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

 
In the course of a very worthwhile column on why the Supreme Court drifts left, Bob Novak says: "Conservatives are resigned to [social-liberal White House Counsel Alberto] Gonzalez as the first Bush nomniee for the high court."

That so? What do you think? Care to start some blogbuzz to the contrary?
posted by Cacciaguida at 11:46 AM

 
Happy Feast of the Sacred Heart

Homily by Fr. Jim here.
posted by Cacciaguida at 12:23 PM

 
Constitutional law: the Daniel approach

This is going to be my last comment on Lawrence v. Texas, at least in this forum.

I used to start my con law classes by telling students that there is a difference between "constitutional law" and "the Constitution," the former being merely what the Supreme Court has said about the latter, and there being no necessary connection between the two.

I am now forced to concede that in so saying, I erred -- on the side of excessive respect for the Court. Because while I intended all along to induce scepticism about the Court's self-awarded oracular status, I conceded too much to the Court by using the word "law" to describe what it does, at any rate in major cases. I am forced now to agree with these words from a friend and constitutional mentor (written after Grutter and before Lawrence, but all the more applicable after Lawrence, IMO):

Analyzing liberal Supreme Court opinions is like analyzing Ted Kennedy's speeches. It is a mistake in principle to pretend that they bear any resemblance either to the Constitution or to law. It is foolish to assess their degree of consistency, rationality, etc. And it is downright dangerous to analyze them in those terms, because it gives credence to the pretense that anything is going on that vaguely resembles law. The public policy pronouncements that are periodically issued in Supreme Court releases do not need to be analyzed and criticized; they need to be ridiculed and delegitimized.

posted by Cacciaguida at 11:44 AM

 
It came from the swamp

Lawrence is about as bad as it could be. Bowers is overruled; substantive due process now covers all sexual conduct. Every item on the Santorum List is now immune from regulation, or will be found to be so as soon as the necessary lawsuits are filed and resolved. (Unless of course the Court finds some way to ignore the plain purport of what it announced today and find that these other cases are somehow different. That would be legally unprincipled -- but then so is today's decision, insofar as it is nakedly based on political philosophy rather than legal reasoning.)

As the dissent points out, the Court curiously never announces that sodomy is fundamental right, and thus never squarely declares that the central holding of Bowers was wrong. Rather, the Court today revives the "mystery passage" from Casey and re-deploys it.

This is amazing. The first time the Court was called upon to apply the mystery passage outside of the abortion context, it waved it away (Washington v. Glucksberg -- assisted suicide). But today this jurisprudential fart, which most of us had agreed to pretend to ignore, is back, and driving the Court's culture-war rulings.

The Court says at several points that its holding today does not necessarily have any import for same-sex "marriage."

Do not believe it, says Justice Scalia. More illuminating than this bald, unreasoned disclaimer is the progression of thought displayed in an earlier passage in the Court's opinion, which notes the constitutional protections afforded to 'personal decisions relating to marriage, procreation, contraception, family relationships. child rearing, and education,' and then declares that "[p]ersons in a homosexual relationship may seek autonomy for these purposes, just as heterosexual persons do." Thus, Scalia continues, Today's opinion dismantles the structure of constitutional law that has permitted a distinction to be made between heterosexual and homosexual unions, insofar as formal recognition of marriage is concerned. Slip op. at 20-21, Scalia J. dissenting, citing slip op. at 13 (emphasis added).

Opponents of same-sex "marriage" have only one argument left: that children need both a mother and a father. Society's moral judgment expressed through its democratic institutions, heretofore an adequate support for "resticting marriage" to opposite-sex couples, no longer is so, says the Supreme Court.
posted by Cacciaguida at 12:54 PM

 
Sodomy decision

Lawrence has come down as a strong gay-rights decision -- how strong, we're still waiting to find out. It's 6-3, written by Kennedy, O'Connor concurring on narrower grounds, Scalia writing the dissent, joined by Rehnquist and Thomas, and reading it from the bench.

When Scalia reads a dissent from the bench, you know it can't be good news for anything except English prose.

Early press accounts, accessible via How Appealing here, keep saying that the Court has "reversed course" from "17 years ago," referring to Bowers v. Hardwick. We don't yet know whether they've actually reversed Bowers. There were plenty of ways to hold for the Texas appellants here while preserving Bowers.
posted by Cacciaguida at 10:40 AM

 
Lewis Perdue, author of Daughter of God (see my post of June 10 entitled "Surrey with 'Infringe' on the top" -- clever, no?) writes in to say:

Caught your brief blog on the topic and wanted to mention that while there
are huge similarities, Daughter of God is not about the ""Jesus bloodline"
theory" ... as a medieval scholar, you might be interested in the
substantial amount of history in Daughter of God.

Best.

Thanks for writing, and sorry to have misrepresented your book. I'll look it up! (Notice that this time around, I've linked to it!)
posted by Cacciaguida at 9:40 AM

 
Why am I still up at this hour? Oh.
posted by Cacciaguida at 1:05 AM

 
Bunn-Lawn.
posted by Cacciaguida at 1:04 AM

 
A sign of hope

Catholic News Service reports:

French couple, not wanting children, denied marriage by parish priest

METZ, France (CNS) -- A French bishop has defended a parish priest in northern France who refused to officiate at a marriage because the couple planned not to have children. Bishop Pierre Raffin of Metz said the priest was correct in denying the marriage because the church requires the "personal adherence to the Catholic Church's vision of marriage -- that marriage is entered into freely, for life, and for the procreation of children." Bishop Raffin said the church regularly granted marriage to people unable to conceive children "for reasons of age or physical impediment," but required healthy couples to express their willingness to procreate "in writing and publicly" at the moment of marriage. "The absence or explicit refusal, hard and confirmed, of one of these dispositions prevents the priest from solemnizing a religious marriage," he said.

Won't necessarily persuade this couple to trust God, but at least the Church won't be party to a lie. And that's a good way to teach the truth. (And no, in case you were wondering -- being of the same sex is not one of those "physical impediments" that pose no canonical obstacle to marriage. A physical impediment is an illness, defect, or other imperfection. Being of a particular sex is not an illness, defect, or other imperfection.)
posted by Cacciaguida at 11:55 PM

 
Grutter

Have gotten as far as the syllabus of this opinion upholding U.-Mich Law School's use of race as a "plus-factor" in admissions. Visit How Appealing for links to decisions. Basically:

* "Diversity" is now a "compelling state interest" in the context of university admissions, but, in a twist of O'Connoresque specificity, only in that context.

* The Court adopts the Powell opinion in Bakke as a holding of the Court, thereby ending decades of judicial and academic hand-wringing over when and how the opinion of a sole Justice can be the law of the land, and also implicitly overruling the 5th Circuit's Hopwood opinion.

* However, affirmative action programs that use hard numbers, like the one in Gratz, the companion U.-Mich College case, are still an Equal Protection no-no, because they are not "narrowly tailored," unlike the "soft variables" used at the Law School. I'm not sure why numbers are not "narrowly tailored" but "soft variables" are, but maybe I'll understand that when I've read the full opinions.

* New affirmative action pick-up line: "I love your soft variables...."
posted by Cacciaguida at 11:42 AM

 
Serfs up

Apparently the two University of Michigan "affirmative action" cases are now out, O'Connor is reading out the opinion in Grutter (the U-M law school case), and the holding is 5-4 in favor of the program; but the program at the college was upheld, see, because it uses numbers, or something like that. Haven't been able to chase down a copy yet, and of course several important opinions are still expected this week and next.

Don't you just love this late June ritual every year -- the citizens of a supposed democracy, waiting at the Court's steps, like a chorus of serfs in a Russian opera, to find out what our fundamental law is going to be?

But hey, at least we threw out all those kings, and put the Church in its place, right? No more government-by-fiat for us, no sirree!
posted by Cacciaguida at 10:32 AM

 
Monday's birthdays

According to The Kansas City Star:

Today's Birthdays: Singer Diana Trask is 63. Musical conductor James Levine is 60. Rhythm-and-blues singer Rosetta Hightower (The Orlons) is 59. Actor Ted Shackelford is 57. Actor Bryan Brown is 56. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is 55. Actor Jim Metzler is 48. Actress Frances McDormand is 46. Actress Karin Gustafson is 44. Rock musician Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth) is 41. Actor Paul La Greca is 41. Singer Chico DeBarge is 33. Actress Selma Blair is 31. Rhythm-and-blues singer Virgo Williams (Ghostowns DJs) is 28.

Via How Appealing. Emphasis added.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JUSTICE THOMAS AND MAESTRO LEVINE!!


posted by Cacciaguida at 10:36 PM

 
Time Magazine asks: Should Christians Convert Muslims? I haven't cared what Time thinks since Luce retired, but if you do, be my guest.
posted by Cacciaguida at 9:49 PM

 
The Economist: Wagner's RING cycle will be performed in Russia for the first time in a century. Via NYC Opera Fanatic.
posted by Cacciaguida at 10:34 PM

 

Ian McDiarmid, not Peter Falk (see post immediately below), as Porfiry Petrovich
(with John Simm as Raskolnikov; BBC production)
posted by Cacciaguida at 12:09 AM

 
The Rat was surprised to learn that Porfiry Petrovich was the model for Columbo? (Scroll down to June 16.) But of course! True, Porfiry is older and rounder, but listen to his techniques: "Oh, one more thing...," the seeming after-thought that traps the bad guy into fatal admissions. Columbo's trademark look was modeled on an earlier Peter Falk character -- the hero of the early '60s CBS lawyer show, Trials of O'Brian. But the technique was based on Porfiry. Or so I've heard for years.

 
Beating the Florida Marlins last night, the Mets are once again a half-game out of last place.
posted by Cacciaguida at 12:56 PM

 
Slate columnist says Church really is like Mafia

From the article:

But the idea that the Catholic Church resembles the Mafia in other ways is hardly new. It has at least one distinguished adherent in Wilfrid Sheed—novelist, essayist, Slate diarist, and (more to the point) son to Frank Sheed and Maisie Ward, founders of the venerable Catholic publishing house, Sheed & Ward. In 1974, Sheed published a book titled Three Mobs: Labor, Church and Mafia. Among other points of comparison, Sheed told Chatterbox in a phone conversation earlier today, is a sense that one belongs to the elect. Of the church, "Clare Boothe Luce said, 'It's like being born into a noble family,' " Sheed explained. "A snob like Evelyn Waugh thought this was the true aristocracy." (Think of the Marchmains in Brideshead Revisited.)

Of course, the Church is not "the elect" (that would be either Calvinist or Gnostic, maybe both). And I don't see what all this has to do with the Mafia, except insofar as the latter may be, as the article goes on to put it, a "parody of class."

On the other hand: "noble family"..."true aristocracy"..."Marchmains" -- I could live with that!

posted by Cacciaguida at 12:25 PM

 
Cacciadelia at the podium: Creation

Last night my daughter (age 8) made the following oration:

Scientists are great, but no one can know how God created the Earth. Maybe the angels helped Him. I mean, they couldn't go to WalMart. There was no world then.
posted by Cacciaguida at 10:47 AM

 
Thanks to Pansy and Peony Moss, of Two Sleepy Mommies, for your kind comments on Cacciadelia -- and welcome to my blogroll!

For the rest of you: TSM is about raising kids, homeschooling, Papal encyclicals, and an array of other highly Cacciaguidatory topics; plus, it has a roll full of blogs that I simply must visit! Definitely on the feminine side, but hey, so are some of my best friends (I mean the women among them!!), not to mention my daughter. (Have I mentioned my daughter, btw?)
posted by Cacciaguida at 8:45 PM

 
Hume Cronyn, RIP



Obits for this fine actor here and here.

My fondest memories of Cronyn are, on stage, as Captain Queeg in a revival of THE CAINE MUTINY COURT MARTIAL, and, on TV, as Lewis Avery Filer -- the Monopoly Thief!! -- in two episodes of HAWAII FIVE-O.

When asked how he was, Hume would sometimes say: "I'm fine, and Jessica's working." His marriage to Jessica Tandy was a wholesome reminder that marriages can be life-long even among actors.


Cronyn and Tandy: a marriage both "fine" and "working"

posted by Cacciaguida at 4:48 PM

 
Even more about the Phoenix bishop story

The Bishop who acquiesced in the alienation of a portion of his canonical authority in order to avoid jail time has since gotten involved in a fatal hit-and-run accident, apparently killing a jaywalker.

He thought it was a good deal to let the district attorney trim his episcopal authority for him, so long as he could stay out of jail. Now, he's still bound by that deal (to the extent he ever was -- I'd like to hear from canon lawyers about the validity of the deal), but his chances of avoiding jail time just trickled out the door, all because of an apparently unrelated incident.

I say apparently. I don't necessarily buy the instant-zap theory of divine retribution, but, as a well-meaning non-Catholic friend writes, "it would take a truly hardened atheist not to see something providential" in this turn of events.

Of course, let's pray for Bishop O'Brien, the victim, the victim's family, the Diocese of Phoenix -- and for the swift apprehension of the second driver whose existence is suggested by some of the evidence (to put it brutally, the victim bounced further than O'Brien's car could possibly have propelled him), and whose involvement may mitigate O'Brien's legal guilt.


posted by Cacciaguida at 4:28 PM

 
Exposing "Voice of the Faithful"

That's the agenda of this new site, called Faithful Voice. Haven't explored it in detail yet, but it looks good.
posted by Cacciaguida at 10:10 PM

 
Frank Keating out for calling bishops "mafia". Don't let the door hit you as you go, twit. And take McChesney and her "survey" with you.
posted by Cacciaguida at 11:18 PM

 
Oracle suggestion

I don't know how the untimely death of Gloria Foster will impact, or has impacted, the third MATRIX movie. Maybe the whole picture is already in the can; maybe they can digitize Gloria.

But in case they need a new Oracle, I, as both an opera fan and a MATRIX fan, have a suggestion:


Beloved 60s-era "Blacko-Rican" soprano MARTINA ARROYO!
posted by Cacciaguida at 11:00 AM

 
Just So You Know

Zenit: Catholic expert on Islam reacts to Rome imam's sermon. (Follow-up to last Thursday's Just So You Know.)
posted by Cacciaguida at 6:23 PM

 
The Old Oligarch explains why God "can't" "will" 1+1 to be anything other than 2. (Bonus track: a handly little apologia for THE MATRIX.)
posted by Cacciaguida at 5:14 PM

 
A TOSCA joke

Once upon a time, on the Texaco Opera Quiz (or rather, the "Opera Quiz Formerly Named After Texaco But Now an Orphan Because Texaco's New Owner, Chevron, is a Butt"), Met assistant conductor Alberta Masiello was asked what Baron Scarpia's first name is.

"Louie," she said.

How d'ya figure? Obvious, she said: after killing him, Tosca remarks: E avanti a lui tremava tutta Roma!

ROTFL!

(Actually, Scarpia's first name is Vitellio. You can check it in Sardou.)

posted by Cacciaguida at 5:01 PM

 
In response to your many requests

Here she is...


Cacciadelia, in Mom-made First Communion dress
posted by Cacciaguida at 4:32 PM

 
More on the Phoenix Bishop story

Religion reporter David Gibson makes in this op-ed the same points I made in a June 3 post entitled "St. Thomas Becket, Call Your Office." Gibson, however, has more details. Via Extreme Catholic.

I hate to admit it, but this actually appeared in The New York Times. Yes, an op-ed got past the NYT gatekeepers despite being both and interesting and fairly supportive of the Church -- each of these being generally fatal for getting published in the NYT.

Gibson ends with a call for more "openness" in the Church on administrative matters, which, he insists, would not spill over into doctrinal and moral matters. He may be right, depending on how he draws the boundaries of what is "administrative." I take his point to be that more voluntary "openness" would head off the real disaster that he is rightly worried about, namely, diminution of a bishop's authority by government order, for which Phoenix sets a precedent. (Was the implied criticism of the hierarchy, mild though it is, a condition for getting into the NYT? Did the editors make Gibson add it? Did they add it themselves?)

The Phoenix matter could make a winnable Establishment Clause case for the Bishop. Unfortunately, the Bishop is playing ball with the state, and I can't see how anyone else would have standing to bring the suit.


posted by Cacciaguida at 10:48 AM

 
Just So You Know (return of an old favorite feature)

WorldNetDaily, citing The Jerusalem Post, reports here that the new imam of the largest mosque in Europe -- it just happens to be in Rome, btw -- supports suicide bombings, provided they are done in Israel, and not, as in recent cases, Morocco or Saudi Arabia. This, he explains, is because the latter countries are part of the Dar-al-Islam (territory of Islam), whereas Palestine, being "occupied," is part of the Dar-Al-Harb (territory of war).

Of course, all non-Islamic territories are part of Dar-al-Harb. The imam gives Italy a pass, because of a "covenant" supposedly arising from the Italian state protecting its Muslim citizens. Does this apply to all nations that have Muslim citizens and don't persecute them? Is this classic Islamic teaching?

And how do Romans feel about an imam who, while being "moderate" about his neighbors, nonetheless advocates this?
posted by Cacciaguida at 4:48 PM

 
The sum of all spam...

...according to Christopher Caldwell in The Weekly Standard, is: "GET LOLITA OUT OF DEBT BY ADDING THREE INCHES TO YOUR MORTGAGE!" Any way we can work "Nigeria" into that?
posted by Cacciaguida at 4:44 PM

 
Gnostic gnuances?

Homeland of the Nag Hammadi library bans THE MATRIX. Via Matrix Essays.
posted by Cacciaguida at 3:30 PM

 
Extreme Catholic, welcome to the blogroll!
posted by Cacciaguida at 3:24 PM

 
Alexander the Great has a good post about Tolkien here.
posted by Cacciaguida at 3:04 PM

 
The surrey with "infringe" on top

I've refrained from blogging about Dan Brown's bestselling novel The DaVinci Code, despite (or because of?) the fact that it consists in substantial part of a vicious hit on Opus Dei.

But now comes news that an another author, Lewis Perdue, believes The DaVinci Code is a rip-off of Perdue's novel, The Daughter of God, and is threatening litigation.

I'd say I felt sorry for Brown -- but I'd be totally lying.

Know what else is funny? Amazon is offering The Daughter of God and The DaVinci Code as a combination "best buy"! (No hotlinks 'cause I don't want to promote either of these books.)

BTW, it appears both of these novels propogate the "Jesus bloodline" theory, discussed in the comments section of my June 4 post on THE MATRIX, Merovingians, and Cathars.
posted by Cacciaguida at 3:36 PM

 
Hmm -- delighted! Also surprised, but what the hey. The questions were more probing than in most Quizillas, and I answered them as candidly as I could:


You are Neo, from "The Matrix." You
display a perfect fusion of heroism and
compassion.


What Matrix Persona Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla


posted by Cacciaguida at 12:14 PM

 
An approach to Leo Strauss: dialect over dialectic

A response to Heidegger, hypothetically delivered in the course of an article on Leo Strauss in Asia Times (via Arts & Letters Daily):

It is a shame that Eddie Murphy never studied philosophy, for then we might have had the following Saturday Night Live sketch about Heidegger's definition of Being with respect to Non-Being, namely death. The use of dialect would make Heidegger's meaning far clearer than in the available English translations:

"What be 'Be'? You cain't say that 'Be' be, cause you saying 'be' to talk about 'Be', and it don't mean nothing to say that 'Be' be dis or 'Be' be dat. 'Be' be 'Be' to begin wit'. So don't you be saying 'Be' be 'Be'. You wanna talk about 'Be', you gotta talk about what ain't be nothin' at all. You gotta say 'Be' be what ain't 'ain't-Be'. Now when you ain't be nothing at all? Dat be when you be daid. When you daid you ain't be nothing, you just be daid. So 'Be' be somewhere between where you be and where you ain't be, dat is, when you be daid. Any time you say 'Be' you is also saying 'ain't-Be', and dat make you think about being daid."

That is all there is to Heidegger's Existential idea of Being-towards-death. Metaphysical pettifogging of this sort appeals to people whom the disintegration of social order has made uncertain about their sense of being....

The author observes further on:

Strauss is neither a Heideggerian Historicist nor a Greek rationalist, but exactly the opposite. He was confused, but confused in a very special way. He was a confused Jew.

That is the secret that Strauss never revealed to any of his students (how many teachers admit to confusion?). A Jewish atheist, an old joke goes, tells God: "Look at all the terrible things you have permitted to happen! Just for that, I refuse to believe in you - so there!" To advance a solution to mankind's problems (in this case Socratic political philosophy) in the full knowledge that it cannot possibly succeed is a peculiarly Jewish gesture, a perversely stubborn statement of faith in the face of all the known facts.

Strauss shared his "confusion," and the splendors of which it was composed, with his students, and (this is getting very Biblical here) with his students' students, even unto the nth generation. His "confusion" is a great achievement.


posted by Cacciaguida at 12:20 PM

 
Eve has a pro-life reading list front and center on her blog today (actually, under last Friday's date).

My own favorite pro-life article is not on-line, because it was written in 1978, when computers were still mystical refrigerators tended by bearded priests (sometimes women), and the cutting edge in word-processing was the IBM Selectric.

It was an article in National Review by Grover Joseph Rees III, then a law professor, later Chief Justice of American Samoa, still later Chief Counsel to the House Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights, and currently U.S. Ambassador to East Timor. His 1978 article was entitled "Confessions of a Single-Issue Voter." A good line that I remember: "The central horror of our time is the one you can put on MasterCard."
posted by Cacciaguida at 11:21 AM

 
Forbes.com on the BugBear2 worm. Hackers aren't always heroes.
posted by Cacciaguida at 10:48 AM

 
Wuerl to Boston?

Pittsburgh Bishop Donald Wuerl is emerging as a leading possibility for Archbishop of Boston. Though some have criticized him for sex-ed programs in diocesan schools, his reputation is sterling throughout most of the "conservative" Catholic world. I myself have spoken at one of the Catholic education conferences that Bishop Wuerl sponsors on a semi-regular basis, and the whole event was wonderful, if you don't count my speech.

An announcement is expected Tuesday in Boston. Also expected on Tuesday -- at a fax machine in Rome -- is the resignation letter of Richmond Bishop Walter Sullivan.
posted by Cacciaguida at 9:58 PM

 
More Shakespeare Reloaded -- How Aaronic!

When I blogged the other day about MATRIX stars in Shakespeare roles, I missed one: Harry Lennix (Capt. Lock) played Aaron the Moor in TITUS, Julie Taymor's film version of TITUS ANDRONICUS. (With Anthony Hopkins as Titus, Jessica Lange as Tamora, and Alan Cummings as Saturninus.) You might say my earlier post was cut off, heh, heh, heh, er, never mind.

Aaron is probably the most thoroughly evil character ever put on the Elizabethan stage. According to one scholar I was reading last summer, his only rival would be Barabas, the title character in Marlowe's THE JEW OF MALTA. What's with the Elizabethans, that their finalists for "most evil character" are a black and a Jew? Anyway, this scholar sets up side by side the speeches by Aaron and Barabas in which they recite the fell deeds they like to do, notes their similarities, and awards to prize to Aaron by a small margin. Aaron is quite unlike later Shakespeare villains, such as Iago, Lady Macbeth, and Edmund. These are much more complex; Lady Macbeth and Edmund even show signs of conscience; so indeed does Shakespeare's fictionalized Richard III. But not Aaron.


Lennix as Aaron in TITUS
"Ten thousand worse than every yet I did
Would I perform if I might have my will.
If one good deed in all my life I did
I do repent it from my very soul."

(He makes this speech as he's being led off to execution, btw. He is sentenced to be buried up to his chest until he starves. Good job, too.)

No, I have not seen TITUS myself. Here is a Barnes & Noble link for it featuring a review (the first one on the page) by an old friend of mine. When Shakespeare starts to do Quentin Tarantino, I stick to the printed page -- or, maybe, the audio version. There is a good one with Michael Hordern as Titus, a very young Judi Dench as Lavinia (mostly a groaning role, of course), and Maxine Audley and Anthony Quayle reprising their Old Vic successes as Tamora and Aaron.
posted by Cacciaguida at 6:35 PM

 
Whoa -- I too am famous at MatrixEssays. But they're adding on fast; I'm already 3/4 of the way down, so catch me there before I'm archived. Also on tap over there: the only possible sequel to the Dr. Seuss version -- a rap version!

All right, enough blogging for today -- gotta work, so I'm going into my Matrix. What'll it be today? Strauss's ELEKTRA. This one.
posted by Cacciaguida at 1:11 PM

 

U.S. Naval Academy, where son Cacciagiuseppe just spent five intense days.
posted by Cacciaguida at 12:46 PM

 
So what else is "reloaded"?

At our most recent viewing, when Neo pulls the flagpole out of the ground and swings it at the Smiths, my 13-year-old baseball-playing son turns to me and whispers: "It's corked."
posted by Cacciaguida at 12:31 PM

 
The following abstract has appeared on a professional listserv:

"From Protecting to Promoting: Evolving EU Sex Equality Norms in an Organisational Field"
European Law Journal, Vol. 9, No. 1, pp. 88-108, February
2003

BY: THERESA WOBBE
University of Erfurt - Faculty of Law, Economics
and Social Science

ABSTRACT:
This paper builds on a process-oriented approach which examines constitutionalism with respect to both legislation and social practices. Drawing on the institutionalist concept of the organisational field it provides tools for explaining the emergence of the distinct connectedness and isomorphism of European sex equality norms. The paper elucidates the shifting meaning of sex equality in the field of employment on the one hand, as it demonstrates the close ties between sex equality law and the constitutional status of gender norms on the other. Contrary to both the intergovernmentalist and neo-functionalist approaches in European integration studies, the concept of 'institutionalist field' allows for explication of shifting institutional demands that work beyond the rational interests of the nation-state. The field approach thus emphasises the interrelation between legal and political actors and their respective shared cognition which defines what bears meaning.

Confession: I have not read the article. That said, here's my question: Is this abstract anything more than a very, very fancy way of saying "Bureaurcrats understand one another"?


posted by Cacciaguida at 10:13 AM

 
The Old Oligarch today offers a wealth of MATRIX theorizing. Leading off is a Christian-philosophical take on RELOADED, from which I gather that Anglican "neo-orthodox" (what kind of orthodox?!) theologian Catherine Pickstock makes a valuable contribution to reconstructing language after the Foucaultian assault.

Further along: O.O. on why the Oracle is not a determinist. It has to do with Augustine's distinction between voluntas and libero arbitrio. Highly recommended.
posted by Cacciaguida at 4:45 PM

 
"Operator."
"I need some remedial medieval history. Fast."
"Comin' up."

The MATRIX phenonemon, though entertaining, is causing a plague of the semi-informed. Someone who wrote in to Matrix Essays gives us this howler:

"....the descendents of the Merovingians, the sect of the Cathars, were considered as heretics by the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages and accused of witchcraft."

Uhhh, no. The Merovingians were a dynasty; the Cathars were (you got this one right) a sect. Dynasties and sects are different things; look them up. The Merowings (Latinized to Merovingians) were the ruling clan of the semi-barbarian Franks, a Germanic tribe that pushed into Roman Gaul in the (I think) 5th century, and there established what gradually became the kingdom of Francia, or France. St. Gregory of Tours chronicles their doings in his History of the Franks.

As their power waned in the 8th century, the dynasty headed by Charles the Great ("Charlemagne") replaced the remnants of Merovingian rule, inaugurating the Carolingian era, generally seen as much more culturally advanced than the Merovingian era. I don't know what the Wachowskis intended, but for medievalists, the Merovingian era is seen as barbarian; one of the few eras as to which the phrase "dark age" is not inappropriate.

The Cathars were a 12th-13th century manifestation, in southern France and northern Italy, of a gnostic-dualist cult that first appeared in Persia as Manicheanism in the pre-Christian era, and then, in a pseudo-Christian guise, oozed westward over the centuries, appearing as the Paulicians in Asia Minor in the early Byzantine era, as the Bogomils in Bulgaria in the 10th century, and finally as the Cathars. And the Catholic Church accused them, not of witchcraft, but of heresy; these are not the same thing.

There is no virtue that anti-Catholic historians have not been willing to attribute to the Cathars, but in fact they sucked -- perhaps literally, since one of their tenets was that procreation was to be avoided at all costs, as every new human conception "imprisons" another soul in a body. (On a related note, the word "bugger" may come from "Bogomil".) See generally Sir Steven Runciman, The Medieval Manichee.

Obviously this notion of souls "imprisoned" in bodies chimes in with the "gnostic" aspects of THE MATRIX. But it seems to me that the closest thing to Cathar ideology articulated in THE MATRIX is Agent Smith's "virus" speech in the first movie.
posted by Cacciaguida at 2:58 PM

 
Conversation chez Cacciaguida: The Matrix Re-Corked

Scene: Watching THE MATRIX with sons. Cacciaguida and Number One Son have glasses of wine. In middle of Oracle scene, just after the vase business, we pause out the DVD to discuss what's going on.

Cacciaguida: OK, un-pause it.

(Turns back toward TV and overturns wine glass, shattering it. Long silence with significant looks all around.)

Cacciaguida: My kids'll get it.

Number One Son: There IS no wine glass.

Cacciaguida: What really bends my noodle is, would I have broken it if we hadn't paused the picture?

(Next morning:)

Cacciaguida: We're down one wine glass. There was a glitch in the Matrix.

Elinor: No doubt.
posted by Cacciaguida at 2:43 PM

 
Daily Torygraph: Primates at War Over Gay Marriages. That would be Anglican archbishops, not chimpanzees and organgutans (who seem relatively untroubled by the subject).
posted by Cacciaguida at 2:34 PM

 
St. Thomas Becket, call your office

This is very alarming. To avoid prosecution for obstruction of justice, Rev. Thomas O'Brien, Bishop of Phoenix, has "relinquished control" over matters concerning priests accused of sexual abuse.

It could be worse: the deal might have assigned control over accused priests to secular rather than ecclesiastical authorities. But it's still pretty bad: the deal purports to bind not only Bishop O'Brien but all future bishops of Phoenix. I doubt whether, under Canon Law, that promise is lawfully his to make.

Meanwhile, the prosecutor is crowing about how he has "a hammer over the head" of the Diocese, permanently. This evokes some of the abuses of secular influence in ecclesiastical governance that led the great reforming Popes of the 11th century to bring about the "papal revolution."

What next? Will the Bishop be required to clear doctrinal pronouncements in advance with the District Attorney's office? If that happened, would he comply?
posted by Cacciaguida at 2:08 PM

 
There IS no Oracle

In this otherwise ho-hum piece about THE MATRIX is feminist because it shows women as warriors (like STAR WARS didn't?), we learn this about Gloria Foster, who played The Oracle: "Foster, 64, died of complications from diabetes during shooting of "Reloaded" but had finished most of her scenes."

Died? Most?

Thanks to Alexander for the tip. Also, three Hail Mary's for Ms. Foster's soul.

Next point: When I wrote about Anthony Zerbe (Councillor Hamann) the other day, I noted that in RELOADED he "looks more than thirty years older" and then added, "But wait -- so do I!" I did not thereby mean to imply that I was in THE MATRIX RELOADED.

But then, how do you know I wasn't? :)


posted by Cacciaguida at 1:40 PM

 
Anniversary and First Communion reflections at Mommentary today.
posted by Cacciaguida at 12:03 PM

 
Shakespeare Reloaded

As long as I'm blogging about the Shakespearean pasts of Matrix actors, such as Zerbe's Iago (and BTW, remember when I told you about the Prospero and Shylock of Ian "The Emperor" McDiarmid?), let's not forget these outstanding Matrix-related Shakespeare movies:

* Keanu Reeves's fiery yet slimy Don John in Kenneth Branagh's MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

* Laurence Fishburne in a fine OTHELLO, co-starring -- Kenneth Branagh (N.B. Fishburne spells his first name the unusual way, with a "u" -- just like Olivier! -- rather than the more common "w".)

Are the Oracle and the Architect controlled by the Bard?





Reeves in MUCH ADO: "A plain-dealing villain"




Fishburne in OTHELLO (with Branagh):
"One who loved not wisely but too well"



posted by Cacciaguida at 11:03 AM

 
"Non Sequitur" cartoon of today's date -- what I've always said about the New York Times.
posted by Cacciaguida at 10:47 AM