“The first television ad from the [Bill] de Blasio campaign [for the mayor of New York City] features his fifteen year old son, Dante.” —The New York Times, August 7, 2013
See also, Michael Barbaro, The New York Times, August 7, 2013
Lele Mora and the Ruby Sex Case
Today (28 June 2013) Lele Mora, involved in the famous Ruby-sex-case as Berlusconi’s personal “talent scout”, delivered a speech in front of his judges stating that he wants to break free from the hellish (lustful!) hurricane to see the stars: “Voglio uscire da questa bufera infernale che mi ha tolto la luce voglio vedere le stelle e il cielo azzurro.”
Found at: La Repubblica Milano
See Also: “Ruby bis: Lele Mora in aula. L’udienza del talent scout dopo quella di Nicole Minetti e Emilio Fede (Diretta),” L’Huffington Post, June 18, 2013
President Roosevelt’s Acceptance Speech for Renomination for the Presidency, 1936
“. . .Governments can err, Presidents do make mistakes, but the immortal Dante tells us that divine justice weighs the sins of the cold-blooded and the sins of the warm-hearted in different scales.” [. . .] –Roosevelt, 1936
Contributed by Patrick Molloy
“The Christian Candidate’s Guide to Infidels”
“…The ancient and medieval Christians wouldn’t have had much to say about pure atheism, which is an 18th-century concept. Their closest analog would have been Epicureanism–the belief that worldly pleasure matters above all. In Christian-themed literature, at least, Epicureans were held in special contempt: Dante placed Epicurus and his followers in the sixth circle of hell, where their punishment for denying the immortality of the soul was to live out eternity in a fiery tomb. Honorable Muslims and pagans occupied Limbo, the relatively pleasant first circle of hell where the only punishment was the inability to ascend to paradise. A couple of pagans, including an obscure character from the Trojan War named Ripheus, even managed to make the improbable trip to paradise. Ripheus got there based on his strong belief in God’s providence, even though he couldn’t have accepted Christ during his lifetime. (The message of Ripheus is that God is unpredictable.) Dante had a particular dislike for the indecisive–those we might call agnostics. They wandered around the fringes of hell, and the poet wouldn’t even waste his time talking to them.” [. . .] –Brian Palmer, Slate, August 15, 2011
“Rogue American Woman”
“Of course, the subtitle of Sarah Palin’s book is ‘An American Life.’ Because she is the lovely avatar of real Americans — ordinary, hard-working, God-fearing, common-sense, good, ordinary, real Americans. If you are not living an American life, you are, to use a Palin coinage, living ‘bass-ackwards.’. . .
I approached reading her book with trepidation, worried I might learn that I am not a real American, dang it, just another dreaded, jaded ‘enlightened elite.’
I was born and live in Washington, D.C., after all. Now you’d think that this would be a rather patriotic city to call home, but Palin paints it as a cross between Sodom and Dante’s Fifth Circle.” [. . .] –Maureen Dowd, The New York Times, November 17, 2009
