Monday, February 10, 2025

Endless Recycling

 


From Coffee and Covid:

The Times’ ponderous article spent about six pages warming up to its theme. But, “We are now,” the Times finally explained, “almost a quarter of the way through what looks likely to go down in history as the least innovative, least transformative, least pioneering century for culture since the invention of the printing press.”

Least, least, least. Since the printing press.

But why? What, or who, is holding the culture back? Global culture has indeed been stalled, a sociological failure, winning only at participation. You might now begin the whataboutism. What about X? What about Venmo? What about AI? What about Elon’s rocket ships? Stand by. Those gadgets are either part of the problem or exceptions proving the point.

Our modern world is populated by high revision numbers, stratospheric sequel counts, and recycled, geriatric celebrities. We check our iPhone Sixteen —now with three cameras— to find out when Need for Speed Ten starts, and then buy tickets online for an octogenarian Rolling Stones concert. In 2022, the hit Netflix show Stranger Things — a futuristic sci-fi series set back in the 1980’s — and in its season four — featured Kate Bush’s 1985 single Running Up That Hill. The 40-year-old song hit the top 10 in 34 countries.

It’s endless recycling. And it’s not normal.

🔥 There are many examples, but perhaps the most obvious symptom of cultural freeze is stalled fashion. The handful of writers calling out stuck culture focus on how distinct was each decade leading up to the Millennium, right before the Patriot Act passed in 2001. Tracing backwards, the cultural evolution trend holds. But from the 90’s forward, zip. Zero. Nada. (Read more.)

Share

The Last Television President

 From Steam Calliope Scherzos:

Someone will pose the question as to whether I’m accusing TV journalists of being aware of what they were doing. And unmistakably, they did not. I think that journalists are, on the whole, more driven by ideology than money, though if they can find an instance in which the two interests can coincide, they’ll seize upon it. This is because if both they and their bosses are operating on the same wavelength, then things will go more smoothly, even though both parties will be assessing the situation differently. I therefore have no doubt that every TV anchor who was trying to “take down” Donald Trump genuinely wanted to end his political career permanently. But they also failed to recognize that the nuances of whatever message they were trying to popularize would ultimately fail when set in relief against the iconography of Trump the myth — a myth that their medium had been building up for decades.

And yet for all of its importance, and for all of the work it did in steadily expanding Trump’s mythology over time, television is still a dying medium, viewed mostly by the elderly. The median age of all Fox News viewers is 69 years old, and the median age of MSNBC’s viewers is 70. And because of such a lopsided viewership, the TV business is quite strange. Old reruns often get higher Nielsen ratings than newer shows, and newer shows consequently benefit from increasingly low expectations from executives. In professional wrestling, the only televised industry I follow somewhat closely, the All Elite Wrestling owner Tony Khan hemorrhaged viewers continually over the course of a year and yet still landed a surprisingly lucrative media rights deal. More and more people are cutting their cable cords, and increasingly, young people are looking back on the era of cable television with confusion: why, exactly, did people pay for TV? What were they thinking? (Read more.)


Share

The Theology of the Lion

 From Andrew Klavan at The New Jerusalem:

One of the fascinating things about the systems that arose from the Enlightenment, is that they work so well precisely because they’re not “Christian” in that sense. Democracy, capitalism, free trade — they harness our natural ambition, competitiveness, partisanship and desire for gold. These things, when set free under controlled circumstances, encourage creativity, achievement and the building of wealth. Sure, a billionaire may be charitable, but he didn’t become a billionaire by being charitable. He did it by crushing the other guy with his superior products, investments and strategies.

And we admire him for it. I mean, we can piously pretend not to, but assuming he did business honestly, and won out through cleverness, hard work and drive, we respect him for his success. Just like we admire and respect a character like James Bond who not only gets the beautiful girl, but gets a different beautiful girl in every movie. Again, readers can leave pious comments saying tsk tsk tsk, but the truth is: assuming Bond is not an abuser or an adulterer, guys want to be him, and girls want to be with him. And when Dr. No tries to destroy the world, who you gonna call?

I’ll go even further. Christians who get prissy about human nature are incredibly off-putting. Those people who attacked J. D. Vance for speaking simple moral common sense? Does anyone admire or respect them even a little? Not even themselves, I’d wager. They’re like those people who acknowledge that their land once belonged to the Indians when they are in no way prepared to give the land back. Why even strike the pose?

Christianity certainly adds a new dimension to our moral calculations — the dimension of eternal life. But in practical terms, this does not delionize the lion, it merely directs the man toward his highest self. It confirms us in our sense that there are things more important than present advantage, things even worth dying for. (Read more.)

Share

Sunday, February 9, 2025

Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy


 I thought that reading Kash Patel's 2023 book Government Gangsters, about Deep State corruption, would be like peering under a rock and seeing worms, grubs and centipedes, but I was wrong. Reading Kash's book is like lifting a rock and instead of finding the expected dirt and grubs there is a bottomless pit full of poisonous worms, snakes, gas and fire, reminiscent of St. Teresa of Avila's vision of Hell. If you want to understand one reason why American society is in a free fall, why there is chaos in our cities, in our schools and in anything connected to the government, then read Kash's book. No country, no nation can function when mired in lies and treachery, when politicians become billionaires, not through their own business acumen, but through selling the influence which comes with an elected office. That we have any country left is due to the grace of God, as well as to the hard work and basic integrity of the American people. Government Gangsters is a timely read as daily there are revelations about the government abuse of USAID, and as we wait for Kash to be confirmed as Director of the FBI.

 From the Amazon page:

A sinister cabal of corrupt law enforcement personnel, intelligence agents, and military officials at the highest levels of government plotted to overthrow a president. Even after they failed, they continue to secretly pull the levers of power without any accountability to the American people. This isn’t the synopsis of a fictional spy thriller. This is what is actually happening in the United States government.

In
Government Gangsters, Kash Patel—a former top official in the White House, the Department of Defense, the Intelligence Community, and the Department of Justice—pulls back the curtain on the Deep State, revealing the major players and tactics within the permanent government bureaucracy, which has spent decades stripping power away from the American people and their elected leaders. Based on his firsthand knowledge, Patel reveals how we can defeat the Deep State, reassert self-government, and restore our democracy. (Read more.)

Kash's book has many stories about Trump's first term as President and what it was like to work for him and become part of his inner circle. It seems that Melania Trump was more involved in helping the President in his work than was thought by many at the time, and that he trusts her judgment in matters of state as well as her unerring taste and grace in running the White House. But the main strength of the book is the chronicle of how Trump was continually betrayed and lied about by Deep State operatives, persons planted to engineer his destruction. The book is exhaustively documented and can be checked and double-checked for accuracy, since Kash is a master at gathering evidence to build a case. Those who made an enemy of him, who underestimated him and sought to make him go away, will regret it forever. By the way, some of the ethnic slurs aimed at Kash by Democrats are those which I never heard in all my life growing up south of the Mason-Dixon line. Absolutely vile.


Share

USAID and CIA Secretly Worked to Impeach Trump

 From The Vigilant Fox:

A bombshell report from journalist Michael Shellenberger reveals that Trump’s impeachment wasn’t just a Democrat-led political hit job—it was an intelligence operation.

Shellenberger blew the lid off the scandal on Jesse Watters Primetime, exposing how the deep state worked behind the scenes to take down Trump.

Back in 2019, Democrats rushed to impeach Trump over a whistleblower complaint claiming he pressured Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden. But there was one huge problem: the so-called whistleblower wasn’t even a direct witness.

“Many people may not remember that it was a CIA analyst who was left over from the Obama White House who wrote the memo that led to the impeachment,” Shellenberger explained. “It was all based on hearsay. The person had not actually been in the room with Trump.”

And it gets worse. That memo relied on a report from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP)—a group that pretends to be independent but is actually funded by USAID and controlled by the U.S. government.

“Tens of millions of dollars had gone into this group called OCCRP,” Shellenberger said. “But it was basically created as an extension of the State Department and then of USAID.” (Read more.)

 

 From Amuse on X:

One must ask: if USAID is so committed to media independence, why is it absent in places like Cuba or Venezuela, where journalists face real threats from authoritarian regimes? The answer is evident—USAID’s media projects are not about fostering independent journalism but about engineering regime change against governments that resist Washington’s progressive-globalist agenda.

This state-sponsored journalism has profound consequences. Stories unfavorable to the Left are buried, and investigations into Democratic corruption are dismissed as "conspiracy theories." A glaring example was the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story before the 2020 election—a story later confirmed as legitimate but dismissed at the time as "Russian disinformation" by an obedient press. The result? Public discourse is distorted, elections are influenced, and dissenting voices struggle to be heard.

The Founders understood the necessity of an independent press. A media establishment that takes its cues—and its funding—from the government is not a free press at all. It is an instrument of state power. The only solution is a complete separation between journalism and government. No taxpayer dollars should fund newsrooms. Media organizations must compete in the open marketplace of ideas, where credibility, not political favoritism, determines survival. (Read more.)

 

Also from Amuse on X;

Internews’s funding sources betray its true objectives. It is no accident that USAID, the CIA's tool for ideological influence operations, provides up to 90% of Internews’s budget. USAID's historical entanglement with regime-change operations and the promotion of progressive social policies should alone raise suspicions about the kind of "independent media" that Internews claims to support. But even more telling is the financial backing from George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, a network infamous for bankrolling leftist movements under the pretense of fostering democracy. The confluence of Soros’s globalist agenda and USAID’s interventionist ethos ensures that Internews operates not as a neutral media entity, but as a propaganda wing for international leftism.

Internews has played a direct role in creating political upheavals across the world, particularly in Venezuela, Kazakhstan, Myanmar, and Afghanistan. In each of these nations, CIA and USAID foreign policy interests have leveraged Internews to foster dissent, support opposition movements, and ultimately engineer instability. By flooding these regions with Internews-trained journalists and media networks, the organization has been instrumental in shaping narratives that align with U.S. geopolitical objectives, undermining sovereign governments in favor of pro-Western factions. (Read more.)


Share

King Arthur's Lost Kingdom

 A summary of some of the latest research, which appears to confirm the story of King Vortigern inviting the Angles and Saxons to come to Britain to help him fight the Picts and the Scots, who were in the North.

Share

Saturday, February 8, 2025

The Execution of Mary Queen of Scots


February 8 is the anniversary of the execution of Mary Stuart in 1587. The Queen of Scots, having been unjustly imprisoned by her cousin Queen Elizabeth of England for twenty years, was beheaded after a sham trial. According to an eye-witness account:
Then she, being stripped of all her apparel saving her petticoat and kirtle, her two women beholding her made great lamentation, and crying and crossing themselves prayed in Latin. She, turning herself to them, embracing them, said these words in French, 'Ne crie vous, j'ay prome pour vous', and so crossing and kissing them, bad them pray for her and rejoice and not weep, for that now they should see an end of all their mistress's troubles.

Then she, with a smiling countenance, turning to her men servants, as Melvin and the rest, standing upon a bench nigh the scaffold, who sometime weeping, sometime crying out aloud, and continually crossing themselves, prayed in Latin, crossing them with her hand bade them farewell, and wishing them to pray for her even until the last hour.

This done, one of the women have a Corpus Christi cloth lapped up three-corner-ways, kissing it, put it over the Queen of Scots' face, and pinned it fast to the caule of her head. Then the two women departed from her, and she kneeling down upon the cushion most resolutely, and without any token or fear of death, she spake aloud this Psalm in Latin, In Te Domine confido, non confundar in eternam, etc. Then, groping for the block, she laid down her head, putting her chin over the block with both her hands, which, holding there still, had been cut off had they not been espied. Then lying upon the block most quietly, and stretching out her arms cried, In manus tuas, Domine, etc., three or four times. Then she, lying very still upon the block, one of the executioners holding her slightly with one of his hands, she endured two strokes of the other executioner with an axe, she making very small noise or none at all, and not stirring any part of her from the place where she lay: and so the executioner cut off her head, saving one little gristle, which being cut asunder, he lift up her head to the view of all the assembly and bade God save the Queen. Then, her dress of lawn [i.e. wig] from off her head, it appeared as grey as one of threescore and ten years old, polled very short, her face in a moment being so much altered from the form she had when she was alive, as few could remember her by her dead face. Her lips stirred up and a down a quarter of an hour after her head was cut off.
There is a great deal of similarity between Mary of Scotland and her descendant, Marie-Antoinette. Both possessed immense beauty, charm, and joie de vivre, along with the ability of inspiring either great love or great hatred. Both are icons of romance and passion, when, in all probability, they had very little actual romance or passion in their personal lives, especially when compared to the sorrows they had to bear. Mary and her first husband, Francis II of France, seemed to have a deep and genuine affection for each other, in spite of the fact that he was afflicted with health problems (like many of the Valois.) Her other two husbands, however, were total and complete wretches, who made Mary's life a living hell. Antonia Fraser, in her stellar biography of Mary, conjectures that the Scottish queen fell in love with her cousin Darnley, before she found out what he was. Other biographers, such as Alison Weir and John Guy, believe that she married Darnley not out of love but to solidify her claim to the English throne, since Henry Stewart was also an heir. At any rate, Darnley was abusive in every way, and unfaithful. He plotted against her, threatening to declare her child illegitimate, telling the Pope and the King of France that she was a bad Catholic, while participating in the murder of her secretary David Rizzio before her eyes. (I might have been tempted to put gun powder under his bed, too.) However, there is overwhelming proof that Mary had nothing to do with Darnley's death, as Fraser, Guy, and Weir all describe in detail. I would especially recommend Alison Weir's excellent Mary Queen of Scots and the Murder of Lord Darnley, in which the events of Kirk o'Field are retraced with precision, exonerating Mary beyond all doubt. Weir shows how Mary was planning to reconcile with Darnley and live with him again, for their son's sake, when the Scottish lords had Darnley strangled, before blowing up his house. As for the marriage with Bothwell, all three biographers mentioned above believe that Mary was kidnapped and raped by him; when she discovered that she was pregnant she assented to a wedding. There was no great romance. She later tried to have the marriage annulled. 
 Mary should have returned to France after the defeat at Carberry Hill and her subsequent escape from her initial captivity. In France, she had lands as Dowager Queen, and her grandmother was still alive. Instead, she chose England and throwing herself upon Elizabeth's mercy. Big mistake. But I think she did not want to be too far from her infant son James, with whom she hoped to be reunited, as only a mother can hope. Mary, like Marie-Antoinette, is often dismissed as being stupid. She did make some imprudent choices, that's for certain. John Guy's biography carefully offers proofs that, in spite of everything, Mary often showed herself to be an astute politician, who successfully played her enemies against each other, avoiding some potential disasters early in her rule. The fact that her personal reign lasted as long as it did, in the turbulent era of the Scottish Reformation, when she was surrounded by those who believed she was Jezebel just because she was Catholic, is remarkable. She would have had to have been more ruthless and cruel, less merciful and tolerant, to have been a successful monarch in that particular time and place. Her abdication, and many of the disastrous decisions she made in those fateful months, happened when she was recovering from assault and a miscarriage/stillbirth. She was obviously going through some kind of breakdown. Almost half of Mary's life was spent as a prisoner, separated from her only surviving child, who was taught to despise his mother as a harlot. When accused of plotting Elizabeth's murder, forged letters were used against her, and she was deprived of counsel. As she declared at her trial:
I do not recognize the laws of England nor do I understand them, as I have often asserted. I am alone without counsel or anyone to speak on my behalf. My papers and notes have been taken from me, so that I am destitute of all aid, taken at a disadvantage.
Before her execution, Mary was told that her life would be the death of the Protestant religion, but her death would be its life. The ultimate reason for her demise was the fact that she was a Catholic queen. With that in mind, she approached the scaffold.
Share

The Real Reason Dems Despise Musk

 From American Refugees:

Democrats have plenty of reasons to hate Elon Musk. His DOGE operation is making them look like crooks straight out of Boss Tweed-land with government waste, much of it to pay off friends and political allies, in the stratosphere. And he’s only getting started.

Already uncovered are at least a half-trillion in government waste regarding COVID-19. Giant sums of money were frittered away studying things like transgenderism in animals with absolutely no knowledge by taxpayers.

No one knows the extent of it, at least not yet.

Meanwhile, numerous ad hominem from the quondam left are appearing on X and the networks aimed at Musk’s youthful tech-savvy team, accusing them of being, essentially, too wet behind the ears to be doing this. Maybe it’s true of some of them, but worth noting is Founding Father James Monroe was 18 on July 4, 1776, Alexander Hamilton 21 and the great theorist of the Constitution James Madison 25.

Look for more of these smears going forward, but the deep down reason they most abhor Mr. Musk is that he is an apostate. He used to be on their side. He was their genius. What happened? (Maybe just the simple application of facts.)

The dislike of apostates is not just restricted to Muslims who have an unpleasant tradition of, shall we say, taking it to the mattress. Apostasy can be a monumental threat to all sorts of core beliefs (liberalism? progressivism?), especially when they are old and unexamined. Systems unravel. (Read more.)

 

From Tierney's Real News:

Elon Musk’s team is sorting through (auditing) the US Treasury ledgers to find waste and fraud. Estimates are that 20-25% of our spending is on waste, fraud and grift - amounting to roughly $2 TRILLION in US tax dollars per year. In other words, if we got rid of the money laundering and the grift we could pretty much balance our budget and pay off our debt.

I’ve audited the books of several corporations and I ALWAYS FOUND at least 10% in waste to cut - and another 10% that I would deem fraudulent “kick-backs or overpayments.” I found that the only people who did NOT want me to audit the books were corrupt department heads or the “keepers of the books” who were using the company’s money as their own piggy bank.

The same is true for Government - the only people who are against this auditing exercise are corrupt bureaucrats, politicians, donors and contractors who are getting kickbacks and benefiting from the fraud. If you see people protesting the audit, they are the fraudsters. (Read more.)


Share

Why Did the Trojan War Last for Ten Years?

 From The Greek Reporter:

With Troy, there is one obvious reason why a single city was able to withstand against the Greek forces for ten years. The reason is that it was not just a single city withstanding those forces. In fact, Homer describes in his Iliad (written c. 650 BCE) a coalition of nations from Anatolia and even parts of Europe on the side of the Trojans.

If it really had been just the isolated city of Troy standing against the Greeks, it probably would have fallen quickly. Yet, that is definitely not what Homer described. When we see what he did describe, it is not surprising at all that the Trojan War lasted so long. On the side of the Trojans, there was the kingdom of the Phrygians and the kingdom of the Lydians. It appears that Homer was describing the world of the Trojan War based on the geopolitics of his own era or those just shortly before.

The Phrygian kingdom that Homer refers to controlled a huge part of Anatolia. It was quite rich and powerful and could actually be described as a small empire. Troy was closely associated with them. In fact, King Priam of Troy supposedly married a Phrygian princess. Later, Greek writers often called the Trojans ‘Phrygians.’ The kingdom of Lydia was powerful, too. After the fall of Phrygia in approximately 700 BCE, Lydia immediately rose to fill the power vacuum, indicating that it had already been a powerful state. (Read more.)


Share

Friday, February 7, 2025

History of the Louvre

Louvre, 17th Century

 It was at the Louvre in 1623 during Carnival that Prince Charles first saw Louis XIII's youngest sister Henrietta Maria, dancing in a masque. From Art and Object:

Though it’s now known for its renowned art collection, the Louvre began its life as a fortress in the 12th century designed to protect what was then the western edge of Paris. Built by Philip II, the medieval fortress featured a 98-foot tall keep and a moat. It was used to defend the city until Paris grew and other defensive structures were built on the new outskirts of the city in the 14th century. 

In the 16th century, however, Francis I demolished the original fortress and rebuilt the Louvre as a Renaissance-style royal residence. It continued to house the royal family until 1682 when Louis XIV built the Palace of Versailles.

Part of the medieval structure can still be seen today in the Louvre’s Salle Basse, built in the 13th century.

 In addition to building the renaissance palace, Francis I was an avid art collector. The art he amassed in the 16th century still makes up a core piece of the museum’s collection today, including works by Michelangelo and Raphael, as well as the museum’s most famous painting, Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. (Read more.)

Henri IV lying in state at Louvre

Henri IV built the Grand Galerie at the Louvre. From Open Editions:

Louis XIII continued the tradition established by his father. In August1612, when the Duke of Pastrana was given an audience in the Petite Galerie, he entered the king’s apartment from the salle des gardes and walked through the antechamber and bedchamber, which were decorated by members of the court disposed by rank in a crescendo that terminated in the gallery. The gallery itself had been set up as a throne room, with Louis XIII and Maria de’ Medici seated side-by-side on an elevated platform at the far end of the room, looking out on the river Seine. Behind them, the ladies of the court stood on stands shaped as “those of a theatre,” while the pages of the king’s and queen’s bedchambers stood behind barriers placed along the sides of the room.19 Along with the members of the royal family, large numbers of courtiers attended such ceremonies, as reported by Camillo Guidi in September 1618:

Monsieur de Bonneuil […] led me to His Majesty, whom I met midway down the gallery as he was coming towards me […] The audience was long and favorable […] and one might say that the whole court and nobility was there.20

(Read more.)

Some impressions of Louis XIII. From The Secret Lives of Royals, Aristocrats and Commoners:

Louis XIII was short, ungainly, and---until disease attacked him---inclined to corpulence. He was not beautiful, although Sully, who had served the royal house so faithfully, professed to admire the boy's regular features. His nose was too large, his head out of proportion to his body, his chin projected, his lover lip was unpleasantly thickened, and his mouth was usually half-open. Owing to the awkward formation of his palate he was compelled to speak little and slowly to avoid a trying stammer. He suffered from chronic gout, and it is almost certain that he had at least one epileptic fit. His teeth were decayed, and he was a continual invalid through persistent dyspepsia. Most of these physical defects may be traced in his family history. Many of them he bequeathed to his sons. Philip inherited his undersized stature as well as his brown hair and swarthy skin. In profile Louis XIV challenged comparison with the ancestral Bourbons, and was in more ways than one a true grandson of Henri IV. (Read more.)


 And his brother Gaston, HERE.

Purchase My Queen, My Love, HERE.
Share

Demons in the Sky

 From Tierney's Real News:

This is Part 3 of my report on the DC crash. If you haven’t read Part One and Part Two yet - please do so before you read on. I’m not going to repeat much of the information I’ve already shared … but I will build on it.

In my analysis, I have found many discrepancies (and holes) between what the media and ‘expert’ pundits are telling the public and what actually happened. I will cover those one by one. None of them individually tells the whole story - but they should be viewed in totality to paint a picture of the most plausible explanation.

Also, many of the so-called ‘expert’ videos that I’ve seen from YouTube ‘pilots’ smack of deception, coverup and CIA - so I don’t put much trust in those. Why? They are leaving out major facts in their analysis.

In my first report, I showed you a video of the crash that I found on X that was leaked to CNN that, to me, was the most accurate view of the crash. Up until that point, the only videos we were shown of the crash were grainy and hard to see.

https://x.com/PriscillaMirage/status/1885337679161942143

This video clearly makes it look like the Blackhawk helicopter flew directly into the plane. (Read more.)

Share

The Largest Volcanic Eruption in Human History

 From Smithsonian:

Our story begins on a very bad day about 74,000 years ago. The planet was starting to move out of one of its more recent ice ages, although in the tropics there was little change in climate between the Ice Age glacial episodes and the warmer interglacial episodes. A wide range of late Ice Age mammals inhabited the world, including woolly rhinoceroses and mammoths up in the cold regions of Eurasia, along with huge bison, giant deer, wild horses, and a variety of smaller mammals. Giant lions, sabertoothed cats, and huge bears fed on these large prey animals.

People lived in many parts of the Old World by then but had not yet reached Australia or the Americas. The bulk of the human population were archaic members of our species, Homo sapiens, which first appeared in southern Africa about 100,000 to 300,000 years ago. By 74,000 years ago, these people had spread out of Africa and may have occupied much of Asia, as well as parts of southeastern Europe. However, Europe was still dominated by another human species, the Neanderthals, who had adapted to life on the edge of the northern ice sheet. In contrast to archaic Homo sapiens, Neanderthals had a shorter, stockier, more muscular build and shorter limbs, a body type suitable for attacking large prey and adapted for reducing heat loss in the cold climate. In the far reaches of Asia, ancient humans had spread to many of the islands of modern-day Indonesia and Malaysia. On one now known as Flores, east of Java and Bali, they evolved into a dwarfed species, Homo floresiensis. Now nicknamed “hobbits,” these people stood only about 3 feet and 7 inches tall, shorter than any modern adult Pygmies (given their small brain size, some anthropologists question whether they are even in our genus, Homo). Flores is part of the island chain (including Sumatra, Java, and many smaller islands of the Malay Archipelago) that makes up of most of modern Indonesia. These islands are built completely of volcanoes, both active ones and ancient, dormant ones. Their climate is tropical and their jungle is dense. So much vegetation grows on the rich volcanic soil, in fact, that it’s often hard to recognize signs of volcanoes there. (Read more.)

Share

Thursday, February 6, 2025

The New Jane Austen TV Series

 
From House and Garden:

Set in 1830 and 1840, 13 and 23 years after Jane’s passing, the story begins when Cassandra visits Isabella (Rose Leslie of Game of Thrones fame), the niece of her long-dead fiancé, who is on the verge of losing her home following her father’s death. While she appears to be there to support Isabella, Cassandra’s true mission is to recover a hidden bundle of private letters that could jeopardise Jane’s reputation. As she uncovers them, she is transported back in time, reliving the joys and heartbreaks of her youth. Flashbacks introduce Young Cassy (Synnøve Karlsen) and Jane (Patsy Ferran), as they experience the romantic entanglements, friendships, and disappointments that shaped their lives and inspired Jane’s timeless novels. (Read more.)


Share

‘Bloodletting’ at FBI

 From Sharyl's Substack:

The heavy-handed FBI raid at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home on Aug. 8, 2022, as Trump was engaged in a dispute over what presidential records he was entitled to possess, is just one of many controversies that has plagued the FBI in the past decade related to the agency’s political targeting of Trump.

On Aug. 19, 2019, the Inspector General (IG) announced former FBI Director James Comey mishandled sensitive and classified documents in his campaign to undermine Trump in the press. The IG referred Comey to the Dept. of Justice (DOJ), but the DOJ declined to prosecute.

On Aug. 19, 2020, FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith pleaded guilty to doctoring a document to justify a secret wiretap against Trump campaign associate Carter Page. Under FBI rules, the wiretap would have enabled the FBI to access Trump’s communications since Page communicated with people who communicated with Trump. It was all part of an effort to frame Trump for Russia collusion in the FBI’s ill-fated “Operation Crossfire.” Nobody else who knew about or was involved in document fraud was named or charged.

FBI Director Wray repeatedly gave false information in testimony to Congress, claiming there were no “Section 702” surveillance abuses, when there are many in the public record. (Read more.)

Share

Musical Instruments of 16th- and 17th-Century Music

 From Interlude:

We were looking at some music title pages from a collection in the Bibliothèque Nationale and found some interesting representations of music as part of the title page designs. In this title page for a book of keyboard music from 1670, little putti hold up a banner with the title. At the center bottom is a music book, to be tied closed with ribbons, flanked by a two-manual harpsichord on the left (without its legs), and a virginal, normally played on a tabletop, on the right. On the back wall, from the left, are wind instruments, including a cornett in curved wood, a recorder, and a racket, shown with its distinctive cylindrical body. To the right is a guitar. On the other side of the banner is a lute and then a viol with a pointed Baroque bow laid over the top.

 The publishers Le Roy and Ballard, founded by Adrian Le Roy and his cousin Robert Ballard in 1551, used title-page frames filled with instruments and player: sat the top right, Justice wealds her sword, and below her, are two putti playing viols. Music books frame the grotesque at the bottom centre. Two more putti inhabit the bottom left corner, playing two more viols. All together, the four putti give us an entire consort of viols, from large to small. In the top right corner, an unreadable label seems to indicate a female mathematician specialising in geometry, with her book of drawings and a T-square. (Read more.)

Share

Wednesday, February 5, 2025

Petrushka


Stravinky's 0riginal costume design for Petrushka


Original 1911 set design for Petrushka

When I was a child my grandmother gave us a record with stories from famous ballets, including musical excerpts from Petrushka. We were entranced by it; my sister and I tried dancing to Petrushka when we were very small; from what I have read since, we were not alone in being swept up into the drama. Composed by Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) for Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, Petrushka debuted in 1911 at the Théâtre du Chatelet in Paris. The mysterious, magical tale of love and revenge unfolds at a Russian Shrovetide fair, centering around a puppet called "Petrushka," who in Pinocchio-style comes to life. To summarize:
Petrushka ("Petey") is the story of three puppets - the forlorn and homely Petrushka, a beautiful ballerina, and a mysterious and gaudily dressed Moor - brought to life by their showman master at a Russian Shrovetide fair. Petrushka tries to express his love for the ballerina, but she has eyes only for the Moor. The frustrated Petrushka is subdued by the scimitar-wielding Moor, but the puppet's ghost has the last laugh by thumbing his nose at everyone. All this takes place within the context of the fair, full of dances by nannies, coachmen, masqueraders, crowds and even a dancing bear.
In Russian culture, the puppet character of "Petrushka" was rather like "Punch," a rude, comic Everyman, the butt of every joke. Stravinsky endows him with human feelings; as Petrushka attempts to rise from his baseness, his strivings lead to his destruction, only to gain immortality in the end.
Stravinsky's music captures the carnival atmosphere of Maslenitsa, the Russian version of Mardi Gras, with all its color and passion. As one commentator describes:
Subject and music appear to reflect the Russian nature. Gogol and Mussorgsky are there. Everything is reflected in the score with a sure and reckless mastery —the movement and tumult of the crowd; the gait and aspect of each leading figure; and the grotesque agonies of the helpless one. A shriek of...trumpets in different keys is the motto of Petrouchka's protest. The composition is permeated with Russian folk-melodies and also street songs marvelously treated.
"Fair"
In his day, Stravinsky was considered avant-garde since his music was a bit different from what had gone before. His work was part of the explosion of creativity that brightened the last days of imperial Russia, called the "Silver Age." On one level, Petrushka is an echo of a time that is gone; on another, it conveys the spirit of the Russian people which Communism was not able to destroy. I enjoy listening to Petrushka more than ever, especially during Shrovetide. 

Listen HERE.

Share

The Intolerable Alliance

 From Armas:

The Trump Administration has been in office only fifteen days and the pace of events only accelerates — and that goes double for the revivified United States focus upon our near abroad in the Western Hemisphere. One week ago we were discussing the designation of Mexican cartels as foreign-terror organizations: this week we are discussing the White House’s surprise declaration that “the Mexican drug-trafficking organizations have an intolerable alliance with the government of Mexico,” which is of course entirely true — which is why it was never said before. But it is said now, and so it is worth exploring the case for the existence of that alliance in detail, which my headliner column at The Spectator does. An excerpt:

The central figure in the Mexican-regime case is the man who served as President of Mexico from 2018 through 2024, and still controls the ruling MORENA coalition through his proxies and family members throughout the party apparatus. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, in addition to being an inveterate anti-American in his demagogic politics, is widely understood to have been in the pay of the Sinaloa Cartel for most of the past twenty years. This was more or less common knowledge in Mexico, and the regime did not trouble itself to hide the evidence. AMLO, as he is known, spent nearly his entire presidency defending the Sinaloa Cartel against the Americans, and sometimes against his own security apparatus. He paid more visits to the Sinaloan Cartel headquarters town of Badiraguato across six years than he did to Washington, D.C.; he took a special trip to pay respects to the elderly mother of jailed drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera; he ordered his own security forces to release one of “El Chapo’s” captured sons; he intervened to spring the cartel-corrupted Mexican flag officer Salvador Cienfuegos from American detention; he effectively banned U.S. law enforcement from working in Mexico; and he even vowed to use the Mexican armed forces to defend the cartels against American action.

This is not even the whole list, but it will do.

Read it all.

(Read more.)


Share

When Catholics are Democrats

 Since the Democrat party champions abortion as one of the their major platforms I fail to comprehend how any conscientious Catholic can be one. From Catholic Culture:

My grandmother died yesterday at the age of 96. There is no single person to whom I owe a greater debt for imparting to me my Catholic faith than her. I have explained why in numerous Facebook posts over the years and in a Catholic Herald piece commemorating the centennial of Our Lady of Fatima.

One thing she did not pass on to me (at least not permanently) was her lifelong support for the Democratic Party. My grandparents were the “ancestral white Catholics” mentioned in passing in a recent First Things podcast. Immigrant Catholics in places like Southern New England with a deep historical attachment to the Democratic Party in general and a feudal-like loyalty to the Kennedys in particular.

During the 2020 Democratic convention, when “Scranton Joe” Biden turned on the old working-class Catholic piety, I scoffed. 2020 was a year of Peak Wokeness. Covid lockdowns, George Floyd riots, statues of our founding fathers vandalized, and so forth. Surely “ancestral white Catholics” were wise to the Democrat Party’s false claim to speak for them by now, I thought.

I was wrong. Or, rather, I was early. Biden’s 2020 campaign turned out to be the last gasp of the old ruse. He hadn’t the strength to pull it off again in 2024, before he was yanked from the stage. And there is no longer anyone else left who can do it. With Biden’s exit from public life, an era has finally ended. (Read more.)


Share

Tuesday, February 4, 2025

Princess Alice of Battenberg


 From Tatler:

A great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria, Philip’s mother was born as Princess Alice of Battenberg at Windsor Castle in 1985, and was born congenitally deaf. She met her husband, Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark in 1902 at the coronation of King Edward VII, with the two marrying a year later. The couple went on to have five children, four daughters and one son, Philip, and remained in Greece until the exile of the Royal Family in 1917. Then, they settled briefly in Paris, before Philip was sent to live in England and his mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia, being committed to a Swiss sanatorium in 1930. (Read more.)

Share

Trump’s DOJ Investigates Schumer’s Threats to SCOTUS After Assassination Attempt

 From Amuse on X:

 On March 4, 2020, a single, incendiary speech on the steps of the Supreme Court set into motion a chain of events that now demands accountability at the highest levels of government. Trump's Acting U.S. Attorney Ed Martin’s recent target letter to Senator Chuck Schumer, alerting him to the DOJ’s investigation into that very address of incitement, has laid bare a reckless disregard for the sanctity of our judicial system. The issue is urgent and pressing: a senator's words, delivered with the venom of a demagogue, have not only incited an enraged mob but have now led to a sustained assault on the core institutions that uphold our republic.

On that fateful day in early March, Senator Schumer, standing before the venerable edifice of our Supreme Court, unleashed a tirade aimed directly at Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. With rhetoric that left little to the imagination, he declared,

“I want to tell you, Gorsuch. I want to tell you, Kavanaugh. You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”

Such words, teetering on the brink of inciting imminent violence, were not mere hyperbole. They bore the unmistakable hallmarks of a call to arms—a directive to unleash chaos against those who dare uphold constitutional restraint against progressive excess. (Read more.)


Share

Maybe It's Maybelline

 Makeup in historical films. From Frock Flicks:

Sometimes I wonder if you folks get our jokes, especially when they’re based on things that are no longer part of the current pop culture lexicon (or are specifically American, for that matter). One example is when we refer to ad campaigns that were common in the 1980s and ’90s, and one we’ve used A LOT is “Maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s Maybelline.”

Which was a staple of magazines and TV and I guess was recently chopped down for TikTok (weird!). We’re also fond of the related “Easy, breezy, beautiful, Cover Girl,” which was dropped in 2017. (Read more.)


Share

Monday, February 3, 2025

Princesse de Lamballe in Films

 

  From Frock Flicks:

French Queen Marie-Antoinette had two key ladies-in-waitings who were favorites, and skimming the Marie-Antoinette (1975) miniseries had me wondering how much they’ve been on screen (result: not enough!). The first was Marie Thérèse Louise of Savoy, Princesse de Lamballe (1749-92). 

The Princesse de Lamballe grew up in Turin, now northern Italy but then part of Savoy. She married Louis Alexandre de Bourbon-Penthièvre, a grandson of Louis XIV‘s legitimised son (and thus great-grandson of Louis). She then moved to Versailles, where after only a year, her husband died. She was left a rich widow and became a fixture at the court.

When Marie-Antoinette married the dauphin, the Princesse de Lamballe was of the correct rank — and was very kind and welcoming — and the two became very good friends. Eventually Marie-Antoinette named Lamballe the Superintendent of the Queen’s Household, an official government post, making her the highest ranked lady-in-waiting. Lamballe was an introvert and eventually was displaced by the Duchesse de Polignac as the first in the queen’s favor; the two ladies never got along. (Read more.)

Share

What Happened in DC?

 From Tierney's Real News:

This is the latest timeline I could find of the DC crash. The Blackhawk helicopter is called a PAT-25 and the American airlines plane is called a AA5342 CRJ (Canadian Regional Jet.)

PAT-25 is the designation for a Priority Air Transport flight operated by the Department of the Army. Priority Air Transport (PAT) is a United States Army (USAPAT) program that provides executive air transportation for senior military leaders and government officials.

On January 29, 2025, the PAT-25 Blackhawk helicopter flew into the American Airlines CRJ AA5342 aircraft over the Potomac River near Reagan National Airport.

Here is the most accurate view of the collision:

https://x.com/PriscillaMirage/status/1885337679161942143

Here is a step-by-step timeline of the DC plane crash based on available information. I will add more detail as it comes available.

January 29, 2025:

  • 6:18 p.m. EST: American Airlines Flight 5342 departs from Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport (ITC) in Kansas, heading towards Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA).

  • 8:15 PM: The aircraft left 37,000 feet for an initial descent.

  • 8:39:10 PM: Potomac Approach cleared the airplane crew for the Mount Vernon visual runway one approach.

  • 8:43:06 PM: The airplane crew made initial contact with the DCA tower. The tower controller asked if the crew could switch to runway 33.

  • 8:45:27 PM: The autopilot was disconnected.

  • 8:46 p.m. EST: Air traffic controllers instructed Flight 5342 to land on Runway 33, and the pilots acknowledged the instruction.

  • 8:46:01 PM: A radio transmission from the tower was audible, informing PAT-25 (the Black Hawk) that traffic just south of the Wilson Bridge was a CRJ at 1,200 feet circling to runway 33.

  • 8:46:29 PM: The airplane crew received a 1,000-foot automated callout.

  • 8:46:47 PM: DCA Tower cleared other jet traffic on runway 1 for departure with no delay.

  • 8:47 p.m. EST:

    • ATC: "PAT-25, do you have the CRJ in sight?"

      • This query from ATC was to confirm whether the helicopter pilot could see the Bombardier CRJ700 regional jet, known as American Airlines Flight 5342, which was on approach to land.

    • ATC: "PAT-25, pass behind the CRJ."

      • Here, the controller instructed the helicopter to maneuver to pass behind the jet, indicating an effort to manage the separation between the two aircraft.

    • Text from helicopter Pilot: "PAT-25 has aircraft in sight, request visual separation."

      • The helicopter pilot confirmed that they had visual contact with the CRJ700 and requested to maintain visual separation, implying they would manage their own distance and altitude based on seeing the jet. In other words, the text from helicopter said they had it all under control. Right. Earlier, the Blackhawk pilot was advised to return to base 3 times, but didn't.

  • One second later, the airplane crew received an automated traffic advisory stating "traffic traffic."

  • 8:47:42 PM: A radio transmission from the tower was audible, directing PAT-25 to pass behind the CRJ. No response from PAT-25.

  • 8:47:58 PM: The airplane crew had a verbal reaction, and FDR data showed the airplane beginning to increase its pitch.

  • 8:47:59 PM: Sounds of impact were audible, followed by the end of the recording.

  • 8:48 p.m. EST: The control tower sounds an alarm to alert responders to the crash. The last transmission from both the jet and the helicopter occurs around this time.

  • 8:51 p.m. EST: Departures to DCA are grounded due to the aircraft emergency.

  • 8:53 p.m. EST: Washington Metro police receive calls about the crash.

  • 8:58 p.m. EST: First responders, including DC Fire and EMS, the Metropolitan Police Department, and multiple federal agencies, arrive at the scene to begin coordinating search and rescue efforts.

  • 11:07 p.m. EST: American Airlines confirms 60 passengers and four crew members were on the aircraft, with three soldiers aboard the Army helicopter involved in the collision.

  • January 30 evening: NTSB investigators announce the recovery of the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder from the submerged jet, which were taken for analysis.

(Read more.)


Share

Cannabis Use Reduces Brain Activity in Key Memory Regions

 From Neuroscience:

A study of over 1,000 young adults reveals that both recent and heavy lifetime cannabis use reduce brain activity in regions critical for working memory, including the prefrontal cortex and anterior insula. This reduced activity correlates with poorer performance on memory tasks like following instructions or solving problems.

While other cognitive areas showed minimal impact, the findings emphasize the potential risks of cannabis on decision-making, memory, and attention. Researchers highlight the need for more long-term studies to explore the effects of cannabis on brain function across different age groups and usage patterns. (Read more.)


Share

Sunday, February 2, 2025

Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg


 Queen Victoria's granddaughter and Queen of Spain. From Tatler:

She spent her childhood flitting between the royal residences at Balmoral, Windsor Castle, and Osborne House. Nicknamed ‘The Jubilee Baby’ because her birth coincided with the 50th year of Queen Victoria’s reign, Victoria Eugenie was a firm fixture in royal life, serving as a bridesmaid at the wedding of her cousins, the future King George V and the Duchess of York, in 1893. But it was her relationship with her grandmother that defined Ena’s upbringing. Queen Victoria adored her, with Ena later writing that the monarch was ‘like a second mother to us … very kind but very strict, with old fashioned ideas of how children must be brought up.’ For her own part, the Queen called her namesake ‘the little treasure’, writing: ‘I love these darling children so, almost as much as their own parent.’ She taught Ena some of life’s most important lessons. For one: a princess never ‘goes to bed’, she simply ‘retires’.

But it was at Buckingham Palace that the next chapter in Victoria Eugenie’s life would unfold. King Alfonso XIII of Spain was on an official visit to meet King Edward VII, and the palace was holding a banquet in his honour. The King was one of Europe’s most eligible bachelors, with much of the court assuming that he would marry Victoria Eugenie’s cousin, Princess Patricia of Connaught. She, evidently, was not particularly interested, as during the state dinner King Alfonso asked his hosts the name of the girl with the almost white hair. Despite sitting between Queen Alexandra and Princess Helena, the King of Spain had been taken by Victoria Eugenie – and her platinum blonde tresses. (Read more.)

Share

The Senate’s Confirmation Process Is a National Disgrace

 From Amuse on X:

The Constitution grants the Senate the power of “advise and consent” to ensure that presidential appointments meet a basic standard of competency and ethical fitness. The Founders, ever wary of unchecked executive power, designed this process as a check against cronyism. They did not, however, intend for the Senate to function as an obstructionist body that rejects qualified nominees solely based on partisan animus.

In the early days of the Republic, confirmation hearings were private affairs. Senators genuinely sought to understand a nominee’s character, asking probing but respectful questions. The process was swift—George Washington’s nominees were often confirmed in a single day. Even controversial picks, like John Marshall for Chief Justice in 1801, were debated earnestly rather than subjected to personal destruction.

That began to change in the late 19th century, when the Senate grew more partisan. By the mid-20th century, confirmation hearings for Supreme Court justices became political battlegrounds, with ideology taking precedence over qualification. The modern era, beginning with the destruction of Robert Bork in 1987, has cemented a new standard: If the opposing party controls the Senate, expect a brutal and disingenuous inquisition.

Tulsi Gabbard’s hearing was a textbook example of how the Senate has abandoned its duty. A former Democratic congresswoman who became a political independent, Gabbard is no stranger to standing up to her former party’s orthodoxy. But her apostasy was precisely what made her a target.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse demanded that she answer for statements she never made, cutting her off whenever she attempted to clarify. Senator Richard Blumenthal repeated falsehoods about her past remarks, only to ignore her when she offered a direct rebuttal. Senator Mazie Hirono, in her usual performative outrage, lectured her on supposed disqualifications that she conveniently ignored when Democratic presidents nominated radical leftist activists to key intelligence positions.

What was clear from the start was that the decision had already been made. These senators were not there to advise. They were there to obstruct. The hearing was a performance for the cameras, not an attempt to assess whether Gabbard was fit to serve as the nation’s top intelligence official. (Read more.)

Share

On Display at Palazzo Barberini

From Wanted in Rome:

An exhibition hailed as among the most important and ambitious showcases ever of Caravaggio's work will be held in Rome to coincide with the Vatican's Jubilee Year. Organisers say the exhibition at Palazzo Barberini will comprise an "exceptional number" of paintings by the Baroque master whose full name was Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. The exhibited works will include loans from prestigious national and international collections as well as two rediscovered masterpieces o n display for the first time together and some new discoveries. Organised especially for the 2025 Jubilee Year, the exhibition illustrates how Caravaggio (1571-1610) shaped the artistic, religious and social landscape of his era. (Read more.)

Share

Saturday, February 1, 2025

Princess Charlene at Home

 From Tatler:

But the transition to life in this glittering enclave was challenging, painful and solitary. 'The people I mixed with in Monaco didn't relate to my South African mentality or humour,' she says. Then there was the inevitable language barrier - Charlene could not speak French. (She has, however, made a valiant effort to learn the language and is gaining fluency.)

It was also difficult for a sporty, informal South African girl to form genuine friendships in a highly protected, frosty community that expected Albert to choose one of its own as his consort. 'Of course I've been subject to jealousy, but that comes with the territory,' she says. 'Although I have met some wonderful people since I've been living in Monaco, I regard them all as acquaintances. I only have two people I consider friends here. Above all, my true friends are my family. My mother and two brothers are the only friends I need and the only people I trust. I'm very grateful to have them.' (Read more.)

Share