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

 
I am presently trying to stop myself from sending the following message to someone in authority at my university.


Dear _____,

My grandmother died this past weekend. While I shared some reflections on this event with my students, I do not feel justified in sharing it with all members of our university community, most of whom don't know me, and none of whom knew my grandmother.

Which brings me to my main point. Is there any way I can be taken OFF the list of those receiving regular e-mail updates on every ache, pain, and sniffle of every member of our university community, and those of all their relatives and friends?

I understand that we have a rather unique community here, and that these (sometimes daily) health bulletins are couched in terms of prayer requests. But frankly, I'm behind in praying for my own relatives and friends, and it is not realistic to ask me to pray for specific named individuals who are utterly unknown to me.

I'm very sorry about Mr. X, who, I have just learned, (a) exists, (b) has worked in our business office for ten years, and (c) is in the hospital with a heart attack and not expected to survive. In fact, because his case is severe, I actually said a prayer for him. But I would be lying if I implied that he will impinge very much on my consciousness, by comparison with my grandmother.

Apparently I'm not the only one who finds the information overload problematic: I am also receiving regular e-mails from our IT department telling me I have too many e-mails. I think this problem could be alleviated if I were taken off both the health-update list and the excess-e-mail reminder list.

Thank you.
posted by Cacciaguida at 5:31 PM

 

The stars of the various nominated projects all made valiant efforts to gush about how honored they were to be part of such "important" movies, but most of them were long-ago bored with feigning awe at the brilliance, daring and genius of the gloomy and mediocre films that got them all on the red carpet this year....

....and more from Barbara Nicolosi and her commenters about last night's Oscars.
posted by Cacciaguida at 4:55 PM

 
Baltasar Garzon, self-appointed universal judge, now wants "a 'truth commission' to investigate crimes against humanity committed during the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco...."

Oh yes, and why not skip the intermediate steps and indict All Doers of Badness Throughout History, followed by apportionment of reparations among all grievance groups?

Too ambitious? Then let's confine it to Spain in the 20th century -- and investigate terrorism and atrocities carried out under the Second Republic, 1931-39 (especially after the Popular Front political victory of February, 1936, five months before Franco's attempted coup launched the civil war), by militias affiliated with major political parties and winked at by the government. On-point links here and here.

Because, after all, we need "to establish what happened and uncover this part of Spanish history...."
posted by Cacciaguida at 3:48 PM

 
Torygraph columnist Charles Moore writes:

One reason that I am a keen monarchist is that I believe that there should be something semi-comic at the heart of our national life. All the dressing up and the ceremonies, the dynastic ups and downs, the orb, the sceptre and the corgis attain a balance between something very deep and serious and something very silly.

Perceptive about Britain? Applicable to the U.S.? (Something for KCA,* among others, to consider?)

(*If you have to ask, it doesn't concern you.)
posted by Cacciaguida at 3:25 PM

 
Cacciagranny, 1905-2005

My grandmother, "Cacciagranny," died last night. As regular readers know, she recently turned 100.

That's a long life. She drove some of the earliest cars ever made, the ones where you shifted gears by releasing a shift pedal various degrees (in tandem with a releasing a separate clutch pedal, I assume -- but in that case how did you give it gas? By a manual throttle?), and she remembered the number-one road hazard in those days: horses.

As she was only in her late fifties when I was born, we were very close, but not "talking about religion" close. That would be considered extremely rude in a proper bourgeois Philadelphia household. In that milieu, the unspoken ethic was: work hard, be responsible, and attend -- but never, ever talk about -- the church of your choice. Furthermore, synagogues were "churches" for purposes of this code. In the early 20th century, Philadelphia Reform Judaism was barely distinguishable from many forms of liberal Protestantism, and according to religious historian Patrick Allitt, there were even merger talks in Philadelphia between Reform synagogues and Unitarian churches.

Though of course Jewish, Cacciagranny was a wonderful Christmas hostess. I could give Dylan Thomas a run for his money if I were ever to write about my early childhood Christmases at Cacciagranny's and Cacciapoppop's house in Elkins Park, Pa. When my Evangelical friends ask me "How did you meet the Lord?", I sometimes think this is my answer.

(Cacciapoppop died in 1987. He was sweet and funny to family members, but grumpy toward outsiders who didn't meet his standards. He didn't like the assisted-living center to which he and Cacciagranny had moved in 1985, so he just checked out good and proper.)

Just to weird you out a bit, I'll share this: last fall, after a successful surgery, Cacciagranny had a long and cheerful "conversation" with an invisible (to everyone else) Cacciapoppop. Now that's married!

Obviously, the question of the eternal fate of the unbaptized is on my mind, as it has been before. It seems to be the issue non-Christians most want to know about, and also the one on which revelation has been most sparing. But the Catechism says we can pray for them, and I ask you of your charity to do so.
posted by Cacciaguida at 7:37 PM

 
Pope's surprise appearance cheers the faithful. This is very good news, because news reports earlier today hinted broadly at the fact that the Holy Father had not been seen in some days, and wasn't planning to be, which to me seemed to hint at some dark conspiracy to conceal his death.

Watch for the NY Times to imply that the "Pope" waving from the hospital window was, in Monty Python terms, "a dummy." But no, they "sent around a real one."
posted by Cacciaguida at 7:31 PM

 
I will be here this weekend. Back on Sunday.
posted by Cacciaguida at 9:51 PM

 
TERRI

Latest: Judge extends stay until Friday to hear new arguments from parents. Bravo to Bloomberg for its headline; most MSM outlets are using the term "right to die case."

In addition to the links I've already posted, visit these:

Where do I begin?

Contact info for Florida officials and media

Via Beth Cleaver at BlogsforTerri.

For more on the nebulous, unscientific term "persistent vegetative state," go here. Via Eve.
posted by Cacciaguida at 5:12 PM

 
Welcome to a frequent commenter and fellow Dante/Phantom freak, Cadet Lauren B., who blogs at Cntyr. (How is it pronounced, Lauren?) As she is a Dominican (Third Order, I presume), as well as In The Army Now, she will be filed under Catholic Blogs.
posted by Cacciaguida at 12:39 AM

 
The BBC screams: Pope likens abortion to Holocaust.

Someone called Paul Spiegel, president of something in Germany called the Central Council for Jews, contributed to Jewish-Catholic relations by saying: "The Catholic Church does not understand or does not want to understand that there is an enormous difference between mass genocide and what women do with their bodies."

Mr. Spiegel does not understand or does not want to understand that there is a fundamental similarity between mass homicide (why the importance of the "geno-" prefix? Is it only bad if the victims have an ethnic identity in common?) and what the Third Reich did with millions of its subjects.
posted by Cacciaguida at 12:25 AM

 
I guess this means Otto C. Hiss is out of the blogging business, at least until his spirit takes shape again in some other form.
posted by Cacciaguida at 10:37 PM

 
Terri Schiavo sites: she needs our prayers

Terri's Fight

Blogs for Terri

Via The Curt Jester, who also analyzes the Florida Catholic Conference's eerily tepid statement on the case.
posted by Cacciaguida at 9:24 PM

 
Link update

I am about to add links to the following sites that I should have linked to long ago:

SecretAgentMan's Dossier: Reports and Analyses from the Vatican Secret Service

The Commonplace Book of Zadok the Roman

Philokalia Republic: An Amateur's Review of Political Philosophy, Theology, and Current Events with a bit of Literary Commentary thrown in

Res Publica et Cetera, by Publius: Politics, Classics, Catholicism, and a little bit of Technology

and

Rogueclassicism

All will go under "Catholic Blogs," except for Rogueclassicism, which will go under "Medievalist Blogs," because I don't have a separate section for classicist blogs, and I think you can't be a good medievalist without being at least a bit of a classicist.

Welcome!
posted by Cacciaguida at 10:02 PM

 

You scored as Unipolar Depression. Congraulations! You are depressed! You know just how it feels to bear all the world's burdens, and the value of a 19-hour night's sleep. And you really hate that circle-guy thing on your Zoloft pill packets. Unipolar Depression 58% Antisocial Personality Disorder 33% Borderline Personality Disorder 33% Schizophrenia 25% Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder 8% Eating Disorders 8% Which mental disorder do you have? created with QuizFarm.com

What, no pictures? Pretty accurate though. I note that schizophrenia is not out of the running, though it will have trouble raising funds before Super Tuesday. Note too that the Personailty Disorders are potentially a winning coalition.
posted by Cacciaguida at 12:32 AM

 
Susan Estrich blows her stack at the L.A. Times (that notorious rightwing lapdog) for running an op-ed-page full of women writers without getting her sign-off on the women selected; Cathy Seipp of the Indepedent Womens Forum comments here.

Michael Kinsley has replied to Estrich, noting:

[Estrich] is right that we should have more women writing for our op-ed page, and she is right that I am bad about answering e-mail, although she is wrong to think that this bad habit is gender-specific. What seems to have popped her cork, however, is an article by a woman that we did run. I'm sorry that she has 'never heard of' Charlotte Allen, but I think it may be possible to be a woman even if Susan Estrich has never heard of you.

Full disclosure: Charlotte Allen has been a friend of mine since I worked at The Washington Times and she worked at Insight. One day she went to interview then-recently-canned Fr. Charles Curran, who had made a living dissenting from Humanae Vitae. "How did it go?" I asked Charlotte when she returned. Said she: "He's a real lightweight."
posted by Cacciaguida at 5:41 PM

 

Give up Camilla or the throne
By Jonathan Petre, Religion Correspondent, and Marco Giannangeli
(Filed: 12/02/2005)

Sharp divisions over the remarriage of the Prince of Wales surfaced in the Church of England yesterday when long-standing members of its "parliament" called on him to renounce the throne.

More than a quarter of the General Synod's members are thought to be uneasy that the Church's next supreme governor - a title that the prince will inherit if he becomes King - will be a remarried divorcé.

It seems Charles is a victim of the strangely selective morality of the Church of England. If he were a queen, he could be king.
posted by Cacciaguida at 4:25 PM

 
"For two years we have not heard from our ambassador in Spain; if we again do not hear from him this year, we should write him a letter." -- attributed to Thomas Jefferson. Read Dr. Demarche on how the Web will and won't change diplomacy in the 21st century.
posted by Cacciaguida at 10:38 PM

 
Compulsory referrals for abortion?

In its zeal to protect our rights, the American Bar Association may be about to come out against "conscience laws" that protect the right of medical personnel to refuse to offer, perform, or refer for abortion. The proposed resolution does not mention abortion referrals, of course: it speaks in terms of "relevant and medically accurate information necessary to fully informed healthcare decision-making" and "information with respect to their access to medically appropriate care."

The Federalist Society reports on all these doings here (scroll down to "religious hospitals"); more here.
posted by Cacciaguida at 2:59 PM

 
Deacon Keith Fournier and his site, Catholicway, are back!
posted by Cacciaguida at 11:01 AM

 
“We were taking heavy fire from a palm grove when we decided to assemble a quick reaction force. It didn’t matter who did it, just as long as it got done.” Marine radio technician, Cpl. Joshua Abraham, 23, receives Bronze Star Medal. Via JarheadDad.
posted by Cacciaguida at 1:43 AM

 
My rosary came back from the laundry today. I didn't send it there, but that's where it was, and they had it waiting for me in a little bag alongside my shirts and trousers.
posted by Cacciaguida at 9:07 PM

 
Supreme Court drinks
posted by Cacciaguida at 5:35 PM

 
The Washington Post shines in reporting Dean's Day One:

The Special-Interest Group Hug
Howard Dean Meets Democratic Caucuses

By Mark Leibovich
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 12, 2005; Page C01

Incoming Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean spent yesterday in a series of meetings with valued Democratic constituencies at the Hilton Washington. He did the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Caucus at 12:15 p.m., the Seniors Coordination Council at 12:45 p.m., the Women's Caucus at 3:40 p.m., the Native Americans at 4:35 p.m., the African Americans at 5 p.m., the Asian Pacific Islanders at 5:20 p.m. and the Hispanics at 5:40 p.m.

I've long wondered when the Democrats will start organizing their nominating conventions that way, instead of by state. Just imagine the roll-call during the actual nomination.

This is the same party, btw, that is going to try harder to "reach Evangelicals."
posted by Cacciaguida at 5:12 PM

 
        

Happy Valentine's Day.
posted by Cacciaguida at 4:24 PM

 
Sister Lucia, last of the Fatima seers, dies at 97
posted by Cacciaguida at 11:25 AM

 
O sink hernieder,
Nacht des Blogwatch

Athanasius, of Summa Contra Mundum, on pretty girls

Jonathan Lee reviews Stephen Pressfield's Gates of Fire

The Daily Demarche on UN piecekeeping
posted by Cacciaguida at 10:30 PM

 
Ooops, we're down an elector!

WARSAW (Reuters) - A Polish cardinal has ruled himself out of electing Roman Catholicism's next pope by confirming he is 5 years older than his age given in Vatican documents and therefore beyond the maximum voting age of 80.

So we neeed another cardinal. Burke, anyone? (Old Oligarch's analysis here.)
posted by Cacciaguida at 5:00 PM

 
Today is an important feast day...



...yes, Cacciadelia's birthday! (She's 10.)
posted by Cacciaguida at 4:47 PM

 
Pope sweeps back to the Vatican 'impatient to work again'
posted by Cacciaguida at 4:45 PM

 
Ash Wednesday. Last night was Mardi Gras: what did you have? I had 103 and a splitting headache. Today, fasting is the line of least resistance, I assure you.
posted by Cacciaguida at 1:04 PM

 
Romania: what the State Department travel advisories don't tell you about.
posted by Cacciaguida at 6:48 PM

 
This article on the malignant but declining chokehold of modernism on classical music notes inter alia that "Schoenberg's theory of the emancipation of dissonance...also implied the suppression of consonance."

Insert gay marriage analogy here.
posted by Cacciaguida at 5:30 PM

 
Oh great, just what the marriage culture, already reeling from divorce and the gay-marriage issue, needs now: courtship redefined as an illness.
posted by Cacciaguida at 10:59 PM

 
Cacciadelia at the podium: life

"I told Mommy, life is like a road that's sometimes straight, and sometimes curves, and sometimes goes suddenly to the left, or to the right, you know, or to the right, or to the left. And there's a sign that says 'Leaving the video age,' and a few feet away, there's a sign that says 'Entering the DVD age.' And I told Mommy, we're a little bit into it."
posted by Cacciaguida at 2:25 PM

 
A Marine crusader

U.S. General Says It Is 'Fun to Shoot Some People'
Thu Feb 3, 2005 03:07 PM ET
By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A senior U.S. Marine Corps general who said it was "fun to shoot some people" should have chosen his words more carefully but will not be disciplined, military officials said on Thursday.

Lt. Gen. James Mattis, who led troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, made the comments at a conference Tuesday in San Diego.

"Actually it's quite fun to fight 'em, you know. It's a hell of a hoot. It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right up front with you, I like brawling," said Mattis.

"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil," Mattis said during a panel discussion. "You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them."

Oo-rah!
posted by Cacciaguida at 8:00 PM

 
Britain's Conservative Party has not had a Jewish leader -- as it does now, in Mr. Michael Howard -- since Benjamin Disraeli. (And since Disraeli was at least nominally an Anglican convert, many Jews would disclaim him.) So why does the Labour Party wait until now to publish "election posters depicting Michael Howard as a 'Fagin' figure and a flying pig..."?

The poster that caused most offence showed Mr Howard swinging a pocket watch on a chain and saying: "I can spend the same money twice." Critics said it had echoes of Dickens's Jewish pickpocket, Fagin, or Shylock from The Merchant of Venice. Another poster depicted Mr Howard and Mr Letwin, both of whom are of Jewish descent, as flying pigs with the same message about Tory sums not adding up.

posted by Cacciaguida at 1:54 PM

 
Angus Dwyer of Mansfield Fox draws my attention to this kilt:


It's the U.S. Marine tartan! Available at SportKilt.com. Is it available as a scarf? I've got a scarf like this:


Funny, how many people think ye dinnae hae to be Scottish, to be Scottish. Land of moors and mystery. And Macbeth, and Braveheart.
posted by Cacciaguida at 1:13 PM

 
I was on the road last weekend and so didn't blog anything about the election in Iraq. By now most of it's been said, so I'll just add two points:

1. 60% turnout? We don't do that well here, and we don't have civic pirates ordering us to stay away from the polls on pain of death.

2. NEENER NEENER NEENER!

And a few links on point: from Iraq the Model; from The Daily Telegraph (reminding me that when my monarchistic juices stir and I'm tempted to scorn democracy, a little Zarqawi usually fixes me right up); from The Wall Street Journal ("So much for the argument that Arabs don't want democracy"); The Manchester Union Leader visits the Left's whine cellar; and from Mark Steyn ("And so the 'looming Iraqi election fiasco' joins 'the brutal Afghan winter' and 'the brutal Iraqi summer' and 'the seething Arab street' and all the other junk in the overflowing trash can of post-9/11 Western media fictions").

ADDENDUM: "What made the 'insurgency' possible was the gift of time." The Belmont Club explains.
posted by Cacciaguida at 1:11 AM

 
Reuters: Pope's condition stabilizes
posted by Cacciaguida at 11:41 AM

 
Holy Father in hospital. From CNN:

Father Chiro Bamadattimi at that office is telling us that there is no cause for alarm, that this is a precautionary measure, but nevertheless Pope John Paul II has at this time been taken to the Gemelli Hospital for further medical tests.

The pope has been suffering for the last few days of a what the Vatican has described as a mild influenza.

Also here (featuring photo of Pope reacting as the dove he symbolically released from his window last Sunday immediately flew rigth back into the papal apartment).
posted by Cacciaguida at 11:10 PM

 
Another birthday

Today, Pfc. Jonathan Lee Morris, USMC, second of my four sons, turns 19.

I carry his Parris Island graduation photo with me. As of this past weekend, I can report that two very beautiful girls -- one of whom just happens to be a 2nd Lieutenant of Marines, and thus entitled to a salute from Pfc. Morris should they meet in uniform -- examined the aforementioned photo, gave the question the due deliberation that it deserves, and rendered their judgment that Pfc. Morris is CUTE.
posted by Cacciaguida at 5:26 PM

 
A birthday

Last Sunday, Cacciagranny -- my mom's mother -- turned 100. She received family visitors in her retirement home outside Philadelphia.
posted by Cacciaguida at 5:24 PM