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.


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OK, here's the deal on "less easily classified." It's from Waugh's Brideshead Revisited. If you're a Catholic, and you don't read this novel regularly (viewings of the 1982 BBC miniseries may occasionally be substituted), there had better be a darn good reason.

In the scene in question, our heroes' dodgy pal Anthony Blanche is recounting his previous evening's adventure to captive audience Charles Ryder:

"Then they began saying, 'Put him in Mercury.' Now as you know I have two sculptures by Brancusi and several pretty things and I did not want them to start getting rough, so I said, pacifically, 'Dear sweet clodhoppers, if you knew anything of sexual psychology, you would know that nothing could give me keener pleasure than to be manhandled by you meaty boys. It would be an ecstasy of the very naughtiest kind. So if any of you wishes to be my partner in joy come and seize me. If, on the other hand, you simply wish to satisfy some obscure and less easily classified libido and see me bathe, come with me quietly, dear louts, to the fountain."

posted by Cacciaguida at 8:26 PM

 
Terri Schiavo martyrdom anniversary. Fr. Pavone, of Priests for Life, issues an open letter to Michael Schiavo:

...Some have demanded that I apologize to you for calling you a murderer. Not only will I not apologize, I will repeat it again....

Also, a telling detail via another PFL priest who was there:

...Our sister Terri was near death by dehydration, while a display of live flowers stood just inches away, immersed in water. Along with a few relatives and friends who were on the visitors’ list, we were joined by armed police officers, making sure none of us shared that water with Terri....

And visit the Terri Schindler-Schiavo Foundation.
posted by Cacciaguida at 8:17 PM

 
Introducing an eclectic new webzine called MercatorNet, which describes itself as

an innovative internet magazine analysing current affairs and key international news and trends which touch its readers’ daily lives.

Hard to pigeonhole ideologically -- and that's good. Pro-Christianity, and pro-traditional-family, yet lacking that impending-doom, woe-is-us spirit that too often -- well, you know; just check it out.

I'm going to link to MercatorNet under "Less Easily Classified." (Question to MercatorNet editors: do you know where I got that expression?)
posted by Cacciaguida at 10:17 PM

 
U.S. Naval Institute to hold conference on riverine warfare. What'll they think of next? More on this topic here by Haditha-Dam-bound Marine reservist B4-Jedi, whose blog has lately been one Dam thing after another!
posted by Cacciaguida at 5:11 PM

 
Infant euthanasia in Holland

[T]he prime minister of the Netherlands thinks that killing babies because they are born with terminal or seriously disabling conditions is not a scandal, but daring to point out accurately that German doctors did the same during World War II, is.

And more, by Wesley Smith, writing on The Weekly Standard's daily online edition, about what happened to handicapped infants in Germany in the late '30s, and what is happening to them right now in the Netherlands, and the distressing lack of difference between the two.

N.B. -- Though this is not the main point, coverage of this issue presents a snapshot -- and not an atypical one, in my observation -- of who cares about what within what we are still pleased to call "conservatism."

A quick review of the websites of the conservative press suggests that The Weekly Standard is the only one that is paying attention to this issue. NR and Human Events are worried primarily about immigration (hats off to HE, however, for timely obits for Cap Weinberger and Lyn Nofziger); The American Conservative is concerned mainly with attacking Bush, Cheney, and the war, and also offers a tantalizing but unclickable reference to what for everyone else was four-weeks-ago's news -- "Free Speech Hits Its Limit in Austria." Mr. Irving will be glad to know they still care. Chronicles, even more creepily, is exercised about "the black crime wave against whites."

The American Spectator, for its part, has some good stuff, including this article about Baylor's scandalous decision to refuse tenure to pro-life scholar Francis Beckwith.

But active eugenic euthanasia being huffily defended within the councils of Europe? Only the Standard seems to care.
posted by Cacciaguida at 4:18 PM

 
Photos from the Washington Opera's current production of Wagner's DAS RHEINGOLD, first episode of the RING cycle. The idea in this production is to use distinctively American images to re-tell Wagner's epic: hence, panhandler Alberich; tycoon Wotan; Native American Erda; AFL-CIO giants, etc. It could work.
posted by Cacciaguida at 10:49 PM

 
Belles-lettres with Bella

Good morning. We begin this series with a multiple-choice question.

Scene: You are an 11-year-old girl. You are out at the opera with your daddy, something you love doing. At an intermission you ask him to buy you a Hershey bar, and by the time he comes to, he has done so. However, he puts the half you haven't finished in a jacked pocket when we go back inside for Act IV. Later he gives it back to you, but finds it has melted all over the pocket. What do you say?

a. Oh, I'm sorry, Daddy!
b. Don't worry, I'll take care of it! [really meaning to]
c. Don't worry, I'll take care of it! [meaning to hand it over to mommy]
d. I'm sure the dry-cleaner can take care of it!
posted by Cacciaguida at 12:00 PM

 
From the Diocese of Arlington, via Greg, good news and bad news. Imo, the good outweighs the bad. It's especially good for those who live in or near Front Royal. For the folks at Christendom College: a couple of years ago the Bishop said to stop using your altar rail, but now the Tridentine rite comes to your local parish, with love from the Bishop!
posted by Cacciaguida at 9:47 AM

 
Coyote in Central Park. Problem is, the locals think it can be easily identified by its ever-present stash of goods from the Acme Company.

The coyote, nicknamed Hal by Parks Department staffers, may have wandered into the city from Westchester County, perhaps swimming across a river, [Parks Commissioner] Benepe said.

But there's no continuous park from Westchester into Central Park. Unless it likes city streets, it would have to take the #4 bus from Cloisters/Ft. Tryon down to 110th St.
posted by Cacciaguida at 9:38 AM

 
Daily Times (Pakistan): "Italy's 'Theo-Cons' Rally Against 'Islamic Threat'"
posted by Cacciaguida at 6:48 PM

 
The Times (London) reports:

THE Vatican has begun moves to rehabilitate the Crusaders by sponsoring a conference at the weekend that portrays the Crusades as wars fought with the “noble aim” of regaining the Holy Land for Christianity....

At the conference, held at the Regina Apostolorum Pontifical University, Roberto De Mattei, an Italian historian, recalled that the Crusades were “a response to the Muslim invasion of Christian lands and the Muslim devastation of the Holy Places”.

“The debate has been reopened,” La Stampa said. Professor De Mattei noted that the desecration of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem by Muslim forces in 1009 had helped to provoke the First Crusade at the end of the 11th century, called by Pope Urban II.

He said that the Crusaders were “martyrs” who had “sacrificed their lives for the faith”. He was backed by Jonathan Riley-Smith, Dixie Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Cambridge University, who said that those who sought forgiveness for the Crusades “do not know their history”. Professor Riley-Smith has attacked Sir Ridley Scott’s recent film Kingdom of Heaven, starring Orlando Bloom, as “utter nonsense”.

Professor Riley-Smith said that the script, like much writing on the Crusades, was “historically inaccurate. It depicts the Muslims as civilised and the Crusaders as barbarians. It has nothing to do with reality.” It fuels Islamic fundamentalism by propagating “Osama bin Laden’s version of history”.

Of course no non-Catholic Englishman ever gets a Church story entirely right, and the Times is quite wrong about one thing:

The late Pope John Paul II sought to achieve Muslim- Christian reconciliation by asking “pardon” for the Crusades during the 2000 Millennium celebrations.

Wrong-o. He apologized for wrongful acts committed in connection with the Crusades and other events. He did not repudiate the Crusades as such, and indeed could not, as several of them were called by his predecessors.
posted by Cacciaguida at 6:21 PM

 
Luna Lovegood (Evanna Lynch). Somebody's got big eyes...!
posted by Cacciaguida at 12:14 AM

 
L.A. Weekly on Fallaci's latest:

The book is also animated by a world-class journalist’s dismay that she could have missed the story of her lifetime for as long as she did.... There were clues, certainly. As when, in 1972, she interviewed the Palestinian terrorist George Habash, who told her (while a bodyguard aimed a submachine gun at her head) that the Palestinian problem was about far more than Israel. The Arab goal, Habash declared, was to wage war “against Europe and America” and to ensure that henceforth “there would be no peace for the West.” The Arabs, he informed her, would “advance step by step. Millimeter by millimeter. Year after year. Decade after decade. Determined, stubborn, patient. This is our strategy. A strategy that we shall expand throughout the whole planet.”

posted by Cacciaguida at 11:58 AM

 
Blondie's 2006 tour schedule
posted by Cacciaguida at 10:04 AM

 
The blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church.

"We are not against any particular religion in the world. But in Afghanistan, this sort of thing [conversion to Christianity] is against the law," the judge said. "It is an attack on Islam."

OIC -- it's not an anti-Christian thing, it's just that there's this law. Glad you cleared that up.

(Say, didn't we throw the Taliban out? Maybe Afghanistan needs a booster jab....)
posted by Cacciaguida at 9:48 PM

 


Saint Joseph
posted by Cacciaguida at 9:36 PM

 
Prince Charles has often tried my patience, but I'll give him a small book of free passes for having referred to the leadership of China as "appalling old waxworks."
posted by Cacciaguida at 12:02 PM

 
Not an obit! Happy birthday, John Macurdy!

Macurdy, now retired, served the Met as one of those mainstays of any opera company: the first-class second-string bass. Often cast as the aggrieved father Count Monterone in RIGOLETTO, he could easily step up to the larger role of the assassin Sparafucile. He was sometimes the 2nd Grail Knight in PARSIFAL, but I also once saw him give a superb account of Gurnemanz, a long-winded major character who dominates Act I and III.

Perhaps Macurdy's greatest artistic success was creating (= being the first ever to sing) the role of Rev. Hale in Robert Ward's gorgeous opera version of THE CRUCIBLE. (That opening-night cast was captured in this recording.)

Macurdy's potential as a Wagnerian was discovered late in his career -- not just the "royal secondary" parts like King Henry in LOHENGRIN, King Marke in TRISTAN, and the Landgrave in TANNHÄUSER, but the juicy "villain" parts too. A high-ranking Met manager once told me that the greatest performance of Act II of GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG he had ever seen was a dress rehearsal in which Macurdy played the sinister Nibelung-heir Hagen.

Macurdy once portrayed the giant Fafner in DAS RHEINGOLD in the former production of THE RING. When the RHEINGOLD of the current production premiered -- and Elinor and I were there -- Macurdy sang Fasolt, the more "star role" of the two giants, partnered by the awesome Fafner of the late Aage Haugland. That was a night.

Happy birthday, John!

EDITED TO ADD: Happy birthday also to my sister, Cacciabezzi!
posted by Cacciaguida at 11:34 AM

 
Wotan's pastor:

The letter noted Verrigni's 29-year clerical career, which took him to parishes in Newburgh and the Bronx before he served in Mahopac, Larchmont and Valhalla.

posted by Cacciaguida at 10:34 PM

 
Underlord?

The print WSJ announces in one of its front-page news bullets this morning: "Underlining the deteriorating Iraq situation, U.S. jets mounted the biggest air assaults since the 2003 invastion...."

Right. Now, try this: "Underlining the deteriorating Europe situation, Allied forces mounted the biggest amphibious assault in military history...."

Or this: "Underlining the invincibility of the North Korean People's Army, U.S.-led U.N. forces mounted a desperate amphibious landing on the peninsula....

No, I don't mean that Operation Swarmer was just like Normandy or Inchon, but -- "Underlining the deteriorating..."? Sheesh. Say, you don't think they meant "undermining," but were off by one letter?

Fourth Rail, of course, has a series of posts on Operation Swarmer. Belmont Club weighs in here.
posted by Cacciaguida at 1:25 PM

 


Anna Moffo, 1933-2006

Mark R., in the comments under the Augustus post, reminds me not to be so behind-hand with major opera-bituaries.

Anna Moffo was a lyric soprano who expanded her range in both the dramatic and coloratura directions. One of her earliest hits was her Susanna in the Giulini recording of THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, still considered by some to be the best recording of that opera. On the dramatic end, she recorded a highly-regarded MADAMA BUTTERFLY. Given this range, it's perhaps natural that Violetta was her signature role.

Aided by her distinctively '60s type of good looks, Moffo was a prominent star of the Met stage as well as the RCA recording studio throughout that decade. The performance of hers that I know best is her Gilda in RIGOLETTO, opposite Robert Merrill and Alfredo Kraus. Here her voice is lovely, but hardly innocent-sounding, as the role requires. For her best moment, notice the way she meshes seamlessly with the orchestra violins in her Act I duet with Merrill. Otoh, the big duet with Kraus doesn't quite come off, since Gilda isn't supposed to sound as though she's had more trips around the block than the Duke. (Kraus is at his sweet-sounding best, and lands the optional high D at the end of "Possente amor.")

Late in her career Moffo was chosen by RCA for a commercially daring venture: a full-scale studio recording of Italo Montemezzi's L'AMORE DEI TRE RE, a gem of early 20th century decadence that was standard-rep in the '30s and '40s but has fallen out of favor since. Some have criticized RCA for thus capturing Moffo's voice substantially past its prime, but I'd rather have her gutsy rendition of Fiora on records than not.

In retirement, Moffo was an active part of the New York opera scene right to the end, and, due to printers' deadlines, is mentioned in the current Opera News as participating in a tribute this coming May to the late Birgit Nilsson. Sadly, Moffo will be "late" too.

EDITED TO ADD: In the late '60s, Grace Bumbry undertook the title role in Richard Strauss's SALOME, and let it be known that she would end up in the altogether at the conclusion of the Dance of the Seven Veils. One opera fan I know poo-pooed this news, but then aded thoughtfully, "Now if it were Anna Moffo...!"

No fear. Moffo didn't have nearly a heavy enough voice for Salome.
posted by Cacciaguida at 8:48 AM

 

You're Augustus


Which Roman Emperor Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Now, I'd have said I can't administer my way out of a paper bag, but hey, Augustus rocks. "All the world being at peace," and all that.

Now, I used to hold his defeat of Antony against him, because I used to groove on the Julius Caesar-Cleopatra-Antony set, and when I did, I found Octavius/Augustus rather a pill. Yes, my old view was J.Caesar was a great leader, Antony showed admirable loyalty to him, and Cleopatra showed admirable, um, loyalty to them both, sequentially.

But sometimes one has to update one's prejudices. Latterly I've had to consider the possibility that J.Caesar was an aspiring dictator in the 20th century sense, not the 4th century B.C. sense; that Antony was an orientalized voluptuary; and that Cleopatra was, erm, well, not a good influence. Antony and Cleopatra is one of Shakespeare's greatest plays, but Shakespeare didn't write history when he wrote histories, so why should he have started to when he wrote tragedies?
posted by Cacciaguida at 11:37 PM

 
The holy-water font in my parish is empty during Lent. It shouldn't be. (Hat-tip: Curt Jester.)
posted by Cacciaguida at 8:23 PM

 
Yesterday was my parents' 50th wedding anniversary. It can be done.
posted by Cacciaguida at 8:22 PM

 
Bill Roggio is back at Fourth Rail, and says:

The yearlong operations in Anbar - or the Anbar Campaign - which culminated in Steel Curtain and Rivergate, set the stage for today's success. Prior to the series of 'clear and hold' operations which established a permanent presence in the various cities and towns along the Western Euphrates River, the Iraqi Army was absent from the region and U.S. forces were garrisoned in few areas - Camp Gannon in Husaybah, at the Haditha Dam, Ramadi, and at Camp Al Qaim and Al Asad Air Base, both which lie miles south of the river in the middle of the desert.

The various towns and cities were contested grounds - al-Qaeda and the insurgency could not hold the ground for any realistic amount of time, and Coalition forces did not have the manpower to maintain the required presence needed to restore order. The Anbar Campaign reduced al-Qaeda and insurgency's bases of operations in preparation for the final assault and garrisoning of the cities....

Boldface added, natch.
posted by Cacciaguida at 5:31 PM

 
Ladies and gentlemen, these are not the droids you're looking for: watch Chief Justice Roberts's speech at the Reagan Library by following the "clicking here" link in this post at How Appealling.

Some good stuff, esp. in the q&a at the end. E.g., on difference between Court of Appeals and Supreme Court: "On the Court of Appeals, we were terribly concerned with figuring out what the Supreme Court meant. On the Supreme Court, not so much."
posted by Cacciaguida at 1:32 PM

 
"Order Denying Motion for Incomprehensibility." This is great. Don't miss the footnote.
posted by Cacciaguida at 5:12 PM

 
Ralph Peters, a brainy strategist I happen to know, and who used to run the "emerging threats" research department at the Pentagon, published an important piece in a recent Weekly Standard, critiquing the techno-geek "revolutution" that seems to have a stranglehold on today's military planners:

There is, in short, not a single enemy in existence or on the horizon willing to play the victim to the military we continue to build.

Read the whole thing.
posted by Cacciaguida at 4:24 PM

 
Rumsfeld v. FAIR: 8 to 0, the Roberts Court clobbers the law professoriate's attempt to bar military recruiters at law schools.

The military discriminates against you-know-who, you see, so the profs don't want JAG recruiters coming around. In fact, they claim a First Amendment right to keep them off. So Congress passed a law, called the Solomon Amendment, yanking federal funds for law schools that bar military recruiters. The profs said they had a First Amendment right to bar military recruiters and keep getting those funds.

The Court -- Chief Justice Roberts writing the opinion -- said no, partly because the Court's First Amendment precedents on point don't go that far, partly because Congress's enumerated power to raise armies and navies is in play here.

I'm not surprised by the result -- but unanimous? Not even a teeny-weeny separate concurrence, much less a dissent? I know Roberts is charming, but who knew he could do Jedi mind tricks?
posted by Cacciaguida at 9:43 PM

 
Added to "The Few, the Proud, the On-Line": 4th Assault Amphibious Battalion and B4LAR.
posted by Cacciaguida at 9:25 PM

 
Blogs to watch:

Trousered Ape: an Exercise in Presumption, by Bob the Ape

Fringe Watch, by Matthew Anger: monitors the infiltration of otherwise-orthodox Catholic circles by no-kidding-neo-fascist elements. Such monitoring needs doing, alas.
posted by Cacciaguida at 7:00 PM

 
What would '08 mentionees do about state pro-life laws? Sign 'em, say Allen, Romney, McCain, and, most resolutely of all, Brownback. Not heard from (and unlikely to be) are Giuliani, Pataki, and the Governator. Story here.
posted by Cacciaguida at 1:35 PM

 
Islamist terrorism at University of North Carolina
posted by Cacciaguida at 12:28 PM

 
Why I won't be writing much about the "crunchy cons"

1. I hate Birkenstocks. People who wear them are at a disadvantage in my pre-acquaintance screening process.

2. I like Walmart, and I think giving poor people access to low prices on everyday goods is a social justice issue.

3. I like big cities, and I like suburbs.

4. I am increasingly wary of all forms of agrifascism, and I sniff it whenever I hear organic food freaks fixing to try me for the heresy of "worshipping the market."

5. Sacramentality is serious stuff. If you can't get more precise than "an opportunity to encounter ultimate reality -- even, if you like, divinity," or than "nourish something in the human soul" (quotes taken from Rod Dreher's book as reviewed by Brian Anderson in the 3/13 print NR), then either you're a crypto-New Ager, or your theory is not yet ready for book form.

6. Anderson, paraphrasing Dreher's praise of organic food, says: "You also free yourself from moral complicity with factory farming, with its drugged cattle and feces-covered chickens." I have never lost a wink of sleep over either. Seriously: in a world with thousands of abortions every day, it is culpably frivolous to suffer the slightest fret over whether chickens are being subjected to unpleasant smells.

I've already given this subject more time than it deserves.
posted by Cacciaguida at 3:56 PM

 
State Senator saves primary challenger's life
posted by Cacciaguida at 1:25 PM

 
Conversation chez Cacciaguida: Ash Wednesday

ELINOR (looking critically at dishwasher): Greg, there's nothing clean.

GREG: That's OK, there's nothing to eat.
posted by Cacciaguida at 1:27 PM