The Bezzle Years

Initiation Rites

Rhythms that reflect realities

Rituals, reflections, poetic assaults ...

The British government will not tolerate another jamboree.

Maradona Priest and Victim of a Dark Argentine Ritual

On the consumer side, this is quite understandable.

Prospects for America s consumption binge continuing are also bleak.

When my father died many Christmas rituals disappeared from our household.

By tradition, a child's upbringing is fairly structured through rites of initiation that are carried out at various ages, with the basic purpose of preparing a child for adult life.

For the past seven years, America s unbridled spending filled the gap.

So Senegal s rituals of respect may not be holding.

Purchases of these relatively low cost items can be regarded as the withdrawal symptoms of the world s consumer binge.

A default would also appropriately place part of the costs of Greece s borrowing spree on creditors.

Here on the Upper West Side, in the middle of a triangle formed by Central Park, Lincoln Center, and the Hudson River, I was once in the habit of beginning each day with an exotic act of devotion, a ritual of humility.

But prohibiting the ritual slaughter of animals does not stop Jews or Muslims from practicing their religion.

Islam's pervasiveness in every aspect of life makes it more a way of life than a strictly devotional faith.

History In ancient Athens, a person who committed suicide without the approval of the state was denied the honours of a normal burial.

The religious character of Islam varied between Muslim countries since the Koran was open to a wide variety of interpretations.

And I remember having a very eerie sense that the patient and I had slipped back into a primitive ritual in which I had a role and the patient had a role.

The captured lord was taken back to Quiriguá and on 3 May 738 he was decapitated in a public ritual.

But not all European citizens are practicing Christians. Many are not Christians at all.

The plant is usually green in color, but a purple variant was once grown for use in Inca rituals.

Even critics of past US profligacy must admit that the Geithner proposal contains some good ideas.

Kuru was transmitted through cannibalistic rituals that were commonplace in Papua New Guinea until the 1950 s.

OSLO The dance around the golden Nobel medallion began over a 100 years ago, and is still going strong.

It is one thing to borrow to make an investment, which strengthens balance sheets it is another thing to borrow to finance a vacation or a consumption binge.

That does not mean forcing it to follow an unrealistic and potentially dangerous electoral ritual just because it is embedded in UN regulations.

To make it easier on the kids, some parents have resorted to unethical practices to heighten his or her scores, so much so that it has now become part of the exam ritual, says Thuận.

Instead of ducking responsibility and carrying on with conventional work in Sweden, he made his way to Hungary, the scene of Hitler's last homicidal orgy against the Jews.

But fulfilling the ostensible rationale for this seemingly interminable spending orgy success in the so called war on terror does not seem anywhere within reach.

He was intelligent, impressed by technological progress, perhaps even gifted, but untutored and impulsive he reveled in the trappings of power and delighted in uniforms.

Even though Muslim practice is strong in Africa, there is widespread incorporation of traditional African rituals in ceremonies like weddings and funerals.

Besides ignorance, poverty and lack of health services, inhabitants of rural areas suffer from cultural beliefs and traditional ones that lead to practices of initiation rites.

But this is what Alan Greenspan encouraged Americans to do. When normal mortgages did not prime the pump enough, he encouraged them to take out variable rate mortgages at a time when interest rates had nowhere to go but up.

Even those countries that are not actively engaged in a fiscal orgy are seeing their surpluses collapse and their deficits soar, mainly in the face of falling tax revenues.

But most of the traditional religious teachers in such schools practice Senegalese rituals of respect, and, in any case, view Saudi Arabian style schools as alien competitors.

CANBERRA Australian politics should, on the face of it, hold as much interest for the rest of the world as Tuvan throat singing or Bantu funerary rites.

There are surely many useful activities for the government to undertake in a market economy, but a frenzied orgy of stimulus spending is not conducive to rational discussion of what they should be.

I believe that whatever we did around that table at Bloodworth Street must be done around tables and rituals of faith until we become that family, that family together that understands the nature of our unity.

In March, Britain s leading scandal sheet, The News of the World published an exclusive front page story, under the headline F1 BOSS HAS SICK NAZI ORGY WITH 5 HOOKERS.

In the middle of a religious healing rite, however, Hugo Chávez was more pacific and forgot about the PSUV altogether Let us place ourselves in God s hands in order to avoid violence in Venezuela.

When I was growing up in Nigeria and I shouldn't say Nigeria, because that's too general, but in Afikpo, the Igbo part of the country where I'm from there were always rites of passage for young men.

Growth is not just a matter of increasing GDP. It must be sustainable growth based on environmental degradation, a debt financed consumption binge, or the exploitation of scarce natural resources, without reinvesting the proceeds, is not sustainable.

Because I learned that I was thinking, I was doing all these rituals, these biblical rituals, separating my wool and linen, and I would ask these religious people Why would the Bible possibly tell us to do this? Why would God care?