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

 
IC Publications, Lagos: African archbishop says Anglican church still faces 'gay' crisis. BBC: Thieves escape with church organ.
posted by Cacciaguida at 1:31 PM

 
Coed at Columbia -- yes, that Columbia -- tries to rescue her brother from the Naval Academy, 'cause it turns out it's military and they're into authority and stuff, and some of their "courses" even teach combat....
posted by Cacciaguida at 9:30 PM

 
The largest parish in the Episcopal Diocese of Rio Grande is leaving the Episcopal Church. Being a charismatic outfit, it doesn't see any need to join any other Anglican ecclesial structure, so it's going to go it alone, bishop-wise. Good luck with that.

From the same article:

The Rt. Rev. Jeffrey N. Steenson, Bishop of the Diocese of the Rio Grande, could not be reached for confirmation.

Well there's a reason for that: he's becoming a Roman Catholic. If he successfully pursues re-ordination, and then becomes a real bishop, I'm sure at that point he will be able to be "reached for confirmation."
posted by Cacciaguida at 9:05 PM

 


"Now what, ah say what, is the meaning of putting up a picture of that irrrrrrresponsible, no-good entertainer-varmint Michigan J. Frog in a post about that puhfect little belle, Girl V? (Sweet old knight, Cacciaguida, but nuttier'n squirrel poo.)"
posted by Cacciaguida at 9:28 PM

 
My goddaughter "knows lots of songs and likes to sing and dance."


posted by Cacciaguida at 7:31 PM

 
In a further development in photo-op over retail in American presidential campaigning, Giuliani makes a stop in London. The photos in the Telegraph show him shaking hands with Lady Thatcher and Mr. Blair, and learning from Prime Minister Brown how to summon a broom. He also did some "wrapping himself in the legacy of Churchill," whatever that means.

Next: lox with Disraeli, evensong with Gladstone, trip to Israel with Balfour, sailing with Heath, cricket with Major, inner-tubing with Hague (free souvenir cap)....
posted by Cacciaguida at 12:05 PM

 
Successful surgery to remove Yorkshire accent
posted by Cacciaguida at 4:54 PM

 
So, O.J. is co-authoring this book with Britney Spears, see -- "If I Did It Again"
posted by Cacciaguida at 10:01 PM

 
Conversation chez Cacciaguida: dark v. nice

ELINOR: I saw a Jane Austen site where there was a poll going on: Bingley vs. Darcy. Can you imagine?

CACCIAGUIDA: Heh. Like that would be a hard choice.

ELINOR: I know. Who wouldn't want to spend an hour with Bingley?

CACCIAGUIDA:

ELINOR:

CACCIAGUIDA:

ELINOR:

CACCIAGUIDA: So, which dialect of Martian did they speak back in your village near the polar ice cap?
posted by Cacciaguida at 1:20 PM

 
Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross. The backstory of this Feast involves both the finding of the Cross by St. Helen, dated to Sept. 14, 326, and its recovery by the Emperor Heraclius in 629 after it had been seized the Sassanid Persian Emperor Cosroes. Worse than the Sassanids was shortly to come, and the Empire was too exhausted from the Sassanid wars to do much about it, but that's not Heraclius's fault: one does the possible with the available.

This feast comes 'round every year, but only once in all time come the other event we celebrate today: Summorum Pontificum Kick-In Day!
posted by Cacciaguida at 8:54 PM

 
Tea for two
And two for tea,
Tea, FU,
FU and tea...

UK Conservative blogger Iain Dale writes in The Daily Telegraph:

Conservatives should make no mistake. Brown is the most ruthless prime minister of this country since Francis Urquhart ["URK-ut"], Michael Dobbs's Machiavellian PM in House of Cards.

(Actually, FU was only PM at the very end of of H of C; not even, since the last scene showed him couldn't-possibly-commenting in the limo on his way to kiss the Queen's hand. If you want real knee-slapping hiss-boo FU PM action, you'll have to watch the second four-part installment in the Urquhart Circuit, To Play the King. But watch out: to watch a high-class, right-wing Prime Minister demolish some sentimental leftist twit of a King descended from German pig farmers is a sore trial of any man's monarchism.)

Returning however to the matter at hand: yesterday the PM has Lady Thatcher over to No. 10 for tea. It was a very gracious gesture. Conservatives are saying it was all political. Of course it was, scones-for-brains! The point is, there are political gestures that are gracious, and those that are not. This one very much was. I only wish Conservatives were half that respectful toward the woman who rescued their party from irrelevance and their nation from disaster.
posted by Cacciaguida at 3:34 PM

 
Conversation chez Cacciaguida: Left Behind

ELINOR: Do you think a padded envelope is OK for mailing a cell phone charger?

CACCIAGUIDA: Sure. Did you sell one on Ebay?

ELINOR: No, Jonathan Lee left his behind.

CACCIAGUIDA (and the rest of you -- all together now): Well if he left his behind, why are sending him his cell phone charger?
posted by Cacciaguida at 10:42 AM

 
Blog discovery: Patum Peperium. Don't know what it means; don't know who they are, except that they're a transatlantic bunch of funny Catholics who write well. But I know this: besides being Catholic and writing well, they link to me. Also to Manolo, Dawn Eden, and Arts & Letters Daily. So you just know.
posted by Cacciaguida at 10:34 AM

 
What the well-dressed Crusader is wearing

Foxfier (see comments to 9/11 post infra) has a T-shirt that says "When Does the Next Crusade Start?" I have a bumper-sticker that says "You say 'neocon' like it's a bad thing." Any other ideas for Crusade-themed word-wear? (Neocon themes accepted as functional equivalent.)

"My St. Bernard is a Clairvaux"

"Urban II Renewal"

"'Saladin' -- is that a Nom de Drag?"

"Fighting the Dark Lord Since 1099"

"My other car is a white horse with this awesome red cross on it"

"Snape is Bohemond's Man"

"Bless the children, give them victory now" (Aeschylus, Libation Bearers; DH epigraph)

"Just War -- When Anything Else Just Won't Work"

"Neocon = Granddad dug Trotsky
Paleocon = Granddad dug Lindbergh"

"711: In Spain, it's Not a Convenience Store"

"I Love it When You Talk Esoteric" (for Straussians)
posted by Cacciaguida at 10:04 PM

 




posted by Cacciaguida at 10:26 AM

 
Europe worried by trend of radical Muslim converts. No grass growin' under those Europeans, nosiree.
posted by Cacciaguida at 10:41 PM

 
This weekend's debate topic

Resolved: Except for the superblogs, which get a billion hits a day, and where the least burp gets a hundred comments a minute, no one reads or cares about blogs any more.
posted by Cacciaguida at 10:26 PM

 
Luciano Pavarotti, RIP. An outstanding obit here.
posted by Cacciaguida at 10:58 PM

 
SpySpace. Cloak'n'Blogger. TradeBook. Want to join this social networking site? Well you can't.... ("Ed has added the My Kills application." "Add My Map: click once for countries you've worked for, twice for countries you'd like to work for, three times for countries you've screwed over....")
posted by Cacciaguida at 3:42 PM

 
Fr. McAfee (commenting on Fr. Zuhlsdorf's blog): Seven Arlington Diocese parishes, besides St. Lawrence (Franconia) and St. John (Front Royal), are planning to offer the Extraordinary Rite.
posted by Cacciaguida at 9:28 PM

 
"Intentionally wearing green vestments"

This is all over St. Blog's (I got it from American Papist by way of The Curt Jester), but I couldn't resist, because I have a similar story. Basically, the root story is about how reporters filter everything they see through the small set of ideological stimuli that can fit into their tiny brains.

Over the weekend, Pope Benedict gave a homily to young people that touched on the Church's long-standing teaching on stewardship of creation. Flash: Pope "goes green!" In support of this spin, Reuters noted that the Holy Father was "[i]ntentionally wearing green vestments".

Now, you and I know that green is the standard liturgical color for those parts of the year that are outside the Advent-Christmas and Lent-Easter cycles, those long parts of the year called "ordinary time" in the Ordinary Rite and "after Epiphany" or "after Pentecost" in the Extraordinary. But that's just it, see: you and I know something about the Church, whereas the guy Reuters sends to cover it, or the editor he reports to, doesn't. All he knows is the last week's worth of trends; the last month's, if he's exceptionally well read for his profession.

(In this case, I blame the editor. I note that the reporter is Phil Pulella: I knew him in Rome over twenty years ago. While I suspect he knows and cares more about cardinalatial politics than about vestments, he probably knows better than to submit a side-splitter like this.)

Anyway, here's my analagous tale.

I was in a student production of G&S's TRIAL BY JURY. There were two highly qualified sopranos who auditioned for the one soprano role. One of them was clearly the superior of the two; the other was the conductor's girlfriend. The conductor and the director argued, then came up with a solution: the conductor's girlfriend would get the soprano lead; the role of her attorney, written for a tenor or high baritone, which is a difficult male voice to find among amateurs, would be given to the better soprano. Minor changes in the script could easily be made to reflect the fact that the attorney was now a woman (e.g. "O man of learning" became "O learned woman").

Result: The student newspaper critic called this a "feminist touch." Of course, feminism had nothing to do with it. Quite the opposite: it was a highly stereotypical hairpull between two women and their patrons. But the reviewer, possessing an elite education, had his (or her, I forget) carefully honed set of ideological categories, into which all observed experience had to fit.
posted by Cacciaguida at 12:45 PM

 
Prez makes surprise visit to Iraq. Good move, if long overdue. His remarks at Al-Asad Air Base, the principal air base in Anbar, are in the linked article. Some commentating:

Anbar is a huge province. It was once written off as lost.

Yes, and my son Jonathan Lee Morris was there at the time. I think he found it.

It is now one of the safest places in Iraq.

Could we set a higher standard than that? Like, safer than New York City? That's what JL says it was back in the "written off as lost" days, and while I think he exaggerates so as not to borrow glory, I'd say he's got the better point of comparison.

Earlier today I met with some of the tribal sheiks here in Anbar. It was a really interesting meeting.

Whas'matter, you never had goat yoghurt?

The very people that you helped the Iraqis defeat in Anbar swore allegiance to the man that ordered the attack on the United States of America. What happens here in Anbar matters to the security of the United States.

I believe that is accurate. Now: draw-down of forces?

...will be based on a calm assessment by our military commanders on the conditions on the ground -- not a nervous reaction by Washington politicians to poll results in the media....If we let our enemies back us out of Iraq, we will more likely face them in America. If we don't want to hear their footsteps back home, we have to keep them on their heels over here.

Good line.
posted by Cacciaguida at 5:03 PM