As for the opinion of the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus which he quoted during his Regensburg talk, the Holy Father did not mean, nor does he mean, to make that opinion his own in any way. He simply used it as a means to undertake - in an academic context, and as is evident from a complete and attentive reading of the text - certain reflections on the theme of the relationship between religion and violence in general, and to conclude with a clear and radical rejection of the religious motivation for violence, from whatever side it may come.
Let it not go unsaid that acacdemics can be some of the most useless people. Memorizing enough info to enable to write an encyclopedia entry does not qualify them to speak on matters beyond that, though one would be amazed how many subjects they believe themselves to be qualified to speak authoritatively upon just because they have credentials in one area, especially practical or normative concerns. Now they may have some participation in civic prudence, in so far as they exercise some form of prudence in their own lives and with respect to whatever associations of which they may be a part, but... just because one knows much about the Middle East, for example, does not mean their understanding is 100% true or that their foreign policy advice should be heeded. (Especially if they analyze the current situation according to a Marxist perspective, for example.)A “child-like flexibility of attitudes, behaviors and knowledge” is probably adaptive to the increased instability of the modern world, Charlton believes. Formal education now extends well past physical maturity, leaving students with minds that are, he said, “unfinished.”
“The psychological neoteny effect of formal education is an accidental by-product — the main role of education is to increase general, abstract intelligence and prepare for
economic activity,” he explained.“But formal education requires a child-like stance of receptivity to new learning, and cognitive flexibility."
"When formal education continues into the early twenties," he continued, "it probably, to an extent, counteracts the attainment of psychological maturity, which would otherwise occur at about this age.”
Charlton pointed out that past cultures often marked the advent of adulthood with initiation ceremonies.
While the human mind responds to new information over the course of any individual’s lifetime, Charlton argues that past physical environments were more stable and allowed for a state of psychological maturity. In hunter-gatherer societies, that maturity was probably achieved during a person’s late teens or early twenties, he said.
“By contrast, many modern adults fail to attain this maturity, and such failure is common and indeed characteristic of highly educated and, on the whole, effective and socially valuable people," he said.
"People such as academics, teachers, scientists and many other professionals are often strikingly immature outside of their strictly specialist competence in the sense of being unpredictable, unbalanced in priorities, and tending to overreact.”
Charlton added that since modern cultures now favor cognitive flexibility, “immature” people tend to thrive and succeed, and have set the tone not only for contemporary life, but also for the future, when it is possible our genes may even change as a result of the psychological shift.
The faults of youth are retained along with the virtues, he believes. These include short attention span, sensation and novelty-seeking, short cycles of arbitrary fashion and a sense of cultural shallowness.
“By contrast, many modern adults fail to attain this maturity, and such failure is common and indeed characteristic of highly educated and, on the whole, effective and socially valuable people," he said.
"People such as academics, teachers, scientists and many other professionals are often strikingly immature outside of their strictly specialist competence in the sense of being unpredictable, unbalanced in priorities, and tending to overreact.”
Deadly E. coli outbreak hits 20 states
By ANDREW BRIDGES, Associated Press Writer 5 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - Even if you wash the spinach, you still could be at risk. Sober warnings for salad lovers came from federal health officials Friday as they struggled to pinpoint a multistate
E. coli outbreak that killed one person and sickened nearly 100 more.
Bagged spinach — the triple-washed, cello-packed kind sold by the hundreds of millions of pounds each year — is the suspected source of the bacterial outbreak,
Food and Drug Administration officials said.
The FDA warned people nationwide not to eat the spinach. Washing won't get rid of the tenacious bug, though thorough cooking can kill it. Supermarkets across the country pulled spinach from shelves, and consumers tossed out the leafy green.
"We're waiting for the all-clear. In the meantime, Popeye the Sailor Man and this family will not be eating bagged spinach," said Dr. William Schaffner, chairman of preventative medicine at Vanderbilt University. The Tennessee university's medical center was treating a 17-year-old Kentucky girl for E. coli infection.
By Friday, the outbreak had grown to include at least 20 states: California, Connecticut, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Wisconsin accounted for 29 illnesses, about one-third of the cases, including the lone death.
Initial suspicions focused on California's Monterey County. Farmers there grow more than half the nation's 500 million-pound spinach crop, according to the Agriculture Department.
Combative writer Oriana Fallaci diesher website
By ALESSANDRA RIZZO, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 4 minutes ago
ROME - Oriana Fallaci, the Italian writer and journalist best known for her abrasive interviews and provocative stances, has died, officials said Friday. She was 76.
Fallaci, who had been diagnosed with cancer years ago, died overnight in a private clinic in Florence, said Paolo Klun, an official with the RCS publishing group, which carried Fallaci's work. Klun said Fallaci, who lived in New York, had come back to her hometown days ago as her condition worsened.
Fallaci, a former Resistance fighter and war correspondent, was rarely seen in public.
During her journalistic career she became known for challenging interviews with such world leaders as former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
Her work — both interviews and books — was translated across the world.
"Fallaci's manner of interviewing was deliberately unsettling: she approached each encounter with studied aggressiveness, made frequent nods to European existentialism (she often disarmed her subjects with bald questions about death, God, and pity), and displayed a sinuous, crafty intelligence," The New Yorker wrote in a profile this year entitled "The Agitator."
Fallaci's recent publications — including the best-selling book "The Rage and The Pride," which came out weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks — drew accusations of racism and inciting hatred against Muslims.
"The Rage and The Pride," sold more than 1 million copies in Italy and found a large audience elsewhere in Europe. But Fallaci was also accused of racism.
In the book, she wrote that Muslims "multiply like rats" and said "the children of Allah spend their time with their bottoms in the air, praying five times a day."
A group in France unsuccessfully sought to stop distribution of the book, while two other associations have requested that it carry a warning notice.
Her next essay, "The Strength of Reason," accused Europe of having sold its soul to what Fallaci described as an Islamic invasion. It also took the Catholic Church to task for being what she considers too weak before the Muslim world.
Describing Europe as "Eurabia," Fallaci said the continent "has sold itself and sells itself to the enemy like a prostitute."
"Europe becomes more and more a province of Islam, a colony of Islam," she wrote.
The current invasion, Fallaci went on to say, is not carried out only by the "terrorists who blow up themselves along with skyscrapers or buses" but also by "the immigrants who settle in our home, and who, with no respect for our laws, impose their ideas, their customs, their God."
She was not married and had no children. Information on funeral arrangements was not immediately available.
The legacy of long-gone states
By Andrei Lankov
When South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun met with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao last Sunday, what did they talk about? The likelihood of a North Korean nuclear test that might trigger a nuclear-arms race in East Asia? Or perhaps the tremendous growth of bilateral trade that has made China the most important trade partner of Seoul?
Logical assumptions, but wrong. As the official press release revealed, the two leaders spent a large part of their meeting talking about ancient history, in the most literal sense of the word. President Roh expressed his dissatisfaction about some
conclusions of Chinese archeological teams and publications of a provincial research center dealing with events 2,000 years old.
This interest in bygone eras is understandable, since a new round of the "history war" between Korea and China erupted early this month. Its participants are deadly serious and very emotional, but for an outsider this struggle appears bizarre. After all, the major objects of the rivalry are the long-extinct kingdoms of Koguryo and Parhae, which existed in the 1st millennium AD in what are now China's northeast and North Korea.
One should not be too surprised about such an excessively political approach to the events of the ancient history. Since times immemorial, East Asian history has never ceased to be interpreted, rewritten and distorted to serve better the agendas of the day. In more recent times, the intense state-centered nationalism so dominant in both China and Korea made history even more important politically.
Well, and what is Koguryo (these days also frequently spelled Goguryo), after all? In the first centuries AD several rival kingdoms fought for domination on the Korean Peninsula and adjacent parts of China: Koguryo, Silla and Paekje were the most powerful among contenders. The kingdom of Silla eventually won, unifying the southern and central parts of the Korean Peninsula under its rule in the late 7th century.
Koguryo lost and ceased to exist. However, another kingdom called Parhae (Bohai or Balhae) rose to dominate a large part of the former Koguryo area. The Parhae population included a number of former Koguryo subjects. This kingdom also collapsed in the 10th century, with its northern parts being incorporated into Korea, by that time ruled by a new Koryo dynasty.
In North Korea, the scholar-officials went one step further, since they cannot stand the fact that Korea was once unified by a southern kingdom. They extol virtues of Koguryo in all possible ways, of course, and also insist that Silla's unification of the 7th century was not a real one, since the new state did not control all of Korea. Hence the real unity was established only in the 10th century, largely thanks to the proud descendants of the great Koguryo.
The rationale behind this interpretation is easy to understand, since the borders of Silla are roughly similar to those of present-day South Korea, while Koguryo controlled what is now the realm of the Kim dynasty. This is a retro-projection of the present-day struggle between the North and South, with each participant being firmly associated with some long-extinct state.
However, the entire dispute represents the same case of retro-projection of modern identities. The real-life Korguryoans would be seriously surprised or even offended had they learned that in future they would be perceived as members of the same community as their bitter enemies from Silla. Describing Koguryo as "Chinese" or "Korean" is as misleading as, say, describing medieval Brittany as "French" or "English" or "Irish" (even though all three modern nations have something to do with the long-extinct Celtic duchy in what is now France).
Europeans loved such things before World War I, in the days when the textbooks told about "our ancestors the Gauls". In East Asia, such historical nationalism is still a powerful instrument of politics and a source of deep and explosive emotions.
An additional twist is added by the little-known fact that the few surviving Koguryo words seemingly demonstrate that its inhabitants did not speak a language ancestral to modern Korean. The language of Silla was proto-Korean indeed, but the known Koguryo words have close analogues in early Japanese, of all languages. It is not incidental that the only research book on the Koguryo language is called Koguryo: The Language of Japan's Continental Relatives (by Christopher I Beckwith, published in 2004). Not all linguists would agree with this opinion, but it is shared by the majority and still never mentioned by participants of the discussion.
The first round of the confrontation began in 2002 when the Chinese government initiated a generously funded Northeast History Project, ostensibly aimed at restoring the cultural and historic heritage of China's northeast (obviously, with the additional benefit of strengthening the association between China proper and this region, which until the 17th century experienced Chinese control only occasionally). Soon afterward, in 2004, the Koreans discovered that both Koguryo and its quasi-successor state of Parhae are presented in the new Chinese-language books as parts of China, as "minority states" that existed within the supposedly single Chinese nation. Statements to this effect even appeared on the Chinese Foreign Ministry website.
A major diplomatic outburst followed, and the South Korean diplomats demanded explanations. The official Chinese line was that the position of the Northeast History Project had nothing to do with state policy - a statement that would bring smiles to all people with even passing knowledge of how Chinese history is written. Finally, in August 2004, the sides reached an agreement: the bureaucracies promised to refrain from waging "history wars", leaving arguments to the historians.
For the next couple of years things appeared quite calm. However, the issue was not forgotten: the Chinese began to promote tourism to the Koguryo sites and also included Paektusan, or Baekdu Mountain (Chinese: Changbaishan), considered a sacred symbol by the Korean nationalists, on the list of the "famous mountains of China", a simple gesture that greatly boosted Chinese tourism in the disputed areas. Now it is applying to the United Nations to register the mountain, which is divided in half by the border, as a "historic site".
Koreans answered with the array of projects aimed at presenting Koguryo as a glorious and inseparable part of Korean history and appropriating it once and for all. A special foundation was created to disseminate money among those domestic and foreign scholars who would promote "historically correct" views of the ancient kingdom (it is needless to say which views should be seen as "historically correct"). A number of television history dramas were shot to bring the heroes of Koguryo into every Korean's living room. The Chinese retaliated by preventing the Seoul producers from shooting these serials in China, thus depriving them of cheap sets and props.
However, the truce did not hold, and the past few weeks have been marked by new battles of the "history war". This time, the crisis began when the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, in essence a government agency, issued a collection of 18 research papers dealing with the various issues of regional history. Some of the claims they make are probably well founded (even though they are not necessarily to the liking of the Korean nationalist historians) while many others are clearly new attempts at manipulating the distant past to serve some current political interests of the Chinese state.
Among the latter one should mention that the collapse of Koguryo in AD 668 under the joint attack of the Chinese Tang and Silla forces is described in the new Chinese publications as "a unification war in which Tang conquered Koguryo". The early kingdom of Choson was again presented as "the beginning of China's northeast history on the Korean Peninsula". There were also claims about the borders of many Chinese states that allegedly went into Korean territory.
General outrage followed. Noisy demonstrations gathered in front of the Chinese Embassy and some ultra-nationalists even bit, chewed and then burned a Chinese flag in front of the cameras. President Roh decided he'd rather talk ancient history than North Korean nukes during the recent summit with the Chinese chief executive, and Korean newspapers of all persuasions ran very critical articles on the Chinese positions.
And what are the reasons behind such persistence of Chinese historians (or rather officials whose instructions scholars follow)? Of course, one dimension is easy to see: after all, Chinese historians write abut Koguryo in exactly the same way they write about all other states that once existed in what is now the People's Republic of China. Their basic principle is simple: irrespective of race, culture and ethnicity, all states that ever existed within the current PRC borders are parts of China, period.
According to the official line, China has always been one nation. Even though China might have included a number of the non-Chinese ethnic groups, these "minorities" were nonetheless happy participants of one great Chinese commonwealth. These statements have nothing to do with real history, but in China history has long been the handmaiden of politics. This line is clearly directed against the ever-present threat of local nationalism, separatism and irredentism.
However, one cannot help but ask why the claims in regard to Koguryo came to be advanced only in the past few years. There is no doubt that both the earlier "history war" and its current round were results of deliberate Chinese provocation. What prompted such a policy now, in the early 21st century? After all, such statements were bound to provoke outrage in Seoul, and this move is especially strange when the general perception of the Chinese in South Korea is quite benign. Unlike the increasingly unpopular Americans, the Chinese are not seen as a threat and irritant - unless there is a clash over ancient history, that is. The Chinese seem to have shot themselves in to the foot without any apparent reason.
The most likely explanation is that China is considering some action in North Korea. The Koguryo southern border roughly matched the present-day boundary between the prosperous South and impoverished North. Over the past few years the Chinese have done much to increase their economic presence in North Korea. It seems that the collapse of North Korea is not something the Chinese would be happy about. The growing likelihood of an emergence of a unified and democratic, perhaps pro-US Korea just across the border from China is not particularly good news for Beijing strategists.
Hence Beijing seems to be preparing some contingency plans for a major domestic crisis in North Korea. These plans might include an installation of a pro-Chinese puppet regime in Pyongyang and perhaps will require involvement of Chinese civilian and even military personnel (ostensibly on a humanitarian mission, as distributors of aid and maintainers of order, actually as supporters of a future post-Kim regime). Such actions will require psychological and cultural justifications, not least within China itself. Thus presenting what is now North Korea as an "ancient" and "integral" part of China might serve such interests very well.
It is not incidental that the current "history offensive" began around 2003, more or less simultaneously with the sudden increase in the Chinese activity in North Korea.
Another issue that might have prompted Beijing scholar-officials to revisit issues nearly 15 centuries old is the territorial claims of the South Koreans. Since long ago, the more radical Korean nationalist historians have paid much attention to the "Manchurian question", insisting that the vast lands of China's northeast, which once were realms of the Koguryo rulers, should be returned to the "lawful owner" - that is, to the present-day Korean state.
The Manchurian claims are strictly non-official, but this cannot be said about the claims for Kando.
Kando is a large part of what is now known as Yanbian Korean autonomous prefecture, near the point where the borders of Russia, China and North Korea meet. This area has a large population of ethnic Koreans, who overwhelmingly are Chinese citizens and descendants of the settlers who moved to the area in relatively recent times, after the 1880s. In the early 1900s, the somewhat uncertain legal standing of Kando made it into the object of a low-profile territorial dispute between China and Korea (though in those days, both governments had more urgent things to worry about than the fate of a small piece of real estate somewhere in the distant corners of their domains). In 1909, the Japanese, acting "on behalf" of the Koreans, agreed to complete Chinese sovereignty over the area.
In recent years it became clear that a large number of Koreans were demanding the revision of the 1909 treaty. Unlike the claims about Korean sovereignty over all of Manchuria, these Kando claims have some official backing. In late 2004, when the first round of the "history war" reached its height, a group of 59 South Korean lawmakers even introduced a bill that declared the 1909 Sino-Japanese treaty "null and void" and demanded recognition of Korean territorial rights over Kando. In all probability this was done to counter the Chinese claims over Korguryo, but true to the normal logic of an "argument" between the nationalists, the Chinese might be inclined to answer this bold (and quasi-official) statement with even an bolder one.
It does not help that the claimed territory already has a large Korean presence, with ethnic Koreans constituting about a third of all Kando residents. At this stage it seems that their loyalties overwhelmingly remain with Beijing, but the Korean activity in the area is unnerving for Chinese policy planners. Hence preemptive claims might be seen as a way to confirm Chinese supremacy in the area as well as to remind the local Koreans about the alleged "eternal multiculturalism" of the Chinese state.
However, this policy might backfire, and Beijing planners probably know it. Over the past 15 years the periodic outbursts of nationalist wrath in South Korea were aimed at either the Japanese or the Americans, while a surprising amount of goodwill (not to say naivety) existed toward China. If Koreans were talking about "aggressive designs", these were invariably designs of Washington and Tokyo. The recent events attract attention to the gradual Chinese encroachment and will damage the present rosy perception of China. Anyway, by some accounts the decision-makers in Beijing have decided that these risks are worth taking.
In a recent commentary, the influential South Korean daily Donga Ilbo wrote: "The [South Korean] academic circle is urging the government to respond more aggressively, saying that the best defense is a good offense. That means Korea should work on not just defending its history of the Kingdoms of Gojoseon, Buyeo, Goguryeo and Balhae but expanding its historic spectrum to include the history of Yelu, Khitan and Mongol tribes."
It sounds interesting; "the best defense if offense" and "expanding" Korean history to include Mongolia. It seems that for quite a long time impartial observers will be treated to increasingly improbable claims by both sides. These attempts to appropriate long-gone states and tribes might appear weirdly amusing, but the passions behind these claims are, alas, only too real and potentially dangerous for all participants.
Dr Andrei Lankov is a lecturer in the faculty of Asian Studies, China and Korea Center, Australian National University. He graduated from Leningrad State University with a PhD in Far Eastern history and China, with emphasis on Korea, and his thesis focused on factionalism in the Yi Dynasty. He has published books and articles on Korea and North Asia. He is currently on leave, teaching at Kookmin University, Seoul.
Significantly, the Taliban are now drawing increasing support from the Afghan population. These additional numbers have allowed them for the first time to conduct their own large-scale search operations against NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) troops in the south.Coaxing the unwilling
As a result, NATO this week requested additional troops, with no success. The alliance, which took command of military operations in southern Afghanistan on July 31, had wanted 2,000 extra soldiers to reinforce the 19,000-strong International Security Assistance Force.
Throwing more troops into a conventional battle (artillery and air strikes especially) might not be the best way to go as long as there remains a basic lack of understanding of where the enemy's command center is and how the mujahideen receive orders. What is known is that among the rank and file of the mujahideen there is a strong system of communication, with instructions flowing freely and quickly.
And despite claims by coalition forces to the contrary, the Taliban are not obsessed with taking control of provinces or districts. They abandoned that tactic at the end of July, and a lull in fighting followed.
Since then, the new policy has been that the local population join in the fight against NATO, especially hunting down its convoys.
What is worth noting is that what is happening in Afghanistan has happened before, against the British many years ago and against the Soviets more recently. This latest battle against a foreign invader is being fought as a classic Afghan war, although the sequence of events is somewhat different.
In the past, resistance leaders migrated to neighboring states early in the campaign. This time it is happening much later. Previously, command councils were formed at the end, and the mass mutiny started earlier. This time it is the other way around.
Of one thing the Taliban are convinced, blindly some might say: Afghan tradition dictates that foreign forces will be resisted to the last. Further, the Taliban believe that by the end of the spring offensive, Mullah Omar will again declare himself head of the Islamic Emirate of Taliban for a final battle against the foreigners.
Brother Roger: Full Communion, Not Conversion
Statement From Taizé Community
TAIZÉ, France, SEPT. 14, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Here is a press statement issued by the ecumenical Community of Taizé, following news in the press of an alleged conversion to Catholicism by Brother Roger, founder of the group. Brother Roger, 90, died after an assailant's attack in August 2005.
* * *
In an article concerning Brother Roger, the French daily Le Monde of Sept. 6, 2006, gave credence to and reproduced the claims of a small newsletter issued by Catholic traditionalist circles that misrepresents his true intentions and defames his memory.
A document of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity in Rome is used to support the thesis of a "conversion" undertaken by Brother Roger, although the text says nothing of the kind. As for the bishop emeritus of Autun, Raymond Seguy, he has already qualified his words. Rejecting the term "conversion," he declared to France Presse: "I did not say that Brother Roger abjured Protestantism, but he showed that he subscribed fully to the Catholic faith."
From a Protestant background, Brother Roger undertook a step that was without precedent since the Reformation: entering progressively into a full communion with the faith of the Catholic Church without a "conversion" that would imply a break with his origins. In 1972, the bishop of Autun at the time, Armand Le Bourgeois, simply gave him Communion for the first time, without requiring any other profession of faith from him besides the creed recited during the Eucharist, which is held in common by all Christians. Several witnesses were present and can attest to this.
Whoever speaks of "conversion" in this respect has not grasped the originality of Brother Roger's search.
There was never anything hidden about this undertaking of Brother Roger's. In 1980, during a European meeting in Rome, he spoke these words publicly in St. Peter's Basilica, in the presence of Pope John Paul II: "I have found my own identity as a Christian by reconciling within myself the faith of my origins with the mystery of the Catholic faith, without breaking fellowship with anyone."
Brother Roger's step was not understood by all but it was welcomed by many: by Pope John Paul II, by Catholic bishops and theologians who celebrated the Eucharist in Taizé, as well as by Protestant and Orthodox Church leaders with whom Brother Roger patiently built up trust in the course of many years.
Those who at all costs want the Christian denominations each to find their own identity in opposition to the others can naturally not grasp Brother Roger's aims. He was a man of communion, and that is perhaps the most difficult thing for some people to understand.
September 6, 2006
Taizé Community
Comprising ‘a crack squad of the finest British early music singers’ (Stephen Rice writing in Early Music Today), the group is distinguished from other early music ensembles by its innovative performances of unearthed treasures and reconstructions of important musical and liturgical events.Explanation of their name. Gallery.
Western dreams come true for Brosnan, Neeson
Thursday September 14 9:27 PM ET
Like many boys of their generation, actors Pierce Brosnan and Liam Neeson loved to play "cowboys and Indians" and watch western movies at the weekend matinee.
So it was a dream come true for both Irishmen to co-star in "Seraphim Falls," a western epic about revenge and forgiveness set in the 1860s, shortly after U.S. Civil War.
"When Pierce and I first got our costumes on, on horseback ... the pair of us were just giggling like schoolboys," Neeson said on Thursday, the morning after "Seraphim Falls" had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival this week.
In the movie, Neeson's character, a former Confederate colonel chases Brosnan, a former Union army captain, from the Rocky Mountains to the desert to carry out his last mission: revenge for an atrocity.
"It was like realizing a childhood dream, I mean that genuinely. I was steeped in the western genre as a kid. Playtime was always westerns: Audie Murphy westerns, all those B-movie westerns, and then graduated to John Ford films," Neeson said.
"Seraphim Falls" was shot on a brisk schedule of 48 days in what the stars describe as treacherous terrain in the Western U.S. In the first 20 minutes or so of the movie, Brosnan is shot, tumbles down a snowy mountainside into a river, and over a waterfall. The pursuit eventually continues into the desert.
The film has very little dialogue and the two stars only filmed together in the same scenes for about five or six days. Brosnan spends most of the film by himself, trying to get away from his pursuer, while battling to survive nature's wrath ahead.
The film also co-stars Anjelica Huston and Angie Harmon.
NORTH-SOUTH PARALLELS
For Brosnan, who plays the ex-Union captain, the Civil War-themed western brought up interesting parallels with the two actors' Irish roots.
"Liam's from the north and I'm from the south," said Brosnan, best known for his role as secret agent James Bond, and who was nominated for a Golden Globe for last year's role in "The Matador."
"That period (of U.S. history) was build on the backs of many an Irish man and woman. There were huge Irish regiments in the Civil War," said Brosnan.
While Brosnan moved to London at age 11, Neeson said growing up with civil unrest in Northern Ireland is also what partly attracted him to be part of a western film about forgiveness.
"I'm living in America now, the country's at war -- with everybody it seems," said Neeson.
"Everybody in the world wants their little plot of ground and have the freedom raise their families, that's what we all want, whether you're Palestinian, Jew, Irish, Yugoslav, whatever," he said.
"I'm aware of the responsibility we all have.... of how important it is to forgive and get on with life. I know that sounds very hippy-ish, but I believe it," said Neeson.
"Seraphim" marks the first feature for director David Von Ancken, who's best known for his television work. It opens in U.S. theaters on December 1.
"It wasn't so much that I was looking for Irishmen to star as mid-19th century Americans," said Von Ancken.
"These guys are some of the more 'behavioral' actors out there. Liam's roles have consistently been of the earth, these empathetic men who he can convey an enormous amount without saying anything. The same goes for Pierce. There's something in his eyes that is haunted and concentrated," he said.
"Every actor as a man probably at some level wants to do a western maybe once."
Reuters/VNU
Georg Gänswein is the poster boy of Catholic conservatism. The Italian press compares him to George Clooney and Hugh Grant; his critics describe him as the 'Black Forest Adonis'. But how did he end up as the new Pope's right-hand man? And is he the right person for the job? By Luke Harding and Barbara McMahon
Tuesday August 23, 2005
The Guardian
As Benedict XVI trundled through the narrow streets of Cologne last week, many of his admirers found themselves distracted by the extravagantly handsome man sitting in the back of the Popemobile. The thousands of adoring young Catholics had come to Germany to get a glimpse of the new Pope, visiting his native country on his first trip abroad as pontiff. But they couldn't help noticing the Pope's new - and rather dishy - private secretary, Monsignor Georg Gänswein."As he jumped on to the Popemobile for the first time," one German magazine remarked, "we women held our breath. There, where for the past 27 years the grim and pale Stanislaw Dziwisz had sat behind the Pope, a tall, blond, athletic young man had taken his place."
Over the past four months, the Italian press has also swooned over the 49-year-old German priest, who is known in Italy as Don Georgio. In the grey and elderly world of the Vatican, it is hardly surprising that Gänswein - a keen tennis player and excellent skier who even has a pilot's licence - has become the centre of attention. Last month, the Italian edition of Vanity Fair compared Gänswein to the actor George Clooney, while the magazine Chi opened that he was "as fascinating as Hugh Grant".
The Italian president's wife Franca was very taken with him when she first met him. "He's very, very young. And he speaks excellent Italian," she was reported as saying. Another woman living close to the Vatican recently told Germany's ARD TV that Gänswein was "an interesting man with a deep gaze", adding: "Shame that he is taboo for us women."
Some Vatican-watchers, however, are already muttering about Gänswein's influence over Pope Benedict, the first German to sit on the chair of St Peter for nearly 500 years.
Born on July 30 1956, Gänswein grew up in Riedern am Wald, a tiny Bavarian village. He was ordained in 1984 and is a doctor of canon law from Munich University. He came to Rome in 1995 and was quickly on the Vatican fast track. In 1996, the then Cardinal Ratzinger asked him to join his staff, and he became a professor of canon law at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, an institution affiliated to the secretive Catholic movement Opus Dei.
Those who know him praise his efficiency and analytical ability. "He understands complicated issues within about 10 seconds and can give a clear and immediate answer," one Vatican source said. Gänswein is, though, more than just an impressive theologian. He is, like the man he serves, extremely conservative. "I think he is very dangerous," Daniel Deckers, the author of a biography of Germany's leading liberal cardinal, Karl Lehmann, said. "He's part of a small but very powerful group within the Catholic church. He will use his power to push Ratzinger in a certain direction."
Deckers recalls travelling to Rome to meet Gänswein. "He's a good guy. He's very eloquent and can be very charming. But he came right up to me and said: 'Oh, you don't like us.' He referred to himself and Ratzinger as 'us', as if the two of them were an institution."
With Gänswein as private secretary, there seems little hope that Benedict XVI will offer concessions on issues that alienate many from the Catholic church - the use of condoms, gay relationships or pre-marital sex. "You can forget it," one religious affairs writer said bluntly.
A trusted confidant of the last Pope, who made him a chaplain in 2000, Gänswein has worked as Ratzinger's secretary since 2003, and was one of the few aides allowed to give out press statements on John Paul's condition. In the Vatican, Gänswein and Ratzinger dine together, recently entertaining Princess Gloria von Thurn und Taxis, the German socialite, according to reports in the Italian press. In Cologne last week, Gänswein was never far away from his boss - handing the 78-year-old Pope his reading glasses, or travelling with him on a cruise down the Rhine. He was there, too, when the Pope appeared on a hill beneath a flying saucer-shaped dome, for a vast open-air mass. (In his address to nearly 1 million pilgrims who had spent the night camped out in a muddy field, the Pope reminded the young Catholics that they had to obey all of the church's rules - not just the bits they liked. "That basically means no sex, doesn't it?" German pilgrim Malte Schuburt, 19, pointed out.)
Gänswein's critics even accuse him of turning the Pope into a fashion victim. This summer, Ratzinger and his secretary went on holiday to the papal residence at Castel Gandolfo, near Rome, as well as to the Italian Alps at Valle D'Aosta. While both men were hiking in the hills, the Pope appeared in public wearing a Nike hat, designer Serengeti sunglasses and a Cartier watch. "This is Gänswein's style. It's his handwriting," one religious affairs writer said. "This is something I don't understand."
Gänswein's power derives partly from his place in the Pope's very small personal staff. Benedict's long-time assistant is Ingrid Stampa and he has four women - Carmela, Loredana, Emanuela and Cristina - who do domestic duties. They have taken nun's vows but do not wear habits. Pope Benedict writes everything in German in very small script, and Gänswein is one of the few who can read his writing.
So far, Gänswein does not enjoy the same power as Stanislaw Dziwisz, who spent 40 years at Pope John Paul II's side. Some have even dismissed him as the "Black Forest Adonis". Yet it is Gänswein who decides who gets to see the Pope, and who doesn't. He also protects his boss from the mound of papers on Benedict's desk. "He is the Pope's gatekeeper. This makes him a very powerful man," Deckers said.
It is not surprising, then, that the Pope's private secretary is already beginning to inspire dread in liberal Catholic circles. In Germany, the Catholic church is divided more or less between two figures - the liberal-conservative Cardinal Lehmann, the head of the German archbishop's conference, and the ultra-conservative Cardinal Joachim Meisner, the Archbishop of Cologne. Both men were with the Pope last week. But it is no secret as to which Bishop the Vatican favours. "Gänswein is an opponent of Lehmann," one source in the German Catholic church said. "One of Ratzinger's great weaknesses is that his judgment of people isn't always sufficient. He has a small out-reach."
Last week's papal tour of Germany was an undoubted success for the Bavarian Benedict. A far less flamboyant figure than his predecessor, Benedict was often embarrassed by the euphoric crowds. But he is a formidable intellectual, able to deliver his ideas with fluency and rigour in numerous languages. The question remains though - how long will he last? The Pope has already suffered two strokes - one of which slightly impaired his eyesight - and he has a heart condition. Don Georgio is said to be very protective of the Pope, particularly about his health. But if there is bad news to transmit, it will be Gänswein, the priest with the film-star looks, who will be there to deliver it.
SPIEGEL ONLINE - May 31, 2006, 04:31 PM
URL: http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,419029,00.html
German Men
Hunky, Handsome, Wimpy and Weak
At first glance, the blond six-foot hunks populating Germany make the place seem like a heaven for women. Until you start dating. German men are much more difficult than you might think.
German men may seem almost perfect. But there's always something that just ain't quite right.
For single women visitors, the dating game in Germany can at first seem like a free, gourmet buffet. The men are almost all impressively tall, many are blond and, almost invariably, they are extremely handsome with the bodies of Adonis. Even better, they dress well, smell of expensive eau de Cologne, and they're intelligent.
Indeed, the first impression is so overwhelming that it almost always leads directly to the first German dating no-no: Expecting that going to a party full of such hunks will yield a catch. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. German males are not only fine physical specimens, but they're also weak, wimpy, afraid of commitment, and painfully shy. It is perfectly possible for an attractive woman -- who in most countries wouldn't have a second to powder her nose from so much flirting -- to stand in the corner alone at a German party and not be approached a single time. Bottom line: If you want a relationship with a German dude, be prepared to do the heavy lifting yourself.
But before you enter the minefield that is German-men-dating, be sure you know what's awaiting you. The Survival Bible has put together a guide to some common Teutonic types. Our advice: Be careful out there -- there is always a catch.
ARISTO GERMAN MALE
Daddy was the Kaiser's favorite nephew. Mummy was a society beauty. It's just a shame Germany got rid of their royals in 1918. Welcome to the lost world of Germany's redundant aristos. They've got no job, no real place in Germany's social democracy but they're clinging on to their traditional status for dear life. The aristos didn't get anywhere in life by changing their ways, now, did they?
Distinguishing marks: On paper, the little "von" or "zu" -- or even more absurdly, both -- tagged onto his last name is a dead giveaway you've met a man of Teutonic Sang Real. Aristo German Male style almost always includes a Thomas Pink shirt, designer jeans and tweed jacket. Keep an eye out for a tendency to shop at "Frankonia Jagd" or similar huntin'-shootin'-fishin' establishments. He may have an ability to speak boarding school English with a fake Eton accent. While many German men are often six feet tall and blond, Aristos are always six feet tall and blond.
Habitat: Weekend hunting parties hosted by random Barons; posh Berlin hotels that serve "Five-O-Clock Tea", Vienna's Opera Ball, Wimbledon, Ascot, Martha's Vineyard etc. Should they be inclined to work, they can likewise be found in the management of Germany's leading media outlets.
Favorite Activities: Sailing. Mercedes shopping. Reminiscing about his time at English boarding school.
The Pros: If you're English and homesick, Aristo German Male will happily indulge your need to take lots of holidays back to the homeland.
The Catch: Aristo man probably has a vast Schloss somewhere on the Rhine, a place so beautiful you start fantasizing about updating it with expensive Italian furniture. Aristo German Male may even initially encourage your fantasies. But don't be fooled. Aristo German Male doesn't do change. Once he gets you home, all the 'I-want-to-be-English-just-like-you-my-sweetness' business will swiftly come to a screeching halt. You will be forced to eat Leberwurst, meet his 100-year-old granny and walk the family gun dogs -- who, sensing that you're not really posh, will bite you. You will be stranded in a dusty Hell, furnished in Biedermeier kitsch. And when you resist your transition into the Teutonic Upper Class, Aristo German Male will dump you for an Aristo German Female with higher cheekbones.
SPORTY GERMAN MALE
WE NEED YOU
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SPIEGEL ONLINE is putting together a cheat sheet for visitors to this summer's World Cup soccer championships to help them better understand the quirky Germans and their sometimes peculiar ways. If you're an expat or someone who has spent time in Germany, we want your help. Please send your stories and questions to spon_feedback@spiegel.de or post your anecdotes on our Germany Survival Bible forum.
Please include your name and your city and country of residence.
"I never, ever got involved in sport," said Winston Churchill wisely. Not so, Sporty German Male. Oh no, he loves it. Running around Hamburg's Alster when you fancy going shoe shopping, or forcing you to go Nordic Walking on a Sunday morning when you'd still rather be under your duvet stuffing yourself with scrambled eggs, Sporty German Male laughs in the face of blubber, Wiener Schnitzel and chips.
My one brief encounter with Sporty German Male included a doomed mini-break to Mallorca. Stretched out by the swimming pool in my bikini, I asked: "Do I look fat in this?" Sporty German Male looked confused. "Of course not, Liebling," he said. "If you were fat, my sweetness, you would not be here!"
Distinguishing marks: Adonis-like hairless, perma-tanned body. Over-use of gel in dyed hair with mussed bed-head being particular popular at the moment. Check his wardrobe for pedometers, clothing with Adidas or Puma labels and Nordic Walking Sticks. Should he be into bicycles, note the full-body, neon cycling uniform he dons whenever going out for a spin.
Habitat: The Gym. The Great Outdoors. Sushi bars. Sports stores.
Favorite Activities: Marathons, hill running, admiring himself in a mirror, making tofu stir-fry.
The Pros: Sporty German Males enjoy robust health and look like a 30-something whipper-snappers when they're really 56. He will also invite you on Kur (Health Spa) "holidays" at least four times a year.
The Catch: German Health Spa "holidays" involve getting up early, drinking vile-tasting water and doing aqua aerobics. You will also have to give up chips, full-fat dairy products and red meat for as long as you go out with Sporty German Male.
If you really want to go out with one: Lose weight and get used to Saturday nights drinking orange juice.
NEEDY GERMAN MALE:
Usually in his mid-to-late twenties, the needy German male has generally just been dumped by his first girlfriend with whom he had been together since he hit puberty. He's lost. Then he realizes the solution: He needs a replacement girlfriend. Fast.
Distinguishing marks: Dressed by his mother. Has a facial expression not dissimilar to a spaniel that has been beaten up one too many times.
Habitat: Needy German male is probably still studying and light years away from getting a proper job (Germans can stretch their university degree courses over a decade). You're likely therefore, to catch a glimpse of him and his geeky Internet-addicted mates at higher education establishments, grubby clubs and student canteens. Their apartments tend to be chock full of books and CDs with a bicycle propped against the wall next to the couch.
Favorite Activities: Planning your future life together.
The Pros: He adores you...
The Catch: ... way too much. He's needy, a fussy eater and probably has a peanut allergy to boot.
If you really want to date one: Prepare to become mom.
INTELLECTUAL GERMAN MALE
Stop reading Heat magazine! Chuck that copy of The National Enquirer! Intellectual German Male won't be seen dead with you if you don't. He's spent his entire life cocooned in a university, is fluent in Serbo-Croatian and doesn't own a television. He is one helluva clever German. And he's an intellectual snob.
Distinguishing marks: Looks and dresses like Robin Williams in "Dead Poet's Society." Just less American.
Habitat: Pseudo-arty Berlin cafés with gilded mirrors and black and white pictures of Marlene Dietrich on the wall. Intellectual German Male whiles away time by writing books, reading esoteric academic papers, starting discussions about German philosophers while smoking strong French cigarettes, drinking espresso, reading the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and eyeing up diaphanous, high-cheek-boned French women.
Favorite Activities: Hiding copies of "The Da Vinci Code" in bookshops. Bitching about the intellectual credentials of anyone who doesn't have at least two doctorates. Watching obscure French films.
Pros: Useful if you have exams coming up.
The Catch: Every time you try and talk to him, he'll be too busy reading or "having important thoughts." The truth is: Intellectual German Male is probably a misogynist and, frankly, you never had a chance. He only wants to sleep with French women, anyway.
If you really want to date one: Read Proust. ALL of it.
OSSI GERMAN MALE
He can say "I Love You" in Russian. But things have gone downhill since 1989. For Ossi German male -- a product of former East Germany -- life was better when the Berlin Wall was still standing, or so they'll tell you. They are fond of saying things like, "The country I come from doesn't exist anymore." What happened to that good old collectivist spirit, eh?
Distinguishing marks: Mullet hairdo. Often has an unhealthy obsession with stonewashed circa 1983 denim, Trabant cars and the German Baltic Sea coast.
Habitat: East Berlin pubs. The Peoples' Park of Friedrichshain. Frankfurt an der Oder.
Favorite Activities: Listening to 1980s hard rock and moaning about capitalism, the euro and the fact his rent costs more than 3 pounds a week.
Pros: Good for a history lesson. Or if you want to learn a bit of Russian.
The Catch: See most of above.
If you really want to date one: Start wearing dungarees, now.
ORGANIC GERMAN MALE
My, my, this German male is a healthy guy. Birkenstock-wearing, lentil-eating, Organic German Male is right-on when it comes to global warming, nuclear power and organic gardening. Yawn...
Distinguishing marks: Organic German Males usually have big troubled eyes (the planet is dying, you know). He may also have dreadlocks and often wears a scarf even when the sun is shining.
Habitat: Look for Organic German Male in organic supermarkets (by the Tofu) and at anti-fur or anti-America demonstrations. If you like your men "extra green," Extreme Organic German Male will be the one with the megaphone yelling obscenities at the police.
Favorite Activities: Going to anti-fur/anti-war/anti-absolutely-bloody-everything demonstrations; watching his "Best of Greenpeace Marches 2005" DVD; digging around in his organic herb garden.
The Catch: Unless you too are a Green Goddess, Organic German Male will drive you crazy with his endless goody-two-shoes rants about global warming. He won't let you have long baths (water waste), or fly long-haul to the Caribbean (air pollution) and will certainly not indulge your need for nice little dresses from Gucci/Prada/Yves San Laurent/Hermes etc. etc., because he says they're made by Indonesian child slaves.
If you really want to date one: These guys still have a weakness for the daisy-in-the-hair, hippy look.
ANARCHIST GERMAN MALE
The German system sucks. This is the credo of the Anarchist German Male. At least it sucks most of the time -- when it's not wiring social security money into the Anarchist German Male's bank account for his ample supply of black leather and the industrial quantities of dog food required to feed his oversized mutts.
Distinguishing marks: Unwashed and unshaven. Anarchist German Males often sport pink Mohawks and have chains dangling from their ripped jeans. They are attracted to any clothing made from leather, which they like to sling over their grubby death metal T-shirts.
Habitat: Hangs around bus stations with his Anarchist German Male mates and their numerous under-groomed dogs on binder twine. Boxhagener Platz in the German neighborhood of Friedrichshain has an especially healthy population of Anarchist German Males.
Favorite Activities: Drinking beer, asking passers-by for spare change, kicking walls and shouting.
Pros: None. Unless you are a documentary film maker who's been told to find one.
The Catch: You will never be able to take him home for Thanksgiving, Christmas, birthdays or -- if your family values the cleanliness of their furniture -- even for casual visits. No matter how hard you try, Anarchist German Male does not scrub up well.
If you really want to date one: Just don't.
Ruth Elkins
