Makeovers

Haven't been here in a while. We're not quite done with the battle for hearts and minds just yet across the water. With doom-laden prophecies about Obama the appeaser, McCain the war hero-not, and Sarah P who has the gift given at Pentecost, together with apocalyptic financial meltdown, one might be tempted to simply bury one's head in the sand and wait dispiritedly for the end. Wearisome, isn't it. What you see is almost invariably not what you get.

Image consultancy, also known as legalised political hypocrisy, is of course de rigeur. I wonder, did BO hire an image consultant to smack him in the face with a frying pan, thus giving him a pained, almost constipated look; as if being among people who are obviously inferior to him causes him actual physical discomfort? Being surrounded by intellectual also-rans must be tedious for the poor man. Perhaps Henry Kissinger might give him a quick tutorial.

It was cheering therefore to listen to Iris DeMent - a gift from Ben via YouTube and to be reminded that whatever winds of fortune blow, some things remain pretty much as they've always been. The folksy, down-home feel, rather like Patsy Cline reminded me of my youth.

I was further cheered to read that a Christian church has been discovered on the site of an Israeli prison, up north in Megiddo - the mosaics being in a remarkable state of preservation. Perhaps it was the site of a persecuted church, although advertising on this scale might well have contributed to its destruction. Self-discovery is continuous and during a time when the Church in general was finding out about itself it's comforting to know that the milestone placed in the fourth century has returned to light again, much as it once was. What you saw was once what you got, perhaps.