| Harry Houdini 1874�1926, American magician and writer, b. Budapest, Hungary. His real name was Erich Weiss; he took his stage name after the French magician Houdin. He was world-famed for his escapes from bonds of every sort�locks, handcuffs, straitjackets, and sealed chests underwater. Houdini performed in silent films and was also noted for his exposure of fraudulent spiritualistic mediums and their phenomena. He left to the Library of Congress his library of magic, one of the most complete and valuable in the world. Among his writings are The Unmasking of Robert-Houdin (1908), Miracle Mongers and Their Methods (1920), and A Magician among the Spirits (1924). The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001. ~In popular parlance, anyone who escapes from an apparently escape-proof setting is called a "real Houdini". One who causes people to disappear is also referred to as a "real Houdini" How many divisions has the Pope? The paraphrase of a question posed by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin that mockingly dismissed the moral and spiritual strength of Christianity. The question is used to pose the dilema of physical versus moral power and seemingly to dismiss the latter. The source of the story is Winston Churchill's history of World War II, The Gathering Storm (1948). Churchill says that French premier Pierre Laval went to Moscow in 1935 to see Stalin. They had lengthy discussions about troop strength, and Laval asked Stalin if he could do something to encourage religion in the USSR. It would help relations with the Pope,explained Laval. "Oh-o!" said Stalin. "The Pope! How many divisions has he got?" hubris: Exaggerated pride or self-confidence. This is the pride that goes before a fall, an excessive, overweening, I-can-make-the-Red-Sea-part, arrogant pride. In Greek tragedy, hubris is a prideful refusal to accept the authority of the gods. When the central character begins to believe that his achievements result from his own powers and virtue rather than from the favor of the gods, he is guaranteed to be laid low. |
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