it in a form that could be posted, so, I’m doing the next best thing.
BMD
Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin (1968- ), the head of the MP Department for Church and Society
Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, the head of the MP Department for Church and Society, thought it would benefit Russian society if we introduced progressive tax rates. “I’d say that it’s a useful thing. If your earnings are higher, consequently, that increases your moral responsibility to society, too; it follows that you can afford to pay more taxes to help those who can’t earn their own bread”, he said on a live broadcast of Прощеное воскресенье (Proshchenoe voskresenye: Forgiveness Sunday) on KP Radio in Moscow. In his opinion, high-income people “earn more than most do, yet, others can’t earn a thing, they need our help. Society shouldn’t be a place where wolves chase rabbits; even a wolf pack has a certain amount of mutual support. If society refuses to support its weaker members, of necessity, it surrenders to the ‘law of the jungle’”, Vsevolod Anatolyevich emphasised. He noted, “This isn’t vacuous moralising; all of human history validates these things”.
15 August 2011
Interfax-Religion
http://www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=41846
Editor’s Note:
Attend to what Vsevolod Anatolyevich said:
If your earnings are higher, consequently, that increases your moral responsibility to society, too; it follows that you can afford to pay more taxes to help those who can’t earn their own bread. … Society shouldn’t be a place where wolves chase rabbits; even a wolf pack has a certain amount of mutual support. If society refuses to support its weaker members, of necessity, it surrenders to the “law of the jungle”. … This isn’t vacuous moralising; all of human history validates these things.
AMEN! AMEN! AMEN! Hip-hip, hooray, and a triple URA! If this is TRUTH (and it is… in spades), what does that make of the pseudo-religion of Michelle Bachmann, Sarah Palin, Reinhardt Priebus, and Rick Perry? A friend sent me this:
Personally, I consider the “religion” or “faith” of Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann as something that BORROWS certain things (such as the Scriptures) from (Apostolic-rooted) Christianity, but it’s, in fact, a new and different religious tradition/movement, exhibiting and promoting a completely novel ethos.
That’s said better than I could say it, I daresay… God uses friends to teach us humility… how many of us listen to that “still, small voice”, though? That’s why we have a God-given duty and obligation to oppose the rightwing extremists with all of our powers… Bachmann, Perry, Palin, Priebus, et al, not only contravene God’s Law, they go against the very logic of mankind’s experience, as Fr Vsevolod points up so well. They follow ancient gods dressed up in new vesture… but no matter how they try to disguise it by calling out “Jayzuss”, there’s no doubt that we’re talking of fanatical followers of Mammon and Moloch.
This has resonance for Orthodox in America as well… it means that the dalliance with the extreme right by Fathausen, Potapov, Webster, Dreher, Mattingly, and Freddie M-G is an impious blasphemy of the worst sort, and we have an obligation as Orthodox Christians to fight their soulless ideology, subdue it, and make sure that we kill it absolutely stone-cold dead. We can follow Christ… or we can follow Ayn Rand and her demented followers in the US Republican Party (in so doing, they spat on the GOP’s REAL heritage from Lincoln, TR, Ike, and Nixon) and the present British and Canadian Conservative Parties (Disraeli or Dief wouldn’t recognise the present bodies… not to mention Bismarck or Stolypin).
This DOES affect your eternal destiny. Do remember what Our Lord said of the affluent… “They have their reward”… that’s chilling, isn’t it?
BMD
Our Lady of Kazan Russian Orthodox Church in Havana, built with the assistance of Sr Castro and the Cuban government.
Patriarch Kirill Gundyaev of Moscow and All Russia sent birthday greetings to former Cuban leader Fidel Castro Ruz on his 85th birthday. “The MP will always remember with gratitude your personal contribution to the building of the Russian church in Havana, and the sincere care that you’ve given our Russian community there”, according to the message, as released by the Patriarchal Press Service. As His Holiness noted, Sr Castro’s personal example inspired Cubans “to treat Russian Orthodox people with great warmth, to take interest in and to learn about our spiritual traditions. As I warmly remember our meetings, I wish you, and your family, good health, long life, and vigour”, the message said.
15 August 2011
Interfax-Religion
http://www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=41838
Editor’s Note:
Note how His Holiness treats Sr Castro with great respect. I’ll be blunt… there are elements in our Church here that are trying to ally the Church with extremist rightwing elements. Don’t be passive! Stand up to these godless bastards! They’re going against the Mind of the Church as our REAL leaders such as Patriarch Kirill express it. His Holiness opposes the Cuban economic blockade, the War on Terror, Western Neoliberalism (“conservatism”), the pro-Western oligarchs, proselytising Sectarian scum, and the “Free Market” (what’s not to like in any of that?). Get with the programme! Follow his Nibs… not chowderheads like JP, Alexander Webster, Hannes Jacobses, Rod Dreher, Freddie M-G, Matthew Tate, Terry Mattingly, Bobby K, Tosi, Mark Stokoe, and Benjamin Peterson. They’re serving you a Large Economy-Size Shit Sandwich with oodles of Sectarian Sauce, and they’re expecting you to take a BIG BITE (and like it, no less…).
You know what to do… Follow His Nibs… not these schmidiots. Fight for the Truth… IN THE NAME OF LIFE!
BMD
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