COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Monday, September 01, 2008

OOPS! Famous Results of Un-planned Pregnancies

This is not Francisco Pizarro

A list of 20 famous illegitimate children including poets, actors, authors, popes, and statesmen whose parents were not married.

20 Illegitimate Children

1. Guillaume Apollinaire. Poet.

2. Sarah Bernhardt. Actress.

3. Giovanni Boccaccio. Author.

4. Cesare Borgia. Catholic cardinal.

5. Aleksandr Borodin. Composer.

6. Pope Clement VII. Spiritual head of the Catholic Church.

7. Leonardo da Vinci. Artist.

8. Josephine de Beauharnais. Napoleon's wife.

9. Frederick Douglass. Abolitionist.

10. Alexandre Dumas, fils. Novelist and playwright.

11. Desiderius Erasmus. Scholar and author.

12. Alexander Hamilton. U.S. Secretary of the Treasury.

13. Jenny Lind. Singer.

14. Marilyn Monroe. Actress.

15. Bernardo O'Higgins. Dictator.

16. Francisco Pizarro. Conqueror of Peru.

17. James Smithson. Chemist and inceptor of Smithsonian Institution.

18. August Strindberg. Playwright.

19. Richard Wagner. Composer.

20. William the Conqueror. First Norman ruler.

Trivia-Library


55 comments:

  1. Add your favorite! Good suggestion. that's why you get the big bucks for posting at the EB.

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  2. An email to Hugh Hewitt-

    "Hugh –

    There couldn’t be a clearer difference between conservatives and liberals than this one…

    Obama…

    “If my daughter makes a mistake, I don’t want her punished with a baby”

    Palin…

    “As [our daughter] faces the responsibilities of adulthood, she knows she has our unconditional love and support.”

    (also… "Bristol and the young man she will marry are going to realize very quickly the difficulties of raising a child, which is why they will have the love and support of our entire family.”)

    When I, myself, became pregnant in college, my soon-to-be mother in law (a hard-core liberal Democrat who had openly encouraged me to have un-married sex with her son) expressed her “disappointment” in both of us – and immediately pushed for an abortion. My own mother (a sex-before-marriage-is-sin Catholic) immediately comforted me, affirmed her love for me and said, “There’s always room in our family for another baby.” My husband and I have been JOYFULLY married 21 years and have 4 amazing kids…. What an beautiful gift of love my mother gave me that day!

    Babies...Punishment vs. Love. I think I’ll take love."

    Warm Regards,

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  3. WiO, Nixon once said, "When the President does a thing, that makes it legal." The Father of Jesus is the President of Presidents.

    To add to your list:

    Barack Obama maybe.
    Jesse Jackson for sure.

    But it probably won't stop them from going after Palin on this.

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  4. William the Conqueror. First Norman ruler. ! ?

    :) Are we sure about this? Have we checked the birth certificate?:)

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  5. No one here is from DC, sinless.

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  6. Walt Disney, whose wife hailed from Lapwai, Land of Butterflies, a few miles up the road from where I am sitting.

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  7. teresita said...
    WiO, Nixon once said, "When the President does a thing, that makes it legal." The Father of Jesus is the President of Presidents.

    T,

    The pregnancy of Mary was unplanned. She was not married at the time.

    Who was the father of her child? Well to her kin, the father was a Roman soldier. It was not uncommon for this to happen and thus Jewish Law reflected that the child of a Jewish woman would be a jewish child, thus not cutting the kid off as undesirable.

    Now what other people who had no connection with our tribe insists on adding to the story is really not relevant. Point is simple, Mary was preggers and did not plan it..

    You want to say the infinite, incorporeal creator of the universe impregnated her? fine, still UNPLANNED and last I checked Still not considered a legal marriage...

    so my point still holds, whether you like it or not...

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  8. Lapwai in Nez Perce means land of butterflies.

    We had an announcer at the casino for awhile who would always get a good laugh with his line - when the shuttle bus was leaving - about "beautiful downtown Lapwai." But things are better now, most of the tribe having some meaningful money, God bless them.

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  9. The thought of a DC'er at the EB.

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  10. I think the poet William Blake basically agrees with WiO.

    Being a poet, and having a poet's view of things, he said it was fitting that if he is to save the whole world(in the orthodox view) he should be both Gentile and Jewish.

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  11. Panthera was his name.

    Roman Legion was his game.

    I think we don't know for sure, and never will, what the truth is of this, but it is certainly possible.

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  12. back in the days of old, when rome love to show it's love...

    jewish gals could and would be raped by rome's finest.

    the truth be told? rome's finest would rape anything on 2 or 4 legs....

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  13. Speaking of bawdy tales of love and saving the world, Bob, have you read Boccaccio's Decameron?

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  14. Long time ago, Mat, I read some of it, but, truth be told, I can't recall much of it now.

    I do have a fine copy of Ovid's The Art of Love given to me by my Aunt.

    She was a librarian, and had a truly fabulous library. Hundreds of high class books from a book of the month club.

    Really, really beautiful books, that you hardly wanted to open, lest you leave a fingerprint.

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  15. "How do we get rid of it?"
    Vote Palin!

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  16. Cato Institute
    1000 Massachusetts Ave, NW
    Washington DC 20001-5403
    Phone (202) 842-0200
    Fax (202) 842-3490

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  17. She had all of Shakespeare's plays, for instance, each play in one book, illustrated by some famous artist or other.

    She also had all the Time Magazines, back when Time was still worth something, from the rise of Hitler to the fall of Germany and Japan, and the A-bomb, all of which I kept.

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  18. The Decameron
    by Giovanni Boccaccio

    Amazon Customer Review:

    100 stories to read time and again.

    The Decameron contains many references to the church and its influence. The first story of Ser Cepparello pokes fun at the church, but the storyteller, Panfilo, precedes his tale with a pious preamble: "It is fitting that everything done by man should begin with the marvelous and holy name of Him...I intend to start with one of His marvelous deeds, so that when we have heard about it, out faith in Him will remain as firm as ever" (25). Panfilo goes on to tell the story of the worst sinner in Europe who becomes a saint merely by duping his confessor. At the end of the tale, Christians worship the false saint, and Panfilo concludes with another tribute to God. The effect is hilarious. The tale makes religion a farce, but the opening and closing take religion very seriously. This disguises the biting satire of the story. By framing stories with prayers, the contents within the frame seem less irreverent. The second story fits in the same framework, as Neifile tells a story to promote "His infallible truth so that with firmer conviction we may practice what we believe" (38). She goes on to tell the story of a Jew named Abraham, who converts to Christianity after he observes the wickedness of the clergy in Rome. Abraham finds Rome to be "a forge for the Devil's work" and is amazed that "in spite of all this...your religion grows and becomes brighter and more illustrious" (42). The incredible corruption of the church, coupled with its success, baffles Abraham enough that he has to conclude that God must favor the Christians if they are allowed to be so evil. Like Panfilo, Neifile concludes her tale by praising God.

    The third story also focuses on religion, but this time the main characters are a Saracen and a Jew. The Jewish lender, Melchisedech, posits Saladin with the question of which of the three religions is the one true religion. Saladin is portrayed as wise. The story shows tolerance to the Saracens through the characterization.

    The fourth story returns to the Christian world, as a monk and an abbott succumb to "the warm desires of the flesh" (48). The two holy men sleep with a girl and invite her back for sex time and again.

    Boccaccio avoids attacking the doctrine of the church, but he exposes certain realities of human nature. Those employed by the church cannot escape themselves, despite their appearances. They are as fallible as the peasants. In "The Author's Conclusion," Boccaccio defends his stories against protest by saying, "A corrupt mind never understands a word in a healthy way" (804). The addendum to The Decameron acts as a line of defense for the author from overzealous Christians who he predicts will take offense at the stories and accuse him of "taking too much license in writing these tales" (802). He points out that "my stories run after no one asking to be read," and implies that the sensitive reader should avoid the book altogether. The conclusion has comical elements as well. He gets a final poke at friars, saying, "they all smell a little like goats" (806). Boccaccio manages to make his point while keeping the tone light.

    :)

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  19. If we're talkin' planned and unplanned preggers, let's not forget Leda and the Swan

    Talkin' about a flightfull romance.

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  20. The subject undoubtedly owed its sixteenth-century popularity to the paradox that it was considered more acceptable to depict a woman in the act of copulation with a swan than with a man.

    Stop!

    Your bill is biting my neck.

    And your wings are suffocating me!

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  21. They are as fallible as the peasants.

    from Mat's post.

    :)

    You know Mat, coming from sturdy peasant stock, I have to take exception to that!

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  22. Born in Spalding, Idaho, Lillian grew up in Lapwai, Idaho, on the Nez Perce Indian Reservation, where her father worked as a blacksmith and federal marshal.

    She moved to Los Angeles in 1923, and won a job at the fledgling Walt Disney Studio as a secretary and "inker" of animated cels. Lillian met the boss, who sometimes asked her not to cash her $15-a-week paycheck. Soon, the boss met her family and on July 13, 1925, they married in Lewiston, Idaho.

    "I think my dad fell in love with her almost immediately ... she was an independent little lady," says daughter Diane Disney Miller.


    Such is unplanned life.

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  23. dad fell in love

    fell in love

    That's a phrase that seems to be drifting out of our vocabulary.

    Have you noticed that?

    I for one don't like the thought of it, and think the old ways better.

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  24. Making mistakes is part of being human, Bob. That is why I'm so fearful of your green aliens. :)

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  25. ==
    She said, "Blessed is the belly that carried you and the breasts from which you were fed."

    Jesus said, "Blessed is he whom God has taught his book and who dies without having become haughty."

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  26. Mat, I really think, if the feeling of "falling in love" goes out of our society, we're sunk, like a stone to the bottom of the sea.

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  27. Bob,

    I cried too many tears to fall into that pit again. I'd rather let someone else do the crying.

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  28. Mat, I did too, but looking back on it, she was a moron really, four husbands, countless lovers.

    And I fell in love with my wife, the best thing that has ever happened to ol' Bob.

    God, or Luck, or Fate, or Destiny, came to me as salvation:)

    Wine that is kept a few years is best, from experience I know that is true.

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  29. It was just a growing up experience. You got to be on something like the same wavelength, so's you can talk, communicate, love's not just what's underneath the panties.

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  30. God, or Luck, or Fate, or Destiny, came to me as salvation:)
    ==
    Maybe that is why I'm still an agnostic. Hoping against hope. :)

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  31. I have a very critical eye. Taking wont be enough. :)

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  32. Taking wont be enough. :)

    I'm sure you meant talking, take it from me, with no good talk, you really don't have a thing.

    Nite Mat!

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  33. G'nite Bob.

    We only get what we give.

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  34. The Hawaiian Expression is you got to give to get.
    Guy tried that on a Jury that included me to "explain" his stealing beer from a bar to have at his tire store to give away.
    Didn't work with this juror.

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  35. I had a female English Prof that was OBSESSED w/Leda and the Swan, al-Bob.
    Weird.

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  36. You're never too old to be in love with what you do
    Ray Bradbury (May aarp magazine)

    "I never went to college, I went to the library."

    Now he speaks at libraries to help them raise funds.

    "I awake each morning with metaphors running through my head."

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  37. says July/August, 2008 in the linked piece

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  38. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  39. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  40. I had a female English Prof that was OBSESSED w/Leda and the Swan, al-Bob.
    Weird.


    Weeelll, maybe not so much al-Doug, when you think of it from the feminine point of view.

    After all, a neck being caressed, and a body being covered with hard pulsating wings--you might want to think that over again.:)

    A word for this is--ravished.

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  41. WiO: Mary was preggers and did not plan it.

    It was planned by God, and she said, "Yes" to that plan.

    Luke 1:

    [34] Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?

    [35] And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.
    ...
    [38] And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.

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  42. The more sand that has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should foresee because of it.
    http://lightingafrica.org/users/miguel2mcguire

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