Get Cynical

Reunited after many years with tenor saxophonist Lester Young, Billie’s visual reaction to his moving solo remains as eloquent as anything she ever sang; a touching finale to their historic musical partnership. Introduced by Robert Herridge (producer/host of CBS’ “The Sound of Jazz”), this is perhaps the single most famous “live jazz” performance in TV history. Other members of the all-star band seen here: Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, Gerry Mulligan, Roy Eldridge, Doc Cheatham, Vic Dickenson, Danny Barker, Milt Hinton, Mal Waldron…”We shall not see their likes again.”

Since the 13th century, a discipline of the Catholic Church has required priests in Latin Rite (i.e. Western) Catholic jurisdictions and bishops in both Latin Rite and Eastern Rite jurisdictions to be celibate. (In this context, celibate is not synonymous with sexually abstinent; celibate means not married.) The discipline of celibacy is not considered one of the infallible immutable dogmas, and so exceptions are occasionally allowed (see clerical celibacy — for example, in some cases a married Protestant minister who becomes a Catholic may be ordained to the priesthood). In particular, present-day church law allows the College of Cardinals to elect a married man to the papacy. In the Eastern Rite Church, married men are routinely ordained to the priesthood, but not to the episcopate. According to the Gospels, Saint Peter was married. According to the tradition of the Catholic Church, and supported by the archaeological evidence of his tomb on Vatican Hill, St. Peter founded the Christian community in Rome and became its bishop.

Some popes were sexually active before their election as pope; and it has sometimes been claimed that other Popes were sexually active during their papacies.

Space burial is a burial procedure where a small sample of the cremated ashes of the deceased in a lipstick-sized capsule are launched into space using a rocket. As of 2004, samples of about 150 people have been “buried” in space.

Britney Spears posted a surprising message on her Web site on May 12. “I no longer study Kaballah [sic], my baby is my religion,” reads the brief note featured on the “Love B” section of her site devoted to the singer’s stream of consciousness. There was no indication whether Spears was referring to her 8-month-old son, Sean, or the baby she is currently pregnant with, or Kevin Federline.

LOS ANGELES — In a scene from his new candid-camera program “Juiced,” O.J. Simpson pulls a prank involving the infamous white Bronco, drawing criticism from the family of a man he was accused of killing.

As part of the pay-per-view show, Simpson pretends to sell the Bronco at a used car lot and boasts to a prospective buyer that he made the vehicle famous, according to a segment aired Thursday on “Inside Edition.”

“It was good for me _ it helped me get away,” Simpson said, referring to the slow-speed, televised police chase that preceded his 1994 arrest on charges of murdering his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman.

Goldman’s father, Fred, told “Inside Edition” he found Simpson’s comment “morally reprehensible.”

On Monday, a small interracial organization will meet on the steps of the Waco Texas courthouse to read a resolution condemning and apologizing for the lynching of 17-year-old Jesse Washington.

Washington’s lynching 90 years ago was so astonishingly brutal that the incident became known nationally as the “Waco Horror.”

The Waco Interracial Coalition is forcing Waco to confront some of its painful history and there are many in this city of 200,000 who have no interest in apologizing for something that happened 90 years ago.

“It’s a very ugly part of history,” says Ray Meadows, a Waco county commissioner. “I regret that it happened, but as far as me coming out to apologize…I didn’t have anything to do with it.”

A Murder, Followed by a Lynching

Around sundown of May 8, 1916, Lucy Fryer, the wife of a well regarded cotton farmer, was found bludgeoned to death in the doorway of her seed house. Jesse Washington, who was illiterate and branded “feeble-minded”, confessed to the murder.

Soon after a jury found him guilty, a crowd of 2,000 men seized Washington, chained him, beat him and dragged him to the town square, where he was burned.

His fingers were amputated for souvenirs and his fingernails taken for keepsakes. Finally all that was left was a charred torso, but Washington’s body parts were put in a bag so they could be dragged through downtown.