Opium & Empire

 

"...British rule in India could not be sustained without opium — that is all there is to it, and let us not pretend otherwise. You are no doubt aware that in some years, the company's annual gains from opium are almost equal to the entire revenue of your own country, the United States? Do you imagine that British rule would be possible in this impoverished land if it were not for this source of wealth? And if we reflect on the benefits that British rule has conferred upon India, does it not follow that opium is this land's greatest blessing? Does it not follow that it is our God-given duty to confer these benefits upon others?" (113)

Of course, times have changed, and we are much more subtle about how we exploit impoverished countries nowadays. That's progress. 😎

Émilie Dequenne & Rosetta

 

I picked this movie up from the library because someone (don't remember who) in a Criterion Closet clip recommended it. It's a French film about a girl who is just trying to find a job...because her alcoholic mother has deserted her in every sense except physical.

It's a great movie. One of the greatest things about it is that there are several times when you can't figure out why a character is doing something. Which means that (1) the director is assuming you will work it out, (2) that this is not a movie which accepts superficial motivations, because (3) the director respects the complexity of human beings. 

Émilie Dequenne is quite stunning as Rosetta. She's a tough girl, for sure, but there are key moments when she reveals the frightened child that is also a part of her. When she calls out for her mom to help her. (She doesn't.) When she is carrying a heavy canister and stumbles and falls and begins to cry.

And she was only 18 when she made this movie. She died very young, in her early 40s, but she made quite a few movies in her 25 year career, and I'm hoping I can find some of them Out There.

Addendum: And what do you know, Rosetta is available on HBO Max, and Émilie's second movie, Brotherhood of the Wolf, is on Amazon Prime. More news as it happens.

DDR: A Cardiologist Examines Jesus: The Stunning Science Behind Eucharistic Miracles by Dr. Franco Serafini

 

I decided it was time to get back to Jesus. I bought this book some months ago...after reading about eucharistic miracles in one of the Jacqueline books. 

Day 1 (DDRD 3,242) September 18, 2026

Read to page 30. In the first chapter, we're told of a 1200 year old host and wine sample which are examined and found to be heart tissue and AB blood. 

Day 2 (DDRD 3,243) September 19, 2026

Read to page 60.

Our Lady of Guadalupe

 I'm reading this book

to Jacqueline (along with 4 other books) every night. 

Short version of the story: a Mexican guy named Juan sees an apparition of the Virgin Mary. He goes to tell a priest, and the priest wants proof. The Virgin Mary tells Juan to pick the flowers at the top of the hill where she has appeared. He is surprised at this, as it is not the season for flowers, but he follows her directions. And at the top of the hill, he finds flowers that are not even native to the region growing. He collects them in his tilma.

Then he takes them to the priest. When he opens his tilma, the flowers fall out, and imprinted on the tilma is a picture of the Virgin Mary. (The tilma was made of a material which should have deteriorated in about fifty years yet five hundred years later it is still here.)

If that's not amazing enough, check out these details from the book I'm reading with Jacqueline:

🤯 💥 

Amitav Ghosh Bibliography +

What Amitav Ghosh has written:

Novels

The Circle of Reason (1986)

The Shadow Lines (1988)

The Calcutta Chromosome (1995/1996)

The Glass Palace (2000)

The Hungry Tide (2004)

Gun Island (2019)

Ghost-Eye (2025/2026) 

Sea of Poppies (2008)

River of Smoke (2011)

Flood of Fire (2015)  

Verse & Illustrated Books

Jungle Nama (2021)

The Living Mountain (2022) 

Non-Fiction & Essays

In an Antique Land (1992)

Dancing in Cambodia, at Large in Burma (1998)

Countdown (1999)

The Imam and the Indian (2002)

Incendiary Circumstances (2005)

The Great Derangement (2016)

The Nutmeg's Curse (2021)

Smoke and Ashes (2023)

Wild Fictions (2025)

What Barnes & Noble has on the shelf: