Defending the 12th century since the 14th; blogging since the 21st.

Catholicism, Conservatism, the Middle Ages, Opera, and Historical and Literary Objets d'Art blogged by a suburban dad who teaches law and writes stuff.


"Very fun." -- J. Bottum, Editor, FIRST THINGS

"Too modest" -- Elinor Dashwood

"Perhaps the wisest man on the Web" -- Henry Dieterich

"Hat tip: me (but really Cacciaguida)" -- Diana Feygin, Editor, THE YALE FREE PRESS

"You are my sire. You give me confidence to speak. You raise my heart so high that I am no more I." -- Dante

"Fabulous!"-- Warlock D.J. Prod of Didsbury

Who was Cacciaguida? See Dante's PARADISO, Cantos XV, XVI, & XVII.


E-mail me

 
Best little lawsuit in Texas

The reason Ramesh and Eve are right and Julian Sanchez is wrong about the Lawrence sodomy case is that under our federal system, the federal government is one of enumerated powers, but the state governments are not: they are governments of general jurisdiction, having all powers that governments normally have, emphatically including a power of morals regulation, with only such limits as the Constitution imposes.

Acknowledging, as he must, that there is no "sodomy amendment" to the Constitution, Julian seeks the equivalent cash-value in the 14th Amendment, with its terms "privileges [and] immunities," "due process of law," and "equal protection of the laws." These do indeed place curbs on state powers, but those curbs consist of freedoms that the Court later called "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty." The proposition that sodomy is such a freedom is "at best facetious," as Justice White aptly called it in his sterling opinion for the Court in Bowers v. Hardwick.

As for argument that the Texas statute violates Equal Protection by banning same-sex but not opposite-sex sodomy, this is expertly answered by Robert George and Gerard Bradley in their amicus brief for the Family Research Council.
posted by Cacciaguida at 5:48 PM

 
The Cranky Professor is spending a semester in Rome. He won't be cranky much longer -- unless his students keep him that way!
posted by Cacciaguida at 4:06 PM

 
Scheidler decision

It took about ten years too long, but the Supreme Court has finally decided that protestors -- including but not limited to those who protest against the assassination of children in the womb -- are not extortionists. The case, Scheidler v.NOW, brought PETA and ACT-UP into alliance with pro-life firebrand Joe Scheidler.

The decision was 8-1, written by the Chief (concurrence by Ginsburg). The lone dissenter was Stevens, whose pro-abortion commitment is so profound that, for him, any ambiguity in the concept of "extortion" must be construed so as to make the notorious RICO statute -- drafted to nail gangsters -- apply to pro-life protestors. This is what is meant by a "GOP moderate." Thank you, Jerry Ford, for that sterling appointment. So-o-o much more comme-il-faut than the leading alternative, Robert Bork, no?
posted by Cacciaguida at 3:25 PM

 
Obit for Christopher Hill

English Marxist historian who taught generations to think of the English Civil War in Marxist class terms, and who made marginal freaks like the Diggers and Levellers prototypes of the Leninist vanguard. Via Cronaca.
posted by Cacciaguida at 12:06 PM

 
What teens really think about "teen Masses"

Visit De Fidei Obedientia here.
posted by Cacciaguida at 11:36 AM

 
Right resurgent at Yale, supposedly. Not much new here, but it's always good to see one's undergrad association quoted prominently.
posted by Cacciaguida at 12:24 PM

 
Conversation chez Cacciaguida

Cacciaseppe (#2 son, commenting on his confirmation class): We didn't get our saints reports back, but the teacher said they were all good.

Cacciaguida: You did yours on St. Josemaria, right?

Cacciaseppe: Yes.

Number One Son: Still sounds odd.

Cacciaguida: Well, it was just last October, you know.

Number One Son. I know. He's still getting noogies up in Heaven.
posted by Cacciaguida at 9:12 PM

 
The Chickpea Eater is back -- or else was never gone, I'm not sure -- anyway, a belated welcome to my blogroll! (Note: this is a book-review blog, so we won't expect daily updates. Thanks for what you do, CPE -- especially the reviewing of old books!)
posted by Cacciaguida at 9:03 PM

 
According to Jacques Barzun (From Dawn to Decadence, p. 245), the Duke of St. Simon, a courtier to King Louis XIV of France, once lamented: "This has been a century of vile bourgeoisie."

Man, haven't you ever had days like that?
posted by Cacciaguida at 8:39 PM

 
New to the blogroll: Prof. Jim Ryan's Philosoblog. Welcome!
posted by Cacciaguida at 1:11 PM

 
Cacciaguida's Headline News

From today's Washington Post:
Melting Snow May Have Caused Gullies on Mars

Wow, I knew it was a big storm, but really....


And from yesterday's Daily Telegraph:
Lesbian Japanese Monkeys Challenge Darwin's Assumptions

Oh, right -- but just let a white male Christian try it, and let's see if the Telegraph covers that! Huh!


posted by Cacciaguida at 1:14 PM

 
Les nations europèennes nouvellement libres commencent à faire défi a M. Blacques-Jacques Chirac.

Moi, je m’en fou complètement de cet espèce de con. A vrai dire, on s’en moque, n’est-ce pas? Voilà tout.
posted by Cacciaguida at 4:55 PM

 
Diamonds

So Zorak is Queen of All English Usage chez Old Oligarch. Funny, Elinor long ago cornered that job chez Cacciaguida (Schmies vocab test score = 178, BTW. Me, that is; no doubt Elinor's score will be higher).

How do they do it? And what can we (men) do about it? Give them diamonds? I DON'T THINK SO! Check out the Great Diamond Rant-thread, beginning with Elinor, and continuing with Zorak and The Rat (hyperlinks not working -- temporarily I hope). The Old Oligarch defends us guys, and The Rat replies (again, will add hyperlink when feasible).
posted by Cacciaguida at 11:24 AM

 
FRANCESCA DA RIMINI: Dante versus D'Annunzio

Elinor begins her post on Zandonai's FRANCESCA DA RIMINI: "Cacciaguida will probably be blogging about our Valentine's Day observances...."

Why would I do that, hon'?

But Elinor is right about the play by D'Annunzio which directly formed the libretto for Zandonai's opera: it takes a Dantean exemplum of lust and turns it into a tale of tragic but noble passion. It's still many notches above Charpentier's LOUISE (click here and scroll down for my rant on that) -- the lovers do get killed, after all, thus signalling, in a way that LOUISE never does, that illicit love may sometimes have a downside -- but it's still a long way from Dante, which is my point today.

First, here's the skinny on Gabriele D'Annunzio. And he was no reluctant participant in Zandonai's opera project: the spoken version of FRANCESCA having flopped, D' was probably ecstatic that someone wanted to immortalize it with music, as Richard Strauss had done for Oscar Wilde's SALOME.

How closely did D' work with Z? Well, he even wrote some new dialogue just for the opera (Paolo's "I love night, I hate day" rhetoric in the seduction scene -- a patent rip-off from Wagner's TRISTAN, but appropriate, since the whole of FRANCESCA is riddled with allusions to the Tristan story).

For Dante, Francesca da Rimini, like all the souls in Hell, is a great self-deceiver and blame-shifter. She seems to assume that Dante has come all this way just to see her (Inf. V 88-90). She discusses her lack of friendship with God as though it were a mere social setback, like being left off of someone's Christmas card list (91). And for her and Paolo's principal sin, she puts the blame squarely on -- the book they were reading at the time! (137)

Dante's fainting at the end of Francesca's narrative is often taken as indicating his sympathy for Paolo and Francesca. I'm with Robert Hollander on this: Dante may sometimes tempt us (and himself) to sympathize with the damned souls, but to yield to this temptation is "a sign of moral unsteadiness." (I think those are approximately Hollander's words.)

Why does Dante the Pilgrim faint? Is it necessarily out of sympathy? Couldn't it be because he has certain memories about his own past that cause him some anxiety when he sees what Paolo's and Francesca's self-abandonment to passion has done to them? After all, Beatrice has a lot of unspecified sins to reproach Dante with when at last they meet again (Purg. XXX).

In any case, it is Dante the Pilgrim who faints, not Dante the Poet. As a character in his own poem, Dante is forever learning; as the poet, Dante chronicles the Pilgrim's learning. By Canto V of Inferno, he has not yet learned much.

And D'Annunzio -- well, fascinating fellow, interesting writer, looks good on a horse, but wasn't that him we passed back in the Dark Wood?

Here's another interesting thing about FRANCESCA. D'Annunzio was many objectionable things, but liberal was not one them. Whatever else it does, his FRANCESCA takes aim at a deeply held liberal piety: that books are always good. When we in the liberal West are shown newsreels of the Nazis burning books, we're supposed to be horrified not so much at the loss of the particular literature being burned (indeed, as far as I know, no work went extinct as a result of the Nazis' bookburning -- quite unlike Caesar's little barbecue at the Library of Alexandria in 46 BC), but at the symbolism: they're burning BOOKS! BOOKS! Don't they know that all books are good? That all education is good? That education solves all problems?

D'Annunzio comes alongside Plato to remind us that, well, that's accordin'. D' Annunzio himself may have thought that Paolo and Francesca chose just the right reading material that night in her bedroom, but no one can watch that scene and retain the liberal/dualist shibboleth that the "I" that reads and the "I" that is are two different things.

Addendum -- FRANCESCA recordings:

Don't go for the mediocre Opera Orchestra of New York concert performance that I linked to in my Valentine's Day post (and which is the only audio recording of this opera currently available). Instead, get the Met's video!

Renata Scotto is the TOTAL Francesca. (Note her passion for Paolo while she and Placido are "in character" -- and her obvious pride at appearing with him, evident during curtain calls, when they get to step out of character.)

Placido Domingo is slightly off top-form as Paolo, but Domingo off peak is better than most tenors at their best.

Beloved veteran Verdi baritone Cornell MacNeil was a bit too old for the tenderer roles by 1984 (when this FRANCESCA was taped), but he's still aces as the rough but just Gianciotto. (And he was a great Scarpia too.) And William Lewis -- who tried so hard to be a romantic leading tenor but couldn't quite pull it off -- offers delicious thrills and chills as Malatestino, the evil third brother.

The lavish production offers medieval battles, boudoirs, and botany galore. Levine and the orchestra are, as usual, beyond praise.


Heavy readers: Scotto and Domingo in Act III of FRANCESCA
posted by Cacciaguida at 12:01 PM

 
Brit Tory leader gets dissed by senior "colleagues" for replacing Conservative Central Office leftists with conservatives.

According to the linked Daily Torygraph article, ousted "chief executive" Mark MacGregor "was seen as a driving force inside Central Office for a more socially liberal approach to the family which upset Tory traditionalists" -- whatever that means.
posted by Cacciaguida at 3:13 PM

 
Conversation with the radio

Peter Allen (Texaco Met Opera Broadcast announcer, after final curtain of Mozart's DON GIOVANNI, in which the unrepentant rake is dragged off to Hell): Mozart's DON GIOVANNI, OR, THE DISSOLUTE ONE PUNISHED. The great gold curtains have parted again, and here come --

Cacciaguida: ...da judge.
posted by Cacciaguida at 6:29 PM

 
Cyril and Methodius

Apostles to the Slavs, inventors of the "Cyrillic" alphabet (which is the Greek, adapted to Slavic sounds); subjects of JPII's encyclical Slavorum Apostoli.

Today is really their feast day, as Father Jim reminds us.

Also, happy ordination anniversary to certain friends what's not canonized yet but some of us are sho'nuff workin' on it.
posted by Cacciaguida at 3:03 PM

 
Conversation chez Cacciaguida

Cacciaguida: ...So you see, this big post that I've just finished is about the subtle eroticism in opera.

Elinor: Subtle?!

Cacciaguida: Well, I mean compared to, you know, current entertainment --

Elinor: Oh. Hmm.
posted by Cacciaguida at 12:01 PM

 
Valentine’s Day in the Operasphere

First, before we get started, here is the real scoop on the saints named Valentine.

Meanwhile, on a learned opera listserv to which Cacciaguida happens to belong, one list member posted this question:

I saw an ad on TV last night for the CD Classical Passions. A couple were cavorting to the swelling strings and orgasmic climaxes of Rachmaninov, Katchaturian, Ravel etc. I saw the CD in the shops today and the front cover proclaims Ravel's Bolero to be the nation's favourite classical piece for passion.

What would feature on an equivalent opera passions CD? I honestly can't think what opera CD I'd want to play to accompany a roll in the hay. I'd probably get distracted wondering who the singers were. Any thoughts?

Well, my first thought is about getting distracted wondering who the singers are. I like playing guess-who as much as the next guy, but puh-leeze -- there’s the Texaco Opera Quiz, and then there’s, you know, not the Texaco Opera Quiz.

But now, to survey the responses to this challenge. Since nothing in the terms of the challenge restricted it to non-marital r’s in the h, I read on. Here are some of the replies (few of which, I fear, concern marital situations, though Puccini’s MADAMA BUTTERFLY is arguable).

(For opera newbies, I’ve added extra information, as well as some comments, in square brackets and non-bold type.)

One member replied:

Two recommendations, the Bacchanalia from [Saint-Saens's] SAMSON [AND DELILAH] and the love duet from BUTTERFLY.

And then another added:

How about the opening of [Richard Strauss’s] DER ROSENKAVALIER? The orchestra is depicting what has just taken place between the Marschallin and Octavian, and they were most definitely rolling in the hay. What other couples are actually rolling in the hay in the course of an opera?

And still another:

One aria: "Depuis le jour." [from LOUISE, by Gustave Charpentier] Though Louise is singing about the lovemaking she's just enjoyed, the music carries on the orgasm-topped (so to speak) by the ultimate high B. The aria ends perfectly with the sultry line: "I tremble deliciously with the magic memory of that first day of love." Yum...

Hm. Problematic. Louise is happy for the time being, and is even fêted by the Paris bohemian world (including the decidedly sinister “Noctambulist”) for, as far as I can see, nothing more than having dissed her parents and shacked up with Julien. Bully for her. And what happens a few years down the road? Julien is tied to her by her charms and his passion; the latter will probably fade, and the former certainly will. (This is the argument the elder Germont makes in Act II of TRAVIATA – “Un di quando le venere….” – and it’s crucial in Violetta’s decision.)

Don’t get me wrong – I can enjoy a great opera about bohemians, like, say, LA BOHÈME. But part of what makes BOHÈME great (in addition to the music) is that it showcases the heartache that is part and parcel of that life, rather than trying, as Charpentier does, to give it out that liberationist propaganda has something to do with reality.

By the way, after the premiere of LOUISE in 1900, and a sequel called JULIEN that flopped utterly in 1913, Charpentier lived on until 1956 – that’s not a typo – but produced no new music, or at any rate no new operas. What’s up with that? Here’s my theory: nothing’s older than yesterday’s revolution. After World War I, it was time for Stravinsky, WOZZECK, and TURANDOT, and nothing was triter than Charpentier’s shack-up-and-be-happy patter.

Rant over. Now, back to the mailbag. The next reply was:

Several people suggested [Wagner’s] TRISTAN UND ISOLDE but to my mind the sexual side of the opera is so heavily woven into the spiritual that pure eroticism is ruled out. Funnily enough I think the 'religious' PARSIFAL [also by Wagner] is more erotic with its heady textures.

Sex with spiritual significance – who’d a thunk it?

The same correspondent then added:

How could I have forgotten the end of Act 1 [Wagner’s DIE] WALKÜRE? Thanks to the person who pointed that out. [You’re most welcome.] I guess the end of Act 3 of [Wagner’s] SIEGFRIED should also be included.

Agreed. Also, as you grow older, you may find that all of Act III of SIEGFRIED speaks eloquently to the issue at hand, especially as one generation arises to replace another. I won’t comment on Wotan (“The Wanderer”) and Erda, and I trust I don’t need to comment on Siegfried’s breaking of the Wanderer’s spear. I will say, though, that making the boy walk through a thick wall of fire is as good a son-in-law test as I’ve ever heard of. My daughter’s future suitors should start practicing now. (For more on son-in-law tests, see I Samuel 18:23-27.)

And then this:

Two of my suggestions have already been mentioned: the BUTTERFLY duet ("Bimba a gl'occhi pieni di malia … Ma intanto finor non m'ha detto....") and the ROSENKAVALIER prelude.

The Liebestod [from TRISTAN] is too obvious to need mentioning.

So here are the others I'd like to put up for consideration:

SALOME [by Richard Strauss]: the connecting music between the two halves (somehow the word "intermezzo" doesn't seem strong enough) [And the Dance, dork-boy?]

BOHÈME [Puccini]: from "Non sonno in veno (to write, he means) - che e la?", but especially "O soava fanciulla"

[Riccardo Zandonai’s] FRANCESCA DA RIMINI: Act I, from the departure of the lawyer (insert lawyer joke here) to the end of the act (the end of Act I, that is), with special emphasis on the last ten minutes or so, as Paolo and Francesca see each other for the first time, silently, over choral whispers and orchestral throbs. [And Act III -- you know, towards the end....?]

The Alfano part of [Puccini’s] TURANDOT [i.e., the last scene, completed by Franco Alfano following Puccini’s death]: from The Kiss to the end, with special emphasis on "Mi fiore mattutina...."

DIE WALKÜRE, Act I: only question is, where to start? Winterstürme? Der Männer Sippe? Ein Schwert verhiess mir der Vater? On reflection, I'll go with the last-mentioned, since the image is carried forward with such freudian precision at "Siegmund den Wälsung siehst du Weib...."

Good. I would just add:

Mussorgsky, BORIS GODUNOV, Act III (the “Polish Act”): Marina and Grigori’s duet. Of course, the fact that these two are not only lovers but also tools of a Jesuit plot to reconquer Russia for the Church has absolutely nothing to do with this selection...!

Samuel Barber, ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA: Duet "Take, o take these lips away...." Then let's go out and lose an epochal naval battle, 'cause what does it matter? ("...AND THEN TO ROME!!!")

And one more, to bring this whole post back to its marital roots:

Strauss’s DIE FRAU OHNE SCHATTEN (“The Woman Without a Shadow” – or, as I call it, HUMANAE VITAE – THE OPERA): the finale of Act I -- the song of the nightwatchmen. Though the Nurse has wedged her Planned Parenthood ideology into the home of the sad Barak family, the nightwatchmen sing of life-giving marital embraces. “Ihr Gatten, in den Häuser dieser Stadt….” Mmmmmmm……….

Feel free to write in with your own suggestions, at least until Lent (which starts on March 5 this year).


posted by Cacciaguida at 5:53 PM

 
A law student writes in:

I'm a 1L at Texas Tech, the only law school in West Texas.

I'm enjoying the experience overall, but I need some help in Con Law. Specifically, I need to find some critiques of Roe v. Wade, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Griswold (if there are any) and Eisenstadt (same). I'm loving the class, but I need some ammunition against the Individual Rights are absolutely guaranteed arguments my professor are making. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Start with John Hart Ely's 1973 Yale Law Journal article "The Wages of Crying Wolf: a Critique of Roe v. Wade."

Ely is not pro-life, and not particularly conservative. His article is the fruit of a brief season in which liberal law profs could criticize Roe sharply and still survive professionally. Soon thereafter, and still today, if you criticize Roe, you'd darn well better either (a) have a "better" pro-abortion alternative to propose, or (b) teach at an authentically Catholic or Evangelical law school, or (c) be about to retire anyway.

The "crying wolf" that Ely refers to is the tendency to label any con law decision one doesn't like as "Lochnerizing," as in Lochner v. New York, the paradigmatic Gilded Age economic-regulation-is-unconstitutional decision.

Does your professor like Lochner? I'll bet he doesn't. Will he be able to meet Ely's argument that Roe really is just like Lochner, in the sense that it reads the political preferences of the Justices -- and the elites from whom they draw their views, their clerks, and their self-respect -- into the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment?

Actually, Ely makes the case that Roe is even worse than Lochner, because Lochner at least drew upon acknowledged legal standards, whereas the words "we think" represent the maximum analytical rigor that Roe attains. (I mean legal rigor: as for historical rigor, the sham law-office history in Roe has been critiqued in articles by Prof. Joseph Dellapenna.)

I enjoy your blog,

Thanks -- so do I!

which I discovered through the Old Oligarch.

Stick with O.O., and there's no telling what else you'll discover!

Wish I was done with law school so that I could blog.

You're wise to wait. It's a "time-suck." Fortunately, inquiries like yours allow me to leverage my blogging for scholarly ends. (I know of a few Yale law students who blog, but then, they're at Yale Law, so they can do anything, right? Grrrrrrr.)

Also, any suggestions on becoming a Con Law professor? Benefits, drawbacks? How to advise?

Get the highest grades you can. Study aides, essay-writing course, are all in-bounds. Do law review if you possibly can. Do as much scholarly writing as you can. Writing beats moot court board, SBA, negotiations board, and other activities if you want to teach. Find a prof you can cultivate for further advice, but above all for recommendations. Take every Con Law elective your school offers (First Amendment, Church/State law, whatever).

posted by Cacciaguida at 5:02 PM

 
Five guilty pleasures

Notwithstanding this post and this one, I had been planning to stay out of the “Five Guilty Pleasures” game, especially since I’m cooking up a Valentine’s Day post about eros in opera (and I don’t mean the browser). But what the heck (as we guilty-pleasurers say much too often). Here's what I 'fess up to:

1. Operas belonging to a category that I call Italian Pre-Raphaelite Decadent. These are early-20th-century Italian operas with medieval or ancient settings, little or no moral content, and visceral appeal out the wazoo. Well-established, yummy offenders:

Puccini’s TURANDOT: the great fascist love story, though set in “imperial China” (a favorite setting for Ezra Pound too, in case that matters). "The riddles are three – death is one!"

Zandonai’s FRANCESCA DA RIMINI: In Inferno V, only Francesca was heard from; Paolo was silent. Not no more! Now he’s a tenor; his brother and Francesca’s husband Gianciotto is a baritone; and Francesca, of course, is a soprano, surrounded by a gaggle of troubador-besotted sisters and friends (for their entrance, clock on the Francesca link above, then click on selection #4). The music is Wagner-meets-Puccini. Think Pound’s Cantos scored for full orchestra.

Currently being checked out for inclusion in this sub-canon: Montemezzi’s L’AMORE DEI TRE RE: Barbarian kings, amorous intrigue, poisoned lips – bring it on!


2. Scoping “entry-level luxury” cars, especially BMWs and Acuras.


3. Stopping in mid-sentence because the word I want is one that I only know in French.


4. The STAR WARS “prequels.” My excuses:

(a) After RETURN OF THE JEDI, I really wanted to know the back-story of the Emperor. The prequels more or less provide it, with the same actor who played the octagenarian Emperor Palpatine returning to show us Senator, later Chancellor, Palpatine in vigorous middle age. That actor is not a Hollywood hanger-on but a distinguished London-based Shakesperean: Ian McDiarmid, until recently co-director of the Almeida Theater. (McDiarmid links: capsule bio; interview on his STAR WARS role; as Shylock; as Prospero; as Porfiry Petrovich, the detective in CRIME AND PUNISHMENT.)

By the way, PHANTOM MENACE was the only picture in which Palpatine’s and McDiarmid’s ages coincided: ca. 50 during principal photography. That means (as the linked interview indicates) McDiarmid was in his mid-30s when he made JEDI. Here he is in 1978, about four years before his role in JEDI. Lastly, check him out as the Thane of Ross and the Porter in the Ian McKellen-Judi Dench MACBETH.

(b) Natalie Portman is extremely beautiful. (Fair warning, gentlemen: this is the "You're laughing at me!" moment from the meadow scene.)


5. Visiting Amazon or bn.com, making a list of books and records to buy someday, then not buying them, then going back and buying one or two of them anyway.

posted by Cacciaguida at 4:29 PM

 
Jeff Miller has written in to say that his blog, Atheist to Theist, is now The Curt Jester. Blogroll adjusted accordingly -- but, Jeff, what made you give up a name that had you at the top of my strictly alphabetical blogroll? :)

posted by Cacciaguida at 12:05 PM

 
"Become What You Are"

An interesting new (to me) site on Catholic family issues.
posted by Cacciaguida at 11:38 AM

 
Today is, of course, the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes -- and also the birthday of my daughter "Cacciadelia", who turns eight today.
posted by Cacciaguida at 2:27 PM

 
Just So You Know:
The Mufti of Jerusalem (i.e. local Muslim leader) during World War II

From Sir Martin Gilbert, The Second World War, p. 265:

In Berlin, Hitler learned on November 28 [1941] that the German siege of Tobruk had been broken, and that Rommel was in retreat. That same day, he received the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin el-Husseini, who told him that "the Arab world was firmly convinced of a German victory, by virtue not only of the large Army, brave soldiers and brilliant military strategists at Germany's disposal, but also because Allah could never grant victory to an unjust cause." In reply, Hitler reminded the Mufti that "Germany had declared an uncompromising war on the Jews." Such a commitment, he said "naturally entailed a stiff opposition to the Jewish homeland in Palestine". Germany was "determined", Hitler added, "to challenge the European nations one by one into a settlement of the Jewish question and, when the time came, Germany would turn to the non-European peoples with the same call".

After gaining "the southern exit of the Caucasus", Hitler told the Mufti, he would offer the Arab world "his personal assurance that the hour of liberation had struck". Thereafter, he explained, "Germany's only remaining objective in the region would be limited to the annihilation of the Jews living under British protection in Arab lands."

In fairness, the following should be added, from page 458:

August 1943 had seen many setbacks for Germany's war-making machine. September was to see many more. The first of them that month was particularly of Germany's own making, the mutiny of Muslim volunteers in the 13th SS Division. These Muslims, living in Sarajevo and its surrounding villages and valleys, wished to further their own aspirations by fighting alongside Germans in the Balkans. But they were belittled and maltreated by their German officers, who despised them, and, during the mutiny, several Germans were killed. From Berlin, the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin el-Husseini, who had cast his lot with the Germans against Britain, hurried to Bosnia, where, with some difficulty, he helped to restore order among the mutineers.

So Nazi racism did, to some extent, cover Muslims as well as Jews. But note that the Muslim SS officers were volunteers, not prisoners or conscripts, and that at the first break in the Nazi-Muslim alliance, the Mufti rushes in to repair it. (I believe Nasser was also a buddy of the Mufti and his friends during the War, but Sir Martin does not cover this.)
posted by Cacciaguida at 8:52 PM

 
Bilingualism

From Jacques Barzun's From Dawn to Decadence: 1500 to the Present, p. 45, after remarking that British MPs, until recently, expected each other to be fluent in Latin, though not in Greek:

Humanists [of the early Renaissance] saw Greece through Roman eyes anyway. The vivid awareness and worship of Greece -- the Parthenon, Pericles, the Venus of Milo -- came later in our era, and different conceptions of Greece have flourished in successive periods. But throughout, the highly educated were supposed to have mastered both the ancient languages, and the clergy must know Hebrew in addition. It is a noteworthy feature of 20th century culture that for the most time in over a thousand years its educated class is not expected to be at least bilingual.

Emphasis added. (He might have taken it back even further than a thousand years, because ca. 1003, the "educated class" was expected to know both Latin and its local vernacular.)
posted by Cacciaguida at 8:22 PM

 
Conversation chez Cacciaguida

Cacciaguida (reading from the parish bulletin): Says here, "If you are moving, please notify the parish office." What if you're not really moving, just kind of sentimental?

Elinor: I think they mean, if you're planning on moving during Father's after-Mass announcements, please notify the parish office, and they'll send someone around to nail you to your pew.
posted by Cacciaguida at 8:12 PM

 
Encouraging: Palestinian Priest Proposes Pilgrimage to Auschwitz.

Long-time readers of this blog may suspect some really evil irony in my calling this "encouraging" -- like, we'll get those A-rabs there one way or the other, you know. NO! I really mean it: a priest who is an "ethnic Palestinian" (I've never been too sure what, if anything, that means, but let that pass for today) who is also an Israeli citizen, wants to lead Christian Arabs, and possibly some Muslims as well, on a pilgrimage to Auschwitz, in hopes of lessening Jewish-Arab enmity in Israel. This seems to me a good thing to do, and a good way to do it.
posted by Cacciaguida at 5:39 PM

 
Administrative Law

A law clerk on the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit writes the following in a letter to Howard Bashman's wonderful blog on federal appellate law, How Appealing:

[Miguel] Estrada's views on "the right to privacy" will matter zippo on this court. Just this past month, when a massive group of protestors strolled by on Constitution Avenue on the anniversary of some-or-another 1973 case having to do with a complex Fourteenth Amendment (?) issue, my co-clerks and I chanted in unison with them (or so we thought), "What do we want?! Arbitrary-and-capricious review!!! When do we want it?! Within a reasonable time!!!" That is, until we realized, to our great surprise: (a) that is not what they were chanting at all; and (b) they were apparently headed to a different Court up the street that opines on matters with which the garden-variety special interest group is actually familiar.

LOL! (Though surely the Sierra Club and the National Resources Defense Council would also weigh in as "garden-variety special interest groups," and surely they are exceedingly familiar faces at the D.C. Circuit -- "most energetic litigants whom we are always glad to see," as they say in Uncommon Law.)

For readers who have been sleeping through domestic news for the past two years, the Miguel Estrada referred to by this letter-writer is a brilliantly credentialed lawyer, and immigrant from Honduras, whom the President has nominated for a seat on said D.C. Circuit, and whose confirmation the Democrats are trying to filibuster without paying the political price of an outright, no-kidding filibuster.

posted by Cacciaguida at 12:22 PM

 
Murder defendant unexpectedly takes the stand; attorney faints.
posted by Cacciaguida at 11:44 AM

 
Conversation chez Cacciaguida

Number One Son (with moderate irony): Dad, it looks like you're cutting edge. (Hands Cacciaguida yesterday's Washington Post business section, with an article on blogging.)

Later:

Cacciaguida (handing the article to Elinor): Three quarters of a year after I start blogging, the Post reports that lots of people are starting to blog.

Elinor (quoting an old Doonesbury cartoon): "It's the media reporting on themselves again. Could be a story in it."
posted by Cacciaguida at 11:16 AM

 
Eve has an article in the current Weekly Standard about what she's learned as a crisis pregnancy center counselor.

It's not on-line yet, which is why you should buy a copy of the current issue. Also, Eve has published in The Weekly Standard before, which is one of many reasons why you should subscribe.
posted by Cacciaguida at 9:10 AM

 
Military history of France. Tee hee!
posted by Cacciaguida at 5:16 PM

 
I'VE PASSED THE 10,000 HIT MARK since installing SiteMeter! See what happens when you go up to Yale for a few days?
posted by Cacciaguida at 11:28 AM

 
Brush up on the seven sins that incur excommunication latae sententiae, that is, of their own force, without any need for a formal proclamation of excommunication.
posted by Cacciaguida at 11:21 AM

 
Let Elinor tell you what that Cacciaguidas were doing over our long weekend.
posted by Cacciaguida at 11:13 AM

 
Just So You Know

James Taranto at OpinionJournal.com reports:

Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal (link for WSJ.com subscribers) has a chilling report on Warith Deen Umar, a New York-based Wahhabi imam who until his retirement in 2000 "helped run New York's growing Islamic prison program, recruiting and training dozens of chaplains, and ministering to thousands of inmates himself." Here are Umar's views on the Sept. 11 massacre:

The hijackers should be honored as martyrs, he said. The U.S. risks further terrorism attacks because it oppresses Muslims around the world. "Without justice, there will be warfare, and it can come to this country, too," he said. The natural candidates to help press such an attack, in his view: African-Americans who embraced Islam in prison.

And who's behind this? Read on:

Imam Umar--born Wallace Gene Marks and later known as Wallace 10X--twice has traveled to Saudi Arabia for worship and study at the expense of the Saudi government and its affiliated charities, part of an extensive program aimed at spreading Islam in U.S. prisons. . . .

Prison dawa, or the spreading of the faith, has become a priority for many Muslim groups in the U.S. and the Saudi Arabian government, which runs what spokesman Nail Al-Jubeir calls a "prison outreach" program. The Islamic Affairs Department of its Washington embassy ships out hundreds of copies of the Quran each month, as well as religious pamphlets and videos, to prison chaplains and Islamic groups who then pass them along to inmates.

The Saudi government also pays for prison chaplains, along with many other American Muslims, to travel to Saudi Arabia for worship and study during the hajj, the traditional winter pilgrimage to Mecca that all Muslims are supposed to make at least once in their lives. The trips typically cost $3,000 a person and last several weeks, says Mr. Al-Jubeir, the Saudi spokesman.

This of course is the same Saudi government that has hosted U.S. troops for 12 years to protect it from Saddam Hussein. This is yet another reason why it's urgent to eliminate the Iraqi threat. With friends like the Saudis, who needs--indeed, who can afford to have--enemies?




posted by Cacciaguida at 11:08 AM