In Three Corners of the Commonwealth, Popular Musicians Demonstrate Rejection of Modernity

In South Africa, England, and Quebec, popular musicians have expressed regret over the rejection of their traditional cultures by the destructive onward march of modernity. The hugely popular song 'De La Rey', sung in Afrikaans by Bok van Blerk I have already explored in greater depth in an article for Norumbega, but 'Roots' by England's Show of Hands and 'Dégénération' by Québécois group Mes Aïeux are worthy of notice.

'Roots', as one would expect from the title, decries the severing of the English people from their lyrical musical tradition and lifestyle, being replaced by "Indian, Asian, Afro-Celt", while the song's refrain evokes images of a people adrift: "Haul away boys let them go/ Out in the wind and the rain and snow/ We've lost more than we'll ever know/ On the rocky shores of England". In one verse, the song taps into a particular pet peeve of mine, the complete invasion of pubs by the dreaded television screen:

There is no greater killer of good conversation than the massive influx of television screens into the pubs. Just the other evening I was down in our regular in Bronxville and from my vantage point alone I could see three television screens. The bright technicolor projection of baseball, soccer, football, and rugby into an otherwise dark space is too great a distraction for the eye. Bad enough sitting in a booth, it is even worse having dinner at the bar when you do not at least have the advantage of sitting opposite your drinking companion. How much more of a good time it would be without those dazzling displays, and without the obnoxiously loud music, either piped in from the jukebox or else some third-rate band singing third-rate cover songs of third-rate rock groups. Bleccch! It is those moments when one yearns to be ensconced by the fire in the Russell on the Scores in St Andrews, either accompanied solely by a book and a solid pint, or engaged in the usual joviality with the after-Rosary crowd.

The Québécois song, meanwhile, laments the decline of the family from large in size and from tied to the earth to solitary and confined in the city. The name of the band — Mes Aïeux — means "My Ancestors" and 'Dégénération' is a play on words, meaning 'degeneration' but also soundling like 'des generations' — 'of the generations'. The song opens:

The next verse goes on about the maternal line of the family: the great-great grandmother "had fourteen kids", the next generation "had about as many", the next "had three, that was enough for her" but "Your mom didn’t want any, you were an accident".

The song is one of the most popular downloads on iTunes Canada, and the band's most recent album has gone double-platinum.

Music videos of 'De La Rey', 'Roots', and 'Dégénération' after the jump.

Sources Fides et Ardor: Sign of Hope - Mes Aïeux | Fides et Ardor: The People Speak (or sing...)

Previously: Breaking the Mold in Quebec | The Men Who Saved Quebec | Hitchcock in Quebec

Aeschylus fought at Marathon, Maecenas rode with Octavian, and even Coleridge had a spell in the Dragoons (under the assumed name of Silas Tomkyn Combebach), yet more recent examples of convergence between the realms of the poetical and the military leave something to be desired. The above quotation is a mere snippet from the works of Radovan Karadžić, sometime leader of the Bosnian Serb forces during the disintegration of Yugoslavia. As a Hungarian friend said recently, "If that doesn't get him sent to the Hague, I don't know what will!"

Misery loving company, Karadzic invited Eduard Limonov, the Russian poet, writer, and all-around nasty character, to Bosnia in the midst of the Seige of Sarajevo. This brief YouTube clip shows the two poets inspecting a Serb position overlooking the town. The tousled-haired Karadzic gloats over the woebegone metropolis while Limonov takes aim at a few civilians through the sight of a sniper rifle before opening fire. (Limonov returned to Mother Russia, where he founded the National Bolshevik, or "Nazbol" party. Is there no Russian Wodehouse to ridicule this strange band of neo-Hitlerite Stalin-worshippers? "Spagbol" seems an obvious equivalent of Roderick Spode's Black Shorts.)

Meanwhile, we read in the feuilleton of today's Süddeutsche Zeitung (via signandsight.com) that German authorities have refused to grant asylum to the Chechen poet Apti Bisultanov. Bisultanov, as it turns out, led a unit of thirty-five men during the Battle of Grozny and has been accused of a number of war crimes and human rights violations.

Kinda makes you wonder what nefarious plots are being hatched when David Yezzi meets Ben Downing for a drink at the Old Town.

[Cross-posted at Armavirumque]

QUÉBEC, THAT STRANGE and charming province, is a most intriguing nation. It is where the British, French, and American tendencies clash and combine to form that most pecular of all American varities: le Québécois. Of course, since the 1960s Québec has become more French; no, not more French but more like France in that every year it plunges deeper into the depths of self-loathing: that hatred of one's own tradition and history which has so marked out "the new Europe". It is a race to assert one's self by destoying any living connection to one's past. Un jeu du fou. More's the pity, as this once-vibrant melting pot of traditions expressed itself in interesting ways.

A splendid display of this Québec can be found in Alfred Hitchcock's 1953 drama I Confess. The film had been recommended to me often and I finally got around to seeing it tonight. I won't give away any of the plot, which is a good one, but Hitchcock lives up to his reputation with his excellent framing of the scenes. (Though I must admit, half of it is merely the settings in the Ville de Québec themselves). They include a peek into the Québécois Parliament. Above the Speaker's dais is displayed not only the Sovereign's arms, but also a crucifix, exhibiting our loyalties both temporal and spiritual. In the court room you find yet another blend of the Anglo and the French. As you no doubt recall from our handy little map, Quebec is a country with a mixed legal system. Founded as Nouvelle-France it had the civil system derived from the Romans. Captured by the British and later transformed into part of the Canadian Confederation, it has accrued layers of the Common Law so dear to we Anglos. The officials of the court wear British-style robes — the judge even has a tricorn hat — but over the jury looms a large crucifix. English government and French culture tempered by Catholic truth; not a bad mixture.

Anyhow, if you haven't seen the film yet, here are a few snaps to enjoy until your Hitchcockian thirst is satiated.

The brilliant Mr. Peter Hitchens ruminates on the old Russian bear, and relays to us this account of the state of Britain today from the point of view of a Russian journalist:

NO SOONER HAD the Wall Street Journal earned the highest regards from these quarters for their splendid 'hedcut' portrait of the Generalissimo (on the front page, and above the fold, no less!) than their stock immediately plummeted in normal daytime trading on the Cusack Exchange. The best and most admirable feature of the financial-and-more paper is its splendidly broad size, in complete repudiation of the tabloid mentality. It has dignity, refinement, and gravitas. And so it must go. Newsdesigner reports that the Journal will be trimming its broadness to a much narrower, uglier size. The idea is to save newsprint, and thus cut costs, but the result is a disgrace. A sense of proper proportion is sacrificed to the gods of the balance sheet. Hmmm... where have we heard this before? The New York Observer trimmed its size, again without any regard for proportion, and the result was most poor. I bought it once after the changeover and never since.

Narrow broadsheets are not only a contradiction in terms, they are exceptionally irritating to read. The Berliner size of the Guardian, Le Figaro, and other papers is a handy, convenient size, and of a very comely proportion. The normal broadsheet of the Daily Telegraph, the current Wall Street Journal, and the Scotsman in its pre-tabloid days exudes soundness, reliance, and dignity. But ungainly tabloids and these new narrow broadsheets ought to be relegated to the dustbin of dodgy newspaper ideas.

Followers of worldy events in a technological fashion might be interested in viewing the world's newest international news network, France 24. The English-language service, which can be viewed for free online, has so far proved more aesthetically pleasing than the American networks but seems a bit 'light' in terms of its content. Nonetheless, we will give it a year to flesh out before we hand down a final verdict.

Elsewhere: Wikipedia entry | France24: The Unofficial Weblog

With these words spoken yesterday in the House of Lords, the Queen revealed the plans for her visit to the Commonwealth of Virginia for the upcoming celebrations surrounding the quatercentenary of the first permanent English settlement in the New World. Her Majesty is no stranger to Virginia, nor even to Jamestown, as her very first visit to the New World took place in 1957 when she attended the 350th anniversary celebrations at Jamestown. Following that 1957 official visit to the United States, the Queen opened her parliament at Ottawa for the first time since her accession to the Canadian throne.

The Republic of Chile's Annual 'Parada Militar'

WHILE MANY NATIONS have thrown time-honored traditions and ceremonies to the wind, they remain central to the South American nation of Chile. Through the wisdom of its leaders, be they civil, military, Liberal, Conservative, Radical, Socialist, or Christian Democrat, this republic on the Pacific has not sampled the bitter taste of war since 1883 when they snatched the last remnants of Bolivia's coastline. (Bolivia, now landlocked and ever holding a grudge, still maintains a small navy in defiance of geography). Having steered clear of the suicidal bloodlust which consumed much of the Western world during the Twentieth Century (say what you will about the deaths of the Allende/Pinochet years, they are far fewer than our dead of the World Wars, Korea, and Vietnam), Chile feels free to continue in the best of its European traditions free from emotional hangups.

For we in the Anglo-American world, goosesteps and pickelhaubes evoke nasty images of Prussian militarism and Nazi hegemony. While the pickelhaube is actually of Prussian origin, having been designed in 1842 by Frederick William IV, the revolutionary Hitler eventually banished them as fusty remnants of the ancien regime. And, while Hitler did popularize the goosestep, this particular form of march has its origins in old Imperial Russia.

Chile is a nation composed of settlers from almost every European country, and has adapted and melded its traditions and culture thencefrom. The 'Father of the Country' was an Irishman by the name of Bernardo O'Higgins, while the founder of the Chilean Navy was the 10th Earl of Dundonald. Later immigrants brought influence from Germany, Italy, and other countries, while the founding influence of Spain remained.

Every year, Chile celebrates the 'Day of the Glories of the Armed Forces' on September 19, the day following Chile's Independence Day of September 18 commemorating the 1810 junta. The civil leaders of the land and high-ranking military officers assemble at a stand on the Campos de Marte in the Parque O'Higgins in Santiago and review a long parade of the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, and the Carabineros, Chile's gendarmerie-style national police.

I've always loved a parade, and there is no parade like a military parade, so I decided to share with you a few views of Chile's annual parada militar. One gets the impression that just before we put the Third Reich out of business, they contracted a huge surplus uniform sale to the Chileans which has left them a bountiful supply of uniforms to this day. Indeed, judging by some of the uniforms, one might even get the impression that the same happened earlier in the century when we (lamentably) forced the Kaiser to close shop. But the Chileans will continue to wear their uniforms with pride, and who can blame them? They look good.

The Andes form a scenic backdrop for the Parada Militar.

Now-former president Ricardo Lagos gives a rather papal greeting in this shot from a previous year's parade.

Soldiers with plumed pickelhaubes await the parade.

by JOHN HALDANE
THE SCOTSMAN | Friday 1 September 2006

DR JOHNSON'S' memorable observation that "nothing so concentrates the mind as the prospect of imminent hanging", has provided a formula for highlighting other attention-focussing threats. Currently, for example, the minds of Scotland's MSP's may be said to be concentrated by nothing so much as by the prospect of next year's Holyrood elections.

It is reported that Labour and the SNP are each holding strategy discussions to prepare for May's poll. The latter in hope of victory, the former in fear of defeat. Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats try to look principled while yet pondering the best bet for coalition partners; Conservative MSPs are under attack from within their own party for their mediocre performance; and Scottish Socialists are breaking apart and regrouping in smaller cells. Concentrating the mind is rarely easy, often uncomfortable, and sometimes destructive.

So much for the politicians, what of the electorate? or more aptly, in times of declining voter participation, what of the people of Scotland? It is clear that here, as in the UK more generally, people have little confidence not only in politicians but in politics. Apart from cynicism encouraged by decades of scandals which, whatever their differences, give the general impression of exploitation of office; there is the feeling that most policies simply fail to make life better.

In the midst of my summer indolence, reading Chronicles proves to be one of the most nourishing experiences. There is no other monthly (except the New Criterion) which features such good writing on such a variety of subjects and which refuses to take anything for granted. The overwhelming majority of the intellectual culture of the West today lazily presupposes agreement with Enlightenment concepts and all that nasty business unleashed by the French Revolution. Chronicles dares ask the question "What if they're wrong?" and quite often posits the statement "Actually, they are wrong!" which then opens the door to truly considering, well, all the aspects of society; this even though Chronicles rather humbly subtitles itself 'A Magazine of American Culture'.

The August 2006 edition highlights the convergence between socialism and capitalism in our society and contains much of interest. However we will provide you with only a few good snippets from Thomas Fleming's piece, 'Socialism is Theft'.

[…] I remember my astonishment, in the 1980's, meeting college students who were already talking about which corporations offered the best retirement plans. At that age, I did not imagine I would live to see 25 – and the way I was living more than justified such skepticism. Girls and Greek poetry were my principal inspirations, and Greek still brings pleasure. When a young male is thinking about retirement at the age of 20, he has already given up all hope of ever becoming a man. […]

'We are all socialists now,' as Sir William Harcourt observed over a century ago, and nothing has so contributed to the socialist mentality of modern life as the disappearance of private property, not only as reality but even as an ideal. American mobility, combined with the frenetic hallucination that 'ending is better than mending,' has detached Americans, in particular, from local roots. These days, a home is not the place in which your father was born or your grandfather died; homes are sold by the dozens by realtos who are ever eager to help you move up. If a 'home' is nothing more than an investment, it is hard to blame the politicians for thinking they could turn your house and lot into a more socially productive investment by selling it to developers. […]

The abuse of eminent domain is only a minor symptom of a much deeper malaise. Our rights of possession are contingent on the power of government at every level to tax property and, if taxes are not paid within a specified period of time, to confiscate it and sell it to the highest bidder. For most of us, this power does not represent an imminent danger, but it is symbolic of our dependency on government. […]

Whatever they may earn, working stiffs who depend for their very existence on government agencies and corporations larger than most nation-states are a far cry from the confident and assured citizens of the old America. The old Americans were men and women few government lackeys wished to provoke. Today, we seem to live at the behest of powerful and impersonal forces. At best, we are their loyal (and timid) retainers.

Is this result – the weakening of our character – intentional? I do not know, but the motives of politicians are always suspect. The most successful lie put forth by neoconservatives is the so-called law of unintended consequences, which would have us believe that the architects of centralized state education, the New Deal, and the Great Society did not realize that the consequence of taking control of schooling might be to transfer authority from families and communities to state and federal bureaucracies, and they never imagined that, in paying people to do nothing, they would not only discourage the necessary habits of work and thrift but undermine the self-reliance and initiative that supposedly characterized the true American. This same political class, we are called upon to believe, had absolutely no idea that the 1965 Immigration Act would dramatically alter the ethnic composition of the United States or that flooding the Horn of Africa with weapons would lead to war. Credat Apella iudeaus!

Socialism marches on, and, in its progress, it attracts more dedicated capitalists and free-enterprise capitalists to the cause. Planned obsolescense in appliances is good, argues one libertarian con man, because we should always be buying the new and improved model. The same argument applies to houses, wives, families, and communities. We are all caught up in Progress Fever, like the Gold Fever that sent so many foolish men to die, far away from all they loved, in California or Montana.

Economic liberty and free enterprise can be maintained only by a certain kind of human character that is created and nourished under certain specific social and cultural conditions. A farmer who farms his own land and defends it with his gun, who supervises the schooling of his children and sits on his church's vestry, is a far cry from the deracinated consumer who switches houses every five years and pays other people to protect him. The consumer may make and spend far more money, but he does not have a clue as to the meaning of the term economic liberty, and, when times are hard, he will cry like a stuck pig for government to reach out its ever-extending arms to save him from the consequences of his cowardice and greed.

Click here for a photo of most of the world's reigning monarchs and a number of other royalty, gathered to celebrate the jubilee of the King of Thailand's accession to the throne.

A few weeks ago, Fr. Rutler informed me that the Queen of Thailand, upon acceding to the throne, made a vow never to perspire. No word on whether she's kept her vow.

Candice Hardwick, 15, walks to school with H.K. Edgerton, a former NAACP leader from North Carolina who is board chairman of the Southern Legal Resource Center, on Monday, May 22, 2006, in Latta, S.C. Terry Edgerton, left, brother of H.K. Edgerton, plays the drum as they march down the street to Latta High School. Hardwick is protesting her school's ban on wearing Confederate flag clothing. (AP Photo/Mary Ann Chastain)

...and the heroism of an Anglo-Hungarian countess.

IT IS ONE of the more saddening facts of life that British newspapers have suffered an inexorable decline in the past few years. The great Times of London – once the most respected newspaper in the world – has been reduced to a boring mid-brow tabloid, the once-solid Scotsman idiotified and, again, tabloided, and of course the Daily Telegraph, which has gone from staunchly conservative (as in worldview) to merely Conservative (as in the tribe of Britons who prefer blue to red).

The Telegraph, very much like the Conservative party itself, doesn't seem to know what it's there for. It has at least remained a broadsheet; going tabloid would be a disaster and would probably be considered the last straw for all the die-hards for whom loyalty to one's newspaper is a point of pride. And, to its credit, it finally seems to have realised the damage done by constant front-page photos of "Posh" and "Becks" and other "celebrity" partisans of the Anti-Culture, for they seem fewer and far between these days (as compared to a year or two ago, when they were frequent). The Telegraph's base are decent, conservative people who desire a quality newspaper. They are loyal to the Tele and, despite its decline, would be too embarrassed to jump ship to the Guardian, which is better written but which nonetheless expones a nefarious ideology.

As for myself, the last straw came one morning in the Common Room of St. Salvator's Hall when, flipping through the Telegraph, I reached the page which normally displays the Court Circular but found it missing, replaced by a curt statement advising that should I desire information about the activities of the Royal Family I should direct myself to http://www.royal.gov.uk. Outrageous! As it happens, this is not a permanent loss but rather an occasional one, as the editors at the Telegraph seem to decide whether or not to print the Court Circular each day on a whim. Fair enough, but I came to the realisation that the producers of the Telegraph are not aiming at me – the young conservative who seeks in his daily read a newspaper which is well-written, right-thinking, and properly presented – and so accordingly I have ceased to be a Telegraph regular.

What to read then? We have already dismissed the Times, the Scotsman, and the Guardian. The Daily Mail is conservative but very low-brow; the Daily Mirror, rabidly left-wing; the Sun, no thank you!; the Financial Times is too boring, though the Weekend edition is actually worth buying most of the time; the Independent has a good layout for a tabloid, but is rather of a Lib-Dem persuasion; the Glasgow Herald is just rather dull and has only recently repented of its long-held anti-Catholicism. Not wanting to support the nefarious New York Times, enemy of Western civilization and the last word in liberal elitism, its wholly-owned subsidiary the International Herald-Tribune is ruled out. Which pretty much rules out every English language daily newspaper available in St Andrews.

So, abandonné par ma langue, I have outsourced my daily read to the Continent (of all places!) and am now a partisan of le Figaro. While by no means fluent in the language, I can comprehend written French with greater ability than I speak it. While I still prefer the broadsheet size, the Berliner size of le Figaro nonetheless has its advantages, being very easy to read in the confined space of my regular chair in the corner of the little coffee shop down the street. More importantly, I find it much more engaging mentally, which I put down to the fact that (not being a native or fluent French speaker) I am forced to read every word. Unthinkingly, I believe, reading the Telegraph one only actually reads every third or so word; articles of particular interest excepted, naturally. The day's edition usually arrives in the middle of the day or the afternoon, but I buy my paper in the morning so actually I'm usually reading the previous day's Figaro. I don't mind, it suits my lifestyle. (Mornings are for reading the newspaper in a coffee shop, afternoons are for reading books with a slow pint in the pub.)

The chief deficit of reading a French newspaper is that naturally the news is oriented towards France, and thus I don't get the usual trans-Atlantic focus of the British papers (which can be an advantage as well as a deficit, I'll concede). Nonetheless, it does happen to have articles of interest to any traditionalist.

A few weeks ago, they reported on the restitution of Romanian castles to their original, pre-Communist owners ('L'impossible restitution des biens en Roumanie', le Figaro, 21 April 2006). The New York Sun rather amusingly and provincially headlined the story "Westchester Man To Take Possesion of Dracula's Castle" — the New York Post quite characteristically used the headline "VLAD TIDINGS". (FTD also reported on the restitution of Bran). When I wrote my previous post on the subject I was under the impression that Bran was one of the castles which would be restituted and then purchased back by the Romanian government, but most sources imply that this is not the case and Dominic von Habsburg (of North Salem, New York) will actually take possesion of the castle, I'm glad to hear.

This morning, then, I read in le Figaro of the controversy surrounding a red star which remains on a Soviet war memorial in a small town in Hungary, a country which has banned all Communist and Nazi emblems ('Hongrie: Le pasteur, la comtesse et l’étoile rouge', le Figaro, 6 May 2006). The local Protestant minister has been fighting to replace the red star, and has found an ally in Countess Jeanne-Marie Wenckheim-Dickens. The Countess, aged 70 and a descendant of Charles Dickens, returned to Hungary a few years ago after her husband died. The family had fled the country in 1944 just escaping the conquering Red Army. "I return home," the Countess says ('with a delicious British accent', le Figaro reports), "and what do I find? My castle transformed into an elementary school with, right in front of the gate, a red star! To me, this star is the Antichrist."

In true aristocratic style, the Countess funded the restoration of her former castle, now a school, and got permission from the town to live in the presbytery, an ancillary building of the old castle. However, when she proposed in 2004 to mark the accession of Hungary to the European Union by replacing the red star on the monument with a European flag, the ex-Communists in the town hall told her she "should not be afraid of the red star, but of the Cross!" With fighting spirit, "I placed a large cross on my entryway," the Countess says, "then I painted it gold so that the Mayor, whose window is opposite, can see it all the better."

"Crosses? She can build a hundred of them!" the Mayor said. "It doesn't disturb me!" But in return the Mayor had a house on what was the domain of the Wenckheim family renovated for the use of unemployed local musicians. "It was clearly to annoy me," the Countess said. "They thought the minstrels were going to make the area around the nearby church, built by my grandfather, filthy. But not at all! They respect the place, and I, I love their music very much." The Countess also gives weekly catechism lessons to local Gypsies. In her window, she displays a letter to the people of the town inviting them to vote conservative. "In December," the Countess continues, "before Christmas, I add little angels and holy pictures; they don't like that much across the way, since they're aimed at the town hall. Because I, too, have a star: but is the star of the Shepherd".

AH, GINGER ALE, one of the finer things in life if you ask me, and of course the finest ginger ale of all is good old Canada Dry. I was disturbed therefore when I recently saw a bottle of the "champagne of ginger ales" defaced with the name of Schweppes. (Schweppes ginger ale is tangier and much less enjoyable than Canada Dry). It turns out that the Cadbury Schweppes corporation now owns Canada Dry, which would not necessarily be a bad thing were it for the fact that I immediately suspected the ginger ale was Schweppes but the packaging was Canada Dry.

This would be a true abomination, the equivalent of selling some modern "pop art" and advertising it as the work of an old master. At the time I believed it actually was Schweppes, but my tastebuds having returned as my illness retreated, I'm not quite sure anymore. If the Cadbury Schweppes corporation has destroyed our favourite ginger ale, then let them be anathema!

It is always refreshing to hear a monarch speak his or her mind, especially when it is something quite plain and sensible that the high-falutin' politicos and public servants in their bufoonery would not dream of saying. As such, we were very happy to read some thoughts Queen Margrethe II of Denmark expressed last year:

"We are being challenged by Islam these years - globally as well as locally. It is a challenge we have to take seriously. We have let this issue float about for too long because we are tolerant and lazy.

"We have to show our opposition to Islam and we have to, at times, run the risk of having unflattering labels placed on us because there are some things for which we should display no tolerance.

"And when we are tolerant, we must know whether it is because of convenience or conviction."

I am sure we will all raise a glass to Her Majesty, and wish her many more happy years.

The famous 'gay horse' case, in which an Oxford student was being prosecuted for calling a policeman's horse 'gay' at a protest, has been dropped. Even Peter Tatchell, the noxious and himself outrageous head of the outrageous group OutRage!, though the case was outrageous, commenting "The idea that saying a police horse is gay is homophobic is laughable. It brings the police into disrepute."

'Gay horse' case dropped (The Scotsman, Edinburgh)
Case dropped against 'gay horse' student (Cherwell, Oxon)

Yesterday I, and over 100,000 others, popped down to our nation's capital for the annual March for Life held on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Despite the cold and passing rain, it was an event much enjoyed. I had never been to the March before, nor have I ever been to any sort of demonstration or rally of any kind for any cause. I recall, however, sitting in Canmore one day talking with the young Miss Clare Dempsey who worried over what the grandchildren of our generation might say when they look back remembering abortion and ask "What did you do to fight it?" Though it was comparitively little, waking up at 5:00 in the morning and sitting through a five-hour bus ride was a small price to pay in order to take part in the annual recollection of the devastating moment for the lives of the unborn and their mothers and fathers and family, and for our entire nation.

ALMIGHTY and gracious Father, we give you thanks for the fruits of the earth in their season and for the labors of those who harvest them. Make us, we beseech thee, faithful stewards of thy great bounty, for the provision of our necessities and the relief of all who are in need, to the glory of thy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

First Strip
1. Wally: You must be Gilbert. I'd turn to face you, but I'm psychologically tethered to my computer monitor.
2. Wally: To turn away even for an instant would shake the foundations of my world.
3. Wally: The new guy set fire to my cubicle.
Dilbert: Join me. Tether yourself to the water cooler.

Second Strip
1. Pointy-Haired Boss: Gilbert, I have to ask you not to drink frothy ale or stout in your cubicle.
2. Pointy-Haired Boss: Also, I -- Great Scott!! Are thos distributists!?! They can't be in here.
3. Pointy-Haired Boss: Is- Is this unpasteurized milk?
Wally: Someone replaced my microwaveable hot pockets with this fresh home-made bread.

Third Strip
1. Pointy-Haired Boss: Gilbert, I'm afraid we're going to terminate your employment here.
2. Pointy-Haired Boss: Your faith, your economic ideas, and belief in common sense – It threatens our bureaucracy.
Wally: See if we can keep the goat.
3. Pointy-Haired Boss (with GK's legendary foe G.B. Shaw): I think Mr. Shaw here will be a much better -er, "fit".
Gilbert: !!

The sad thing is that this is probably the highest-profile coverage given to Chesterton (and distributism) in quite some time.

Making one of my occasional forays into the neighboring state of Connecticut yesterday afternoon I was introduced to a little corner of paradise. A friend and I were going to partake in an evening with a club at Yale of which he was formerly president. As a mark of his completed tenure in the office he desired to purchase a pipe to donate to said organization, which brought us to an institution with which I was previously unacquainted.

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp – (1943) Directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. A fine film, worth seeing. I've spied a few Blimps-in-training at the Mess in Wyvern. Also, Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff is a heck of a good name for a character.
La Grande Illusion – (1937) Directed by Jean Renoir. I enjoyed this film greatly. It made me wish I had been a WWI pilot shot down by the Huns just so I could be invited to luncheon with the German officers. Everyone comported themselves well in those days (or at least in the cinema version of those days). According to IMDB, the Viennese Erich von Stroheim had spent so much time in America that he could barely speak German when the film was made.
The Birth of a Nation – (1915) Directed by D.W. Griffith. Disturbing. The film's basic premise that the United States was forged as a nation by the white knights of the Ku Klux Klan is balderdash, pure and simple. Still, a powerful and remarkable propaganda film. "It is like writing history with lightning, and my only regret is that it is all so terribly true," said Woodrow Wilson, whose Southern racism most modern liberals like to ignore.
Alexander Nevsky – (1938) Directed by Sergei M. Eisenstein, score by Sergei Prokofiev. More brilliant propaganda, this time for the USSR, not the KKK. Beautifully shot, but the battle scene is a tad too long. Though very nationalistic, it is not hard to see the communism behind the film in a number of scenes. Found the only slightly veiled swastikas on the mitre of the Teutonic bishop rather droll.
The Battle of Algiers – (1965) Directed by Gillo Pontecorvo, score by Ennio Morricone. My second viewing of this splendid film. Colonel Mathieu: "There are 80,000 Arabs in the Casbah. Are they all against us? We know they're not. In reality, it's only a small minority that dominates with terror and violence. That minority is our adversary; we must isolate it and destroy it." And they did. Still managed to lose Algeria though – which was a damn shame for the Algerians.

MACES OF AMERICA: PART I — THE UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH

George Hart, President of the Order of Gownsmen, bears the University Mace for the Vice-Chancellor, Dr. McCrady

"The recent convocation at Sewanee's All Saints' Chapel was a majestic display," writes the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "University hierarchs in medieval garb spoke Latin, their words echoing throughout the nave. New honor students donned black robes, marking their entrance into the prestigious Order of Gownsmen. Everyone sang: "Alma Mater, Sewanee, My glorious Mother ever be.

"To the outsider, nothing in the rites intimated any threat to this 148-year-old school's role as a champion of Southern aristocratic heritage. To traditionalists, however, there were signs of treacherous modifications to Sewanee's old school way of doing things. ... The University Mace — a ceremonial baton covered with Confederate symbols that is supposed to be carried by the Gownsmen president — was gone."

The University of the South, which sits on a 10,000-acre domain in Sewanee, Tennesee, is in my opinion the St Andrews of America. To my knowledge it is the only university on this side of the Atlantic which comes close to, and in many regards exceeds, the Universitas Sancti Andrea apud Scotus in the maintenance of tradition. In is interesting therefore, that the mace of the University of the South (Universitas Meridiana) has been the center of one of the scandals of the age of political correctness.

The mace was commissioned in what truly was another time, almost another world. In 1964, Louise Claiborne-Armstrong commissioned the jewellers Shreve and Company of San Francisco to make a mace for the University of the South which incorporated a number of her most precious jewels. A perfect, blue/white four-carat diamond is set in the Cross which tops the Mace. The shaft was crafted of enamelled walnut while, excepting a gold band, the rest of the Mace is sold silver.

What makes the Mace controversial in this day and age, as noted in the Journal-Constitution, is not the quality of its composites. Mrs. Claiborne-Armstrong donated the Mace to the University, dedicating it "To the Glory of God and In Loving Memory of General Nathan Bedford Forrest". The General, an alumnus of that great institution, is more renowned for being the founder of another institution, infinitely less learned and more notorious: the Ku Klux Klan. [Correction, the General was not an alumnus of the University of the South, and was not the founder but instead the first Grand Wizard of the KKK]. Despite ordering the Klan to disband in 1869 because he was unhappy with the descending course it was following, the Klan was twice revived and remnants of it continue to this day. Needless to say, it has left something of a blight on the General's name (and rightly so!).

Aside from the dedication to General, the purveyors of political correctness took offense that the University Mace also displayed the Confederate Battle Flag and elements from the Great Seal of the Confederacy. Innocuous? Of course! But the PC crowd lusts for the destruction of all tradition, innocuous or otherwise.

The University Mace was used in the Convocation ceremony beginning the academic year at Sewanee. The macebearer was, ex officio, the President of the Order of the Gownsmen. At the University of the South, honor students are accorded the right to wear a black gown. They corporately form the Order of the Gownsmen, and advise the student government and the administration on the running of the University. According to the University, the Mace was broken in 1997, and given its "controversial" nature the administration had little desire to have it repaired.

Sadly, the University has recently been trying to downplay, well, itself, by downplaying its southern-ness. Most official school materials now refer to it as 'Sewanee', sometimes with 'the University of the South' in smaller letters. The name of the University has not officially changed – it should be noted the founders specifically rejected naming it the University of Sewanee – but the exercise in rebranding has been part of a general anti-traditional trend at the institution.

The tradition of the University Mace will continue. At the moment, a wooden baton acts as a replacement, but a new mace is being designed by Waring McCrady, Professor Emeritus of French and son of the 11th Vice-Chancellor of the University of the South, Edward McCrady, who accepted the gift of the Claiborne-Armstrong mace. The University says the new mace "will honor the University’s four founding Southern bishops: Otey, Polk, Quintard and Elliott" while the repaired old mace will rest in the University's historic display. (Those interested in Bishop Leonidas Polk, or more properly the Right Reverand Lieutenant-General Leonidas Polk, C.S.A., may take care to visit a website dedicated to his memory, from which I have found the preponderance of information on the University Mace, including the images.)

A photograph of All Saints' Chapel at the University of the South before the flags of southern states were removed.

Dear Reader,
Hopefully this will be the first in a series of posts covering a selection of the ceremonial maces of the United States, focusing especially on the remaining colonial maces. Please continue onwards for the University of the South's Order of Service from the Blessing of the University Mace.

"What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.'"

Sir Winston Churchill, To the House of Commons, 18 June 1940.

It was with these words that Churchill, speaking not just to the House of Commons but to Britain and the whole world via the BBC, signalled the gravity of the crisis at hand, and the necessity to persist in fighting the Nazi menace. It makes it all the more alarming to think back of those days, not just to merely hear, but to listen to this speech and to think of the sixty years which have passed since the war in Europe was brought to a conclusion. The Prime Minister explicitly stated what was at stake in the struggle.

Sixty years ago, a war was fought and won to defend Christian civilization, the British way of life, the long continuity of British institutions and the Empire. In the past sixty years, all have been viciously assaulted. In the past sixty years, all – save Christian civilization – have been almost entirely destroyed.

A day late, I hope all our Canadian friends and neighbours have enjoyed a happy and blessed Dominion Day. In tribute to the Great White North, I present our dear readers with that wonderful song, the anthem of anglophone Canada – thistle, shamrock, rose entwined – the Maple Leaf Forever. It is one of my favorite tunes, and were I governor of this fair land, after making coattails and top hats de rigeur for gubernatorial events, I think I'd steal the notes and make a new song called Empire State Forever.

So all that remains is to say long live Canada and God Save the Queen!

"There is no justification for retaining working court dress on the grounds of tradition alone - our courts are not a tourist attraction."

— Lord Chancellor's Department Consultation Paper, 'Court Working Dress in England and Wales', May 2003

This sentence alone epitomises the noxious worldview of the modernist. It is a sentence that pronounces with totalitarian authority a ruling to which it allows no appeal. Tradition, they would tell us, has no inherent value in and of itself. It is nothing but a potential boon to the tourist industry – which is thoroughly reprehensible itself.

Yes, you heinous ignoramuses! There is a justification for retaining wigs and gowns in court on the grounds of tradition alone: thus it is, and ever thus it has been, and ne'er has a soul come to harm because of it! Fat, vile, impudent, ignorant modernist bureaucrats! I believe there is a tradition in the American South involving a self-appointed gang of citizens, a noose, and a tree with strong branches. I couldn't think of a more appropriate exercise of such a tradition than ridding us of the damnable soul – loathsome, worthless degenerate! – who composed that sentence with all its odious implications.

You may read the detestable 'consultation paper' online at what was the Lord Chancellor's Department but which has since been corporately rebranded by Tony and the gang as the 'Department for Constitutional Affairs' with its own catchphrase 'Justice, rights and democracy' (sic), lacking the Oxford comma. There are further contemptible utterances in the document; it is not for the faint of heart.

"Live 8 Hype Recalls Triumph of Live Aid" sounds forth the headline of a recent Associated Press article. Read the article, if you dare. It is exhibitive of the decline (or is it death?) of modern journalism. It is completely lacking in any inquisitive or challenging spirit and one would not be terribly foolish to mistake it for a press release of Live 8's public relations department.

Now, arguably Live Aid may have been a triumph in the sense of it being a highly-sucessful rock concert, but as a humanitarian endeavour it was far from anything approaching a 'triumph'. Much of the money raised, after all, merely lined the pockets of Ethiopia's evil dictator Mengistu who, it should be recalled, pretty much started the famine in the first place. (A starving populace is much easier to control). Yet the only negative thing the article has to say is mentioning the few fumblings of the hastily-organised 1985 shindigs. The writer – 'journalist' if flattery is your wont – merely adopts a commonly-accepted myth and accepts it unreservedly as fact. Journalism? Balderdash!

I. Conservatism is an anti-ideological ideology. It is as uncomfortable being labelled an ideology, though it is, as secular humanism is uncomfortable being labelled a religion, though it is. Many have tried to precisely extrapolate the tenets of conservatism, most noticeably Russell Kirk in the last century, but I believe this to be a somewhat fruitless enterprise. To me, conservatism seems to be the prudent attempt to balance continuity with change, erring on the cautious side of the wisdom of our elders and ancestors rather than the fashions of our day. After all, tradition, according to Chesterton, is the democracy of the dead.

Conservatism – when I say conservatism I mean of course the real pragmatic traditional Christian social ideal, my conservatism, not neo- or corporate or libertarian or whatnot – gives voices to all the epochs of civilization and progresses along a merry path of continuity. Continuity is a keystone of conservatism. Falkland said "when it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change." I'd be inclined to agree. The modern way of thought – 'liberalism', progressivism, socialism, what have you – insists on a break with the past: a chasm between what has always been and what they would have us be. It is revolution, instead of evolution. As science has shown us, evolution is how God has made Man what he is; revolution is how Satan perverts us from what we should be. Where there has been a breach between ourselves and the past, we must fill it. Not retreat to the other side of the gap, but fill it. Restore, inspire, and create; don't retreat.

II. In a conservative world, the Church inspires John to give to Jack. This is virtuous. In a modernist world, the State takes from John, gives half to bureaucrats, and some to Jack. This is ridiculous.

III. America, by some curious fate, stands today as the paragon of conservatism. Many find this out of step with the founding of the United States, and I believe them mistaken in so finding. When we look at the British political tradition, we can see that in many ways the American Revolution, imprudent as it may have been, fits in perfectly with English political evolution: from Runnymede, to William and Mary, then Lexington and Concord, and finally Philadelphia 1789.

Ah, but perhaps I have fallen into the danger of constructing meta-narratives. The British political tradition also has its contradictions. The freedom of the Church was considered so utterly central and important that it was the first tenet of the Magna Carta, but was then so blatantly trampelled upon by Henry VIII and his succesors (excepting Mary I). Would the great Westminster system of government – which still today governs Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and of course India, the largest democracy the world has ever seen – have been possible had not the rupture between England and the rest of Christendom occurred? I believe so, others may disagree; arguments can be made either way. At the end of the day, the what-if game is not one to which we should devote much time.

During my various travels – which have been limited in comparison to those of others but I dare say very rich experiences nonetheless – I have sometimes been tempted into a system for the classification of people and peoples. There are friends, cousins, and foreigners.

Since I am an American, friends are Americans. American is a very open, wide, and varied category of person. A cabbie born in India, an accountant of Italian extraction, a stockbrocker with Irish origins, a factory worker who a few generations back is a Pole: all are Americans. A New Yorker, DCer, Virginian, a Kansan, Texan, Oklahoman, even a Californian: all are Americans.

As Americans, our cousins are varied. There are first the most obvious cousins: Brits, Canucks, Aussies, Kiwis, the Irish, and white Africans. They all might prefer their home countries, but don't feel as if each others are quite foreign. I have lived in (or to be precisely, I currently spend most my time in) Britain and it doesn't seem quite that foreign, though it certifiably isn't home. I suspect (though cannot prove) this would be quite the same were I an American at Sydney, McGill, Otago, Trinity, or Rhodes instead of an American at St Andrews.

Let us therefore suppose the British, Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians, Irish, and white Africans are our first cousins. There are also other people, who seem foreign but I think would also be quite familiar to us. During my time in Argentina I discovered that the Argentine middle/upper class were entirely our cousins, not foreigners. They are also zealous Anglophiles. (The saying goes that Argentines are all Italians who speak Spanish and want to be English). However, I very much doubt the Argentine working class are cousins (and I doubt even more they are Anglophiles). I suspect a great deal of Indians are cousins, though I suspect a great deal more are foreigners. These are examples of second cousins and further. I think the remainder of the Commonwealth, West Indians, black Africans, the Hong Kong Chinese, etc., etc, fit into this category, and arguably the Filipinos as well.

We have much in common with our first and second cousins, and we much to ourselves as well. Foreigners, on the other hand, are foreign. We have little in common with them in culture, politics, tradition, or otherwise. Our only real connection with them is our common brotherhood as men created in the image of God. They are the type of people who don't understand your ways and at whom you mutter "bloody foreigner" under your breath.

Continental Europe is an issue. Friends of mine (in the real, social sense, that is) tell me that under my system of classification the Germans/Austrians are dear misguided cousins, while the French are definitely wily foreigners, while the Italians are dear, misguided, wily, foreign cousins. I plead ignorance.

"Friends", "cousins", "foreigners". Like all systems, it is a flawed one, and I would hesitate in pushing it too far, but I've found it holds true to a certain extent.

The editorial statement on Terri Schiavo released by the New Pantagruel effectively sums up the right attitude towards this most important case.

Here in St Andrews, there is an elderly lady named Mrs. Stevens who goes to Mass every day. During conversations after Mass one day with younger students, she said "It's your generation that are going to have to be heroic." Her generation did their part, and we are ready to take up that mantle, but in a sense it is the generation in between, the generation now in power, that has failed.

Where is the willingness to stand up to the courts and their ridiculous decrees? Is it not obvious that the State cannot justly starve to death a woman who, though brain-damaged, still laughs, smiles, and cries? Has Governor Bush really done everything he can to save her life? I suspect not (and those who have been lukewarm in her defense will pay the price).

Governor Bush: Damn the courts and damn the lawyers, send in the Florida National Guard and save that woman's life!

Novy Ochevidets, Russia's blatant imitation of the New Yorker is shutting down after only five months in operation, according to the Moscow Times.

Novy Ochevidets, which translates as the 'New Eyewitness', specially commissioned a Cyrillic font that fashioned after that of its mentor, and even had it's own version (seen at right) of the New Yorker's classic fopp, Eustace Tilly.

I mourn for the New Yorker. It has yet to recover from Tina Brown's years at the helm, and shows no signs of getting better. Indeed, quite the opposite, as was shown this past year when the magazine endorsed a political candidate for the first time in its history. (If you hadn't already guessed, it was the man perenially described by James Taranto as 'the haughty French-looking senator from Massachusetts who, by the way, also served in Vietnam').

Via the indispensible Arts & Letters Daily.

I am back home in New York after having completed my Martinmas term examinations. This morning, my mother, sister, brother-in-law, and I went out for breakfast to celebrate my "triumphant return from another term at university." (I suggested it might be wiser to wait until the casualty reports are released before we declare it a triumph).

Nonetheless, I now have three weeks of time almost entirely free from obligations to do whatever I please. It is perhaps how a man spends his free time that defines him, as free time is the foundation of civilization itself. Roger Kimball reflects on this in a recent Armavirumque posting, mentioning Josef Pieper and Leisure: The Basis of Culture, a book I was first introduced to by Robert O'Brien whilst still half-asleep at 7:30 in the morning waiting for a train at Leuchars station so we could attend the Tridentine mass in Edinburgh.

Leisure, by which we mean doing something merely for its own sake, is entirely different from mere pleasure. Unfortunately for the English language, we oft mistake the two for synonyms. It is leisure in that latter sense, of idleness and cheap pleasure, which our good friend Prof. Richard Demarco resoundly condemned in a lecture he gave at St Andrews. This kind of leisure, he stated, was leading to the destruction of Scotland, of Europe, and of civilization. Art today, according to Richard, is a collection of usually talentless kitsch which seeks merely to create an arrangement that is pleasing or clever. Art, in Richard Demarco's world, should not aim to be pleasing, or to be clever, but should have as its essence the very highest that man can achieve: the sanctification of souls. In pursuit of pleasure rather than leisure, tourism is taking over entire countries; a false economy which can enslave the entire population of a given area.

It is certainly rampant in St Andrews. There are many good reasons to visit St Andrews. The third-oldest university in the English-speaking world, for example, or perhaps to see ruins of one of the greatest shrines in Christendom, bearing witness to the visceral damage wrought by the Protestant Revolution (we should refuse to dignify that revulsion with the name of 'reformation'; it destroyed and replaced, not reformed). Most, however, come for the golf.

While niches once full remain empty from the holocausts of five centuries ago, the Scottish Parliament would prefer to spend its millions (which, you must never forget, are the people's millions) on encouraging this pointless and ineffective idleness, Demarco pointed out. More recently, South Street, where I live, will soon be shorn of its beautiful trees, those which make it one of the most inviting and comely thoroughfares in the Royal Burgh. This must be done, we are told, to increase the number of parking spaces, the paucity of which might be driving away potential tourists. Perish the thought! Heaven forbid a town be run for the benefit of its inhabitants, for the benefit of itself (but surely by now they have already forbidden Heaven).

As Mr. Kimball points out, the opposite of the former leisure, the leisure which Pieper posits is the basis of culture, is busyness. Perhaps we can extend this to business, for it is the dollar, the pound, and the euro which enslave St Andrews to transient tourists. Without tourism, some say, St Andrews, or Oxford or Venice or wherever, would not survive. But at what price survival? And who defines this survival? That these places are still on the map and are inhabited is for sure. But in some sense have not these places, while encouraging tourism as a mode of survival, been so changed and transformed that in fact they have not survived. Decrepit and rundown, they may have been, but at least they had authenticity; at least they were themselves. Now most of the goods sold in St Andrews – saltires, fake kilts, tam o'shanters, and Scotland t-shirts – are in fact things that can be purchased in half the towns in Scotland, and now with the advent of the internet, you can purchase them while you remain at home. Their cheapness is only accompanied by the sentiment of being a souvenir in the original French sense of the word: to remember. But they are remembrances for short memories, and likely will be thrown out within a year, because we, and it all comes back to this, do not have the time for longer memories.

Thus one of the chief values of an education must be free time. St Andrews affords this, I am glad to say; especially if you are an arts student and are not aiming for a first. All too often friends of mine at universities in the States or at Oxbridge are busy. They are either busy with busywork, (assignments for school which must be done to stay in the university but have little graded value or academic merit) or else busy with social activity and other amusements which vary greatly as to whether one's in a big city or not (most often the case with NYU students I find).

When I finally start my university, we must make sure that students have enough free time then, perhaps the greatest argument for not locating it in an overactive urban metropolis. Though of course a good part of education is that which transmits information and ideas and, more importantly, inculcates moral values, much must be left up to the student. There is an inherent value in reading not what is required but what is desired.

And so I will get on with my post-exam break, reading the Pickwick Papers, the Everlasting Man, and This Side of Paradise, hopefully with some time to browse through Haldane's Faithful Reason: Essays Catholic and philosophical (which, on a typographical note, makes ample use of the Gill Sans font).

The young Miss Burbage points me to this article in the Crimson on the virtues of hatred, with the comment "I thought as much". I have observed that some of the most amusing people I know are "haters". One of the great drawbacks of our politically-correct age is that the most drole and entertaining stories I hear cannot be shared on this webpage for the participants' fear of prospective employers googling their names and coming up with surly tales of various hijinks.

It's all in good fun, of course, but some people will just never get it. I'm particularly reminded of an Allison Burbage story which took place at a party in the town of Pelham, which certianly cannot be retold here and now. Nonetheless, just remembering Burbage's delivery of this story sends me into barrels of laughter.

Someday, I hope to unite all the haters in my life (Miss Burbage, Mr. Ishmael, Mr. Burke, as well as all the closet haters — you know who you are) in one giant transatlantic dinner party where we can verbally savage and profane all the sacred cows of our terrible modern world. It would be a night to remember. Vive le vitriol!

This review of Edwin Black's new book War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race deserves your attention.

Belgian politicians are seeking to introduce euthanasia for children. It brought to mind this passage from St. Paul:

Courage, folks. This is a battle in a war that probably won't end any time soon.

The other evening whilst out on the town with Will Moller (Groton '02, Kenyon '06), I was pleased to learn that Groton still graduates its male student in straw boaters.

I think straw boaters are about due for a revival. And not those horrific plastic numbers that proliferate around convention and campaign time. The real deal. The trouble is the best place to start a straw boater revival is St Andrews, and we're only all in St Andrews when straw boaters aren't really "in season" as the sartorialists would say.

The Scotsman has given in to the current Fleet Street mania and become a tabloid. The newspaper had experimented with the tabloid size for its Saturday edition and then just a few days ago converted the weekday editions as well.

For my fellow Americans in the audience, a little explanation. Going tab is all the rage amongst respectable newspapers in Britain over the past year. The ancient Times of London comes in both broadsheet and tabloid format. The Independent was the first broadsheet to publish both a broadsheet and tabloid edition, and then decided to become a permanent tabloid. The Guardian, to my knowledge, has kept out of the tabloid fray, and the venerable Daily Telegraph remains commited to broadsheetism.

The benefits of publishing in tabloid size are that the newspaper is easier to handle and read. Financially, however, it means page size, and thus potential advertising space, is reduced by half.

I am not a fan of this tabloid revolution. I fantasize periodically about the Mitre being published in broadsheet format instead of A4. Perhaps my anti-tabloidism is culturally ingrained. After all, we Anglophones are used to the formula of broadsheet = trustworthy. This formula is not true, for example, in France, where the two main respectable newspapers, le Figaro and le Monde, are printed in a format slightly smaller than the standard US/UK tabloid.

Nonetheless, one of the aspects of broadsheets that I enjoy is that they aren't easy to read on subways and whatnot. It's best to sit down in a comfortable chair in a well-lit location and peruse the goings-on and thoughts of New York, the nation, and the world in the New York Sun than to get tiny bits of news in a "convenient" format.

Bon Voyage has to be one of the best films I've seen ever. A true classic. Cinema at its most magnificent and magnetic. Bon Voyage is entertaining, thrilling, amusing, beautiful, and full of intrigue. Hollywood hasn't made a film that could even approach its quality in years.

Alright, alright, I'll admit its a film that appeals especially to me. It is, after all, French, and depicts a period of French history of which I am particularly interested in: the advent of the Vichy regime. But this is no history film. It is certainly not a "romantic comedy" as described on the back of the DVD box. It was a pleasure in every way. Certainly not the usual claptrap you get from Los Angeles designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator. This is a film where all the contributing factors (beautiful women, gunfire, and intrigue) are in proportion.

Well I could go on for ages. Just see it! Rent it, buy it, confiscate it, see it!

The official Bon Voyage website from Sony Pictures Classic.

Roger Kimball on the New York Times' depiction of conservatives. It reminds me of when the Old Gray Lady started off an article on pro-American demonstrations in Monrovia with "oddly enough". Why the Times considers disenfranchised, oppressed peoples demonstrating in favor of the world's greatest democracy "odd" is beyond me.

The debate continues:

TCR News

Read this interesting piece on George Orwell by none other than Malcolm Muggeridge.

George Orwell: a man of remarkable prescience.

Via In Pectore.

With a 60.5% turnout, here are the results of the elections for the House of Commons:

Party	%	308
Liberal Party of Canada/Parti Libéral du Canada	36.7	135
Conservative Party of Canada/Parti Conservateur du Canada	29.6	99
New Democratic Party/Nouveau Parti Démocratique	15.7	19
Bloc Québécois	12.4	54
Green Party of Canda/Parti Vert du Canada	4.3	-
Non-partisan		1

The Bloc Qu��b��cois had the advantage of a very catchy election theme.

I must admit I rather have a soft spot for Qu��bec, probably due to my general francophilia. Quebec is a nation that doesn't live up to potential and I mean this in a very different way than the Bloc Qu��b��cois probably think...

Via In Pectore.

As In Pectore points out, His Grace is only 53 and the coadjutor bishop of Orlando. Why do they send the good bishops to diocese that, to a New Yorker, are seemingly arcane? I can't wait for the day we hear of Cardinal Bruskewitz, Archbishop of New York and Cardinal Chaput, Archbishop of Los Angeles. Perchance to dream. Ins