Kreativ Blogger obligations

As I mentioned in a former post about the Kreativ Blogger Awards, the people who are nominated for the award have certain obligations.  There are seven of them.  I have not yet complied with all of them but I fully intend to do it.

The first obligation is to thank the person who gave it to you.  I have already done that.

The second obligation is to copy the logo and display it on your blog site.  I have done that too.  With difficulty, but I managed it in the end.

The third obligation is to add to your site a link to the blog of the person who gave it to you.  Roger’s Place was already listed in my Blogroll before I received the award from Roger, so I have also done that.

The fourth obligation is to name seven things about yourself that people might find interesting.

The fifth obligation is to name seven other Kreativ Bloggers.

The sixth obligation is to post links to the seven blogs which you have named.

The seventh obligation is to leave a comment on each of the blogs which you have named, to let them know that they have been named.

I appear to be up to the fourth obligation, so here goes:

1)  I was born in Sydney, Australia and spent the first twenty years of my life there, before marrying and moving to France for thirty-eight years.  I am now back in Australia.

2)  I have three children and five grandchildren.

3)  I have been on stage since the age of six.  I first appeared on television at the age of twelve (I think).  My one and only magazine cover was when I was sixteen.  I was a founding member of the Young Australian Ballet Company.  Warren de Maria was our star dancer.  He was fourteen, but looked twenty.

4)  I started writing poetry at the age of eleven.  My primary school teacher later gave me an exercise book to write down my poems.  Her name was Mrs Henricks (or Hendricks) mother of Olympic gold medallist swimmer Jon.  She brought his medals to school for us to see.  My poetry has won me a few awards, mostly in France.

5)  I have the honour of being first cousin, once removed, to the Olympic gold medallist swimmer Claire Dennis.  My grandfather (her uncle), a policeman, was one of her bodyguards when she came back from the Los Angeles Olympics.  The crowd mobbed her when she got off the ship.

6)  I was eleven (I think) when I had my first article published on the radio.  I later worked as correspondent for a French newspaper.  I had some short stories published by the London Evening News and one of my plays was performed by my own performing arts company in France.

7)  I have sung with a few bands in France, and did a cabaret act with my own songs.  I crossed the English Channel on the midnight ferry with Roger Glover who, for the uninitiated, plays bass guitar with Deep Purple.  His band had just broken up and he had not yet written Love is All which I always call The Butterfly Ball.  Deep Purple has since re-formed, with Rog’ back on the bass.  We were the only two awake in our part of the ferry.  We sat on the floor and chatted about Life, each of us on opposite sides of a New Zealand couple fast asleep.  It was June, the ferry was packed, and I was on my way to a royal garden party at Buckingham Palace.  My hat was in a paper bag.  Dear Rog’ thought that I was “normal” and asked me a lot of questions about my life because he didn’t meet a lot of normal people, according to him.  I like to think that my answers might have contributed somewhat to Love is All.  Please don’t disillusion me, if you know that they didn’t.

Now, for the fifth obligation.

I do not yet have seven blogs to name.  I’m fussy.  However, I have a few ready.

The first one is Late Fruit.  Elaine writes about a lot of things connected with Art and Ageing (American spelling:  Aging).  This site is very interesting and informative.

The second one is Sandy Says.  It is written by a lady golden retriever, who talks about her canine friends and her Human, who is a writer.

The third one is Allan Takes Aim.  Don Allan is a columnist for a Canberra newspaper and writes about a lot of different subjects.  His work is amusing, although you may not always approve of what he says.

The fourth one is Single and Thirty-something (which does not have capital letters in the name on the site) and is perhaps a more classic blog.  However, it is well-written and often funny, and I think that she deserves a spot on my list.

I am still looking for the other three.

I have already posted links to these four blogs in my Blogroll, so the sixth condition has been done as far as they are concerned.

I am about to visit each of the sites which I have named to inform them of their nomination, thereby conforming with the seventh obligation.

Animals brought to trial – part 5

Excommunication was pronounced against some ants in Brazil at the beginning of the XVIIIth Century.  The monks at the Saint Antonio monastery sued the insects for violation of property and ordered them to leave the places which they had invaded, under threat of excommunication.

These practices were continued for a long time, and the Church had not stopped doing it under Louis XIV.

There was a trial, in the first years of the XVIIIth Century, to judge caterpillars which were desolating the territory of the little town of Pont-du-Chateau, in Auvergne.  The Grand Vicar excommunicated the caterpillars and sent the case to the local judge, who rendered a sentence against the insects, and solemnly ordered them to withdraw into an uncultivated territory expressly designated.

This practice continued elsewhere up until the XXth Century.  In 1901, in certain regions of Orne, the clergy did public exorcisms whenever there was an abnormal multiplication of harmful insects, such as cockchafers (maybugs) or caterpillars.

The persistence of such customs is surprising, particularly as protests against such heresies were made several times.  Some members of the clergy were not afraid to formulate strong criticisms against these absurd ceremonies.

“Sentences of excommunication are given against vermin,” wrote one Spanish monk from the Order of Saint-Benoit.  “This way of doing things is full of superstition and impiety, firstly, because you can’t sue animals which have no reason…;  secondly, because we sin and blaspheme grievously, when we mock the Church’s excommunication;  for, wanting to submit dumb animals to excommunication, is just the same as if someone wanted to baptise a dog or a stone.”

These same ideas were professed by Saint Thomas.  “It is not permitted to pronounce maledictions against beings deprived of judgement:  for if we consider these beings as coming from the hand of God, we commit, in cursing them, a true blasphemy;  if we envisage them simply as they are, we then perform a vain and consequently prohibited act.”

The best canonists censured excommunications against animals.  So did certain legal advisors.  Philippe de Beaumanoir, author of Coutumes de Beauvoisis, clearly separated himself from his contemporaries, on this point.  But what can a few isolated voices do against abuses which have roots in pre-Christian culture?

A criminologist wrote:  “It is inconceivable that no-one has thought to present as an outrage to divine majesty the cases, the condemnations and executions against animals which have only obeyed their ferocious instincts.  In any case, it is only too true that Justice soils itself by cases of such a ridiculous nature,  which is inexplicable, particularly when we reflect that not only were these affairs seriously examined, but that expert advice was sought for their solution, like the gravest of cases.”

Some blamed the Church for being the instigator of these judgements.  It is however in Antiquity, and even earlier, that the origin of such comportment should be sought.

Pagan Antiquity furnished a great number of examples of animals, and even inanimated objects, being cited in justice and condemned to various punishments, for their imputed misdeeds.

The judges of Athens went as far as sentencing the sword or the dagger which had served in a crime.  The Prytanea tribunal had for mission to condemn all inanimate objects, such as an axe, a piece of wood or a stone which had caused the death of someone, without human intervention and, found guilty of homicide, the object was thrown out of the territory.

The spirit of this curious procedure reappears in an old English law, no longer in existence , in virtue of which, not only an animal who had killed a man, but the wheel of a chariot which had passed over him, a tree which had crushed him in falling, was deodand, or given to God, that is to say confiscated and sold for the poor.  In commenting this law, Doctor Reid said that its object was not to punish the bullock or the cart like criminals, but to inspire the people with a sacred respect for human life.

Just like insects, four-legged animals brought to trial for murder, received anathema and suffered exorcism seances.

In Rome, for over six hundred years, a solemn procession took place annually, where a dog was paraded.  The dog was then crucified, in memory and in execration of the dog which didn’t bark when the Gauls attacked the Capitol.

Sixth part tomorrow.