The timbers of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris had been drying out for eight centuries, so when a fire started near the roof they burned quickly, lighting up the sky in a riveting and sad spectacle Monday.
The drying timbers, though beautiful before they were consumed, are a reminder of the drying out of religious faith in France, and in the rest of Europe, and to a lesser extent (possibly) in our own country.
Dozens of protesters from opioid-death grief groups showed up outside a Harvard art museum calling for the university to remove the name of a drug manufacturer who donated most of the money to build it.
Arthur M. Sackler (1913-1987), a psychiatrist, made a fortune directly marketing drugs such as Valium to physicians. His brothers used his money and his methods after he died to market OxyContin, an addictive opioid painkiller widely blamed for the current widespread drug abuse problem.
