{"id":898,"date":"2008-11-27T12:42:49","date_gmt":"2008-11-27T12:42:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2008\/11\/all-in-30-seconds.html"},"modified":"2008-11-27T12:42:49","modified_gmt":"2008-11-27T12:42:49","slug":"all-in-30-seconds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/11\/all-in-30-seconds.html","title":{"rendered":"All in 30 seconds"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s what I saw, all within the space of 30 seconds today:
\n-A woman pulling down her toddler’s tights, and holding her sort of seated over the edge of a curb. So she could. You know.
\n-A woman wielding a squeegee and a bucket, at a corner, waiting for traffic. Not aggressive like the notorious New York Squeegee Guys, but that was the first I’d seen of that in Rome.
\n-Machine gun-wielding Italian Army soldiers, as a well as a few in a parked jeep, standing in front of the Iranian consulate.
\nNow, the Romans among you are saying – what was she doing out there?<\/em>
\nChecking out two sites:\u00a0S. Constanza<\/a>\u00a0and the Basilica of S. Agnes Outside the Walls.<\/a>\u00a0The visit was a mixed success. I got there early – before they reopen at 4, and hence the walk down the street (capped by an exquisite pastry). The first is wonderful and evocative and silent, still solemnity and memory. The mosaics are astonishing, even though they are quite difficult to see in the mixed light. Perhaps there is a time of day in which they are better lit, but looking at the\u00a0 placing of the windows, I doubt it.\u00a0 It looked like it was being set up for a wedding, with kneelers in front of the altar.
\nS. Agnes was fine, except I couldn’t get down into the catacomb. There was not a soul around to open it up and take anyone down, and I wasn’t the only person wandering around looking for someone. Oh well. Maybe next time.
\nAnother site from today, while I’m thinking about sites: Two (I presume) gyspy beggar women greeting each other on the street, hale and hearty and cheerful. Then another gypsy beggar woman sitting on the steps of the Metro, one second, Senora, senora, oh, oh, <\/em>the next greeting a well-dressed Italian guy with a Ciao! Ciao! <\/em>as he bent down to kiss her in greeting and they spoke like old friends. Perhaps they are. Perhaps he’s a long-term supporter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s what I saw, all within the space of 30 seconds today: -A woman pulling down her toddler’s tights, and holding her sort of seated over the edge of a curb. So she could. You know. -A woman wielding a squeegee and a bucket, at a corner, waiting for traffic. Not aggressive like the notorious…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nAll in 30 seconds - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/11\/all-in-30-seconds.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"All in 30 seconds - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Here’s what I saw, all within the space of 30 seconds today: -A woman pulling down her toddler’s tights, and holding her sort of seated over the edge of a curb. 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Not aggressive like the notorious…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/11\/all-in-30-seconds.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-11-27T12:42:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"All in 30 seconds - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/11\/all-in-30-seconds.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"All in 30 seconds - Via Media","og_description":"Here’s what I saw, all within the space of 30 seconds today: -A woman pulling down her toddler’s tights, and holding her sort of seated over the edge of a curb. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}