The composer's own life, however, did not fare as well as her first songs. In 1966, as Debbie Reynolds portrayed her in The Singing Nun (a dud Sister Smile reportedly dismissed as "fiction"), Deckers hung up her habit to pursue a full-time singing career under her given name. But when two singles - the controversial birth control anthem "Glory Be to God for the Golden Pill" and the prophetically titled "Sister Smile Is Dead" - went nowhere, Deckers quietly turned to teaching handicapped youngsters in Wavre, Belgium, eventually opening her own school for autistic children.

Sadly, she seemed ill-prepared for life outside the convent. By 1985, then in her 50s, Deckers was overwhelmed by debt, with the Belgian government claiming she owed $63,000 in back taxes. Pushed to desperation when she thought she would lose her school, she swallowed a lethal amount of barbiturates with alcohol, and was joined by her companion of 10 years, Annie Pecher, a physiotherapist and a fellow former nun. Found near their bodies was a poignant note from both, asking for forgiveness and understanding: "We hope God will welcome us. He saw us suffer, so He should show clemency."

Purtell, Tim. "The Singing Nun's story." Entertainment Weekly n149 (Dec 18, 1992 n149): 76(1)

ok , I copied the cite - not as detailed as David's version , but hints...

and it looks like there is a play called The Tragic and Horrible Life of the Singing Nun which looks like it goes even further than David's story.

and the straight dope's take [link] which looks like there are a lot of rumors which can't be proven.

Um, wow. Singing Nun madness!

As for ANTM, I really had a lack of give-a-shit this season, ESPECIALLY for the top three. I think they're scraping the bottom of the barrel for girls, and then picking the worst ones. Harumph.

Heh. Today at work two people mentioned having dreams featuring Tom Cruise. Maybe this is some new kind of PR effort they've developed.

He was supposed to get all sorts of mental powers once he achieved Operating Thetan Level VII.

I say let him bring it. Countless hours of watching horror movies and gay porn have prepared me well should Mr. Cruise dare invade my dreams...

Well, yes. What other domino theory were we discussing?

Umm the Domino theory for public consumption was never that other nations would *voluntarily* adapt Communism, but that one communist country would invade or subvert its neighbors. Or that the loss of U.S. prestige would cause other nations to appease communist nations.

That communism might convert others by *example*, or that it was only the threat of U U.S. intervention that kept people from adapting communism was not something that was widely publicly acknowledged.

(Of course even mildly liberal, populist or social democratic policies on the part of poor nations was defined as communist; the principle was not confined to actual communist revolutions like the one in Vietnam. ) (In terms of the question of "nationalist" or "communist", the answer in the case of Vietnam was "both".)

I did a weak and terrible thing and bought these. Perhaps they won't fit and I can just send them back. Perhaps I'll get a job this week.

Perhaps I should go to bed before I do anything else expensive.

I woke up this morning telling Spidey that I had dreamed about body paint. That I was upset because I had lost the red and I wanted to write expletives in large block letters and then I had looked at my left bicep and spidey had written something I couldn't read in neat black letters.

Spidey said, "Maybe it was a love poem by Sappho"

A lot people at the time did not think Vietnam strategically important. The whole "Domino" theory was a rationalization for why it was worth fighting over an otherwise unimportant nation. Oh I'm sure the people who advanced it were sincere, but they also had all these theories about how to win wars with airpower, and minimal numbers of ground troops that they wanted to test.

Wait, how did this become about the Domino Theory? I wasn't invoking it or talking about whether Vietnam was worth fighting over. I was talking about the potential for disaster that war posed (not who won/lost South Vietnam).

Al Gore said Iraq is the worst strategic mistake in our history. Gud originally questioned that. You countered that the middle east is much more strategically important than Southeast Asia. Gud said, "From a strategic standpoint a disaster in the Middle East trumps a disaster in Southeast Asia."

You're both right right now, but that wasn't the case then -- not because of the Domino Theory, but because of the century and a half of conflict in Asian/Western and Asian/Asian conflict, in Asia, prior to the Vietnam War. Highlights include: the Opium Wars; the Franco-Chinese war; the first Chinese-Japan War; the Boxer Rebellion; the cultural revolution; warlord rule; WWI; the second Chinese-Japan War; WWII.

Think about all the nations that had a dog in the fight in Vietnam besides the US and Vietnam, itself: the USSR; China; South Korea; North Korea; Australia and NZ; France, Thailand, the Phillipines.

The Vietnam War happened in a powder keg, and so much of it was a cock-of-the-walk fight between the US and the USSR. A new war any place in Asia, so soon after WWII and Korea, had the potential to kick off a third world war, just as a war (right now) in the middle east, has the potential to kick off a third world war. We're lucky we got out of Vietnam, without one.

Gud was right to question Gore's statement, not because Iraq isn't a mistake and isn't a huge stinky morass, but because we don't yet have the perspective of history on Iraq, to decide whether our involvement in Iraq is the worst mistake in our history to date. The disaster that was the Vietnam war, in that time and place, had the potential to end up a worldwide disaster, much as the diaster that is the Iraq war has, in this time and place, the potential to end up a worldwide disaster.

Iraq feels bigger now, because stuff in the now always feels big.

I did a weak and terrible thing and bought these. Perhaps they won't fit and I can just send them back. Perhaps I'll get a job this week.

Those shoes are hot. If it helps any, when I spent all of my graduation present money at a spa before I had a job, I did in fact get one soon after.

If it helps any, when I spent all of my graduation present money at a spa before I had a job, I did in fact get one soon after.

You've got to spend money to make money?

Those shoes are hot.