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

 
Separated at birth?


Professor Severus Snape (l); Maestro Riccardo Muti (r)
posted by Cacciaguida at 1:46 PM

 
Studying ancient philosophy makes you clear-minded; studying modern philosophy makes you a gobbledygook-dealer: so argues Prof. Michael Pakaluk on his blog, Dissoi Blogoi.
posted by Cacciaguida at 10:36 AM

 
Lots of opera vocal scores on line

ETA: Some of them are actually full scores: FIDELIO, NORMA, ELISIR, LUCIA; Gluck's ALCESTE and his two IPHIGENIEs, Handel's ACIS & GALATEA, AGRIPPINA, and ALCINA; HANSEL UND GRETEL (don't scoff: when the Bayreuth stage crew needed a few extra bars to cover the Act I scene change at the premiere of PARSIFAL, they turned to Humperdinck rather than bothering the Meister); Massenet's DON QUICHOTTE, MANON, and WERTHER; COSI, ABDUCTION, IDOMENEO, FIGARO, and FLUTE; Purcell's DIDO, Rimsky-Korsakov's ZOLOTOI PETUSHOK (??); BARBER, ARIADNE, BALLO, DON CARLO, TRAVIATA, TROVATORE, LOHENGRIN, PARSIFAL, TRISTAN, and FREISCHUTZ.
posted by Cacciaguida at 12:17 PM

 
Dr. Walid Phares, writing at Counterterrorism Blog, on the release of the Fox journalists who "converted" to Islam:

Obviously, hostages -especially if they weren't evangelists - would accept the conversion as a mean for securing liberation or at least physical security. But there were cases of Priests, Evangelists and Christian local leaders, who were executed after they refused to convert. These cases didn't receive the publicity received by media or secular Western citizens’ hostages.

However, there were cases where hostages were released without being forced or even asked to convert.

The question emanating from these hostage-conversions is two fold: a) is it considered as legitimate one in the eyes of Islamic law? Under international law, any forced conversion under threat is null and void. Under Sharia law a similar verdict could be issued by an Islamic court who would argue that conversion by force is not acceptable (La ikrah fil deen). But Jihadi interpretation may argue that the conversion is standing with the immediate consequence that reverting back from the new religion is punishable by death. This would play a considerable role in intimidating the ex hostages, and would allow the Terrorist group to call for sanctions in the future against the journalists. [Emphasis added.]

posted by Cacciaguida at 10:56 AM

 
I'm home! Thanks for all the prayers! Korean Air (formerly KAL) rocks!
posted by Cacciaguida at 8:41 PM

 
Back at Incheon Airport, Seoul. Flight to States leaves in two hours. Final verdict on Mongolia and Ulaanbaatar: students great, city sucks, country is acquired taste that I failed to acquire.

Here in Korea, there's so much bandwidth, they give it away at the airport, limited only by a sign over the computer that says "Please, use briefly for the person behind you." There's no one behind me, but I'm going to git and move on over to my gate anyway. Thanks for prayers; keep them coming.

P.S. Blogger comes up in Korean, but I think I know my way around it by now.
posted by Cacciaguida at 6:54 PM

 
I'll pretend that I'm missing
The town I am dissing
And I'll love all my leaving from you....
posted by Cacciaguida at 7:55 PM

 
Putting the ger in Ratzinger, bay-beee: We went out to one last night (Wednesday). To a ger, that is (Mongolian word for yurt, which turns out to be a Russian word). It wasn't a functioning nomad community: more of a Mongolian Wild West Show, featuring demonstrations of Mongolian wrestling, horse-racing, shamanic dancing, music, and archery. The site has numerous gers that you can rent: our host rented one for us to rest in before dinner, and another (bigger) one to have dinner in.

To justify the pun in the title, I should mention that I carried Catholicism into the Mongolian countryside by answering religious questions that some in our group had. It was fun. A ger, made of heavy felt, has a strange way of keeping noise out and creating a very quiet environment inside. For families who live in them, however, there is no Western-style notion of privacy. That new Mongolians ever get made is, I suppose, a testament to the pacifying power -- re other family members -- of the ger.

The sun had set by the time we returned to town. Night is the best time to see Ulaanbaatar: it's less visible that way.

The best thing about the outing was Monkhuu's stream of jurisprudential questions. His mind goes a mile a minute, and he is fearless in using his limited English to try to overcome the inherent untranslatablity (into Mongolian) of many Anglo-American legal concepts. I mean, how would you answer "What is due process?" and "What is equity?" in such a situation? Given time and patience, I think we achieved some breakthroughs. Btw, Munkhuu is a Hayek fan, dislikes Rawls, and is trying to translate David Boaz's Libertarianism into Mongolian.

Thirty-seven-and-a-half hours to wheels-up, according to schedule. Guardian angel, pray for me.

EDITED TO ADD: I've found out why it's cool here. It's not because Mongolian summers are cool: it's because Mongolian autumns begin in August. First snow is expected in September. From November to April, temperatures below zero will be constant.
posted by Cacciaguida at 10:33 PM

 
Wednesday update -- Mon-goal setting: Last night three of us profs, plus the indispensable Monkhuu, went to UB's famous State Department Store. This should be read as "State Department-Store," i.e. a dept. store set up by the state (though now privatized), rather than as "State-Department Store." The latter sounds like a place that sells Condi mugs. At UB's State Department-Store you can get everything from cutting-edge electronics to cashmere to Chinggis Khan hats.

Afterward we went to BD's Mongolian Barbecue. The food is authentically Mongolian, but in other ways this was the most American-tourist oriented place we've been to yet. The waiters (all Mongolian) have slogans on the backs of their t-shirts such as "Go Mongo," "Grillaz in da hood," and "We do it on the grill." I think this is good: making Westerners feel at home, while simultaneously celebrating local nationhood, is a ticket for drawing foreign investment and integrating into the world economy, imo.

So, if this is such a good junket, why am I counting the hours till I start the trip home? Well, Ulaanbaatar -- try to imagine an average Eastern European town, only without all the medieval or baroque architecture that lends it whatever charm it has. The people here who are poor are much more bustling and energetic than the U.S. poor; so that's not the problem. For me, Soviet delapidation just doesn't work as an urban design concept. Plus, I have this thing that public garden spaces should occasionally be mowed and trimmed, loose or missing sidewalk bricks should be replaced, and long stretches where sidewalk gives way to gravel should be filled in. But that's just me. (The hotel is a welcome refuge.)

Also, a lot of my self-concept is bound up in this idea that wherever I go, I can more or less speak the language. (You know: France, Italy, American-Evangelistan....) Thus, being in a place where the language is so alien to any of the ones I know that it might as well be Martian gives me an ego bruise, only partly made up for by the charming Mongolian habit of considering all foreigners to be experts. This dates back at least to Chinggis Khan, who relied on Russian advisors to help him conquer Russia and Chinese advisors to help them conquer China. No, I have no apprehension that I'm helping the Mongols conquer America: they've got their work cut out for them conquering Mongolia.
posted by Cacciaguida at 10:06 PM

 
Tuesday update from Ulaanbaatar: In the afternoons I teach at the Rule of Law Institute of Mongolia (ROLIM) (same material as I cover in the morning at NUM). ROLIM has space in a very modern building across the street from the Ikh Khural. ROLIM is a Christian organization, and my students there are already lawyers. Plus, the translator there is rather more sophisticated, so the lecture-to-translation ratio there is close to 1-1, while at NUM it's about 1-3.

As I've mentioned, I teach at NUM in the morning and at ROLIM in the afternoon. Now, I know that people who like puns often read this blog, so I'll bet some of you already want to ask: How can you roll 'em in the afternoon if you're numb in the morning? Well, smarty-pants, NUM is pronounced "Noom," and ROLIM is pronounced "RawLEEEM." So there.
posted by Cacciaguida at 9:37 PM

 
I am now in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, and I've just finished my first class. (It's Monday 8/21 here.) Note to self: constitutional law takes longer to get translated into Mongolian than it does to say in English. I must keep that in mind in order to cover my syllabus.

The local pronunciation of the city's name is close to "Lahn Bahtr." The sounds that are transliterated as single vowels are barely audible. Perhaps "Uln Bahtr" would be as close as we could get. It definitely rhymes with "Potter" rather than with "Babar." (I know all this b/c I made Monkhuu, a student who is one of my hosts, give me a pronunciation lesson in the cab coming in from the airport. Every gens in the world, except the French, is pleased when you try to speak or learn their language.)

Backing up a bit: I had a brief scare when the Mongolian immigration card they hand you on the Seoul-Ulaanbaatar flight turned out to contain a space for "visa number." I had been told I didn't need a visa. But when I got off the plane (the airport here is small but perfectly modern, btw), there was a visa booth right near the passport control desks. Seeing me looking around in perplexity, a friendly Mongolian visa officer who had evidently studied English at the New York Police Academy waved me into the booth. Looking as Mongolian as Chinggis but talking like one of my old pals down at Puglia in Little Italy, he said, "U.S. passport don' need no visa for a short visit. But if ya stay longer'n toity days, it's gonna cost ya!" Smile, wink. And I'm on my way.

My students here are mostly Mongolian; a few of them speak fairly good English. Others are Korean, and there's one young lady named Caroline who's from Cameroon. She speaks English and French.

My hotel? It's in an old building but it's completely refurbished inside. It lacks little of what the Best Western Incheon had. Way better than an average American Super-8, if that gives you any perspective. It even has that "insert card here" doodad for the lights, except that the appropriate card seems to permanently inserted in it, and we guests have traditional keys (and can control the lights via knobs near the bed). The place is in an unpromising side street -- an alleyway, really -- but it's right near two of the city's main boulevards, and a five-minute walk to the Ikh Khural (parliament) and the National University of Mongolia (NUM), where I teach in the morning.

Right now I'm in an upstairs office at NUM, and I can see from the window the cafe where we're going to have lunch, and the Cuban embassy. I can also see a building that's a poster-child for Soviet-era disrepair, but there are also spanking new modern office buildings.

Oh and it's cool here. Elevation is about 1000 feet above sea level, and you can see mountains just north of town.

More later if possible. If I get a mid-morning break in this particular office, I may be able to blog every day. If not, not. Till next time, Chinggis Khan wants you!
posted by Cacciaguida at 9:48 PM

 
Mass at Myeung Dong Cathedral was beautiful -- and packed. Mass at 10, 11, and noon, and the only way to get a seat at one is to attend the previous one! Separate post on all this later.

South Korea is ahead of us in technology -- you've heard about that, re bandwidth and such? Well it's certainly true re hotel room lighting. Your electronic key not only controls the door: it also controls the lights. You stick it in an electronic reader just inside, and having done that, you can then control all the lights in the room from a little button-console near your bed. It's also an easy way not to lose your card-key: it has to be in the light-connected card-reader, b/c if you take it out, all the lights go out.

Oh and those "Do not disturb" and "Make up room" signs that, with us, are still celluloid cards that you hang on the doorknob? Here: buttons inside the room, that activate signals on the outside.

I don't know which will seem more like retreating to the iron age: moving on to Mongolia tonight, or returning to the U.S. next weekend.

South Korea ROKs. Get it? ROKs? HEE HEE! HEH HEH! HOO HOO! Euugggghhhhh....

Ulaanbaatar ho.

EDITED TO ADD: I know this post is dated Saturday, but, trust me on this, it's tomorrow here.
posted by Cacciaguida at 7:45 PM

 
While I'm away, DECLARE

Says the author:

I have a sort of back door in my skepticism in that I'm a practicing Roman Catholic, and though I'm generalizing, Catholics do have a sort of double-barreled view of the supernatural which is: "I don't believe a word of it" and "I wouldn't touch it." So I'm totally skeptical and totally scared of it at the same time.

(N.B. By "supernatural" I believe he means paranormal events intruding into familiar, "rational" life.)






Elena, drawn by the author.

posted by Cacciaguida at 3:12 PM

 
Myeong-Dong Cathedral, Seoul: main website. Test your Korean, or click through to their their English-language site. Respectful bow: Joshua.
posted by Cacciaguida at 1:04 PM

 
A yurt couldn't hurt: I wasn't kidding about this -- I actually am going to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, later this month, with a one-day stopover in Seoul, Korea. If anyone has any advice (my airline and hotel needs are taken care of), I'd be grateful.

It was in 1206 that Genghis (or, as now tranliterated, Chinggis) Khan unified the Mongols into an empire and began westward expeditions that ended up kicking you-know-who's you-know-what. The good folks of Ulaanbaatar have been celebrating the 800th anniversary this year, to the point of (so I've heard -- I'll report back whether it's true) taking down the statue of a Stalin-era tinpot from in front of the Khural (parliament) building and replacing him with Genghis.

Particular question: does anyone know the best way to get from Incheon Airport to the Seoul Cathedral, and back? I'm not keen on using the subway, because, since this is my first visit to Seoul (or indeed anywhere in Asia!), I'd rather see the city than its underground tubes. I'm willing to take a cab, but perhaps there are cheaper surface alternatives.
posted by Cacciaguida at 2:27 PM

 
Assumption

St. John took care of Our Lady from Pentecost until her Assumption, but he was also (still) a young man, and we used to wonder whether he ever hung out too long with his friends, the way young men will do. Hence, a family joke:

"John will be home in time for tea."
-- the Unfounded Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Click here for my annual scriptural take (cribbed from Scott Hahn and Tim Staples) on this feast.
posted by Cacciaguida at 8:48 PM

 
Attack-journalist Mike Wallace's fawning interview with Iranian president and global screwball Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council nails it: "CBS: Sixty Minarets."
posted by Cacciaguida at 8:15 PM

 
Speak German? Maybe? A little? Want to watch the Holy Father's German television interview -- no voice-over, no subtitles, just four dignified German journalists and the Pope, all speaking their native language? Klicken sie denn hier. (Hutverbeugung: Whispers in the Loggia.)

ETA: If the link doesn't work, go to the Whispers post here and click through (...und durchklicken).
posted by Cacciaguida at 6:15 PM

 
I've updated the link for Kross and Sweord, the blog of the Paladin of Faith and Reason. Go there and get Crusaded!
posted by Cacciaguida at 6:09 PM

 
According to John Keegan in Intelligence in War, medieval English kings were convinced that members of religious orders were spies. So here's what I want: possible names for religious orders dedicated to contemplation, preaching, and espionage. So far, I don't have much:

The FranCIAscans, and the their quasi-heretical off-shoot, the Spy-Ritual Franciscans

The Double Dominicans

The Night Templars

The Clueniacs

The Carchasethusians

The Rich Clares

The Cistercinformers
posted by Cacciaguida at 6:09 PM

 
OK, about the thwarted Big One:

Powerline endorses this Times (London) round-up.

WorldwideStandard explains it all for you here and here.

CNN notes that of the 21 suspects arrested, "some were of Pakistani ethnicity, a senior U.S. intelligence official said." No! You mean they weren't American businessmen, American southerners, Catholic priests, or homeschoolers? Shocking. Young Muslim males. Who'd have thought it?

The President used the term "Islamo-" -- *significant pause* -- "fascists." But the Council on American-Islamic Relations wants to put the f-word off-limits in this context; The Corner reports.

"Dearbornistan": "Investigators in southeast Ohio said they were working to unravel how two Michigan men charged with supporting terrorism came to have airplane passenger lists and airport security information."

De Nile: Eight out of eleven young males from Egypt who came to the U.S. to study English in Montana (where apparently the world's best ESL facilities for Arabic speakers are to be found -- who knew?) are still missing (hey, it's a big state).

Andy Cochran of CounterTerrorismBlog rounds up some recent posts on the U.K.'s home-grown terrorists.

Apparently the Brits have been working with (legitimate) Pakistani authorities (well, as legitimate as Paki authorities ever get, which in this case seems to be rather a lot) for about a month, i.e. since the outbreak of the Israel-Hezbollah war. A caller on the Limbaugh show today said he had heard that the Brits declined to share the operation with us because that would create too great a danger of its being leaked and published. Roger Hitchcock, sitting in for Rush, said (joke, people, joke! -- at least we think so) that the New York Times is outraged that it didn't get the story two weeks ago. Hitchcock called this a rare setback for the Times in its War For Terror.
posted by Cacciaguida at 1:24 PM

 

Conn. Race Could Be Democratic Watershed
Loss by Lieberman May Embolden Critics of War

By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 6, 2006; Page A01

FARMINGTON, Conn., Aug. 5 -- The passion and energy fueling the antiwar challenge to Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman in Connecticut's Senate primary signal a power shift inside the Democratic Party that could reshape the politics of national security and dramatically alter the battle for the party's 2008 presidential nomination, according to strategists in both political parties.

Oh yes, let's reshape the national Democratic Party, especially its 2008 presidential strategy, so as to make it more competitive in Connecticut -- the state where Republicans are to the left of national Democrats, and state Democrats (with a few working-class holdouts) are to the left of the Yale faculty. (If there are other such states, they all have borders with Connecticut.)

I can see the ads now:

Al Gore: I would have beaten Joe Lieberman too! Why, I invented beating Joe Lieberman! Oh, wait a minute....

Mark Warner: I'm to the right of that notorious reactionary Hillary, but I spent 50K on hors d'oeuvres for Markos Moulitsas's Las Vegas convention, so now I'm the Daily Kos golden boy, and I'd have beaten Joe Lieberman with a stick!

John Kerry: I'd have beaten Lieberman before I lost to him.

Hillary: I've always been a Ned Lamont fan....

John Edwards: There are sue Americas -- I mean, two Americas: Joe Lieberman, and the American people....

Yes, if Lamont wins, by all means let the Democrats conclude this means they have to nominate a candidate of proper leftist purity, like those great presidents Adlai Stevenson and George McGovern.

The fact appears to be that Republicans win presidential elections when they choose their nominee from their Right (1964 was an aberration, explainable by other factors), while Democrats lose when they choose their nominee from their Left.

Examples, re Republicans: Nixon over Rockefeller in '68 (Reagan entered that race too late to be a factor); Reagan over Bush I in '80; Bush I running as Reagan's third term in '88 (but to Buchanan's left in '92, and then he loses to a Democrat perceived as not being from his party's leftist wing). Bush II in '00 is hard to classify: there were candidates to his right in the GOP primaries, but the media made him seem plenty right-wing enough; plus, Gore moved left of his past record in that election.

Examples, re Democrats: Stevenson lost twice, McGovern tanked, and Dukakis blew a lead as soon as "the L word" got attached to him. By contrast, JFK did not run as a leftist, and to do him justice, he wasn't one. Neither was Carter: he was more liberal than Ford; but note that in choosing Ford, the GOP had conspicuously rejected a more conservative choice who had run a very competitive primary campaign; so the '76 race was not so much won by the Democrats as lost by the Republicans. Then there's Clinton, who maintained the image (and occasionally the reality; e.g. welfare reform) of being a centrist.

This is not to argue, as the New Right of the early '80s imagined, that America is "movement conservative" at heart; only that, faced with "a choice, not an echo," Americans will make the right-hand choice.

So yes, by all means let's have a 2008 Democratic nominee chosen for acceptability to the leftist blogosphere and for electability in Connecticut. They might carry Massachusetts too!
posted by Cacciaguida at 6:20 PM

 
Feast of the dedication of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore


posted by Cacciaguida at 10:05 PM

 
"Going to Mongolia for no apparent reason"
posted by Cacciaguida at 10:01 PM