The Touch of Pitch

In a post below, I alluded to the proverb “He that toucheth pitch, shall be defiled therewith.”  (Ecclesiasticus, XIII 1.)  And shortly after writing that, I came upon the daily briefing from the New Oxford Review in my mailbox, with a link to this (shades of Baader-Meinhof):

http://www.newoxfordreview.org/article.jsp?did=1008-chang

Worth reading.

[Murphy himself has felt that touch of pitch ... and nearly died therefrom.
Details here. ]