A place for friends to meet... with reflections on politics, history, art, music, books, morals, manners, and matters of faith.
A blog by Elena Maria Vidal.
"She was not a guilty woman, neither was she a saint; she was an upright, charming woman, a little frivolous, somewhat impulsive, but always pure; she was a queen, at times ardent in her fancies for her favourites and thoughtless in her policy, but proud and full of energy; a thorough woman in her winsome ways and tenderness of heart, until she became a martyr."
"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."
"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."
~Edmund Burke, October 1790
A Note on Reviews
Unless otherwise noted, any books I review on this blog I have either purchased or borrowed from the library, and I do not receive any compensation (monetary or in-kind) for the reviews.
Dubrovnik, originally called
Ragusa, was founded in the 7th century, as a refuge for coastal
residents -
fleeing the advancing barbarians; and from its beginnings, it was
protected by
defensive walls. Nowadays, it is famous
for being a distinctive medieval town, encircled with these massive
stone
walls. As part of a tour of the
Dalmatian Coast, I was lucky enough to spend 2 days there and it was my
favourite part of the trip. I knew it would be busy (that is an
understatement); the City has stopped 25% of cruise ships coming this
year, but
that still meant up to 4 ships could call every day, bringing thousands
of
visitors to flood the city, for some or all of the day. I started my
first day bright
and early, catching a local bus into the town; you can either buy a
ticket at
one of the countless shops or kiosks for 12KN or get one on the bus for
15KN. All buses stop by Pile Gate, the main entrance to the town. This
is where you
will find the Tourist Information Office and is the meeting point for
many of
the guided tours, walking tours, and coach trips. (Read more.)
Clichés in writing are frowned upon because they’re easy; they’re the sign of a writer who chooses to go with the first idea that comes to mind rather than digging deeper to find the exact phrase to suit the character and scene. They don’t contribute to a unique authorial voice or say anything about who the character is as an individual. Clichéd emotional responses are particularly yawn-worthy because they literally could apply to anyone.
Readers come to each story with different purposes—to be entertained, informed, or to escape the real world, just to name a few. But regardless of why they open up a book, they all have something in common: readers all want to be engaged, to lose themselves in the story world. And the best way to make that happen is to get them feeling as they’re reading.
Consider the stories you’ve read that were thoroughly engrossing, that you couldn’t put down. My bet is that your emotions were engaged along with the character’s. When she was in danger, your own heartbeat increased. When she experienced insecurity, you felt that twinge of uncertainty in your gut. Your spirits lightened just a bit at the moment of revelation, when she finally recognized the changes she had to make to achieve her goal.
When our character’s feelings are clear and logical, they trigger the reader’s emotions, making it harder for them to put the book down. Character emotion is, in my opinion, the most effective and longest lasting hook in our bag of tricks, so it’s imperative that we get it right in our stories. And clichés that we’ve seen a million times or overuse in our own writing just don’t get the job done. (Read more.)
For a century, the prestigious French
island of St Barts was actually Swedish. In 1784, the soon to be doomed
King Louis XVI of France lent St Barts to the Swedes in return for a
warehouse in Gothenburg and trading rights in the Baltic. The
treaty came about as a result of a love affair in the court of
Versailles, where courtesan Mademoiselle Necker promised to marry a
Swedish diplomat called Stael if he became an ambassador. Sweden’s King
Gustav III offered him the ambassadorship if he secured the trade deal.
Marie Antoinette intervened, he clinched the deal and won Mlle Necker’s
hand. (Read more.)
Look: too many people go to college as it is. For the middle class,
it’s practically mandatory. Teenagers saddle themselves with debt so
they can move to new cities, attend nightly orgies, and snore through
the same humanities courses they snored through in high school.
Some of them get lucky and land internships at big-time marketing
firms, and they’re set for life before they even graduate. But most of
them don’t use their degrees, and couldn’t if they tried. I remember one
of my professors asking our English honors seminar what we’d read over
the summer. “I mostly, like, read articles on Facebook,” one girl
explained. “Yeah,” said another, “I was just, like, keeping up with the
news.” After cycling through 20 students, I was the only student in the
class who had read a book. Even literature majors don’t care about
literature. Why on earth are they there?
This was at the University of Sydney—which, as my fellow alumnus
Clive James quipped, likes to think of itself as “Oxford or Cambridge
laterally displaced approximately 12,000 miles.” I was baffled they got
into the honors program at all. Then I realized that, if you’re good at
doing school stuff, you can excel in any of the humanities. Memorize
factoids for a test, write an essay telling the professor what he wants
to hear, make a controversial and vaguely relevant comment in a
tutorial, and boom! You’re a Bachelor of Arts.
But what do you have to show for it? Again, maybe you befriended a
low-level executive who can give your fledgling career a boost. Maybe
your college has a strong alumni network. But while companies all but
require applicants to have a Bachelor’s in something, they all know it doesn’t imply that you’re competent in any way. Unless they need someone to write Freudo-Marxist analyses of Sense and Sensibility. In which case, you’re set. (Read more.)
In the most detailed analysis of how sands move around on Mars, a team of planetary scientists led by Matthew Chojnacki at the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Lab set out to uncover the conditions that govern sand movement on Mars and how they differ from those on Earth.
The results, published in the current issue of the journal Geology, reveal that processes not involved in controlling sand movement on Earth play major roles on Mars, especially large-scale features on the landscape and differences in landform surface temperature.
"Because there are large sand dunes found in distinct regions of Mars, those are good places to look for changes," said Chojnacki, associate staff scientist at the UA and lead author of the paper, "Boundary conditions controls on the high-sand-flux regions of Mars." "If you don't have sand moving around, that means the surface is just sitting there, getting bombarded by ultraviolet and gamma radiation that would destroy complex molecules and any ancient Martian biosignatures."
Compared to Earth's atmosphere, the Martian atmosphere is so thin its average pressure on the surface is a mere 0.6 percent of our planet's air pressure at sea level. Consequently, sediments on the Martian surface move more slowly than their Earthly counterparts.
The Martian dunes observed in this study ranged from 6 to 400 feet tall and were found to creep along at a fairly uniform average speed of two feet per Earth year. For comparison, some of the faster terrestrial sand dunes on Earth, such as those in North Africa, migrate at 100 feet per year. (Read more.)
Royal Ascot comes with a 36-page guide book to how to dress, and this year, for the first time, a modern change was made: guests could choose whichever gender dress code they most identify with. Hopes were high that might mean the Berkshire track saw the royal family emulating the likes of Cara Delevingne, who wore a top hat and tails to Princess Eugenie’s 2018 wedding, but most stuck firmly to blue or green shades in what they know and love.
There were a couple of exceptions. When the five-day event kicked off on June 18, Kate Middleton debuted a $6600 powder blue custom Elie Saab dress with silver heels and a Philip Treacy saucer-style hat. Based on the label’s 2019 resort collection, the dress had added sheer sleeves, which would have broken the Ascot rule had Kate ventured out of the Royal Enclosure into the more plebeian Village Enclosure. (Read more.)
In places like D.C. and New York, the possibility of decriminalizing prostitution has come back on the horizon. Activists are now referring to prostitution as “sex work”—a
deceptive term used to label the buying and selling of human beings for
sex as a legitimate profession. This concept was even being promoted to
teenage girls in Teen Vogue, with the headline “Why Sex Work is Real Work.”
To legitimize men buying women for sex is to say that men have a right
to women’s bodies by default. This should enrage every feminist to the
core and cause them to come clawing in like a mama bear on anyone who
tells teen girls that “men buying your body is a legitimate profession
for your future.” The commercial sex trade is sexual exploitation—it should never be somebody’s job to be exploited by another human being.
That being said, we should not discount the various factors that play
a part in leading some women to the commercial sex trade. Often, these
women have been sexually abused, come from broken homes, face drug and
alcohol addiction, and have been emotionally comprised, manipulated,
lured, coerced, or forced into prostitution. To glamorize a system that
preys upon these vulnerabilities and is only sustained by dehumanizing
the individual is inherently evil.
In reality, there are no good arguments for why it is okay to buy and
sell women, girls, boys, or persons who identify as LGBTQ for sex. In
2013, Business Insider published an article
advocating for the decriminalization of prostitution in the United
States. None of the arguments made back then have changed significantly
to this day, and they are still used to spread current misconceptions
about prostitution. (Read more.)
Presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are
throwing their support behind efforts to decriminalize prostitution. "I’m
open to decriminalization. Sex workers, like all workers, deserve
autonomy but they are particularly vulnerable to physical and financial
abuse and hardship,” Sen. Warren, D-Mass., said in a Wednesday statement shared with Washington Post journalist Dave Weigel. "We
need to make sure that we don’t undermine legal protections for the
most vulnerable, including the millions of individuals who are victims
of human trafficking each year."
Likewise, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., told Vice News through a spokesperson on Thursday that "decriminalization is certainly something that should be considered."
"Other countries have done this and it has shown to make the lives of sex workers safer," Sanders' spokesperson asserted. The
terms "sex work" and "sex worker" are relatively recent euphemisms,
catch-all terms that includes prostitution, escort agency operators,
exotic dancing, and porn actors, among other things.
Proponents
for decriminalizing prostitution, which includes both persons on the
left and libertarian right, assert that trafficking is distinct from
"consensual" or "voluntary" sex work. However, prostitution
abolitionists, which often means radical feminists and social
conservatives, say trafficking cannot be separated from prostitution, that it is merely a process in an inherently exploitative industry. (Read more.)
“To believe, in a Christian sense,” he added, “means that you live it out fully and that's an that's an unbearable task in some sense.” Then in one long drawn-out, rapid-fire thought, the type that has enthralled his millions of fans, he laid out extemporaneously the vision of a believer in God:
“To be able to accept the structure of existence, the suffering that goes along with it and the disappointment and the betrayal, and to nonetheless act properly; to aim at the good with all your heart; to dispense with the malevolence and your desire for destruction and revenge and all of that; and to face things courageously and to tell the truth to speak the truth and to act it out, that's what it means to believe -- that's what it means -- it doesn't mean to state it, it means to act it out. And, unless you act it out you should be very careful about claiming it. And so, I've never been comfortable saying anything other than I try to act as if God exists because God only knows what you'd be if you truly believed.” See the full exchange of Peterson and Prager here.(Read more.)
THE REMAINS of three bodies were found washed up on a Canadian beach back in 2011, and on the same beach in 2016, the remains of a further 18 bodies were discovered after an archaeological dig. Canadian scientists have now confirmed that a study of the bones show that these are the remains of Irish famine victims who fled across the Atlantic in the mid 1800s. The initial remains that were discovered in 2011 on a beach in Forillon National Park, Quebec, were identified as two seven-year-old boys and an 11-year-old boy. Their bones indicated severe malnutrition according to scientists. (Read more.)
Given that I am away with national board obligations this week —
ironically with a company that is the nation’s largest distributor of
character education curriculums for young people — I thought this essay
about the values of young people would be a good subject for this column
in my absence. It was written by Alyssa Ahlgren,
a self-described “millennial/hipster” who’s earning an MBA while
working as an analyst in corporate finance. In other words, she doesn’t
have time to join the useful idiots among her age group who spend their time denouncing the United States and perpetrating political violence.
Her logic is cold, callous, calculated and cruel; rather than compromise in the slightest with the Trump administration, AOC would see children harmed so that Trump gets a black eye and the crisis gets worse. But why? Why would someone who claims to be horrified by the situation not want to help fix it? The answer appears to be that AOC rejects any effort to stop anyone from simply entering the country. To her there is no crisis, we should simply abandon the idea of a wall and replace it with turnstiles.
What is particularly troubling about her stand in favor of these Wayfair workers trying to deny kids beds is that she is explicitly asking a private business to refuse to do business with the government. Now I understand that AOC doesn’t like that Donald Trump got elected president—as a New Yorker I’m not over the moon about her getting elected—but as a former president once said, elections have consequences.
Should private companies only contract with the government, or government-related nonprofits, if the right party is in power? Should kids be left to sleep on the floor to send a message to Donald Trump? AOC’s answer is yes. It is classic Marxism; what matters—the only thing that matters, in fact—is for the state to be all things for all people. In her utopia, no private company would supply beds, the government would make the beds. And if a few kids have to suffer to make that dream happen, then their sacrifice will be memorialized.
While many House Democrats are frantically trying to pass legislation to deal with a crisis, AOC and her progressive pals are more than happy to see the situation get worse. They want to starve the beast, even if that means hurting kids. It is a despicable and detestable position. (Read more.)
As we grow older we suffer a decline in mental and physical fitness, which can be made worse by conditions like Alzheimer's disease. A new study, published in the open-access journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, shows that older people who routinely partake in physical exercise can reverse the signs of aging in the brain, and dancing has the most profound effect.
"Exercise has the beneficial effect of slowing down or even counteracting age-related decline in mental and physical capacity," says Dr Kathrin Rehfeld, lead author of the study, based at the German center for Neurodegenerative Diseases, Magdeburg, Germany. "In this study, we show that two different types of physical exercise (dancing and endurance training) both increase the area of the brain that declines with age. In comparison, it was only dancing that lead to noticeable behavioral changes in terms of improved balance."
Elderly volunteers, with an average age of 68, were recruited to the study and assigned either an eighteen-month weekly course of learning dance routines, or endurance and flexibility training. Both groups showed an increase in the hippocampus region of the brain. This is important because this area can be prone to age-related decline and is affected by diseases like Alzheimer's. It also plays a key role in memory and learning, as well as keeping one's balance.
While previous research has shown that physical exercise can combat age-related brain decline, it is not known if one type of exercise can be better than another. To assess this, the exercise routines given to the volunteers differed. The traditional fitness training program conducted mainly repetitive exercises, such as cycling or Nordic walking, but the dance group were challenged with something new each week.
Dr Rehfeld explains, "We tried to provide our seniors in the dance group with constantly changing dance routines of different genres (Jazz, Square, Latin-American and Line Dance). Steps, arm-patterns, formations, speed and rhythms were changed every second week to keep them in a constant learning process. The most challenging aspect for them was to recall the routines under the pressure of time and without any cues from the instructor." (Read more.)
Artwork description & Analysis: This
painting by Rossetti was the first Pre-Raphaelite work to appear in
public. It featured the secretive initials "PRB," indicating that the
artist was a member of the newly established Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
In the painting, the Virgin Mary appears at home with her mother, St.
Anne, and an angel, while her father tends the garden outside the
window.
The style is deliberately modeled on late Medieval and
early Renaissance paintings, which were highly unpopular in Victorian
England at the time. The composition defies the techniques of
traditional perspective, with a notable flatness between the foreground
and background, which foreshadows later artists' rejections of classical
ways of depicting realistic space.
As art historian Jason
Rosenfeld points out, "Rossetti's picture represents a revivalist style
that draws on early Renaissance paintings from Northern Europe and
Italy, blended with a comprehensive religious symbolism expressed in a
profusion of clearly observed details and natural forms, such as the
lilies redolent of the Virgin Mary's purity and the lamp evoking piety."
Rossetti adds another touch of realism by portraying the likenesses of
his mother and sister as Mary and Saint Anne; at the time this was
considered blasphemous given the standard dependence on classical models
for the Holy Family. Rossetti's daring combined with his Medievalist
style was highly controversial and drew attention to the limits of the
"Grand Manner" that was still celebrated in the British Academy. In
effect, Rossetti was proposing a radical alternative way to represent
even the most sacred of subjects. Oil on canvas - Tate, London (Read more.)
2020 presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders - who thinks Americans would be "delighted" to pay more in taxes - touted his 'Economic Bill of Rights" during a Wednesday speech about Democratic Socialism. Suggesting that he's destined to carry out FDR's "proposed economic bill of rights" which the former president was unable to enact due to an untimely death, Sanders pitched the crowd on "a 21st Century Economic Bill of Rights," as RedState's Elizabeth Vaughn reports. Yet as political expert and radio host Mark Levin pointed out on Fox News's Hannity, Sanders has essentially plagiarized Joseph Stalin's 1936 Soviet constitution, and "stolen his agenda." (Read more.)
The history of Church of the Good Shepherd goes back to the early days of Beverly Hills itself. The parish was founded in 1923, only nine years after the City of Beverly Hills was incorporated. For its first two years, parishioners would attend services in improvised locations, from a room in the Windmere Apartments, just south of the current church site, to a rectory room on Camden Drive. In 1924, architect James J. Donnellan was asked to design a church that could host the expanding parish community, and in 1925 Bishop John Joseph Cantwell officially presided at the opening of the new Church of the Good Shepherd. Five years later, the annexed Good Shepherd Parish School opened its doors to local children from pre-K to eighth grade. Today, it is the longest running and only Catholic school in Beverly Hills.
Designed in Mission Revival-style, based on the early Catholic missions founded by the Spanish in California, the church was renovated in 1959. On top of revamping the original stained glass that had been shipped from Europe, architects from Paul Philip Studio added a main marble altar surrounded by two side altars where the relics of three holy women, Sts. Felicitas and Perpetua and St. Vibiana, patroness of the Los Angeles Archdiocese, reside.
During its nearly 100-year history the Church has served as the backdrop to many life events of Hollywood-based movie stars. Academy-award winner Loretta Young married film producer Tom Lewis in 1940. An 18-year-old Elizabeth Taylor married Hilton Hotels heir Conrad “Nicky” Hilton on May 6, 1950. Portuguese-Brazilian singer and actress Carmen Miranda, famous for her role in samba-themed musicals such as Hello Brazil! and Hello Carnival!, married Texas investor David Sebastian on March 17, 1947.
Both Bing Crosby and Rudolph Valentino were known to attend Sunday Mass at the Church of the Good Shepherd and the latter choose this church for his funeral in 1926. Gary Cooper’s funeral was also held at the Church of the Good Shepherd, where the actor had started to attend Mass after converting to Catholicism a few years before his death. Cooper was just one of the many film stars that chose the church for his funeral. Other notable ceremonies include thriller genius Alfred Hitchcock (1980), Eva Gabor (1995) and Frank Sinatra (1998). It is perhaps no coincidence that the church was picked as the location of the funeral scene in the 1954 edition of A Star Is Born with Judy Garland and James Mason. (Read more.)
After the Restoration, Charles II converted on his deathbed; his brother, James II (who as Duke of York had entered the Church with his first wife, Anne Hyde, and lent his title to the recent English conquest of New York) was crowned in an Anglican ceremony that received Papal approval. The King’s deposition in 1688 and accompanying wars in Scotland and Ireland sealed devotion toward him from those who remained loyal. In exile, James became ever more devout; after his death, his cause of canonisation was introduced – although stalled since the French Revolution, it remains the unique concern of the English Congregation of Benedictines. The Anglican Nonjurors remained loyal to him, and were later cited as major forerunners of the Oxford Movement. His son, de jure James III was something of a mystic; while the repeated defeats of the ’15, the ’19, and ’45 risings certainly damaged the movement as a political force, it grew as a quasi-religious one – retaining its hold upon the imagination of many, inside and outside the Church; indeed, in similar manner to the Arthurian legend – and this quite consciously...(Read more.)
The Queen's official birthday has been marked with the annual Trooping the Colour parade. She was joined by members of her family and thousands of spectators to watch the display in Horse Guards Parade in Whitehall. The Prince of Wales, the Duchess of Cornwall, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex all attended. The Queen celebrated her 93rd birthday in April. The royal colonels - the Prince of Wales, colonel of the Welsh Guards,
the Princess Royal, colonel of the Blues and Royals, the Duke of
Cambridge, colonel of the Irish Guards and the Duke of York, colonel of
the Grenadier Guards - all rode on horseback as part of the parade. (Read more.)
Children in the social services system are the group with the highest prevalence of child sex trafficking, said Robert Lowery, vice president for the missing children division at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), a nonprofit that serves as a clearinghouse for reports on missing children. Based on the incomplete data available, it appears traffickers seldom kidnap their victims. Instead, they often contact children on social media, groom them over time, and eventually lure them away. As a result, the children would be reported as runaways. They also target children that ran away for other reasons. They mainly target children from ages 12 to 14. In 2017, almost 25,000 runaways were reported to NCMEC. Nearly 3,600 of the runaways were likely victims of sex trafficking; of those, 88 percent came from the social services system. (Read more.)
Today, the word ‘berserk’ is used to describe anyone in an irrational, agitated state of mind who cannot or does not control his or her actions. The meaning of the word originates with the Viking berserkers , the fierce warriors who were known for battling in an uncontrollable, trance-like fury, and were alleged to be able to perform seemingly impossible super-human feats of strength. They would howl and growl like beasts, froth at the mouth, and launch an attack in a fit of frenzy.
In medieval Norse and Germanic history and folklore, the berserkers were described as members of an unruly warrior gang that worshipped Odin, the supreme Norse deity, and were commissioned to royal and noble courts as bodyguards and ‘shock troops’, who would strike fear into all who encountered them. Adding to their ferocity, and in order to intimidate the enemy, they would wear bear and wolf pelts when they fought, giving them the name Berserker, meaning “bear coat” in Old Norse. It is proposed by some historians that by wearing the pelts, the warriors believed they could extract the power and strength from the animal. (Read more.)
The Marquis de Lafayette, who helped Louis XVI save America. From WND:
Born Sept. 6, 1757, his father died before he was two years old and his mother died when he was twelve, leaving him to inherit their fortune. At 14-years-old, he joined the French Military and, at age 16, became a captain. He married Marie Adrienne Francoise de Noailles, whose family was related to King Louis XVI. His name was Marquis de Lafayette.
At age 19, against the king’s wishes, Lafayette purchased a ship and persuaded several French officers to accompany him to fight in the American Revolution, arriving June 13, 1777. Trained in the French Military, he was a descendant of one of the oldest French families, with ancestors who fought alongside of Joan of Arc, and previously fought in the Crusades against Muslim occupiers of what had been the Christian Middle East. Commander-in-Chief George Washington appointed Lafayette a Major General in the Continental Army, though Lafayette paid all his own expenses. (Read more.)
The side we defeated did not accept their defeat. The sequel to the Trump election victory, The Democrats Strike Back,
went into production right after the election, with the Clinton
campaign and its inside-the-swamp supporters making certain the Steele Dossier
became public. From that moment forward, every ounce of energy the
Democrats, media, and liberal activists possess has been directed at
stopping the president and trying to make him the most hated figure in
American politics.
As the president put it in his speech, “This
election is a verdict on whether we want to live in a country where the
people who lose an election refuse to concede and spend the next two
years trying to shred our Constitution and rip your country apart.” That
is not hyperbole. It is a statement that CNN doesn’t need to bother to
fact check, because it is incontrovertibly true.
The president was also spot on in saying, “Instead
of bringing us together as one America, Democrats want to splinter us
into factions and tribes. They want us divided.” The Democrats have been
using the very tactic that our Founding Fathers tried to guard against
in creating the architecture of our nation. It’s been working.
You can make the argument that if the president wins
in 2020 he will be securing not his second, but his first term in
office. A 2020 election after all of the efforts to discredit and
destroy him over four tumultuous years would be a clear sign that
Americans are rejecting the personal assaults on Trump and reaffirming
their support for his agenda. Perhaps he could then get the kind of
support from the House and Senate that is needed to implement policy. (Read more.)
Hospitals were religious institutions. Monasteries and convents had always had infirmaries where sick and elderly members of the community were cared for. From the twelfth century that care was extended formally to the community beyond the walls of the abbeys. Hospitals were usually staffed by monks and nuns, but sometimes a physician was employed as well.
Medieval hospitals took many forms. They could be hostels for pilgrims, hospices for the dying, almshouses for the aged poor, or a hospital for the sick poor. They were founded as acts of charity. The hospital set up in Jerusalem after the First Crusade in 1113 was a model for later hospitals. It had room for 1,000 to 2,000 beds with 150 staff. It cared mostly for poor people who were sick and for wounded Crusaders. It provided the ideal of what a hospital should be for many centuries. In the hospital the poor, the wounded and the sick were considered lords and those who looked after them their servants.
Hospitals were mainly for providing hospitality, which is where the name comes from. They were often called a Maison Dieu or Domus Dei. In English they were called God’s House. The hospital was a house because it was always part of a religious community, a household with God at the head. There are the remains of one near where I live dating back to the twelfth century. A God’s House was essentially a large hall where people could lie along the walls in beds. It had a chapel for prayers and mass. (Read more.)
There is so much wonderful detail here. Beren’s ghostly hand (since his real one is gone) and the representation of the Silmaril that he’d held there—which I see you rendered here in the same visible symbolic fashion of your “Hunting of Carcharoth” painting. I love the saintly nimbus behind Lúthien’s head and the winglike sweep of her robes (a nod to her erstwhile Thuringwethil bat-costume). And the fact that Beren still looks like he carries the griefs and wisdom of his experiences. He’s being restored but he’s not forgetting everything nor is he given a fresh new or younger body. This just feels…right.
What can you tell me about this piece? Are those swirls on Beren’s arm a tattoo? The embodiment of the wolf’s poison? Tell me more!
Justin: The swirls were definitely meant to be the wolf’s poison. Working on the images from Beren and Lúthien, I was not trying to show specific moments exactly, but instead trying to collapse a series of events and moments into one scene that could kind of make sense of them all and convey the ideas, more than a literal event per se. This image does have a lot of those small symbols in it. I wanted to treat this one a bit more like iconography than photography if that makes sense. It is meant to be after Beren and Lúthien’s escape, after Beren has had his hand bitten off by Carcharoth and his life still hangs in the balance, but it is also meant to foreshadow Lúthien later singing to bring Beren back from death as well.
The social scientist Robert Putnam defines social capital as the
conditions under which a person enjoys access to face-to-face networks
of people. These include access to nurseries, youth clubs, libraries and
village halls; places where relationships among local people are
forged. Yet this access really starts at home, with family.
Of course, family isn’t a universal state of affairs. The experience
of family breakdown is highly unequal in our society. Many families
break apart, and there are thousands of children in care, not to mention
an even larger proportion of isolated adults, especially the elderly. Polling from the Centre of Social Justice
shows that a significantly greater proportion of adults from
blue-collar and semi-skilled labour (27%) say they have experienced
family breakdown when compared to other social grades. The poll found
87% of mothers with children under the age of five from higher income
groups were married, compared to just 24% of those in lower income
groups.
When intact, the home is a self-replenishing fund of social capital.
It invites people to come together and exchange goods and favours, the
value of which is set by relationships rather than by price or labour
costs. Family is the font of all relationships – both the most essential and
most formative to the relationships we form in communities later on.
The famous Grant Study –
a longitudinal study of almost 300 healthy Harvard students – has over
several decades produced tens of thousands of pages of data. It
concludes:
‘The lessons aren’t about wealth or fame or working harder and
harder. The clearest message that we get from this 75-year study is
this: Good relationships keep us happier and healthier. Period.’
But beyond family, relationships depend on strong local networks. The
key to allowing these to flourish is creating the space for them to
develop – from inclusive youth clubs to thriving high streets.
Unfortunately, this connective tissue is being eroded as well. In the UK
since the 1970s, there have been 28,000 pub closures, and 121 libraries
shut in 2016 alone, with further foreclosures of 600 youth centers
between 2012 and 2016. And of course, this depletion of social capital
is most visible in the country’s most deprived towns. (Read more.)
The windows are part of a sequence of eight and the 11-year project in the cathedral's South Quire aisle will see all of them removed and restored. They will also be given protective glazing to prevent future damage in the £11m scheme. Exposed to the elements for centuries, the glass has cracked and buckled in places and allows water in.
Dating from the early 1400s, the windows are about 70ft (21m) from the ground. "The windows in the South Quire Clerestory have been unprotected for 600 years and are now heavily corroded, with extensive paint loss, fire damage and even holes in places," said Sarah Brown, director of York Glaziers Trust. The glass will be cleaned and repaired and the lead, which keeps the glass in place, will also be stabilised.
"Once complete, the panels will be returned to the Minster with new, state-of-the-art protective glazing to prevent further decay and preserve the irreplaceable glass for future generations," Ms Brown added. The windows are believed to have been created between 1404 and 1414 and tell the story of the triumph of Christianity in the north of England, and the crucial role played by York Minster. (Read more.)
Born in London in 1778, Brummell grew up during a revolutionary age in Europe and North America. The French and American Revolutions (1789-1799; 1775-1783) marked the decline of the aristocracy and the rise of the individual. Men’s clothing began to convey these political and economic changes. The 18th-century male style, heavily influenced by French royalty, was elaborate and flamboyant: a rainbow of hues in billowy silk, satin, and velvet fabrics; lace cravats and cuffs; knee-length breeches with stockings; high, powdered white wigs; and makeup. (See also: Vintage photos of royal families from all over the world.)
The growth of a new British style, one that embraced simplicity, structure, and understatement with monochrome and military fabrics, abandoned such prerevolutionary fashions. Psychologist John Carl Flügel later dubbed this gradual process of simplification in men’s dress the “great masculine renunciation,” whereby men’s fashion became inspired by social equality. It turned its back on extravagance, and excessive grooming became regarded as a feminine trait. (See also: Gender-bending fashion rewrites the rules of who wears what.)
Brummell, a keen observer of society, recognised the social mobility that the modern era promised, one where style and personality rather than birth and wealth could herald status and strength. In 1790 he began his studies at Eton College—where he precociously reformed the distinctive Eton necktie—followed by one term at Oxford University. (Read more.)
I think we need to focus on the present generation and stop killing black babies in the womb. From Michael Knowles at The Daily Wire:
No country in history has ever paid reparations to the descendants of African slaves for their ancestors’ servitude. Less than 4% of Africans sold in the Atlantic slave trade ended up in the present-day United States. The plurality of captured Africans, a full 40%, wound up in Brazil. Yet neither Brazil nor any other country has ever attempted such an historic restitution.
Democrats pressing for reparations have yet to answer the central question: how would it work? History raises more questions than answers. On March 8 of either 1654 or 1655, the African indentured servant John Casor became the first person arbitrarily declared a slave for life in America. Casor claimed to have already served his indenture of “seaven or Eight years” [sic]. Nevertheless, a Virginia court ruled in favor of Casor’s master: a black Angolan named Anthony Johnson.
In a little-known historical irony, the first formally recognized American slave owner was black. How will the existence of black slave owners affect present-day African-Americans’ eligibility for reparations? Can Casor’s descendants sue Johnson’s descendants for restitution? What if someone somehow descended from both men? How about mixed race Americans more broadly? If one descends from both slaves and slave owners, will they pay or collect in a reparations regime? Perhaps the government will purchase 330 million DNA tests to match against a master database of history’s heroes and villains.
One way or another, the federal government will have to determine the relative historical culpability of its own slavers’ descendants. But who will make the Indian nations pay? Native Americans of the Five Civilized Tribes — the Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, Chickasaw, and Seminole — owned black slaves at roughly the same rate as neighboring whites, and they held their slaves in bondage longer.
While the Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves in rebel states as early as 1863, and the Thirteenth Amendment freed all American slaves in 1865, federal law didn't apply to Indian nations. They held onto slavery until the U.S. government forced them to free their black slaves in the Treaties of 1866. Will the federal government force the Cherokee Nation to pay reparations to the descendants of its own black slaves?
Beyond slavery, the advocates of reparations point to the historical struggles of black Americans after abolition as a justification for the redistributive program: Jim Crow, segregation, red-lining, lynchings. But while black Americans suffered oppression in a particularly widespread and sustained way, other demographic groups have also endured hardship. The largest mass lynching in American history claimed the lives of 11 Sicilian Americans in New Orleans. Mayor Joseph Shakespeare described Sicilians as “the most idle, vicious, and worthless people among us” and urged his constituents to “teach these people a lesson they will not forget.” Are the descendants of Sicilian immigrants entitled to any reparations for their ancestors’ suffering? (Read more.)
In 2008, the House of Representatives formally apologized for slavery and Jim Crow. In 2009, the Senate did the same. Black people don’t need another apology. We need safer neighborhoods and better schools. We need a less punitive criminal justice system. We need affordable health care. And none of these things can be achieved through reparations for slavery.
Nearly everyone close to me told me not to testify today. They said that even though I’ve only ever voted for Democrats, I’d be perceived as a Republican—and therefore hated by half the country. Others told me that distancing myself from Republicans would end up angering the other half of the country. And the sad truth is that they were both right. That’s how suspicious we’ve become of one another. That’s how divided we are as a nation.
If we were to pay reparations today, we would only divide the country further, making it harder to build the political coalitions required to solve the problems facing black people today; we would insult many black Americans by putting a price on the suffering of their ancestors; and we would turn the relationship between black Americans and white Americans from a coalition into a transaction—from a union between citizens into a lawsuit between plaintiffs and defendants. What we should do is pay reparations to black Americans who actually grew up under Jim Crow and were directly harmed by second-class citizenship—people like my Grandparents.
But paying reparations to all descendants of slaves is a mistake. Take me for example. I was born three decades after Jim Crow ended into a privileged household in the suburbs. I attend an Ivy League school. Yet I’m also descended from slaves who worked on Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello plantation. So reparations for slavery would allocate federal resources to me but not to an American with the wrong ancestry—even if that person is living paycheck to paycheck and working multiple jobs to support a family. You might call that justice. I call it justice for the dead at the price of justice for the living.
I understand that reparations are about what people are owed, regardless of how well they’re doing. But the people who were owed for slavery are no longer here, and we’re not entitled to collect on their debts. Reparations, by definition, are only given to victims. So the moment you give me reparations, you’ve made me into a victim without my consent. Not just that: you’ve made one-third of black Americans—who consistently poll against reparations—into victims without their consent, and black Americans have fought too long for the right to define themselves to be spoken for in such a condescending manner.
The question is not what America owes me by virtue of my ancestry; the question is what all Americans owe each other by virtue of being citizens of the same nation. And the obligation of citizenship is not transactional. It’s not contingent on ancestry, it never expires, and it can’t be paid off. For all these reasons bill H.R. 40 is a moral and political mistake. Thank you. (Read more.)
They tell us this is the road to Utopia but in fact, it’s a road that has no end. Just more and more division, more and more hatred between us, more and more government solving our problems by taking our freedom and telling us what to think and who to be. Americans have been breaking chains for nearly 250 years: the chains of southern slavery, the chains of Jim Crow, the chains of Nazism, the chains of Communism. It’s time to break these new chains, these mental chains, of identity politics and political correctness.
So, I'm watching this yesterday. This is the - A bad idea whose time has come. Reparations. OK. This is all part of what I'm talking about. Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote this article, I think it was for The Atlantic, Ta-Nehisi Coates is overrated. I mean he has this kind of vague dramatic way of writing. He's a very personable guy when he's talking to people, but he doesn't reason as far as I'm concerned very well. But he put forward the idea that yes-yes-yes what we need is reparations for slavery and for Jim Crow because of all that accumulated wealth. All that wealth was kept away from people and now needs to be paid back because blacks are behind because of Jim Crow and because of slavery. Never mind that Jews were excluded. Never mind the Irish were excluded, the Italians, never mind all that. Blacks specifically.
So now, of course, the Democrats as they drift further and further to the left have taken this up in the House Judiciary Committee which is Jerry Nadler's crap show. They are having a hearing on a bill about reparations that would basically create a federal commission to study and report on the impact of slavery and the Jim Crow segregation laws that followed abolition. And who gets the money, you know who would get money to be paid back for this. This Is called H.R. 40 and it's got a lot of supporters got more than 60 co-sponsor-sponsors. Public endorsement from Pelosi, who has not endorsed a reparations bill before. (Read more.)
The vast extent of the Holocaust is still being revealed. From NPR:
More than 1,000 victims of the Holocaust were buried Wednesday in Belarus, some 70 years after they were killed in the genocide. Their bones were unearthed this winter by construction workers as they began to build luxury apartments in the southwestern city of Brest, near Poland.
Soldiers brought in to excavate found undisputed evidence of a mass grave: skulls with bullet holes, shoes and tattered clothing worn on the last day of people's lives. Because the newly uncovered mass grave was on the site of a wartime ghetto, the victims were believed to be Jews slaughtered by Nazis. Many Jewish people had been forced to live behind barbed wires in the Brest ghetto before they were executed.
On Wednesday, their remains were placed into 120 coffins decorated with the Star of David, according to The Associated Press. A burial and ceremony was held at a cemetery outside of the city. "I think it's very late, but better late than never," Marcel Drimer, an 85-year-old Holocaust survivor from Poland, told NPR. "I am upset that the officials want to build on the sacred site," he added. Authorities permitted the apartment construction to continue, prompting locals and leaders in the Jewish community to denounce the way the mass grave discovery was handled. (Read more.)
If it was good enough for Marie Antoinette, it's good enough
for us. The infamous French Queen (1755-1793) is often referenced in
relation to beauty treatments and rituals – she was known to apply
balms and moisturisers to her hands, then put on a pair of gloves to
sleep in to allow the potions to do their job.Today’s in-salon
solutions are not too dissimilar. Paraffin treatments follow the same
method – hands are dipped into warm wax and then wrapped to allow the
wax to hydrate and soothe the skin at a deeper level; the wax is also
thought to ease joint pain such as rheumatoid arthritis. At-home, apply
a deeply nourishing hand cream, followed by cotton gloves overnight
(or just for a few hours) for super-smooth effects. (Read more.)
I think of that last sentence whenever some modern-day know-nothing
begins comparing the United States to a proto-Nazi state. Maybe it’s
because their analogies are embarrassingly ignorant and intellectually
lazy, or maybe it’s because people like Ocasio-Cortez, perhaps
unknowingly, diminish the suffering of millions of dead. Or maybe it’s
because my own grandfather was taken as slave labor in Austria.
Then again, maybe it’s because the comparison itself is a despicable
smear of the American people. It’s true that we’re not prepared for the
crush of refugees on the southern border (although it should be noted
that many Democrats contend any border is immoral).
While there is a border, however, we ask migrants who show up to follow
existing laws; ones that are subject to the democratic process and the
court system.
Sometimes we reacted ham-fistedly, even temporarily breaking up
families who are transporting children without any oversight. Some
migrants have been abused and some have died in our care. There is no
excuse for it. Neither is sanctioned by the state. If you believe any of this morally equivalent to carting away
millions of people to crematoriums for execution because their faith,
your moral compass is irreparably broken. (Read more.)
I have cooked the food of my New England childhood for over half a century, followed by all things French, a taste of Italian, as well as occasional forays into Mexican, Moroccan, Indian and Asian. My world was mostly northern European fare, a cuisine based on meat, heat, bread and root vegetables. It is a cuisine almost entirely devoid of spices, one that uses a limited palette of herbs, fermented sauces, chilies and strong ingredients, such as ginger. It is a cuisine based on technique, building flavors using classic cooking methods.
Ten years ago, I was driving into Hanoi from the airport. We overtook a sea of motorbikes, some with crates of pigs on the back, one with a middle-aged man balancing lumber on his shoulder, and several bearing whole families precariously perched, grasping hard and buffeted by the wind. It was a foreign shore.
Then I ate the food. Lemon grass with clams. Pho. A breakfast banh mi. Roadside stalls selling grilled foods like eggs in the shell and sweet potato. Mango and papaya. The salads. Hot, sweet, salty and bitter. Broth and noodles. Coffee with condensed milk and raw egg.
The realization dawned slowly. There is no “ethnic” cooking. It’s a myth. It’s just dinner or lunch served somewhere else in the world. (Read more.)
Earlier this month, a young Coptic woman from Shosha, in the Minya province of Egypt, reappeared in her village after a two-month disappearance. But she returned in a different state: Married to a Muslim man and pregnant with his child. Muslim celebrations over her newfound conversion, marriage, and pregnancy devolved into riots, house burnings, and attacks on her Christian family and community. This was no accident: The woman and her new husband were brought back during the celebration of Eid, when tensions between Muslims and Coptic Christians are high. In reality, this incident was part of an intentional campaign of persecution against the largest Christian community left in the Middle East. (Read more.)
There are only bits and pieces of folk tales, legends, and speculations as to how the Maine Coon came about. One of the more popular ones involves then-Queen of France, Marie Antoinette. Marie Antoinette sought the assistance of Captain Samuel Clough in an attempt to escape France and reach the New World in June 1791. Clough loaded Marie Antoinette’s most prized possessions in his ship. This included 6 of Marie Antoinette’s favorite Turkish Angoras. Unfortunately, Marie Antoinette and her royal family never got to escape. Her possessions did arrive in Wiscasset, Maine, however. The story has it that Marie Antoinette’s Turkish Angoras mated with the native shorthaired feline breeds in Maine to produce what we now call the Maine Coon.
Another story is that of an English seafarer who was known for keeping longhaired felines aboard his ship. Every time Captain Charles Coon’s ship anchors in one of New England’s ports, his longhaired kitties would disembark, too. They would explore the port and its immediate surroundings before they set sail again. Coon’s cats interacted and mated with local feral cats. Local townspeople began noticing the increasing number of longhaired kittens in their town, which they referred to these as Coon’s cats. Somebody also forwarded the hypothesis that the Maine Coon is the result of mating between a domestic cat and a wild animal.
The first of these myths involves a raccoon and a semi-feral domestic cat. The idea behind this proposition is the observation that Maine Coons have a bushy tail and a brown tabby color. The bushy tail is very characteristic of a raccoon, while the brown tabby is what you can expect from majority of domestic cats. Unfortunately, mating a cat with a raccoon was unheard of at the time. The second hypothesis involves the mating between a domestic cat and a wild bobtail. This should account for the tufts of hair that Main Coons are famous for on the tips of their ears. Again, this might not be possible at the time. (Read more.)
Above is the final scene from the 1984 French film Dialogues des Carmélites, based upon the play of the same name by Georges Bernanos, with an opera by Poulenc. The original novel, by Gertrud von le Fort, is a retelling of the story of the Blessed Martyrs of Compiègne. The nuns offered their lives for France which was in the throes of a genocidal revolution; ten days after their deaths on July 17, 1794 the Reign of Terror came to an end. They were arrested as counter-revolutionaries, the evidence of which was a Sacred Heart Badge and a portrait of King Louis XVI. The nuns saw the Royal Family as patrons of the Carmelite Order. Among other favors, Marie-Antoinette had provided a dowry for the Prioress Mère Thérèse de Saint-Augustin.
Responding to host Tucker Carlson’s question about why he considers California a “Third World state,” Hanson pointed to “symptoms” we typically “associate with failed states” such as high taxes, poor schools, a super-rich class, and a significant percentage of its people below the poverty line.
“We have the most billionaires of any state in nation and then we have the largest underclass,” he said, blaming in part the overturning of the “very popular” Proposition 187, which would have denied non-emergency healthcare to illegal immigrants.
“That was unfortunately part of a perfect storm,” said Hanson, describing the millions of people who chose to move elsewhere over the next two decades. Hanson then described the growth of “a very small but influential and wealthy manorial class” in Silicon Valley.
“We’ve created a very a wealthy class that doesn’t mind high taxes because it has ways it can navigate around that and poor social circumstances,” he said. “And the people in between are sort of like peasants outside a medieval keep that can’t survive, and so they drift off. We are left with a sort of romanticized indigent class and the royal elite that doesn’t care about the vanishing middle class at all.” (Read more.)
Let us keep in mind that one of the only times Jesus displayed wrath was due to disrespect in the House of God. From EpicPew:
From that day forward, I learned
how to wear appropriate clothing to Mass every Sunday. Did I dress in a suit every
Sunday? No, but I wore dress pants, dress shoes, a polo or button-down shirt
(most often a button down with a sweater) and, on occasion, a tie. I am
grateful that this lesson was taught to me. Dressing appropriately for Mass
completely changed my disposition at Mass. My outer disposition and the
clothing I wore now reflected my inner disposition.
I am writing this article to everyone that attends Mass, however, I hope that my fellow Catholic men
who read this article will take these words to heart. If you wear dress
pants/khaki’s and a polo shirt/button down to work every day, but come
to Mass dressed in shorts or jeans, a t-shirt, and flip flops—there is a
disconnect. I asked myself a few questions: Why would I dress appropriately for
work, but dress casually for Mass? Would I wear my work clothes to go to
the pool, the beach or the lake? These questions challenged me. (Read more.)
Borne from a lyric in a French song from the sixties, the original Café
Pouchkine debuted in Moscow to the delight of tourists who had searched
in vain for the fabled restaurant. Today, a flagship location in the
City of Light brings the dream full circle. Ushered into a world of luxury, patrons of France’s Café Pouchkine
discover gracious environs and elegant European fare befitting the
restaurant’s enviable setting in the heart of Paris. Amid the splendor
of Place de la Madeleine, situated near such iconic destinations as
Hôtel de Crillon and the Louvre, the eatery boasts a terrace overlooking
the neoclassical colonnade of the area’s namesake church. (Read more.)
For much of the left, then, the term "constitutional right" has
simply come to mean "thing I want." And that is incredibly dangerous,
given that the power of the judiciary springs not from legislative
capacity but from supposed interpretive power. Judges are not supposed
to read things into the Constitution but to properly read the
Constitution itself. The use of the judiciary as a club has led to a
feeling of radical frustration among Americans; it has radically
exacerbated our culture gap.
The legislative moves in Alabama and
other states will open a much-needed debate about the role of the
states, the role of legislatures and the role of government. All of that
is good for the country. Those who insist, however, that the Supreme
Court act as a mechanism for their political priorities are of far more
danger to the country than that debate. (Read more.)
Making Dystopia is not just a cri de coeur, however. It is a
detailed account of the origins, rise, effect, and hegemony of
architectural modernism and its successors, and of how architecture
became (to a large extent) a hermetic cult that seals itself off from
the criticism of hoi polloi—among whom is included Prince
Charles—and established its dominance by a mixture of bureaucratic
intrigue, intellectual terrorism, and appeal to raw political and
financial interest. If success is measured by power and hold over a
profession rather than by intrinsic worth, then the modernist movement
in architecture has been an almost unparalleled success. Only relatively
recently has resistance begun to form, and often all too late:
Many ingenious lovely things are gone
That seemed sheer miracle to the multitude.
Professor Curl’s book is particularly strong on the
historiographical lies peddled by the apologists for modernism, and on
the intellectual weakness of the arguments for the necessity of
modernism. For example, architectural historians and theoreticians such
as Sigfried Giedion, Arthur Korn, and Nikolaus Pevsner claimed to see in
modernism the logical continuation of the European architectural
tradition, and Pevsner even recruited such figures as William Morris and
C. F. A. Voysey as progenitors of the movement. Pevsner was so enamored
of Gropius and the Modernists that he wanted to claim a noble descent
for them, as humble but ambitious people were once inclined to find a
distant aristocratic forebear. Yet Voysey could hardly have been more
hostile to the movement that co-opted him. (Read more.)
My religion defines who I am. And I've been a practicing Catholic my
whole life," said Vice President Joe Biden in 2012. "I accept my
church's position on abortion as . . . doctrine. Life begins at
conception. . . . I just refuse to impose that on others."
For four decades, Biden backed the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits the
use of the tax dollars of Joe's fellow Catholics to pay for what they
view as the killing of the innocent unborn. Last week, Joe flipped. He now backs the repeal of the Hyde Amendment. Ilyse Hogue of NARAL Pro-Choice America welcomed home the prodigal son:
"We're pleased that Joe Biden has joined the rest of the 2020
Democratic field in coalescing around the Party's core values—support
for abortion rights." But when did the right to an abortion—a crime in many states before 1973—become a "core value" of the Democratic Party? And what are these "values" of which politicians incessantly talk?
Are they immutable? Or do they change with the changing times? (Read more.)
At just nineteen William was arrested by his creditors for debt and conveyed to Number 9 Fleet Market – a deceptively innocuous address that debtors’ used to conceal the fact they were actually residing within the Fleet prison. Visitors to the prison were so numerous that the guards memorised the faces of new inmates on arrival, so they could not walk out with the crowds. The range of accommodation a prisoner was offered depended on an assessment of “his rank and condition”. Rooms could be had on the Common side for poorer men or on the Master’s side for the wealthier, but there was a vibrant trade amongst officers and longer-term inmates eager to rent out rooms, or sub-let beds in them to new “chums” (so called because they had to pay “chummage” to the Warden). William’s accommodation tended to reflect the state of his finances. His father paid him a guinea a week which could provide lodging in a private room on the Master’s side, but when his funds ran low he was reduced to sharing a room without furniture on the Common side, or sleeping on a table in the taproom. He wanted to live outside the prison in an area known as “the Rules”. But it was an expensive privilege that required payment of securities to prevent prisoners crossing the invisible (and elastic) boundaries that ran down the middle of streets and buildings around the Fleet. An additional £5 would procure day release, ostensibly to sort out financial business, but it was more commonly known as “showing you my horse”, a phrase which reflected the more sociable activities made possible by such day trips. (Read more.)
Jackie could be such a snob. I find it rather hilarious. From InStyle:
Thanks to a new auction, we're all getting a peek into the private world of Jackie Kennedy and her relationship with fashion and designer Oleg Cassini. WWD reports that Cassini's estate, Oyster Bay, is headed to the auction block, which is how private letters between the former first lady and the designer have entered the public eye. In those notes, which are reported to be the biggest draw for the auction, Kennedy doesn't hold anything back, saying that the fashion press was vulgar and that she wanted one-of-a-kind pieces designed just for her.
The Kennedy letters are part of a larger collection that includes a note written by Grace Kelly (pre-princess) and Cassini dresses. The estate also includes "photographs, tear sheets, notes, and instructions," and even drawings by Kennedy, all of which show that she was aware of her influence in the world of fashion and how people, the press included, saw her.
"One reason I am so happy to be working with you is that I have some control over my fashion press, which has gotten so vulgarly out-of-hand. You realize that I know that I am so much more of fashion interest than other First Ladies," Kennedy wrote in one letter. (Read more.)
One of the most shocking executions during the French Revolution was that of four sisters, Gabrielle, Marguerite, Claire and Olympe Vaz de Mello. After the death of their parents, these pious ladies devoted their lives to caring for the sick and downtrodden. In spite of their goodness, or rather because of it, they were dragged before the revolutionary tribunal. Their only “crime” was that they exercised a “baneful influence over their countrymen.”1
Jeanne Jugan was but a child at the time of this atrocity. While she survived the bloody eighteenth century Revolution, the religious order she founded might not be spared its more legalistic twenty-first-century version. (Read more.)
Marie-Antoinette "en gaulle" by Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun
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