NYC 4524, Virginia Road, North White Plains, NY, 1937 by Otto Vondrak
Via Flickr:
New York Central 4-6-2 4524, Class K-11d built by Alco in 1911 as 3124, northbound at Virginia Road in North White Plains, New York, on September 18, 1937. This was the end of the electric zone on the Harlem Division. Trailing behind are 13 empty milk cars headed north to the Rutland Railroad connection at Chatham, N.Y., to continue north into New England to pick up fresh milk. Placards on the cars read "Sheffield Farms" and "Milk Tank Car." The "Rutland Milk" was the hottest freight on the Harlem Division into the 1940s. George Votava photo
the statements “women can have both romantic relationships and be independent” and “young girls, and young people in general, should know that you can have aspirations outside of romantic relationships, romantic love isn’t the only form of love and there’s so much more to life than romantic love” are two statements that co-exist perfectly and the fact that some of y’all can’t understand that…
Alright uninformed rant time. It kind of bugs me that, when studying the Middle Ages, specifically in western Europe, it doesn’t seem to be a pre-requisite that you have to take some kind of “Basics of Mediaeval Catholic Doctrine in Everyday Practise” class.
Obviously you can’t cover everything- we don’t necessarily need to understand the ins and outs of obscure theological arguments (just as your average mediaeval churchgoer probably didn’t need to), or the inner workings of the Great Schism(s), nor how apparently simple theological disputes could be influenced by political and social factors, and of course the Official Line From The Vatican has changed over the centuries (which is why I’ve seen even modern Catholics getting mixed up about something that happened eight centuries ago). And naturally there are going to be misconceptions no matter how much you try to clarify things for people, and regional/class/temporal variations on how people’s actual everyday beliefs were influenced by the church’s rules.
But it would help if historians studying the Middle Ages, especially western Christendom, were all given a broadly similar training in a) what the official doctrine was at various points on certain important issues and b) how this might translate to what the average layman believed. Because it feels like you’re supposed to pick that up as you go along and even where there are books on the subject they’re not always entirely reliable either (for example, people citing books about how things worked specifically in England to apply to the whole of Europe) and you can’t ask a book a question if you’re confused about any particular point.
I mean I don’t expect to be spoonfed but somehow I don’t think that I’m supposed to accumulate a half-assed religious education from, say, a 15th century nobleman who was probably more interested in translating chivalric romances and rebelling against the Crown than religion; an angry 16th century Protestant; a 12th century nun from some forgotten valley in the Alps; some footnotes spread out over half a dozen modern political histories of Scotland; and an episode of ‘In Our Time’ from 2009.
But equally if you’re not a specialist in church history or theology, I’m not sure that it’s necessary to probe the murky depths of every minor theological point ever, and once you’ve started where does it end?
Anyway this entirely uninformed rant brought to you by my encounter with a sixteenth century bishop who was supposedly writing a completely orthodox book to re-evangelise his flock and tempt them away from Protestantism, but who described the baptismal rite in a way that sounds decidedly sketchy, if not heretical. And rather than being able to engage with the text properly and get what I needed from it, I was instead left sitting there like:
And frankly I didn’t have the time to go down the rabbit hole that would inevitably open up if I tried to find out
Taken from @georgeromerosos & @hereticstations (forgive the tag) 9 favorite films that I watched (for the first time) in 2023. This includes all genres and decades.
Due to job changes I honestly didn't get to watch many films. I included all genres not just horror.
Oppenheimer (2023)
Godzilla Minus One (2023)
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022)
Last Train from Gun Hill (1959)
Videodrome (1983)
High Plains Drifter (1973)
Double Indemnity (1944)
Shin Kamen Rider (2023)
Renfield (2023)
Please continue the game! I would like to hear from my followers!
「 My intelligence network doesn't stop operating just because I leave the city. I know all about the little games you've been playing...I'm afraid the fact that I'm back means my patience has run out...and your luck along with it. 」
I watched it today for the first time this morning and it uses my favorite song. I will never forget this feeling. I wish I can re-experience this feeling again.
My mind was blown when I heard the score. I wish everyone knew this feeling. The story and the song together it’s just healing my soul. I think I’m gonna go cry now