World Notes & Quotes

Excerpts from selected publications

Anthony Hopkins Quits with a Warning

PARENTS TELEVISION COUNCIL, Dec. 22—The life of movie stars is considered glamorous and enticing to many kids. But it is not necessarily fulfilling, warned the Parents Television Council.

It quoted a Dec. 20 press conference in Rome where Anthony Hopkins, the Academy Award winning actor who has starred in many movies, from Remains of the Day to Silence of the Lambs, announced he was giving up his acting career.

The group quoted the actor saying, “I can't take it anymore. I have wasted my life. To hell with this stupid show business, this ridiculous show business, this futile wasteful life. I look back and see a desert wasteland.”

“After 35 years I look back and cringe with embarrassment and have say to myself. ‘How… could you have done that?’ I've done one or two good films and some bad films. It was a complete waste of time.”

The View from Bethlehem

CNN, Dec. 25—Reporting from Bethlehem on Christmas Day, CNN reported the local celebration of Christmas, then looked out and noted how the day was celebrated throughout the world.

“The bells of the sixth-century Church of the Nativity summoned several hundred Palestinian Christians and pilgrims from abroad to Christmas Day Mass in the town revered as the birthplace of Jesus,” said the report.

But locals were unhappy that the U.S. and British air strikes of Iraq had kept this year's number of visitors down, said the report.

It also noted this Christmas news from elsewhere: “Christians across Asia heard calls for peace after a year of bloodshed and economic crisis in some countries.

“In Communist China and Vietnam, thousands of worshipers packed churches for Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, while Christian communities in Indonesia and India put aside fears triggered by recent religious clashes and gathered to celebrate the festive season.”

“Thousands of miles away, in a war- and famine-ravaged region in southern Sudan, 17 African-American college students from the United States were handing out food to children,” it said.

“Only a few months ago, the children in Turalei were in danger of starving to death, because of famines aggravated by a 15-year civil war,” the report added.