Claudio Monteverdi's Vespro della Beata Vergine, 1610 Performed by the Monteverdi Choir, the London Oratory Junior Choir, the Schola Cantorum of The Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School, the English Baroque Soloists, and His Majestys Sagbutts and Cornetts, Directed by Sir John Eliot Gardiner

The Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God is celebrated tomorrow.

The Vespers Perform "Cottonfield"

"Obama and Hillary's Rebels"

The LRC Blog's Daniel McAdams reports that "again and again it is clear that the intent of the US-supported rebels is to target for genocide the Christian community in Syria -- a Christian community that had been living side by side with Muslims in Syria for centuries" — America's Allies Feed Christians to the Dogs. Literally.

PC in MMXII

Jim Goad observes that what was said to be "a brief blip on America’s cultural radar that evaporated sometime in the mid-1990s" "has become the very fabric of our dying civilization," offering "ten egregious examples of political correctness from 2012 which were by turns absurd, dangerous, or both" — 2012: The Year in PC.

Bipartisan Tyranny

"The American left is the enabler of the police state," writes Reagan régime Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Paul Craig Roberts, "and the American right is its progenitor" — Agenda Prevails Over Truth.

Kate Lee and No Strings Attached Perform "One More Dollar"

The Alison Kraussy local lass sings a Gillian Welch song, from the set posted a couple of days back. The video above was filmed three years ago, when she was fifteen. Do the math, single guys!

"I’m Gonna Wear that Starry Crown Over There"

Assurance of Salvation is a sticky theological issue, but "Chased Old Satan Through the Door" is just too fun a song not to play it, and there's no getting around the fact that American folk culture is Protestant. Perhaps the line can be best interpreted through the Catholic doctrine of Hope.

"Every Saint Has a Past and Every Sinner Has a Future"

The author of that quote, reminds Spokane Orations, "is usually celebrated for his homosexuality and bohemian life-style, but if one looks deeper into the works and life of the man, one sees the strong currents of a spiritual river that eventually flowed to the Tiber" — The multitudes of Oscar Wilde.

"Reisky and Speils"

"Billed as a winter warmer, this dark, malty, strong ale was exactly what we hoped for and expected on a cold December night" — Genny takes top prize at beer competition.

"Winter Wonderland" Performed by Mark O'Connor and Jane Monheit

Localism Trumps Libertarianism

On a trip with the wife and kids an hour further westerly in Western New York to the place where I grew up, our two destinations reminded me why my libertarianism stops at the town or county line.

Our first stop was Vidler's 5 & 10, in the town next to mine. For as long as I can remember, East Aurora, New York's six thousand souls have famously resisted big boxes, specifically Wally World, allowing a store to exist that's a destination in itself. If you're not happy with that, you can drive or move the town next door.

Next, we were off to Chestnut Ridge and its famed above-pictured toboggan chutes, the "only ones left in the country, free ones at least," as the attendant told me. Without the support of the good people of Erie County, New York, such fun would not be possible.

O Little Town of Pittsford

The Militarization of the U.S.A.

Disturbing reports from cryptogon.com and Steve Sailer respectively — U.S. Soldier Suicides Outnumber Combat Deaths In 2012 and Government jobs and veterans preferences: the military-governmental complex.

Michael Chiapperini and Tomasz Kaczówka, Requiescant in Pace

A report that "thousands had paid their respects at the wake held for two firefighters killed in Monday’s shooting" — Webster pays its respects to fallen firefighters.

Peter Glenville's Becket (1964)

In its entirety, Becket (1964), staring Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole, in honor of today's Memorial of St. Thomas Becket. An eye-witness account of his martyrdom — The Murder of Thomas Becket, 1170.

"The Coventry Carol" Sung by Bella Hardy

Something "haunting and lovely" to mark Feast of the Holy Innocents (Childermas):

Lully, lullay, Thou little tiny Child,
Bye, bye, lully, lullay.
Lullay, thou little tiny Child,
Bye, bye, lully, lullay.

O sisters too, how may we do,
For to preserve this day
This poor youngling for whom we do sing
Bye, bye, lully, lullay.
Herod, the king, in his raging,
Charged he hath this day
His men of might, in his own sight,
All young children to slay.

That woe is me, poor Child for Thee!
And ever mourn and sigh,
For thy parting neither say nor sing,
Bye, bye, lully, lullay.

William Holman Hunt's The Triumph of the Innocents

.
For Feast of the Holy Innocents (Childermas), the painting by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood founding member in which "[t]he Innocents are seen with the Holy Family, in spirit, during the Family's Flight to Egypt."

A Pre-Apocalyptic Message for Holier-Than-Thou Holiday Humbugs

[I]t all comes back, the old pleasant month-long Santy-Claus-store-window Christmas. It wasn't so bad, really, the commercial Christmas, the month of Christmas Eves, stores open every night. everyone feeling good and generous and spending money freely, handsome happy Americans making the cash registers jingle, the nice commercial cards, Holy Night, and soft-eyed pretty girls everywhere...

Thus speaks Dr. Thomas More, the narrator-protagonist of Walker Percy's Love in the Ruins, originally subtitled "The Adventures of a Bad Catholic at a Time Near the End of the World." It's a book that should be required reading for those anti-American Catholic traditionalist Scrooges who are outraged — outraged! — by anyone wishing them a Merry Christmas before December 24^th.

Kate Lee and No Strings Attached Perform "One More Dollar," "Are We There Yet?," "On Your Way," "Beaumont Rag," "Beige," "Steel Rails," "Train Song," "Balinderry," "Fields of Gold," "Blood on the Banjo," and "Angelina's Detour"

The local gal with a "voice is as pretty as she is" is back in town tonight after "stirring things up in Nashville.... [w]ith her fiddle as well as her pipes and pulchritude" — Daily Choices: What to do on Thursday, December 27.

UPDATE: Wow! What a show! What a performer! Her mom signed me up for the fan club. There's no good reason she could not be the next Alison Krauss.

Adeste Fideles Performed by Andrea Bocelli and the Orchestra and Choir of Santa Cecilia National Academy, Directed by Myung-Whun Chung

From Auntie Beeb we learn that "there's a suspicion that O Come All Ye Faithful was a call to 18th century Jacobites to rebel" — BBC Two - The Truth About Christmas Carols. How cool is that? It is at least for us proponents of Jeffersonian Jacobitism, especially those hoping to revive a little bit of the glory of Jacobite New York (1682-1688).

Spirit Family Reunion Performs "To All My Friends And Relations"

Not a Christmas song, not even a Christian* song, but appropriate for this time of year when we think about all our friends and relations. Plus, there haven't been any banjos around here in a while.

* Spirit Family Reunion play what they "call 'open-door gospel' — gospel music that's not tied to any particular religious denomination" — Spirit Family Reunion: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert.

My New Toy

The Six-String Banjo pictured above, the Gretsch Roots Collection G9460 "Dixie 6" Guitar-Banjo, with its "neat sound, familiar and ancient, yet new and exotic," was waiting under, or rather next to, the Christmas tree for me from the missus. The ancient yet new hymn "What Child Is This?" was the first number I attempted to play on it, followed by Charlie Poole's familiar yet exotic (not to mention fun) "If the River Was Whiskey."

Boxing Day Reads

Local Christmas Eve nightmare — Webster tragedy: Firefighters killed by gunman who set blaze.

Pope Ratzinger's fine Midnight Mass homily — "If Mary and Joseph were to knock at my door".

Not your normal holiday-season atheist grumblings — For Camille Paglia, the Spiritual Quest Defines All Great Art.

"The Christian religion preaches we should live in peace with our fellow man," says theist Taki Theodoracopulos, "which makes Christianity one hell of a failed doctrine" — ’Tis the Season Not To Be a Commie.

Jim Goad "wish[es] that people would stop getting so offended and reclaim their sense of humor" among many other things — Toss Another Bag of Coal on the Christmas Fire.

J.S. Bach's Weihnachts-Oratorium, Performed by Rachel Harnisch, Sonja Philippin, Anke Vondung, Maximilian Schmitt, Christian Immler, Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, and Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Directed by Peter Dijkstra

Merry Christmas to all of you. Regular blogging will resume sometime after New Year's Day, irregular blogging maybe before that.

Morten Lauridsen's O Magnum Mysterium Sung by Winchester Cathedral Choir

O magnum mysterium,
et admirabile sacramentum,
ut animalia viderent
Dominum natum,
jacentem in præsepio!
Beata Virgo, cujus viscera
meruerunt portare
Dominum Christum.
Alleluia.
O great mystery,
and wonderful sacrament,
that animals should see
the new-born Lord,
lying in their manger!
Blessed is the Virgin whose womb
was worthy to bear
Christ the Lord.
Alleluia!

"Male and Female He Created Them"

Sandro Magister on two who have "criticized at its core the idea that the sexes are the product of society and the individual" — The Pope and the Rabbi Against the Philosophy of "Gender".

Michael Praetorius' Es Ist ein Ros' Entsprungen Sung by Mainzer Domchor, Directed by Mathias Breitschaft

Es ist ein' Ros' entsprungen,
aus einer Wurzel zart.
Wie uns die Alten sungen,
von Jesse war die Art.
Und hat ein Blüm'lein 'bracht;
mitten im kalten Winter,
wohl zu der halben Nacht.

Das Röslein, das ich meine,
davon Jesaia sagt:
Maria ist's, die Reine,
die uns das Blüm'lein bracht'.
Aus Gottes ew'gem Rat,
Hat sie ein Kindlein g'boren,
Bleibend ein reine Magd.

Das Blümelein, so kleine,
das duftet uns so süß;
mit seinem hellen Scheine
vertreibt's die Finsternis.
Wahr'r Mensch und wahrer Gott!
Hilft uns aus allem Leide,
rettet von Sünd' und Tod.
A rose has sprung up,
from a tender root.
As the old ones sang to us,
Its lineage was from Jesse.
And it has brought forth a floweret
In the middle of the cold winter
Right upon midnight.

The rosebud that I mean,
Of which Isaiah told
Is Mary, the pure,
Who brought us the floweret.
At Gods immortal word,
She has borne a child
Remaining a pure maid.

The floweret, so small
That smells so sweet to us
With its clear light
Dispels the darkness.
True man and true God!
He helps us from all trouble,
Saves us from sin and death.

Herman Melville's Antiwar Impulse

Cynthia Wachtell, author of War No More: The Antiwar Impulse in American Literature, 1861-1914, on a poem whose "two drafts reveal him caught in the process of editing his reaction to the Civil War" — Melville’s About-Face.

The Clash's "Bankrobber" Music Video

To accompany these two National(ist) Public Radio stories I heard today — Joe Strummer's Life After Death and Chicago Inmates Still On The Run After Hollywood-Style Escape.

Gustav Holst's "In The Bleak Midwinter" Sung by Hereford Cathedral Choir

With the profound and lovely lyrics provided by Pre-Raphaelite poetess Christina Rossetti:

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign.
In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him, whom cherubim, worship night and day,
Breastful of milk, and a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, whom angels fall before,
The ox and ass and camel which adore.

Angels and archangels may have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;
But His mother only, in her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the beloved with a kiss.

What can I give Him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;
Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.

Support Your Local Brew House

I need to visit this guy, and soon — Genesee Brew House serves up meals and beers. At first glance, this from the article appears to be problematic: "1 to 9: Ratio of female to male customers." On second thought, as married man, this means the 90% removal of the near occasion of sin.

Benghazi and Idealism

HuffPo's Joshua Hersh on today's report — State Benghazi Report Is Harshly Critical Of Department, Busts Many Right-Wing Myths.

How about the busting myths of Humanitarian Interventionists, both neocon and neolib? To what extent did Hitlery's State Department stupidly assume that the "liberated" Benghazians would all embrace their "benefactors," thus foregoing the need for security?

More Hard Left on Gun Control and Gun Culture

"Disarm the cops and soldiers," argues CounterPuncher Kevin Carson, rightly suggesting "that changing gun laws will probably have little effect on the incidence of mass shootings" — Attacking Gun Culture at Its Source.

Bull-Dyke Cop Molests Two Femmes in Public

Follow cryptogon.com's link to one of the most disturbing and disgusting videos from post-America, that is if you find gross (and I mean gross) violations of civil rights and human dignity by government employees disturbing and disgusting — Irving Women Claim Assault, Humiliation After Roadside Cavity Search. From the link:

The women said that the female trooper, Kelley Helleson, proceeded to use her fingers to search their anuses and vaginas, using the same latex glove on both women, on the side of the road in full view of other passing vehicles.

On the video, the trooper can be seen feeling around Dobbs’ bra. Then, Dobbs says, Helleson opened the back of her jogging pants. “At this point, I’m in clear shock. I can’t even believe this is happening. Turns me around goes down into the front of my pants into my inner thigh and at which point she goes up with two fingers. I just look at her and say ‘oh my God, I’ve just been violated.’”

Without changing her latex glove, Trooper Helleson began searching Ashley Dobbs. “She went down, then turned me around, and went down my front and then she actually dug. I didn’t know what I could say, what I could do. I felt hopeless.”

“I was molested, I was violated. I was humiliated,” Angel Dobbs later said of the incident.

The first commenter righlty lists the charges that should be filed: "Illegal search and seizure, assault, aggravated assault, sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault (they are armed), rape, aggravated rape and possibl[e listing] on the sex offender registry."

Sex and Gender

It wasn’t until the 1960s that feminists cranked up the word “gender” as a replacement for sex, but D. H. Lawrence unwittingly pushed things in that direction back in 1929. He was the first to use the word “sex” as a euphemism for coitus rather than to mean what distinguishes men from women. The expression “to have sex” is an absurd construction when you think about what the word “sex” really means, but it is now ubiquitous. It’s also completely unnecessary. English has plenty of polite words for the act—coitus, copulation, intercourse, rutting, congress—and even situational refinements such as adultery and fornication. The impolite variants are endless.

So informs Taki's Magazine's Jared Taylor in his article explaining how "once sex ceased to be merely a clinical distinction and also began to mean copulation, the feminists had an opening and offered 'gender' as a replacement," and how "they wanted to do a lot more than that" — Unsexing the Language.

I never had much use for D.H. Lawrence, but I vaguely recall enjoying the lesbian subplot of the film adaptation of The Rainbow (1989).

Kirk on X

"In America, he was a freak; in ‘emergent’ Africa, he would have been a statesman," says one of my late influences of one of my earlier influences — Russell Kirk on Malcolm X. The link comes from Spokane Orations, who, as I do, finds that "the idea that two of the inhabitants of my own personal Valhalla met and talked and debated is thrilling."

A Reading From the Book of Genesis in Ithkuil

Ai’tilafxup embuliëqtuqh. Unš ikàkč’êňž çu ˉip’ataspöň usmas îpual Šinar /qia aitwapkáň. Ai’tilatunš çu iùktict’awélgümui no aň uok’auqvaludai ˉxhe. Öň êktict’algui îktalgöň ôňgyé’c.

The “Babel” Text (Genesis 11:1-9) above in Ithkuil; brainchild of the subject of The New Yorker's Joshua Foer's bizarre true story about "[a]n amateur linguist [who] loses control of the language he invented" — http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/12/24/121224fa_fact_foer?currentPage=all">Utopian for Beginners. The 2004 online paper that started it all Ithkuil: A Philosophical Design for a Hypothetical Language

Kenneth Leighton's "Coventry Carol" Sung by King's College Cambridge

Tough Questions From Sandy Hook

Chataeu Heartiste's Roissy asks a fair one — Older Moms And Divorced Moms Raising Generation Of Psychopaths? "As the child of a divorced, single mom, Adam Lanza had the deck stacked against him."

LewRockwell.com's Mike Holmes asks "if you are a deranged young man with 'mother issues' and a disconnect from humanity, where do you go to perpetrate your violent fantasy? How about a large building full of young children and unarmed, defenseless women?" — Observation on School Shooting. "While it isn’t politically incorrect to observe that all of these killers are male, it isn’t polite to observe that a) many young men disrespect women (in general) and b) aside from convents, there are few places in most communities where adult men are not present during working hours other than at elementary schools."

Rochesterians Prepare

"Safety concerns" and "fear of stricter control" — Gun sales spike in Rochester area, dealers say.

Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense

Antiwar.com's Justin Raimondo gives us reason enough: "the Israel lobby hates him" — Chuck Hagel: An Unconventional Realist.

The American Conservatve's Daniel Larison says that "Obama’s appointment of Hagel is another warning siren for the GOP that it is in danger of remaining at a disadvantage on foreign policy and national security for many years in the future" — Chuck Hagel & GOP Foreign Policy.

Robert Whyte's Christe Qui Lux Es et Dies Sung by Collegium Vocale Gent, Directed by Peter Dijkstra

Science vs. Scientism

"Of all the fads and foibles in the long history of human credulity, scientism in all its varied guises — from fanciful cosmology to evolutionary epistemology and ethics — seems among the more dangerous, both because it pretends to be something very different from what it really is and because it has been accorded widespread and uncritical adherence," writes Carolina Distinguished Professor of Biological Sciences Austin L. Hughes, continuing, "Continued insistence on the universal competence of science will serve only to undermine the credibility of science as a whole" — The Folly of Scientism.

Dulce Et Decorum Est?

Can't really find a good reason why this local kid had to die last week — Brockport soldier killed in Afghanistan. Perhaps Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est" from the "Great War" might shed some light:

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Change the line "GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!" to "IED! IED! Quick, boys!" and all the rest remains the same.

Hard Left on Gun Control and Gun Culture

CounterPuncher Kevin Carson is "not really interested in engaging either the smug liberal challenges of 'well, are you people finally ready to come to your senses' or the right-wing hysteria of 'The Kenyan Marxist Muslim is coming to take our guns away!'" — Some Observations on the Gun Control Debate. Some excerpts:

I don’t care much for the idea of the same state responsible for warrantless wiretapping and the NDAA regulating the public’s access to weaponry for self-defense. And I don’t want a new War on Guns carried out by the same lawless paramilitary thugs in kevlar who’re already fighting the wars on drugs and terrorism.... The United States has more gun violence than other Western countries for the same reason it has a culture of flag-worship and “supporting the troops” unequaled anywhere else in the West, for the same reason Christian Zionism is such a powerful political force in our country...

"The Coventry Carol" Sung by Collegium Vocale Gent, Directed by Peter Dijkstra

The Coventry Carol, a "haunting carol represent a mother's lament for her doomed child" during "the Massacre of the Innocents, in which Herod ordered all male infants under the age of two in Bethlehem to be killed," was sung instead of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina's Hodie Christus Natus Est by Chorus Novus, "a Rochester-based choral group that sings a wide range of chant and liturgical music from the Catholic tradition," at today's Festival of Lessons and Carols with Chorus Novus at nearby once-Catholic Nazareth College's beautiful Linehan Chapel, and solemnly dedicated to the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

The haunting reconstructed 16^th Century lyrics:

Lully, lullay, Thou little tiny Child,
Bye, bye, lully, lullay.
Lullay, thou little tiny Child,
Bye, bye, lully, lullay.

O sisters too, how may we do,
For to preserve this day
This poor youngling for whom we do sing
Bye, bye, lully, lullay.
Herod, the king, in his raging,
Charged he hath this day
His men of might, in his own sight,
All young children to slay.

That woe is me, poor Child for Thee!
And ever mourn and sigh,
For thy parting neither say nor sing,
Bye, bye, lully, lullay.

Women and Children

A particularly sinister aspect of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was that the 20 victims were "children under the age of seven" and "[a]ll of the adult victims were women" — Photos Of Connecticut School Shooting Victims Released Online:

After the shooting at the movie theater in Aurora, Colorado earlier this year some of the surviving victims begged the media not to mention the shooter’s name. The survivors wanted people to remember the names of the victims instead of the name of the shooter. There’s plenty of information out now about the Sandy Hook school shooter but please take a moment to flip through the photos and remember the names and the faces of the women and children who lost their lives last week in Newtown, Connecticut.

And pray.

Sandy Hook and Theodicy

A young victim's father gives a succinct definition of theodicy, the "explanation of why a perfectly good, almighty, and all-knowing God permits evil," starting at the fifty second mark in the above video. Evil was the subject of today's homily at St Jerome Parish.

Do Libertarians Question Authority?

"The Case for Paleolibertarianism" was the title of an article by Lew Rockwell in the January 1990 edition of Liberty, whence comes this excerpt:

"Question Authority!" says a leftist bumper sticker popular in libertarian circles. But libertarians are wrong to blur the distinction between State authority and social authority, for a free society is buttressed by social authority. Every business requires a hierarchy of command and every employer has the right to expect obedience within his proper sphere of authority. It is no different within the family, the church, the classroom; or even the Rotary or the Boy Scouts.

Giving trade unions license to commit violent crimes subverts the authority of the employer. Drug laws, Medicare, Social Security, and the public schools sap the authority of the family. Banishing religion from public debate undermines the authority of the church.

In a recent article, Jerome Tucille claims he's fighting for freedom by battling "the orthodoxy of the Roman Catholic Church." But there is nothing libertarian in fighting orthodoxy, Catholic or otherwise, and by deliberately confusing his prejudices with libertarianism, he helps perpetuate the myth that libertarianism is libertine.

Authority will always be necessary in society. Natural authority arises from voluntary social structures; unnatural authority is imposed by the State.

Drink Locally, Act Glöggily

Genesee 12 Horse Ale, recently resurrected in the company's Heritage Collection at $6.99 a 12-pack may be my go-to beer, and Saranac beers there for when I'm feeling craftier, but the Southern Tier Brewing Company's 2XMAS, a "double spiced ale brewed in the tradition of Swedish Glögg," is unparalleled for the season.

Disgrace

If a South African Man Booker Prize winner by a Nobel Prize in Literature winner about [Spoiler Alert!] a college professor forced to resign after an almost comic affair with a student who flees to the countryside to live with his hippie lesbian daughter, who is in his presence gang-raped by Africans and later decides to become a junior wife of one of them, then J. M. Coetzee's Disgrace might be a novel for you.

Interesting footnote: I learn from the author's above-linked Wikipedia that he taught at my alma mater during the year I was born.

"Kill Those F*cking Yankees" vs. "Korea is Gay"

PSY played at the half-time of an NFL game today, so I guess this story did not mean the end of his fifteen minutes of fame — PSY's Controversial Anti-American Protest Song Video Surfaces. I guess we Americans are a forgiving lot.

Not so with the singer's compatriots; a Korean-American singer was driven from his ancestral homeland in disgrace three years ago when it surfaced that he had once questioned the country's sexuality — Does Jaebeom think Korea is Gay?

Hector Berlioz's Grande Messe des Morts Performed by Chorus and Orchestra of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Chorus and Orchestra of the Paris Conservatoire, Philharmonia Chorus, Symphonic Voices, Directed by Sir Colin Davis

Coming Together In Mourning

Conservative Confucian Catholicism

"Rituals bind us," rightly states Harvey Whitehouse, "in modern societies and prehistoric tribes alike," as any good Confucian would agree — Human rites. Then he asks, "But can our loyalties stretch to all of humankind?" Of course not, as any conservative of any sort would answer, but that's where the Catholic Church comes in.

Succinct

Clyde N. Wilson sums up American politics in two sentences — Election Explained.

Those Elderly Asians Were Right

Joseph Mercola agrees that all those old Koreans and Chinese I saw during my fifteen years in the Far East knew what they were talking, or rather, walking about — Stimulate Your Fitness IQ By Walking Backward.

T.S.A. vs. C.P. Kids

This story does not surprise — Father: TSA Got Aggressive With Cerebral Palsy-Stricken 7-Year-Old From Long Island. One of these minimum age government workers with a badge once told my daughter to "walk like a normal person."

Gustav Mahler's Kindertotenlieder, Performed by Thomas Hampson and the Wiener Philharmoniker, Directed by Leonard Bernstein

"Songs on the death of children" to mourn these little ones and those who defended them — 27 Dead, Including 20 Children, After Connecticut Elementary School Shooting. May God rest their souls and give comfort to the survivors and families.

Son House Performs "Death Letter"

I got a letter this mornin, how do you reckon it read?
It said, "Hurry, hurry, yeah, your love is dead."
I got a letter this mornin', I say how do you reckon it read?
You know, it said, "Hurry, hurry, how come the gal you love is dead?"

So, I grabbed up my suitcase, and took off down the road.
When I got there she was layin' on a coolin' board.
I grabbed up my suitcase, and I said and I took off down the road.
I said, but when I got there she was already layin' on a coolin' board.

Well, I walked up right close, looked down in her face.
Said, the good ole gal got to lay here til the Judgement Day.
I walked up right close, and I said I looked down in her face.
I said the good ole gal, she got to lay here til the Judgement Day.

Looked like there was 10,000 people standin' round the buryin' ground.
I didn't know I loved her til they laid her down.
Looked like 10,000 were standin' round the buryin' ground.
You know I didn't know I loved her til they damn laid her down.

Lord, have mercy on my wicked soul.
I wouldn't mistreat you baby, for my weight in gold.
I said, Lord, have mercy on my wicked soul.
You know I wouldn't mistreat nobody, baby, not for my weight in gold.

Well, I folded up my arms and I slowly walked away.
I said, "Farewell honey, I'll see you on Judgement Day."
Ah, yeah, oh, yes, I slowly walked away.
I said, "Farewell, farewell, I'll see you on the Judgement Day."

You know I went in my room, I bowed down to pray.
The blues came along and drove my spirit away.
I went in my room, I said I bowed down to pray.
I said the blues came along and drove my spirit away.

You know I didn't feel so bad, til the good ole sun went down.
I didn't have a soul to throw my arms around.

Power vs. Authority

Hannah Arendt's distinction between the two might have made The American Conservative's Robert P. Murphy's article clearer — Do Libertarians Have a Problem With Authority?

Those of us old enough to remember the eighties recall that Catholic Church and Solidarność had authority, while Wojciech Jaruzelski merely had power. Also coming to mind is the story of libertarian Lew Rockwell questioning a guy with a "Question Authority" t-shirt on.

Hitlery

Srđa Trifković exposes the womyn who sees "meddling and intervention as a moral imperative and a test of American leadership"— Hillary Clinton’s Arrogant Posturing.

Male Uptalk and Female Vocal Fry

The New Beginning links to this post reporting on research suggesting "that men generally lower their voice when attempting to woo a woman, [but] they are more likely to give it an upward lilt when competing against a woman" — Upward intonation and, like, gender.

Out of the Memory Hole

LewRockwell.com's Gary North on "the sesquicentennial of one of the oddest events in American history" — The Day General Grant Expelled the Jews.

Traditional Radicalism and Radical Traditionalism

"Traditionalists and radicals alike have deep reservations about the bureaucratization, rationalization, and consumerism of American life, and lament the damage such forces are doing to local communities and to families," writes The American Conservative's Alan Jacobs — A Radical Defense of Home Economics.

Front Porch Republic's Russell Arben Fox on "the points at which concerns of the radical left converge with those of traditionalist conservatism" — Conservative Wisdom from an Original Radical.

Theodicy in the "Holy Land"

Taki Theodoracopulos on "the most disgusting, revolting, and odious barbarians to inhabit our planet, and in this I include the fanatic Jewish settlers of the occupied territories" — Sour on the Saudis. He concludes by suggesting that "the Almighty has a lot to answer for after creating modern Saudi Arabia," clearly not grasping the concept of theodicy.

Sailerian Quite of the Day

"For American elites, Mexicans and other Central Americans make an ideal new people to elect because they are so little competition for their own kids," says Steve Sailer in his post about "that Mexican singer lady who died in a plane crash" — Hispanic Invisibility: Somebody else notices it.

"I had never ever heard of her," says Mr. Sailer, and neither had I, just as I had never heard of Selena when she was murdered in 1995. (As a Spanish major, I did but one of her albums, Las Reinas Del Pueblo, actually a compilation with the cuter Graciela Beltrán.

Hey, Mayan Calendrists!

"If there are many who believe the world will end on Dec. 21, as the Church, we have no problem with them naming us as the beneficiaries of their possessions in their wills," says His Excellency Bishop Bernardo Bastres Florence, S.D.B. of the planet's southernmost diocese; "I assure them that after Dec. 21, we will eternally pray for them" — Bishop says Mayan prophecy believers should donate to Church before world's end.

Sam Chatmon Performs "Make Me A Pallet On the Floor," "That's All Right," "The Preacher and the Bear," "TB Blues," "How Long," "The Last Time," "Cold Blooded Murderer," and "Sittin' On Top of the World"

Son House Performs "Downhearted Blues" and "Grinnin' in Your Face"

The second number above by the long time Rochester resident posted in cover yesterday gets this endorsement — 'It Might Get Loud': Jack White's favorite song. In an old post of mine — "Jack White and Stephen Colbert Try to Out-Catholic Each Other" — I wrote about that documentary:

I didn't know know Mr. White from Adam until on a flight I chanced upon It Might Get Loud (2008), the "documentary on the electric guitar from the point of view of three significant rock musicians: the Edge, Jimmy Page and Jack White." [Did the '80s really produce no better guitarist? The Edge sits back, obviously outclassed, while Page obviously admires the young White, who combines the intensity of punk with the virtuosity of metal.]

Anne de Gaulle

An old post of mine titled "Anne de Gaulle" is cited by Tom Piatak as "one of the finest things I ever read on the Internet" in his fine and beautiful post — A Daughter of Mary and Target for Herod.

Constitutional Lawyer Defends Korean Singer

The great Glenn Greenwald argues that "Americans would benefit from less outrage at anti-US sentiment and more energy toward understanding why it's so widespread" — The PSY scandal: singing about killing people v. constantly doing it.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq in Syria

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland laughably suggests that "the Assad regime has created an environment through its violence 'that extremists can now try to exploit'" — U.S. Cites Syrian Rebel Al-Nusra Front as Terrorist Group. This is akin to blaming Saddam Hussein, not George Bush, for al-Qaeda in Iraq.

The Vespers Perform "Grinnin' In Your Face"

A song by long time Rochester resident Son House.

Back from Toronto

The missus and I went to Toronto for a night, leaving the kiddos here with their live-in grandparents (another benefit of three-generational living). Growing up in Western New York, the city was for me The City, but I had not been there this millennium, during the time in which I was living in the Far East and my parents were sojourning on the other coast.

All in all, it seemed a lot smaller than I remember it. The Eaton Centre, which seemed so huge when I was a kid, failed to impress me. It was good to walk down Yonge Street and Spadina Avenue, but Chinatown, Toronto was not at all as exotic as it used to be. We did, however, have a great meal at Asian Legend, whose Mapo Tofu and Szechuan Chicken Soup satisfied our mutual desire for something spicy.

More fun for me was exploring Queen Street West and Bloor Street, areas I only started exploring in my twenties. Koreatown, Toronto was, like Koreatown, Fort Lee, just like one of the shabbier neighborhoods in any city back in the home country. The Annex was a new neighborhood that I did enjoy. It was similar in feel to the South Wedge here in Rochester, which begs the question, why did we really need to go to another country in the first place.

The Beer Station, our penultimate stop for the night, provided one answer: Sir Perry's Pear Cider. The beverage from England was much to my wife's liking. My choices were less than stellar. Alexander Keith's India Pale Ale was an unhoppy choice, literally. It's a crime that they get away with calling this pisswater an India Pale Ale! Do Canadians persist in making fun of us for our beer? I then opted for the far superior La Fin Du Monde, from Quebec but I confess, Belgian-style ales are not really my thing. However, a second and even better answer to my question was to be found across the street at Smoke's Poutinerie. What better way to end an evening than with french fries covered with cheese curds and gravy?

Well, , to make a late night even later, the missus and I did find a few better ways to end the evening back at the highly-recommendable Shuter House, a.k.a. the Heritage Townhouse. The place is centrally located in an historic building, and is both clean and cheap. What more could you ask for? We has reserved the Winter Room, but they gave us the roomier Garden Room at the same price. When we return with the kiddos, the Autumn Room of Maple Leaf Room will be ideal.

The trip coincided with the expiration of my passport, which happened precisely (and perhaps symbolically) at the moment we were enjoying our poutine. I had planned a speech about my taxes and government workers upon returning to the United States, but the border guard waved me through, almost as easily as the old days before GWOT. Still, the Canadians were nicer. You'd think American border agents would at least be kind to the people who pay their salaries.

Theodore Dalrymple on Second-Hand Bookshops

Reminding us that "browsing in bookshops is rewarding in a way that surfing the internet can never be" — Why second-hand bookshops are just my type.

Our town's big box bookseller, I have and hate to say, has a great selection of second-hand books. A more traditional bookshop, Bookends, was formerly located Pittsford Village but moved to a rather drab plaza to survive.

Fareed Zakaria Making Sense

"End the war on terror and save billions," rightly argues the author of The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad, explaining,

For 11 years, the United States has been operating under emergency wartime powers granted under the 2001 “Authorization for Use of Military Force.” That is a longer period than the country spent fighting the Civil War, World War I and World War II combined. It grants the president and the federal government extraordinary authorities at home and abroad, effectively suspends civil liberties for anyone the government deems an enemy and keeps us on a permanent war footing in all kinds of ways.

before informing us the welcome news that "for the first time since Sept. 11, 2001, an administration official has sketched a possible endpoint."

The Vespers Live at the Station Inn

In a just world, these lovely kids would be topping the charts. The HuffPo's Michael Bialas has two appreciations of the brother/sister band — The Vespers Are on the Verge of Breaking Through The Fourth Wall and Seeing Is Believing: The Heavenly Sky's the Limit for the Vespers. "We're all four Christians. We're not a Christian band, but we're a band of Christians."

The Eldest Daughter of the Church Rises Again

Sandro Magister on a country where "public opposition to the law on homosexual marriages is finding agreement even among non-Catholics and nonbelievers" — The Reawakening of the Church of France.

What began with a prayer by His Eminence André Armand Cardinal Vingt-Trois, "May children and young people cease to be the object of the desires and conflicts of adults, in order to enjoy fully the love of a father and mother," has blossomed into "a resistance [that] is mobilizing that is not confessional, but humanistic, of men and women with the most varied visions of the world."

Infamy!

Justin Raimondo on the day "that brought us into World War II, pushed a reluctant America onto the world stage, and ushered in the age of empire" — Pearl Harbor: Roosevelt Knew. He begins:

The official history of that event is that it was a "sneak attack" precipitated by war-crazed Japanese militarists, and that the totally unprepared Americans – kept from arming themselves by evil "isolationists" in Congress and the Republican party – were caught completely by surprise.

There is, however, one big problem with this official history: it’s a lie.

Be Kind

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle;" wisdom not followed by the pranksters responsible for this apparent suicide — Nurse who took prank call about royal Kate found dead. Of course, we do not need legislation against lying, but the pranksters are certainly answerable to a higher law.

Dave Brubeck's "To Hope! A Celebration" Mass Performed by the Dave Brubeck Quartet Maria Maskhulia, Mark Bleeke, Kevin Deas, the Russian National Orchestra, Yurlov Russian State Academic Choir, Directed by Russell Gloyd

He converted after composing the above — Catholic jazz legend Dave Brubeck remembered.

Sæculorum Sæculis

Tonight my lovely wife and I went to my parent's church, St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church, to see the Evermore and evermore: Carols Then and Now concert by local Early Musicgreats Musica Spei, sponsored by the phenomenal Music Department at St. Paul's:

Musica Spei, one of Rochester's most beloved early music vocal ensembles, will present a program of seasonal Christmas Music, from the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Favorite carols will be sung in their "modern" versions with audience participation, and then sung by the ensemble in their Medieval or renaissance versions.

In the first half of the concert, we were treated to the music of luminaries such as William Byrd, Orlande de Lassus, Francisco Guerrero, Jacobus Gallus, and Cristóbal de Morales. The second half was participatory and educational, with the audience singing familar hymns like O come, O come, Emmanuel and the scholars then showing us how Veni, Veni Emmanuel was sung centuries ago. All this just down the road with neighbors! It was almost enough to have me consider reversion to the High-Church Lutheranism in which I was raised, until I recalled all the music was Catholic!

Lisa Hannigan Performs "Sea Song" and "Ocean And A Rock"

The Irish Genocide

This blogger is quarter-English and quarter-Irish, half-Anglophile and half-Anglophobe, but this Catholic Herald article by historian Tim Pat Coogan exposing "who was responsible for abandoning countless starving, ragged families to the Great Irish Famine" brings out the later tendency — The Irish famine was an unnatural disaster. An excerpt:

As Earl Grey, a member of Peel’s Conservative cabinet, declared, Ireland was a disgrace, the great blot on the British Empire. The coming of the Whigs to power a few months after Grey’s utterance, made the blot deeper and wider.

When the Whigs took power, under the premiership of Lord John Russell, party discipline had been ravaged by the ferocious parliamentary war over the dismantling of the Corn Laws and there were far bigger beasts than Russell sitting around the Cabinet table – Palmerston, for example. Moreover, Ireland had been ravaged also by successive conquests and by the effects of the Act of Union, which obliterated the Irish parliament and, on paper, made Ireland a part of the United Kingdom exactly as were Scotland and Wales.

Following the closure of the Irish parliament an exodus of both capital and talent took place from Ireland, accentuating the trend towards absenteeism among the landlords, who spent their rents from Ireland in London and Paris, not on improving their estates. If the tenants improved their holdings their rents went up. “Middlemen” who leased land from the landlords rented it out in plots of ever-decreasing size and ever-increasing rent.

American observers described the lot of Irish peasants as being worse than that of American slaves. The reality was that there were nearly three million Irish peasants living in mud cabins, utterly dependent upon the potato, who were encouraged to depart or to die as expeditiously as possible when the blight struck. It is not known how many did die. Modern scholarship suggests it may have been two million, with another million emigrating in floating “coffin ships” wherein fever took a death toll which, it was remarked, would have allowed a person to walk dry shod across the Atlantic.

The strange, disturbed figure of Charles Trevelyan, assistant secretary of the Treasury and in effect the head of the British civil service, devised a relief policy which imposed such stringent tests on destitution and relied heavily on road works – paid for by task work – which could not be carried out for much of the year because of bad weather conditions.

With the failure of the potato crop there came widespread evictions. Starving men, women and children, the baby in arms and the aged, were turned out to face the elements in whatever rags they possessed.

“Natural causes” was how Trevelyan described the outcome of this solution to overpopulation. A better and more accurate description would have been genocide.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Charles Wood, swallowed the “natural causes” formula whole and Palmerston and a group of other powerful fellow Cabinet members who, like himself, had vast estates in Ireland closed their eyes to the shutting of food depots and the export of food all through the famine. With the aid of a powerful segment of the Church of England, which was enraged by Catholic Emancipation and by an increase in the grant to the major Irish seminary of St Patrick’s, Maynooth, a successful PR campaign was mounted against spending money on Irish relief.

“Irish property must pay for Irish poverty” became the watchword. The promulgation of the belief that Divine Providence had sent the famine was another. The greatest single motor force behind the campaign was the Times, which apart from explicitly welcoming the famine looked forward to the time when “a Celt will soon be as rare on the banks of the Shannon as the red man on the banks of Manhattan”.

Poetic Injustice

Until reading Kelley Beaucar Vlahos's article, I had know idea that the "sprawling, state-of-the-art headquarters for the Department of Homeland Security, the largest federal complex since the Pentagon was built in 1943," is in what was "St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in southeast Washington, D.C., where poet Ezra Pound was once incarcerated (for treason)" — Homeland Security’s Unhappy Anniversary.

The Council and the Revolution

What caused the Sixties? asks Steve Sailer, suggesting in a later post that " it's attractive to look for non-inevitable events as causes" — Another theory of the Sixties: Vatican II. He quotes a reader:

The thought would be that, ever since 1789, the West, broadly, had sought a happy medium between the poles of Revolution and Reaction, and the Catholic Church represented the latter pole. In Vatican II, the Church seemed suddenly to leave the field, or indeed, seemed to throw itself on to the other pole. This created a disorientation of the entire political spectrum---for where is the golden mean between the French Revolution and a no-less Revolutionary Church?

Boxers, Not Briefs

"Wear loose underwear" is the first piece of advice The Independent gives us in this article — Scientists warn of sperm count crisis.

Michael Praetorius' Es Ist ein Ros Entsprungen Sung by Ensemble Amarcord

The communion hymn for the First Sunday of Advent at Saint Michaels of Rochester this past Sunday.

War and Peace

From cryptogon.com a chilling video of "Obama's favorite weapon" — Attack of the Drones. The robotic pack mule on the still and at 17:00 fills me with a strange sense of disgust. Count me on this side of the uncanny valley.

At CounterPunch's Jean Bricmont exposes those whose "insidious rhetoric has served to neutralize any peace or anti-war movement" and "made it impossible for any European country to take such an independent position as France took under De Gaulle, or even Chirac, or as Sweden did with Olof Palme" — Beware the Anti-Anti-War Left.

Bill Kauffman can;t imagine "a better antiwar pop song than" the one sung by the man whose concert he reviews here — I Clean My Gun and Dream of Galveston. "There is not a single note of preachiness or abstraction in the song. Yet in elevating home over foreign crusades, 'Galveston' borders on sedition. It really ought to be banned under the Patriot Act."

Finally, Sandro Magister on the peace that passes all understadning — Fr. Michel-Marie, a Cassock in Deep Marseille.

Lisa Hannigan & Mick Flannery Perform "Christmas Past"

More of this lovely colleen's music.

White White Knights and Asian Alpha Males

This will be the first in my Into the Manosphere series. After lauding my "fifteen years in the Far East, in a still functionally normal society, and being married a non-Westerner," I said, "I might be able to offer some wisdom from the East for my Western brothers." I meant that half-jokingly, as I do most things, but I'll begin not so much with any advice but some observations from the late '90s when I was still single.

Many white guys who end up in Asia experience going from "zero to hero" the moment they land on the Asian landmass. Many of them are rather pathetic white knights who see themselves as on a mission to save Asian women from Asian men. When they have success, and they do, they think they've got game, and sit around bars congratulating themselves.

They are, rather, the beneficiaries of several lucky coincidences, one of them being that the average white guy looks more like Matt Damon than the average Asian guy. [Jang Dong-gun probably gives Asian guys a similar boost in the many countries, but not America, where he has legions of female fans. Similarly, white guys here in the US might see Kobe Tai, who is not that attractive and never was, in the rare Asian girl he comes across at a bar.] Another lucky coincidence, it was explained to me that Asian girls, at least in the country I was in, sought out foreign devils because they could experiment with them sexually and, since the white guy was most likely outside of their tight social circles, not have her reputation damaged. [A girl's reputation still matters in the East, or at least did when I lived there.]

These WWKs, invariably liberals, then go on to concoct pathetic theories of cultural, if not outright racial, superiority over their Asian hosts to account for their success with local women. They ignore population figures that clearly indicate Asian men have been the most successful in propagating their kind. "The Great Progenitor" alone, after all, "left 16 million direct male descendants, 800,000 times more than the average man of his day." In at least one Asian country, the current pop culture trendsetter, the "cold city man" (차도남), the aloof alpha, is the current male archetype. Asian countries still boast functionally normal societies in which men are men and women are women. They have nothing to learn from us in this regard and do so to their own detriment.

"Benevolent Sexism"

The Elusive Wapiti links to this post about research suggesting that "'benevolent sexism', which refers to all those 'chivalrous' things gentlemen do for ladies: holding the door for them, seating them at table, offering them your arm during a stroll, serving them first, etc.[, ...] actually make[s] everyone happier," so it must therefore be eradicated — The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves.

To quote the authors of the study themselves, while "benevolent sexism was indirectly associated with life satisfaction for both women and men," "our findings reinforce the dangerous nature of benevolent sexism and emphasize the need for interventions to reduce its prevalence."

Kerouacian Christology

"And after all, a lot of people say he is Maitreya, the Buddha prophesied to appear after Sakyamuni, you know Maitreya means ‘Love’ in Sanskrit and that’s all Christ talked about was love," said Jack Kerouac's charecter Ray Smith in The Dharma Bums. For all my interest in Buddhism over the years I never heard this nor deduced it, and yet it seems so obvious.

"Don't Forget Your Hat, Scarf and Gloves or You'll Catch Your Death"

Your mother was right; Lizzie Bennett reminds us that "you that you are more likely to suffer a heart attack if you don't wear a warm hat in cold weather" — Woolly Hats and Heart Attacks. My wife warned me about this, but said it was stroke. Either way, I'll wear my hat.

J. S. Bach's Wachet Auf, Ruft Uns Die Stimme, Performed by Lisa Larsson, Lothar Odinius, Klaus Mertens, The Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir, Directed by Ton Koopman

The offertory for the First Sunday of Advent at Saint Michaels of Rochester were the chorales Zion hört die Wächter singen (Zion hears the watchmen singing) and Gloria sei dir gesungen (May Gloria be sung to you) from the above.

Sandro Magister wrote of one very distinguished Catholic listener who said of this cantata, "I felt – not through reasoning, but in the depths of my heart – that what I had just heard had spoken truth to me, truth about the supreme composer, and it moved me to give thanks to God" — Ratzinger's Favorite Bach Cantata.

Into the Manosphere

I was flattered and I was too young to have learned to say no to a woman. (Few men, I may add, learn this until they are too old to make it of any consequence to a woman what they say.)

So wrote W. Somerset Maugham in "The Luncheon," one of the master's best stories, but he was - ahem! - not that interested in the opposite sex, so what did he really know? And having lived fifteen years in the Far East, in a still functionally normal society, and being married a non-Westerner, I have been able to learn a thing or two before I have become "too old to make it of any consequence to a woman what [I] say," although it has not been by any means easy.

The Manosphere, which I stupidly dismissed when I first learned of it, would have made the deprogramming much easier. Sites recommended to me have been Alpha Game, Chateau Heartiste, Dalrock, Hawaiian libertarian, and The Spearhead, and I have enjoyed all of them. I think I may have something to add to the conversation.

The Woman and the Dragon, whose "Sunshine Mary" was kind enough to leave a message when I linked to her yesterday, though technically not a manospheric blogger but an ally, was another eye-opener. (Particularly enlightening was this post — Exposed: Christian men giving each other horrible sex advice.) There, one can read about the absurdity of "women holding out on their husbands and husbands having no idea what to do about it."

I've heard of this before, even recently from a friend who has suffered through a decade of such nonsense, but had no idea how prevalent it was in our society. Such a notion would just never cross my wife's mind. Our relationship is by no means perfect, but I might be able to offer some wisdom from the East for my Western brothers.

Time for Mulled Wine

"The tradition of mulled wine in our country goes back to before the Revolution, when it was quaffed piping hot in taverns, inns and homes," reads the label on Brotherhood Winery Holiday Spiced Wine. "Brotherhood’s Holiday Wine carries on this colonial tradition. Its moderate sweetness is enhanced with Brotherhood's secret blend of herbs and spices, like cinnamon, clove, nutmeg and allspice." It is interesting to note that Brotherhood Winery "remained in operation during Prohibition as it produced sacramental wine for the Catholic Church."

Carolina Chocolate Drops Live in France

This is great. Far bigger crowd than when I saw them locally a few months ago. Rhiannon Giddens gives her French the college try, and it's good to see her wearing tights rather than jeans under her skirts. She's far more pregnant than she was a few months ago, God bless her.

Zen Catholicism

The New Beginning links to The Imaginative Conservative's Stephen Masty suggesting that "American cultural conservatives (self-identified or not) can do worse than to take a cursory look at Japanese aesthetics" — Down Home American Zen — and Crisis Magazine's Karen Anderson (who uses me as a source) reminding us that "the world’s most civilized habit owes a huge debt of gratitude to Xavier and his Jesuit missionaries who traveled to Japan in 1549" — and Tea and Christianity.

The Femisphere

The New Beginning, my guide to many positive cultural developments, introduces me to a refreshing alliteration-loving lady blogger "finding freedom from feminism in faith and family," from whom wives can learn, among other things, "easy way[s] to get your husband to drop what he’s doing and bang the hell out of you*" — The Woman and the Dragon.

* It was probably never really that hard, at least until the "Sexual Revolution" spoiled all the fun.

Libertarianism = Nonagression

Libertarianism, or as I still prefer, Paleolibertarianism, defined by the heroic Lew Rockwell, against its leftist and rightist Statist antitheses — Machiavelli and State Power. He begins:

As libertarianism has acquired a higher profile in American life over the past several years, the attacks on and caricatures of libertarians have grown almost as rapidly. Libertarians, we read, are antisocial, and prefer isolation over interaction with others. They are greedy, and are unmoved if the poor should starve. They are naive about our dangerous enemies, and refuse their patriotic duty to support the government’s wars.

These caricatures and misconceptions can be put to rest by simply defining what libertarianism is. The libertarian idea is based on a fundamental moral principle: nonaggression. No one may initiate physical force against anyone else.

There is nothing antisocial about that. To the contrary, it is the denial of this principle that is antisocial, for it is peaceful interaction that lies at the heart of civilized society.

At first glance, hardly anyone can object to the nonaggression principle. Few people openly support acts of aggression against peaceful parties. But libertarians apply this principle across the board, to all actors, public and private. Our view goes well beyond merely suggesting that the State may not engage in gross violations of the moral law. We contend that the State may not perform any action that would be forbidden to an individual. Moral norms either exist or they do not.

Real Milk

Down the road is "one of the few [dairies] in New York still selling milk in glass bottles" — More than milk at Pittsford Farms Dairy. From the article:

There are dozens of different things to notice when walking into the Pittsford Farms Dairy and Bakery’s new central building for the first time. The wall opposite the entrance is lined with rows of milk, chocolate milk, creams, egg nog, all in glass bottles. Lit by milk bottle chandeliers, the cafe features milk jug stools and railroad spike coat hangers. Smells wafting from the new bakery area may entice customers to the rear of the store, but they’ll have to pass the new soda-style ice cream parlor to get there.

[....]

The dairy receives four to five loads of raw, hormone-free, antibiotic-free milk from three farms about 45 miles south of Rochester each week. That raw milk is vat pasteurized on-site at a lower temperature and for longer than most other milks available in supermarkets. Unlike those milks, Pittsford Farms Dairy milks are pasteurized with the cream, then separated, giving the milks a sweeter taste.

Best ice-cream I ever had in my life. Not too sweet.

"Four Clear Threats to the Modern Family & Possibly Civilization at Large"

New English Review's G. Murphy Donovan names "cell phones, video games, the internet, and junk food," in an article focusing on the last and stating, wisely, "Culture begins and ends on a plate" — The Culture in Kitchens.

[The Sino-Korean term for family member, shikgu (食口), means "food mouth" or "mouth to feed."]

Roma Locuta Est...

With calls for "an adequate response through an effective commitment to building peace and stability, in justice and in the respect for legitimate aspirations" — Holy See welcomes UN recognition of Palestine.