“All the cloths similar to the Tilma that have been placed in the salty and humid environment around the Basilica have lasted no more than ten years,” he explained. One painting of the miraculous image, created in 1789, was on display in a church near the basilica where the Tilma was placed. “This painting was made with the best techniques of its time, the copy was beautiful and made with a fabric very similar to that of the Tilma. Also, the image was protected with a glass since it was first placed there.”
However, eight years later, the copy of the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe was thrown away because the colors were fading and threads were breaking. In contrast, Orozco said, “the original Tilma was exposed for approximately 116 years without any kind of protection, receiving all the infrared and ultraviolet radiation from the tens of thousands of candles near it and exposed to the humid and salty air around the temple.”
He also notes one other issue;
The second miracle was the explosion of a bomb near the Tilma in 1921. Dr. Orozco recalled that the explosion broke the marble floor and widows 150 meters from the explosion, but “unexpectedly, neither the Tilma nor the normal glass that protected the Tilma was damaged or broken.” The only damage near it was a brass crucifix that was twisted by the blast.
He continued, “There are no explanations why the shockwave that broke windows 150 meters afar did not destroy the normal glass that protected the image. Some people said that the Son by means of the brass crucifix protected the image of His Mother. The real fact is that we don’t have a natural explanation for this event.”
Of course we all know how well things are preserved in the heat of Mexico for hundreds of years before air conditioning etc.
The denial of this stuff is the real leap of faith.
Still reading Hart’s Volume one of American History told by Contemporaries. I still have 150 pages or so to go. It’s a very small font and interesting but slow reading, both due to the age and the style of the documents and of the writer, but there is one thing that jumped out at me today as I read it at Funspot in between games of Paragon pinball and Red Baron (sitdown model)
So of course the White house wants to talk about the birthers:
MR. GIBBS: No. (Laughter.) I mean, the God’s honest truth is no. I mean, Bill, let’s understand this — and I almost hate to indulge in such an august setting as the White House — and I mean this in seriousness — the White House briefing room discussing the made-up, fictional nonsense of whether or not the President was born in this country. A year-and-a-half ago I asked that the birth certificate be put on the Internet because lord knows, you got a birth certificate and you put it on the Internet, what else could be the story?
If one applies for a United States passport, the passport office will demand a birth certificate. It defines this as an official document bearing “your full name, the full name of your parent(s), date and place of birth, sex, date the birth record was filed, and the seal or other certification of the official custodian of such records.” The Hawaiian birth certificate President Obama has produced—the document is formally known as a “certificate of live birth”—bears that information. It has been inspected by reporters, and several state officials have confirmed that the information in permanent state records is identical to that on the president’s birth certificate—which is precisely what one expects, of course, since the state records are used to generate those documents when they are requested. In other words, what President Obama has produced is the “real” birth certificate of myth and lore. The director of Hawaii’s health department and the registrar of records each has personally verified that the information on Obama’s birth certificate is identical to that in the state’s records, the so-called vault copy. Given that fact, we are loath even to engage the fanciful notion that President Obama was born elsewhere, contrary to the information on his birth certificate, but we note for the record that his mother was a native of Kansas, whose residents have been citizens of the United States for a very long time, and whose children are citizens of the United States as well.
My fellow conservatives who are pushing this are really giving the president an out on an awful lot of things. It gives them the chance to not only change the subject but to paint the right as a bunch of idiots.
And don’t think the democrats won’t take advantage of this, Salon has it exactly right:
Greg Sargent reported Monday that one House Democrat, Hawaii’s Neil Abercrombie, was doing just that. Abercrombie, Sargent wrote, “is going to introduce a resolution on the House floor today that seems designed to put House GOPers who are flirting with birtherism in a jam …. [The resolution] commemorates the 50th anniversary of Hawaii’s statehood. But here’s the rub, his spokesman tells me: It describes Hawaii as Barack Obama’s birthplace.”
“Fifty-five people didn’t vote for whatever reason,” Abercrombie spokesman Randy Obata said. “Apparently there was no objection in the final analysis.”
55 congressmen voting present, it’s so Obamaish isn’t it?
If I’m the democrats I’d have these guys voting on this at least once a week. I’d paint the republicans with this brush and I’d be asking Romney, Palin and and any republican running for office this question over and over again. It’s their best chance to change the subject and perhaps, with the media’s help sneak their stuff through.
If we do this to ourselves then we deserve 8 years of Obama.
No, the primary beneficiary of the Obama birth certificate conspiracy theory is Obama. He is running the country into the ground at break-neck speed, but the conspiracy theory has handed Democratic operatives like Media Matters, Think Progress, and all the left-wing blogs which jump when the whistle blows, a great way of distracting the public from the damage being done.
Don’t believe me, just look at the Memeorandum screen shot above right. The left-wing blogosphere moves in a group, and the group is pushing the same point: Beware the Birthers. The Birthers are not a threat to the economy, our national security, personal freedom, or our health care system — except to the extent they hand the Democrats a side issue with which to deflect attention from the real issues facing the country.
He does in fairness leave out one group the profits from this: The people who will write the books, hold the conventions and milk the true believers out of plenty of dough to keep their own gravy train going.
Kausfiles is great, but as the oldest of the bloggers he would be woudn’t he?
The most fun part will be the networks forcing major media people who take this weekend off to come to work and have to cover the person they most love to hate. The Anchoress put it well yesterday:
Watching CNN & MSNBC: One gets the impression they really are dying of curiosity and desperately want to shout out, “WTF is going on here? WHO ARE WE GOING TO HATE NOW? How dare she take herself out of our sites?” 4:33PM
It also means a lot of husbands and wives of bloggers are going to be upset that their mates will be on the PC instead of on the grill, then again we bloggers might have been doing that anyway.
I think this is going to force the media to cover every moves she makes for years, She is playing Eddie Kagle to the media’s Smiley Williams from Angel on my shoulder.
The democratic party will be going nuts too, what is her plan, what is her angle? What is the plot? It’s going to drive them all crazy and it will do the same for Mitt “Elect me because I have good posture” Romney too.
Those who say she is this and that can take a lesson from this line spoken on another subject by the Pope yesterday. I’d say it was written for Sarah Palin:
For Paul, said Benedict XVI, “following the prevailing winds and currents of the day is childish.”
Not following the prevailing winds of the day; that’s Palin all over.
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