The Weekly Bystander Top 10

On Vacation

The Weekly Bystander will be on vacation for the month of February but hopefully will reappear in March. To tide readers and fans over, I post below a list of the top ten viewed posts since the blog first appeared on 12/16/2011 with an obituary of the deceased atheist Christopher Hitchens. Just click on the link provided to view a post. I will list them in reverse order.

Number 10. Florida Vacation. This 2013 post is about a winter vacation in the Sarasota, Florida area that includes a description of a visit to Sarasota's lovely Ringling Museum of Art.

Number 9. Roberto Benign's Pinocchio. This post is a review of Benigni's charming version of the Italian classic story of a puppet boy who won't be tamed. It is in the Masterpiece section of the WB.

Number 8. Year End Top Films. This post briefly reviews eight excellent foreign films. If you missed any, they are well worth viewing. I suspect it gained a number of hits because of the image of the beautiful Fanny Ardant as opera diva Maria Callas.

Number 7. Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition. This 2015 post was a review of Benzion Netanyahu's magnum opus on the Spanish Inquisition. Netanyahu, the father of Israel's current Prime Minister, overthrew all of the traditional notions of the dreaded Inquisition.

Number 6. Pedophile Priests. This 2017 post examined this controversial subject and tried to put it into perspective.

Number 5. The Leopard. This post is a review of Luchino Visconti's epic telling of the Italian Risorgimento as it impacted the lives of a Sicilian aristocratic family. The film starred Burt Lancaster in his greatest role, and the young and beautiful Claudia Cardinale.

Number 4.  U.S. Health Care System. This post examined the effectiveness of the health care system in the United States back in 2013. I don't think much has changed since then.

Number 3. Scientific Consensus. This 2017 post questioned the consensus among scientists about the subject of global warming, as well as the validity of consensus in general.

Number 2. The Filibuster. This 2017 post examined the controversy over President Trump's nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, and included a discussion of the very concept of filibuster.

Number 1. Titian, "Sacred and Profane Love". This post is far and away the most viewed on The Weekly Bystander. It is a concise version of my own interpretation of Titian's famous masterpiece. Is it #1 because of my expertise, or because of the beautiful woman in the painting?

Titian: Sacred and Profane Love