Lady Hamilton: The 18th-Century Beauty Who Revived Ancient Greek Fashion

 

From The Greek Reporter:

Lady Hamilton, a woman who became famous in Europe for her astonishing beauty as well as her political influence, also spread ancient Greek-inspired fashion across the continent for the first time. Born into poverty and working as a scullery maid in her teenage years, she was scorned by her first two lovers who took advantage of her youthful beauty and then left her. Her third lover, however, was Sir William Hamilton, the English ambassador to Naples, who, against all social norms, then made her his wife. Lady Hamilton soon became a fashion icon and started trends, such as draping herself in simple garments that were inspired by classical times and ancient Greece, in particular. She called this Greek-inspired theme “Attitudes” and was known to have used her many shawls during her public performances based on ancient Greek symposia.

Goethe famously wrote of Lady Hamilton: “She wears a Greek garb, becoming to her to perfection. She then merely loosens her locks, takes a pair of shawls, and effects changes of postures, moods, gestures, mien, and appearance that make one really feel as if one were in some dream….”

“Successively standing, kneeling, seated, reclining, grave, sad, sportive, teasing, abandoned, penitent, alluring, threatening, agonized…one follows the other, and grows out of it. She knows how to choose and shift the simple folds of her single kerchief for every expression, and to adjust it into a hundred kinds of headgear,” he wrote. (Read more.)

 

More on Lady Hamilton, HERE.

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The Ruin of England

 From Steyn Online:

Manchester's Soldier of Allah lived his entire life on the other side of that unacknowledged division. So too did his family, and large numbers of their social circle (as we'll explore later this week). And so too will thousands and thousands of those arriving at Dover and Gatwick and Manchester today, and tomorrow, and the day after.

Britain is "divided", perhaps fatally. It's not so much the comparatively small numbers of suicide bombers, or even the support group of family and friends - the dad who works at the mosque pending his return to the battlefield, the sister who congratulates him on entering Paradise, the sister's schoolmates who drop out to be become brides of Isis, the bomb-maker who lives down the street, the other friends and family who turn a blind eye to it all. Beyond all that is the larger comfort zone of "British" Muslims who support the ultimate goal of Salman Abedi - an Islamic state where once was England - and for the most part live their daily lives as if it's already here. "Britain" has no purchase on them, and its "values" command no allegiance - even though, lest they give offense, non-divisive officials are careful never to spell out precisely what those "values" are". Easier to chant the approved abstractions, and warn against the non-approved ones: Diversity good, division bad.

But in Britain and Europe they sowed diversity and reaped division. Tthe ever widening division was sown by Mrs May and M Juncker and Frau Merkel and all the others who insist on importing more Abedis and more of those who turn a blind eye to the Abedis, day by day, year on year. Only when that ends can there be even the possibility of healing the division. (Read more.)

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14 Common Etiquette Mistakes

 From Good Housekeeping:

We've all had our share of cringeworthy social interactions. While it's common to make a social misstep, it's not a great feeling. We tapped Diane Gottsman, a national etiquette expert, author and speaker to fill us in on the most common etiquette mistakes. She shared that some things you might think are polite, like addressing someone as "ma'am" or putting your pinky up while you're drinking tea, can actually come across as impolite.

Avoiding these etiquette mistakes will help you relax and have a better time next time you're a wedding guest, houseguest, or attending a party.

Using Sir and Ma’am

Many people were raised to respectfully address others as sir and ma’am. Although this was polite to do as children addressing adults, it’s not the best etiquette once we leave childhood, because it can carry connotations of submissiveness or older age.

"As we age, it's much more appropriate to use someone's name," Gottsman explains. If a first-name basis feels too informal, you can address people with their title and last name to show respect.

Clinking Glasses

This is a surprising one! After a toast, you shouldn’t clink glasses. This is because your dinner host may be serving you in their best glassware. You don’t want to spill your drink on their nice linens from thrusting your cup around, and you certainly don’t want to chip or shatter your host’s fine glasses.

If somebody tries to clink with you, you should of course graciously oblige rather than correct or ignore them. But the preferred response to a toast is raising your glass and nodding to your fellow guests, no clinking required. (Read more.)

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A Day in the Laborious Life of a Medieval Scribe

  

From The Collector:

Before we wrote things down on paper, we passed them down through oral tradition. Ancestral lineages, mythologies, folk tales, and songs were the sort of thing you might expect to hear recited around the hearth each night. Eventually, trade records were inscribed on stone or papyrus: the very first receipts. As cultures began to create more symbols representing phonetic sounds, more things were recorded. By the 14th century, a wealth of information was available in the form of a book. But who wrote them? Let’s learn about medieval scribes. 

So, what is a scribe? “Scribe,” a contemporary word derivative of the medieval scrībere, or “to write,” was a person whose entire life’s work consisted of copying texts. The beauty of the scribe is in its diversity: a monk or nun could be one as an act of devotion, a literate tradesperson could be one for commission, even a creative courtesan could become a scribe if they had the means.

Where you were writing and who the work was commissioned for largely dictated the content of the work. For example, a monastery would likely be commissioned to write a large religious text, whereas a private scribe could be commissioned to copy secular works, such as Roman de la Rose, one of the most popular stories of the period. In some unique cases, the scribe had complete creative liberty over the content as well as the style of the manuscript. (Read more.)

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Maryland Board Of Elections Announces Significant Mail-In Ballot Error For June 2026 Primary

 From Jan Greenhawk at The Easton Gazette:

It shouldn't be this difficult to get elections right in Maryland. After all, Maryland is a relatively small state with approximately 4,312,855 registered voters (18th out of 50) compared to states like California with over twenty-three million. Neighboring states Virginia (12th out of 50) and Pennsylvania (5th out of 50). Of course, those states have their own problems with voting.

Many of these problems center around mail in ballots. That is no surprise.

Maryland election officials have confirmed this past week that there has been a significant mail‑in ballot error affecting the June 2026 primary, prompting the statewide reissuance of all previously mailed ballots. The problem stems from a vendor mistake that caused some voters to receive the wrong party’s ballot for the gubernatorial primary, with Democrats receiving Republican ballots and vice versa.

This error occurred with an estimated 500,000 mail in ballots sent to voters after May 14th, 2026. The error does not affect anyone who was mailed a ballot before May 14, 2026, or those who received/requested their mail-in ballot by web delivery (Print at Home ballot).Since the state cannot determine who got a faulty ballot, all the voters who received mail in ballots after that date will get replacements.

The vendor was blamed as making the mistake and not the local boards. It has not been determined if the vendor will be held financially responsible for the mistake or if taxpayers will bear the expense which some estimate could be seven figures.

One of the biggest concerns is how the state will keep those who received both faulty and replacement ballot from mailing in TWO ballots. (Read more.)

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Odysseus’ Sanctuary on Ithaca

 From ZME Science:

The rocky hills of Ithaca, home to olive groves and old Greek legends, have now yielded their most evocative secret: the possible sanctuary of Odysseus. At a site known for over two centuries as the “School of Homer,” archaeologists have unearthed compelling evidence of a hero cult that persisted for more than a thousand years — dedicated to the mythological king of Ithaca himself and protagonist of Homer’s Odyssey.

The discovery was announced by the Greek Ministry of Culture in early June, 2025, but it is the culmination of decades of archaeological labor. The project, based at the Agios Athanasios site in northern Ithaca, is led by Professor Emeritus Giannos G. Lolos and includes work by Dr. Christina Marambea of the University of Ioannina.

While historians agree that Odysseus was a fictional character, these findings reveal just how real his memory was to the ancient Greeks, who worshipped him, invoked him, and etched his name into stone for generations.

This is the strongest indication yet that the legends of Homer’s Odyssey were not just preserved in verse — but etched into the lives, rituals, and civic identity of the people who lived where the story begins. (Read more.)

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Cathédrale Sainte-Cécile d’Albi

 

 

Interior views via East of the Sun, West of the Moon. The cathedral is featured in my novel The Night's Dark Shade.

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Strangest Caucus in Washington: Massie and the House Democrats

 From Amuse on X:

Consider the way the legislative machinery actually works. The Speaker has a narrow majority. He needs a rule from the Rules Committee to bring a bill to the floor under structured terms. If the right flank denies him that rule, he has two remaining options. He can pull the bill, which is failure, or he can go to the minority party for the votes he lacks, which is concession. There is no third door labeled “purer Republican bill.” That door does not exist. It has never existed. The math of a four-seat majority does not produce it, and no amount of principled posturing on cable television conjures it into being. Once the rule fails on a party-line basis, the negotiation is no longer between conservative Republicans and moderate Republicans. It is between the Speaker and Hakeem Jeffries. And Jeffries, being a competent minority leader, charges a price.

This is the Massie Doctrine in practice, and it is worth walking through the receipts.

Begin with the foreign aid package of April 2024. Speaker Mike Johnson brought forward a $95 billion bill containing aid for Ukraine, Israel, and the Indo-Pacific. The Rules Committee at the time had a nine-member Republican majority. Three of those Republicans, Thomas Massie, Chip Roy, and Ralph Norman, voted no on the rule. With only six Republican yes votes on Rules, the rule could not pass on a Republican basis. The four Democrats on the committee then crossed over and supplied the votes to advance it, 9 to 3. On the floor itself, the rule passed 316 to 94, with 165 Democrats voting yes and only 151 Republicans. That is not a Republican rule. That is a Democratic rule passed under a Republican Speaker, and it set a modern precedent for majority dysfunction.

Now ask the question a Massie or Roy defender must answer. What did Democrats charge for that rescue? They charged $9.1 billion in Palestinian humanitarian aid attached to the Israel bill, a provision many House conservatives found indefensible. They charged the elimination of any border security pairing, which Johnson had previously promised the Freedom Caucus would be attached to Ukraine funding. They defeated Massie’s own amendment to bar Ukraine funds from buying cluster munitions on a 10 to 2 vote in Rules. Rep. Grace Meng said the quiet part out loud, observing that Hakeem Jeffries was, in effect, functioning as the real Speaker because Republicans could not get their own bills out of a committee they nominally controlled. That admission did not come from a Heritage Foundation memo. It came from a sitting Democratic congresswoman taking a victory lap, and she was not wrong about who was driving. (Read more.)

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The Discovery at Oxyrhynchus

 From The Sunday Times:

The Egyptian archaeological site of Oxyrhynchus, 120 miles south of Cairo, might not have the glamour and renown of the hallowed Valley of the Kings. But a team from the University of Barcelona working at the site has made one of the most significant discoveries in decades.

A mummy from the late Roman period, about 1,600 years old, was discovered buried with a verse of Homer’s The Iliad, the original of which dates back 2,800 years. The text was found in clay with an embalmer’s seal on the outside of the mummy’s wrapping. It is the first time a Greek literary text has been found directly incorporated into the Egyptian mummification process. The discovery, at the ancient city of El-Bahnasa, started as a relatively unexceptional find, said Ignasi-Xavier Adiego, a professor at the University of Barcelona who directs the Oxyrhynchus project. (Read more.)

 

From The Conversation:

Archaeologists have found something unexpected inside a 1,600-year-old Roman-era Egyptian mummy: a fragment of Homer’s Iliad. It wasn’t placed beside the body, but inside the mummy’s abdomen. But the real surprise isn’t just where the fragment was found. It’s how it got there. To understand, we must go back – to the Iliad itself, and to what it became in the Roman world.

In The Iliad, a poem shaped in the 8th century BC and attributed to Homer, the Trojan war does not end in triumph or renewal. It ends in devastation. The poem closes at the edge of collapse, with Troy reduced to a landscape of heroic ruin. And yet, this is not where the story ends.

According to later Roman tradition, one Trojan escaped. Aeneas – son of Anchises and the goddess Aphrodite – fled the burning city carrying his father on his shoulders and the household gods in his hands. He moved west, across the Mediterranean, towards Italy, where he became the ancestor of Rome.

This continuation did not come from the Iliad itself. It was shaped centuries later, most famously in Virgil’s Aeneid. But it changed the meaning of the Trojan war entirely. The past, in other words, was actively reorganised – through stories that could be reworked, extended and connected across time and space. (Read more.)

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