I'm writing this on Tuesday, having decided to take a day down town - but I'll go back to Monday - albeit briefly - to fill in the gaps. Jerry picked me up as usual on Monday morning, and we headed for BC. I settled straight down in the Resource Centre. I was setting out to read the whole manuscript of Jerry's book, because he asked for feedback. This is something I undertook with some trepidation. It's like making a few suggestions to Moses on the Commandment...

I had my best night's sleep so far at the Jerry's house at West Yarmouth at Cape Cod. The body clock seems to be back on track, thank goodness. The 3am to 5 wide awake periods were getting a bit wearing. Today is 9/11 - the anniversary of that searing wound on American consciousness - and indeed world history. Regardless of what you think about the response of the US and its faithful allies - like us! - there can be no denying the horror of the original event. ...

A chance to look around today. Jerry had kindly offered to take me to their house at Cape Cod, picking me up at 1, so I thought I'd make the most of the morning, taking the T into the city and going on the Boston By Foot walking tour. From coming down for breakfast at 8, to getting into the city was exactly an hour - pretty good going! I had a wander around the waterfront - now open to the rest of the city after the completion of the Big Dig - which put the old...

I forgot to mention in yesterday's entry that I had visited Tom Groome. Those who missed the RE wars in Parramatta will probably be unfamiliar with Tom, but it was his approach to religious education that caused us so many headaches with the lunatic right in my days there. He is a feisty Irishman with a deep care for the church, a great capacity for constructive criticism and a depth of scholarship to back him up. He was sharing with me that the book written by ...

I'm sitting watching Barak Obama making his jobs speech - trying to keep the vandals from the crumbling walls of what passes for welfare here, while proposing to remove some of the privilges of the wealthy. The commentators observed that there was more passion in this address than has been seen from him in his Presidency. What is exceptional is not that he would argue this - and so strongly - but that half of his audience would sooner throw the poor, the sick and...