America’s Woke Revolution

 From Chronicles:

s Burns’s new and arguably most ambitious documentary, which continues a 44-year career of sweeping, colorfully narrated, and lavishly illustrated treatments of vital swaths of American history and culture, something that can unite Americans? Many felt that way about his magnum opus, The Civil War (1990), which, long before the South and its heroes were condemned to racialized damnatio memoriae, humanized both Yankees and Confederates. It was a painstakingly rendered history that offered a moving and informed account of our country’s most challenging episode in a format that commanded near-universal appeal and won nearly unanimous praise.

Alas, in the intervening years, Burns, much like the formerly government-funded broadcaster that has reliably featured his work ever since, has succumbed to what Elon Musk has called “the woke mind virus.” Evidence of Burns’s politicization appeared as early as his lengthy 1994 series Baseball, which might have convinced some viewers that our erstwhile national sport was merely an open-air canvas for racial conflict and labor activism.

Some of Burns’s subsequent efforts leaned less on ideology—it is hard to ruin Jazz (2001) and National Parks (2009)—but the Age of Trump has clearly had a bad effect on the celebrated filmmaker. His jarring The U.S. and the Holocaust (2022), which recounts Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s failure to confront Nazi mass murder during World War II, invidiously ends with a film montage including President Trump calling for border security and, inexplicably, footage of the Jan. 6, 2021, demonstration at the Capitol. 

In a CNN interview around the time of that film’s release, moreover, Burns deplored Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s chartered flight of a few dozen illegal immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard—a self-proclaimed “sanctuary island.” He called it a worrisome exercise taken straight from what he called the “authoritarian playbook” and raised concerns about the end of democracy. In a curiously mixed metaphor for such an accomplished maker of historical nonfiction films, he later described other DeSantis policies as part of “a Soviet system or the way that Nazis would build a Potemkin village.” (Read more.)

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Bathing and Hygiene in the Middle Ages

 From Medieval History:

In wealthy households, bathing was carefully staged rather than casually undertaken. Servants prepared wooden tubs filled with heated water, hung tapestries for warmth and privacy, and supplied scented sponges, oils, and cloths. Bathing here was as much ceremony as hygiene. Monasteries also maintained bath facilities, though monks generally bathed infrequently, often only on feast days or for medical reasons.

For most people, bathing was simpler and more practical. Peasants washed in rivers during the warmer months or used basins at home when water could be spared. Heated baths were rare luxuries. Only nobles and prosperous townspeople enjoyed them regularly. Even so, kings were not exempt from the need to wash. King John travelled with his own bathtub, while Edward III installed hot and cold running water at Westminster Palace.

Across the Alps, bathing culture was even more deeply rooted. In Italy, long-standing spa traditions endured. A fourteenth-century physician, Pietro de Tussignano, laid down strict rules for visitors to an Alpine bath: bathers were to arrive fasting and shaved, swim daily, and abstain from sex in order to purge bodily impurities. Soldiers on campaign sometimes carried portable tubs, while retired clergy in France occasionally installed private baths of their own. The familiar image of a universally filthy Middle Ages becomes difficult to sustain when set beside such scenes of steaming water and scented herbs. (Read more.)

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The “Trial” and Martyrdom of Louis XVI: An American Memorial

 

From The New Digest:

That the trial of Louis was indeed a sham — a proceeding for which “one can find neither pretext nor means in any existing law,” as Louis put it in his testament — is not seriously contestable. David P. Jordan’s book on the trial, probably the best treatment available in English, details the copious violations of law by the revolutionary republican assembly, the National Convention. Those violations occurred at several levels. Even putting aside the ancien regime view that the King could not be tried and judged by any human power and is accountable only to God, the trial violated both the post-revolutionary Constitution of 1791 and the new Criminal Code enacted in 1791. The Constitution had made “the person of the King … sacred and inviolable” and specified that he could only be prosecuted as a citizen for acts posterior to his abdication, whereas Louis was charged with treason for acts taken when he was still the constitutional monarch. To be sure, the Constitution of 1791 had been de facto abrogated by the fall of the constitutional monarchy and proclamation of a republic in August-September of 1792. Yet the Constitution had not yet been replaced, and there was a serious legal argument that it still governed Louis’ acts at issue, which had occurred while it was in effect — an argument made by a number of the Girondin deputies at the trial.

As to the Criminal Code, it was still in effect at the time of the trial and was violated in countless ways. It required, for example, that the jury of accusation or grand jury should be different than the trial jury, and composed of different members, whereas the National Convention took on both functions, appointing itself judge and jury as well as lawmaker. Louis was also denied access to evidence before the trial (evidence whose provenance was not proven in valid form anyway); given no notice of the charges against him before he was interrogated; and given a hopelessly inadequate span of time to prepare such defense as he could. The Jacobins were in a sense more candid, or at least more logically consistent in their lawlessness, than the Girondins. They opposed holding any trial in the first place, arguing, as Louis Antoine de Saint-Just put it, that Louis was an enemy alien outside the revolutionary body politic, with whom the revolutionary state was at war, and who should be executed without any process at all, as one would shoot an enemy on the battlefield.

Saint-Just’s (in)famous speech is translated in a book by Michael Walzer that is quite prominent in the English-speaking world, and that gives a number of the leading speeches of both regicide and non-regicide deputies. Walzer’s agenda, however, is quite explicitly to justify Louis’ trial and execution as a revolutionary necessity, the only way to condemn and kill the King’s body politic along with his natural body. This mars the book, making it an unreliable guide to the events and legal arguments. Walzer, for instance, omits on some trifling pretext the speech for the defense (!), crafted by the great ancien regime lawyer Malesherbes (although delivered at the trial by another of Louis’ attorneys, de Sèze). A contemporaneous translation of the speech was provided in 1793 by a London publisher and is available here. Walzer, it may be added, preserves a discreet, ambiguous and doubtless tactical silence about whether revolutionary justice also required the later deaths of Marie-Antoinette by guillotine, and of the King’s eight year old son Louis-Charles by criminal neglect and starvation while in prison. On Walzer’s logic, it seems that they too had to die so that the Revolution might live, as Robespierre had said of the King; in a monarchy, the Queen and the King’s heir are also part of the King’s body politic, of one flesh with the crown. (Read more.)

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Maryland Needs a Real Watchdog: A Statewide Inspector General With Subpoena Power

 From Direct Line News:

Marylanders are tired of being told, year after year, that “the system is working” while audit after audit shows the system is bleeding money. At the opening of the 2026 legislative session, we’re again confronted with a simple question: who, exactly, is empowered to protect taxpayers when state agencies fail? Right now, Maryland’s answer is fragmented oversight, scattered audits, and a whole lot of finger-pointing after the damage is done.

That’s why Maryland needs an independent statewide Inspector General (IG), not another “task force,” not a glossy performance dashboard, and not a politically appointed office that answers to the same people it’s supposed to police. We need a true watchdog with one essential tool: subpoena power.

Let’s be blunt. The difference between an Inspector General and a press release is authority. An IG can compel the production of documents and testimony, put witnesses under oath, and refer evidence to prosecutors. Audits can spotlight problems; they usually can’t force accountability. That’s the heart of the debate unfolding in Annapolis right now: Maryland has identified enormous financial exposure across agencies, but its far less clear what consequences follow or whether anyone is ever held responsible. (Read more.)

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200 Years of 'Le Figaro'

 From The European Conservative:

In its early days, Le Figaro was classically liberal; royalist without being ultra. It was annoyed by the pettiness of Charles X as much as by the mediocrity of Louis-Philippe, the monarch of the barricades. After various editorial vicissitudes, it was vigorously taken over in 1854 by a certain Hippolyte de Villemessant. People spoke of a second birth for the newspaper. At the time, Le Figaro stood out above all as a literary and artistic newspaper. Its reviews were read and appreciated, setting the standard in the small Parisian world of arts and letters—which, at that time, meant the whole of Europe. Music was not excluded from its field of expertise. Villemessant was a close friend of Offenbach, whose work he fervently supported. In Paris in 1867, Le Figaro helped to promote the phenomenon that was Johann Strauss, thus paving the way for the international triumph of The Blue Danube. In a unique gesture in the history of the press, Strauss composed a Figaro Polka, a piece dedicated to the newspaper, as a token of his gratitude.

In the same year, Le Figaro became a political outlet, thanks to the liberalisation of Napoleon III’s empire. At the time of the Commune, the newspaper watched with horror as revolutionary madness raged in Paris. Under the Third Republic, it triumphed with the restoration of order. Its social conservatism and attachment to freedoms made it a model of balance in this troubled period when a leaderless France still did not know where its destiny lay. When Captain Dreyfus was unjustly convicted in a climate of antisemitism fuelled by rivalry with Germany, Le Figaro chose the side of justice. Émile Zola published several articles in Le Figaro defending the innocent officer before his indictment, “J’accuse,” published in a rival newspaper, L’Aurore, truly launched the ‘Dreyfus Affair.’

The newspaper weathered the First World War and the crisis of the 1930s by continuing to publish the most prestigious writers of the time, including Marcel Proust and Jean Giraudoux among its columnists.

When the international situation became tense, Le Figaro chose the side of the Francoists against the Republicans in Spain. At the time of Munich, like many other French people, its journalists were ‘unenthusiastic Munichites’ while Nazism aroused increasing mistrust and revulsion.

The Second World War marked a turning point in the history of the French press. The vast majority of French newspapers, which had continued to be published under the Occupation and the Vichy regime, disappeared or were bought out and renamed. Le Figaro, which first withdrew to the free zone before suspending publication in 1942, was an exception. A Gaullist publication, it rose from the ashes with the liberation of Paris on 25 August 1944, benefiting from its literary aura and the support of writers ranging from Louis Aragon to François Mauriac. The flow of publication, which had been interrupted for a time, resumed. (Read more.)

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Cinema and Edward Hopper

 

From The Collector:

Few artists enjoy such enduring popularity and prestige as Edward Hopper. The famous American artist had a unique relationship with cinema. Hopper was a known lover of the movies. At the same time, his works have had a lasting and far-reaching impact on the world of film for decades. Let’s explore the connection between movies and Edward Hopper’s timeless paintings.

The pensive movie theater usherette of New York Movie, or the ominous mundanity of Gas, are as likely to be seen hanging on museum walls as they are on dime store walls. They are also frequently referenced in movies, cartoons, TV shows, and advertisements.

Edward Hopper is considered the ultimate painter of 20th-century solitude. He was actively painting from the beginning of the 19th century until 1965. His name is often followed by words like loneliness, isolation, alienation, and timelessness.

There is an undeniable feeling of melancholy in Hopper’s paintings. In a departure from most of his realist contemporaries, Hopper depicted urban life in a subtly stylized manner, brimming with psychological layers. His artworks stand somewhere among realism, impressionism, expressionism, and surrealism. (Read more.)

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Congress Should Enact Trump’s Great Healthcare Plan Now

 From Amuse on X:

The American healthcare system presents a familiar puzzle. It absorbs nearly $5T each year, yet ordinary patients rarely know what care will cost, why prices differ so wildly, or who is accountable when costs rise without corresponding improvements in outcomes. Conservatives have long diagnosed the problem correctly. It is not that Americans spend too little on healthcare. It is that spending is insulated from market discipline, obscured by intermediaries, and structured to protect incumbents rather than patients. President Donald J Trump’s Great Healthcare Plan is best understood as a systematic attempt to reverse those distortions by restoring agency to patients and accountability to providers, insurers, and drug manufacturers.

 Begin with prescription drugs. Americans pay more for the same medications than patients in other developed countries. This is not an accident of chemistry or logistics. It is the predictable result of a pricing system in which the largest buyer in the world, the US government, refuses to negotiate as aggressively as smaller foreign systems and allows manufacturers to segment markets to maximize revenue. Trump’s Most-Favored-Nation framework cuts directly through this structure. The principle is simple. Americans should not subsidize lower prices abroad. If a drug company is willing to sell a medication for a given price in Germany or Japan, it can sell it for that price here.

 Critics often respond that such an approach risks innovation. But this objection confuses incentives. Innovation depends on expected returns across global markets, not on extracting monopoly rents from one population while offering discounts to another. By anchoring US prices to verified international benchmarks, the Great Healthcare Plan forces manufacturers to compete on efficiency and value rather than political leverage. The experience of Trump’s first term insulin reforms and the Administration’s recent voluntary negotiations confirms the point. Prices fell. Access expanded. Innovation did not collapse. (Read more.)

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Opera in the Modern World

 From the New York Post:

Jonas Kaufmann will no longer sing at London’s Royal Opera House — because, of all things, the pay is too low. “I don’t know how you do it,” the tenor recently told BBC Radio. In the same interview, he revealed that he won’t bother singing at the Metropolitan Opera anymore, either, though that’s about ideological differences. For a singer like Kaufmann — arguably the biggest star in all of opera — to swear off two of the world’s top-five opera houses is not merely eyebrow raising. It is cataclysmic.

“I feel so sorry for the next generation,” he lamented. Nearly every singer who has ever pursued an operatic career has pondered whether anything the business has to offer is worth the hassle: the heartache of losing engagements or rejection, the stress over one’s vocal health, the missed holidays, the travel, all of it. In the past, a comforting thought would have been that, if only one can perhaps achieve the top levels of the business, all will be well. And now, the very top of the business is telling us that all is certainly not well. (Read more.)

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Sir Galahad: The Greatest of the Round Table

  

From The Medieval Scholar:

Galahad’s role in the Arthurian legend, particularly his quest for the Holy Grail, is a later addition to the mythos. His character first emerges in the 13th century within the “Lancelot-Grail” (Vulgate) Cycle, a series of Arthurian romances that expanded the legend and positioned Galahad as central to the Grail quest. The name Galahad is thought to derive from the Welsh Gwalchaved, meaning “Falcon of Summer,” linking him to Celtic origins and mythological traditions.

The original portrayal of Galahad may have been influenced by the mystical ideals of the Cistercian Order and figures like St. Bernard of Clairvaux, whose vision of ascetic, spiritualized knighthood echoed through Galahad’s character. This is reflected in Galahad’s celibate and otherworldly nature, his white shield bearing a vermilion cross, and his embodiment of Catholic warrior asceticism, mirroring the ideals outlined in St. Bernard’s Liber ad milites templi de laude novae militiae for the Knights Templar. (Read more.)

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