Are Smells Racist?

From Right Flank:

Reading Shakespeare under a Marxist lens–Shakespeare knew nothing about Marx because Marx had yet to be born–is absurd. Absurdity is an absence of meaning. It would be like attempting to fix a 1947 Ford pickup using 2024 Tesla parts. Barthes may as well have titled the essay “The Death of Western Civilization.” With the death of the author, God dies too. Where there is no truth, anything goes. Satan, no matter Milton’s intent in Paradise Lost, becomes a hero to whom many a college student willingly signs over their soul. Maybe that’s why “Enrollment in the humanities is in free fall at colleges around the country,” and The New Yorker pronounced the English major as good as dead in 2023. (Read more.)

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'Nosferatu' (2024) is a Frightening Wake-up Call

I hate vampire movies of any kind but this review is interesting. From The Catholic World Report:

It is appropriate, therefore, that Eggers is now able to offer his own Nosferatu to the same movie-going public that might otherwise buy a ticket to the latest Avengers copy of a copy or run-of-the-mill horror film. And as for the latter category, while his film is not exactly jump-out-of-your-seat terrifying, it is a whole lot scarier, not to mention gorier and more sexually explicit, than its two predecessors. Most importantly, Eggers’ Nosferatu is a major artistic achievement that engages with the realm of the spirit even more profoundly than his previous efforts.

Eggers sticks with Murnau’s version in using the German instead of English names for the characters. He also broadens the Romantic-era female passion of the character of the young bride, Ellen, played in a show-stealing performance by Lily-Rose Depp. We learn early on that Count Orlok is drawn from Transylvania to the German town of Wisborg (a fictionalization of Wismar on the North Sea) precisely because of Ellen, who had had an erotic experience with the demon count in a moment of juvenile longing. The theme of the danger of sexual awakening is only hinted at in Murnau’s original and ignored completely in Herzog’s remake, but Eggers is right to make more of it than his predecessors. He invites the audience to think about how, even in our disenchanted age, the few spiritually sensitive souls around us may not only be in danger themselves, but may also bring risk to the rest of us. Without a culture-wide understanding of good and evil, their passions make them sitting ducks for dark opportunists.

And yet, while it may have been Ellen’s confused pubescent desires that initially made her susceptible to Orlok’s sorcery, the door is open for her passions to be redirected to good. There is a tender conclusion to a brutal scene in the film where Ellen confesses her shame to her husband, played by the excellent Nicholas Hoult, and she thanks him for giving her the appropriate avenue in holy matrimony for her God-given fervor. In the end, Ellen takes the opportunity to redeem the world around her, just as the female protagonist in Murnau’s version does, only more dramatically. The final sequence between Count Orlok and Ellen is a shocker, but Eggers pulls out all the stops to show how the light ultimately knows no equal in the darkness. By sacrifice, darkness is banished and order is restored. (Read more.)

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The Passing of Arthur

One of the most stirring passages from Tennyson's Idylls of the King are the last stanzas of "The Passing of Arthur," in which the wounded king is spirited away to the "island-valley" of Avalon.

And slowly answered Arthur from the barge:
‘The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfils himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.
Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me?
I have lived my life, and that which I have done
May He within himself make pure! but thou,
If thou shouldst never see my face again,
Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice
Rise like a fountain for me night and day.
For what are men better than sheep or goats
That nourish a blind life within the brain,
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer
Both for themselves and those who call them friend?
For so the whole round earth is every way
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.
But now farewell. I am going a long way
With these thou seest—if indeed I go
(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt)—
To the island-valley of Avilion;
Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,
Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies
Deep-meadowed, happy, fair with orchard lawns
And bowery hollows crowned with summer sea,
Where I will heal me of my grievous wound.’

So said he, and the barge with oar and sail
Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan
That, fluting a wild carol ere her death,
Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood
With swarthy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere
Revolving many memories, till the hull
Looked one black dot against the verge of dawn,
And on the mere the wailing died away.

But when that moan had past for evermore,
The stillness of the dead world’s winter dawn
Amazed him, and he groaned, ‘The King is gone.’
And therewithal came on him the weird rhyme,
‘From the great deep to the great deep he goes.’

Whereat he slowly turned and slowly clomb
The last hard footstep of that iron crag;
Thence marked the black hull moving yet, and cried,
‘He passes to be King among the dead,
And after healing of his grievous wound
He comes again; but—if he come no more—
O me, be yon dark Queens in yon black boat,
Who shrieked and wailed, the three whereat we gazed
On that high day, when, clothed with living light,
They stood before his throne in silence, friends
Of Arthur, who should help him at his need?’

Then from the dawn it seemed there came, but faint
As from beyond the limit of the world,
Like the last echo born of a great cry,
Sounds, as if some fair city were one voice
Around a king returning from his wars.

Thereat once more he moved about, and clomb
Even to the highest he could climb, and saw,
Straining his eyes beneath an arch of hand,
Or thought he saw, the speck that bare the King,
Down that long water opening on the deep
Somewhere far off, pass on and on, and go
From less to less and vanish into light.
And the new sun rose bringing the new year.

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China Hacks U.S. Treasury

 From The National Pulse:

The Biden-Harris government announced on Monday that a state-sponsored actor from China breached the U.S. Treasury Department. According to federal officials, the attack allowed the hackers to access workstations used by government employees and obtain unclassified materials. This development follows recent reports that Chinese entities had infiltrated U.S. telecommunications networks, gaining access to the conversations and text messages of American officials.

On December 8, BeyondTrust, a third-party software service vendor, alerted the Treasury Department about the security breach. The hackers had secured a security key, enabling remote access to certain department workstations and associated documents. The Treasury Department communicated this information to lawmakers in a formal letter. (Read more.)

 

Communism is alive and well and trying to spread. From Sinocism:

The Party’s leadership gathers a tremendous force for building Chinese modernization. Our Party profoundly understands that Chinese modernization is a cause of hundreds of millions of people, and that the people are the principal force behind Chinese modernization. Therefore, we must rely closely on the people, respect their creative spirit, and gather the wisdom and strength of all, so as to continuously advance Chinese modernization. We uphold the Party’s mass line, focusing on gauging the people’s sentiments, addressing their concerns, reflecting their aspirations, and enhancing their well-being when considering issues, making decisions, and handling affairs. We strive to secure the people’s wholehearted support for the Party’s theories, guidelines, principles, and policies. We remain committed to taking the people’s aspirations for a better life as our goal, upholding a people-centered development philosophy, prioritizing efforts to protect and improve people’s livelihoods, and focusing on solving their most pressing difficulties and concerns. By doing so, we ensure that the fruits of building Chinese modernization benefit all people more equitably. Our Party develops whole-process people’s democracy, broadens democratic channels, diversifies forms of democracy, and expands the people’s orderly participation in political affairs. This ensures that the people can, in accordance with the law and through various channels and means, manage state affairs, economic and cultural affairs, and social affairs, and thereby devote themselves with great enthusiasm to the cause of modernization as masters of their own country. The Party uses the vision of Chinese modernization to motivate, inspire, and galvanize people. It effectively promotes harmony in relations between political parties, ethnic groups, religions, social strata, and between compatriots at home and overseas, and encourages Chinese people worldwide to unite in pursuit of common goals, thus forging a mighty force for fully building a modern socialist country. (Read more.)

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King Baudouin: ‘A Witness to the Living Christ’

 From the Catholic News Agency:

Baudouin came to the throne at age 19, and the beginning of his reign was marked by a deep crisis known as the “Royal Question” related to the controversy over the decisions of his father, Leopold III, during World War II.

“He suffered a lot because of all this, but I know that it was his faith that helped him overcome it,” one of the relatives said.

His upbringing was greatly affected by a Dominican priest from Switzerland who “had a great spiritual influence” during his youth. He was also guided by Cardinal Leo Jozef Suenens, whose meeting with him in the autumn of 1959 left a deep mark on him until the day of his death. (Read more.)

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"Auld Lang Syne"

Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind ?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and old lang syne ?

CHORUS:

For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we'll take a cup of kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

~ "Auld Lang Syne"

The phrase "old lang syne" means "long, long ago" or "days gone by" in the Scots dialect. The Scottish poet Robert Burns composed the poem based upon a traditional song. According to the background notes on the Cantaria site:

Robert Burns sent a copy of the original song to the British Museum with this comment: "The following song, an old song, of the olden times, and which has never been in print, nor even in manuscript until I took it down from an old man's singing , is enough to recommend any air." (Gavin Grieg: "Last Leaves of Traditional Ballads") He set it to a traditional Scottish air that is quite different than the popularized version.

Throughout the English-speaking world, Auld Lang Syne is traditionally sung on New Years Eve (known as Hogmanay in Scotland). That tradition does not hearken back to Burns but rather only to Canadian band leader Guy Lombardo who sang at midnight January 1, 1929 in the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City. Guy Lombardo's orchestra played the song every New Years Eve, in live broadcast from New York, until 1976. Since then, their recording has been played each year as part of the Times Square "ball drop." (Sheet music for the familiar New Years Eve version.)

An article in The Scotsman shares the following insight:

As Thomas Crawford wrote in his important critical examination, Burns: A Study of the Poems and Songs: "In Auld Lang Syne, Burns brings together two different types of nostalgia for past shared happiness, and makes of them a single, compound emotion. Thus our feelings develop as we sing it, until by the end of the song we seem to experience a distillation of all the mutual loyalty, all the partnerships between individuals that have existed since the world began."

A very true observation. For more on Scottish Hogmanay customs, click HERE. Happy New Year!


(Artwork from Karen) Share

Six Things To Know About The New Jersey Drone Mystery

 From The Daily Wire:

From November heading into December of 2024, mysterious “car-sized” drone sightings became a major news story. While there had been suspected drones at night in places across the United States, New Jersey in particular became a focal point due to a high concentration of reported sightings in the state. Here are six things to know about the situation:

Sightings of suspected drones have been reported in the night skies near military sites, critical infrastructure, President-elect Donald Trump‘s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, and elsewhere. (Read more.)

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A Domestic Revolution

From DW:

"If I had known that I would have to talk about this damned kitchen for the rest of my life, I would never have built it!" said 100-year-old Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky in an interview in 1998. The kitchen she designed in the 1920s rewrote architectural history and revolutionized the lives of public housing residents by creating a newly functional, fitted culinary space.

Dubbed the "Frankfurt kitchen," Schütte-Lihotzky created a piece of pioneering social architecture that has defined kitchens to this day. The designer was also a women's rights activist and was celebrated as a heroine of resistance against the Nazi dictatorship. (Read more.)

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