Extinction of the Dorset Culture

 From Ancient Origins:

While the emergence of the Dorset people is unconfirmed, it is evident that the Dorset occupied much of the Canadian Arctic and Greenland from 500 BC to 1000 AD. Archaeological evidence shows that their culture continued to exist until 1300 AD, however the origins of the Dorset people are not completely understood.

Some scholars believe that the Dorset culture arose from another earlier group of people living further west in the Arctic. Others have suggested that the Woodland or Archaic cultures went north. A third popular explanation is that the Dorset people emerged from a Pre-Dorset culture living in the Eastern Arctic of present-day Canada, with almost no outside influence. This lack of influence from outsiders was a prevailing aspect of the Dorset culture. 

 Despite the lack of clear information on the origins of the Dorset people, they left behind substantial archaeological evidence with help from the cold, dry Arctic environment. Artifacts show that the Dorset were well-prepared and adapted to the cold northern climate and there is some proof that the Dorset were the first in the Arctic to live in igloo (snow house) camps, although they also had stone dwellings in the Late Dorset period, and used tents when they moved during the summers. As for their livelihood, the Dorset are said to have thrived on hunting sea mammals at openings through the ice and by fishing. (Read more.)

Share

Sex and Sexuality in Stuart Britain

In the course of the research for My Queen, My Love, I found the work of "Seventeenth Century Lady" Andrea Zuvich immensely helpful. Her recent book Sex and Sexuality in Stuart Britain (Pen and Sword) is indispensable for anyone engaged in a study of England in the 1600's. However, if you are searching for a purely lascivious read, this book might not be for you. Andrea's careful anthropological and sociological scholarship is expressed with grace and precision, and with a high regard for human dignity, while withholding judgment. She presents the facts but in an easy, often humorous, conversational manner, which gives the reader a sense of the era. Like a true historian, Andrea lets us make up our own mind about certain controversial persons and situations, while offering opinions based upon evidence, where it exists. While not purporting to be a full assessment of the private lives of the various monarchs and assorted courtiers, the book assists contemporary students of history to understand the often shadowy relationships between people who had affection for each other. A major take-away of the work is that just because two people wrote to each other in flowery, sensual language does not mean they had a physical relationship. The English language, which had just blossomed in the Elizabethan era, was incredibly lavish and effervescent throughout the 1600's. While Puritanism had taken hold, the peoples of Stuart Britain were not Victorians; mentioning the functions of the body was not as taboo as it later became. The language used in Shakespeare, which is often salty, as well as the majestic prose of the King James Bible, were how many people expressed themselves in both private and public. 

It was a bawdy age, nevertheless, especially in the period known as the Restoration, when King Charles II returned from exile to reign after the austere Cromwellian Interregnum. King Charles and his flamboyant mistresses set the tone for the second half of the century. Andrea includes quotes in the book as the only way to really grasp how coarse some folk could be. (Certain passages are not recommended for nuns, virgins or sensitive, sheltered souls.) Yet there were throughout society virtuous persons, especially the Stuart Queens, who appeared to have had a subtle influence on the culture, keeping it from becoming completely hedonistic. Indeed, most women were still expected to be virgins when they married for the first time. All the Queen Consorts were devout Catholics. Later, the Protestant Queens, Mary and Anne, did a great deal to reform morals and manners. And children, the fruits of sexuality, were welcomed, legitimate or not, since so many died in infancy. Primitive means of contraception existed, as did abortion, although the paramours of Charles II and James II did not appear to use such methods, as the Stuart bastards were plentiful, and their descendants are with us today.

My favorite parts of the book are the great love stories of the Stuart Kings and Queens, of which sexuality played a huge part while not being an end in itself. Charles I and Henrietta Maria shared a passionate marriage but their love for each other endured long after they had been separated by the years and miles during Charles' imprisonment. Charles II and James II both came to love and respect their faithful Catholic Queens. William III and Mary II were gradually more and more devoted to each other; Queen Anne and her husband George of Denmark cherished each other through many tragedies, including the loss of all seventeen of their children. Sex ends; love endures forever.

Visit Andrea at her Seventeenth Century Lady blog, HERE.

Share

Airplane Covid Theater May Never End

 From The American Conservative:

Both Sarkisian and Kunisch cited a report by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and funded by Airlines for America, a trade association to which most of the major airlines in the United States belong to support their position. According to the report, “[A] layered NPI [non-pharmaceutical intervention] approach, of wearing face masks, disinfection of surfaces and maintenance of appropriate ventilation gate-to-gate, will ensure the risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission onboard aircraft will be below that found in other routine activities during the pandemic, such as grocery shopping or eating out.” 

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) reiterated these points in a statement, claiming that “the aircraft cabin remains a very low risk environment for contracting COVID-19 even though Omicron appears to be more transmissible than other variants in all environments.” The IATA similarly cited air filtration, masking, and enhanced cleaning measures as contributing factors to the low risk of Covid transmission on aircraft.

Steven Templeton, a professor of immunology and microbiology at the Indiana University School of Medicine-Terre Haute, who has experience studying coronaviruses and working at the Health Effects Laboratory Division at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, largely agrees with these assessments.   

Speaking in a phone interview, Templeton said, “[When] you’re having the entire load of air within an aircraft cabin changed every two to three minutes, that’s phenomenal ventilation. You really don’t get that in most buildings…[So] unless you’re in really, really close proximity [to an infectious person] it almost exponentially lowers the ability of particles to be exchanged between people.”

Practically, he said, this is evidenced by the fact that “before there was a pandemic, you never really saw outbreaks of respiratory viruses on airplanes unless there was an issue with the ventilation system,” as was the case in one classic example he related:

In 1977 a passenger had influenza on an airplane that was basically locked on, stuck on the tarmac for three hours without functioning ventilation…The air handling system was shut down completely. About a week later…some large percent of other passengers actually came down with the flu but that was a really extraordinary circumstance. I mean, you’d have to have something like that happen in order to have a major COVID outbreak on an airplane.

When asked about the likelihood that other Covid-mitigation measures beyond good ventilation could further reduce the risk of transmission on a plane, Templeton said he remains unconvinced.

On his popular science Substack, Templeton wrote in detail about what he sees as the lack of scientific support for the use of most masks. When interviewed, he said, “It appears cloth masks in their best-case scenario would buy you minutes. The best-case scenario for changes in air quality or improvement in ventilation would buy you hours.”

With regard to vaccine requirements, he added, “I think it’s clear that the [Covid] vaccines don’t protect against infection and transmission like we thought they initially would.” Numerous recent studies seem to support this assertion. 

Researchers in Qatar demonstrated that the protection offered by the vaccine against infection “peaks in the first month after the second dose, and then gradually wanes in subsequent months.” However, they continue to provide protection against hospitalization and death. 

Using viral load as a proxy for infectiousness, Israeli researchers showed the Covid-19 vaccines to be “initially effective in reducing viral loads…[but their] effectiveness declines with time after vaccination, significantly decreasing at 3 months after vaccination and effectively vanishing after about 6 months.” (Read more.)

Share

Edgar Allan Poe: Influencing Literature From the Grave

 From BookTrib:

Edgar Allan Poe is one of only a handful of writers who not only gained recognition during their lifetime but left behind a legacy that influenced generations of writers in a variety of genres and even languages. He is said to be the father of the modern detective story, was coined as helping to develop the Gothic horror story and is thought to be an early forerunner of science fiction.

Born January 19, 1809, in Boston, MA, Poe is probably best known in literary circles as a poet and short story writer — his work mainly consisted of mystery or the macabre. Poe’s work owes much to the romanticism of the occult and satanic during the time, where séances were often conducted by the wealthy to entertain guests. His feverish dreams were also the inspiration for, at least in part, some of his tales. He authored well-known works such as “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Cask of Amontillado,” “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “The Raven.”

Poe was also a critic and editor, having been the editor for the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond, coeditor of Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine in Philadelphia, subeditor for the New York Mirror and editor of the Broadway Journal.

But Poe was much more than just a writer, poet, critic and editor. He was a flawed man — an alcoholic, a gambler, a man who was very much a product of his time, and his sharp criticisms were often thought to be unkind. Still, Poe had a duality about him that made him well-respected and beloved across the board. He had a sensitivity to the beauty and sweetness in women which inspired some of his most touching works. He was said to have been a wonderful husband and son-in-law. Poe was also seen to have a great sense of humor. In other words, Edgar Allan Poe was human, like you and I, which made him a relatable character in many respects.

French poets Charles Baudelaire and Stéphane Mallarmé were heavily influenced by Poe’s work, which solidified his legacy in European literary circles and eventually spilled over into other countries. Other authors and poets that were inspired by his works include (but is certainly not limited to) T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Ambrose Bierce, H.P. Lovecraft, Stephen King, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and it is widely speculated that Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym is one inspiration of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick.

On October 7, 1849, in Baltimore, MD, Poe died, presumably either due to excessive drinking, heart failure or some other cause that remains unknown. The actual cause of his death is still heavily debated today. While Poe was originally buried in an unmarked grave in his grandfather’s plot in Westminster Burying Grounds in Baltimore, teachers and students later raised enough money for a proper monument, which was erected at the cemetery gates.

Poe may no longer be here with us in the flesh, but his legacy lives on in the works of countless authors. Even today, horror and crime authors draw on inspiration from his works, whether it is to master the ambiance Poe employed, reproduce the same type of “elegant shock” for a modern audience, or to grow their own legacy after they depart this world. As for poets, well, Poe was a genius poet and is studied across the world. Simple as that. (Read more.)

Share

The Lost Pissarro

 From Forward:

Twenty-two years ago, photographer Claude Cassirer received a call he never expected. His family’s long-lost Nazi-looted painting by the French-Jewish painter Camille Pissarro had been found. It was hanging in a Spanish museum. The painting, “Rue Saint-Honoré, Apres Midi, Effet de Pluie” depicts the grand avenues of modern Paris glistening during an afternoon rain. It was a prized possession of Claude’s grandmother, Lilly Cassirer.

Claude vividly remembered the painting, under which he would play with his toys as a child. An old family photograph shows the painting in Lilly’s Berlin apartment, prominently displayed in a gilded frame above a lush velvet settee.

Since the painting was discovered at the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum in Madrid in 2000, the Cassirers have been fighting to regain it. On Jan. 18, the painting will take center stage at the United States Supreme Court. At stake is more than the painting itself, now valued at over $30 million. The court could set new legal precedent as to whether looted art cases involving foreign nations will be determined under state or federal common law, and therefore whether a foreign nation’s laws on property trump both U.S. state laws and international doctrine. (Read more.)

Share

Smashing 'Idols'

We practicing Catholics just have to stop judging each other. Often converts, and anyone embarking on a more devout life, will change their manner of dress to something that reflects their inner transformation. For women this could mean renouncing cosmetics, or wearing long skirts, or any number of austerities. Unless they are called to monastic or consecrated life, they will probably not be that way forever. We who have been Catholics for a long time must be patient with those starting their journey, trying to find their way, going through transformations. However, I never thought of a head-covering as an idol but apparently it can be to some people. I disagree that wearing a head-covering makes one "holier than the Church." How can following a practice mandated by Scripture and Tradition make one holier than the Church? To quote Emily Stimpson Chapman at Through a Glass Darkly:

There was a time, long ago now, when I never went into a church without a chapel veil on my head and never left the house without wearing a skirt or a dress. I was in my early 30s then and, in the abstract, had good reasons for what I did. The Cliffs Notes version of those reasons is that I saw the chapel veil as a symbol of humility, reverence, and tradition. I saw the skirts and dresses as symbols of femininity, grace, and beauty. I saw both could be outward signs of inner realities, signaling to the world the importance of reverence and femininity. And I saw both also could be a sort of sacramental, helping me become more of what they signified—more humble, reverent, feminine, graceful, and beautiful.

For years, I wore that chapel veil and those skirts. They were, in a sense, my personal protest against a society which denies the sovereignty of God, the divinity of Christ, the reality of the Eucharist, and the difference between men and women.

But no longer. The veil came off in 2008. I still wear skirts and dresses, especially in the summer. But in the colder months, unless I’m dressing up, you’ll rarely see me wearing anything but jeans. Why?

 Simply put—because that chapel veil and those skirts made me a self-righteous ass.

Okay, that’s a little too simply put. It’s more accurate to say that wearing a chapel veil and never wearing jeans helped reinforce some of my besetting sins. They didn’t make me a self-righteous ass. But the devil did use them to encourage my natural inclination to be one.

But, while more people may drift left of the Church’s heart, I suspect the devil rejoices a bit more when he convinces someone to drift right of the Church’s heart. Partly, because once he has done that, we start doing his work for him, pushing and pulling our fellow Catholics away from the Church as we waste our energy judging, confusing, guilting, and shaming one another, instead of proclaiming the saving truths of the faith we profess. Also, because that drift can be more subtle, making it harder for us to see. And what we can’t see in ourselves, we can’t correct in ourselves. We fool ourselves into believing we’re holier than everyone else and become hardened in our self-righteousness…like the devil himself. (Read more.)

It never occurred to me that the wearing of dresses and mantillas might be idolatrous because they can make you think you are a better Catholic than those other Catholic ladies with bare-heads and jeans. I keep reading women saying that a head-coverings might make them think they are holier than every one. I guess they did not grow up when I did. When I was a small child every female covered their heads in church, even non-Catholics when they came to Mass, among them saints and sinners. I recall being extremely naughty in church with a doily on my head. I remember when one of my aunts was an unmarried expectant mother, wearing a cute headscarf at Mass over her stylish bob. I loved how her scarf and dress matched and wanted the same look. (I was five.) I recollect being at First Friday Mass with my seventh grade class, sitting with a bunch of white-veiled mademoiselles who used language that would make Cheech and Chong blush. I know now, as I knew then, that a piece of lace does not make you into a saint, or even into a well-behaved person. Therefore a head-covering at Mass does not automatically signal holiness to me. I have no control over whether it does to others. What I keep seeing now is women becoming obsessive about head-coverings, and whether or not to wear them, and when or where. If a sacramental becomes more a focus of one's thoughts than Jesus, it is time for some detachment. Meanwhile, let us keep in mind that the abuse of a sacramental by individuals does not make the sacramental bad nor take away the blessing from those who use it worthily and in good faith.

Here is a beautiful post which sums up the ancient practice of veiling, found in both Scripture and Tradition. From A Touch of Beauty:

-There are thousands of years of recorded history across cultures especially related to worship, even pagan women veiled
-A practice in modesty and humility as these virtues are defined by the Church (not colloquial usage). That is related to your state in life and focused toward God (rather than man). 
-Veiling is part of the larger liturgical tradition of the Church for 2000+ years. Other things, aside from women, are also veiled during the liturgy. 
-Veiling, like MANY other things in the Catholic tradition, is more about an outward sign of a spiritual reality or internal disposition.
-Veiling also recognizes that men and women are different by supernatural design, and we have different roles, challenges, and opportunities for merit. 
-Some contemplative nuns use veils as a way to reduce distractions. They wear veils to create their own little world where they can pray without something distracting them from just beyond their field of vision. This is not as practical for mothers. 

And a fun bonus:

-If you haven’t gotten a chance to do your hair because you just got a bazillion people ready for church, a hat or scarf or something is a life saver.  (Read more.)

Share

Way Older Than Previously Thought

 From Smithsonian:

One of the reasons Vidal and colleagues came to the site was to learn about Omo I, one of the oldest known examples of Homo sapiens. Using geochemical clues to match the layer of volcanic ash blanketing the fossil to a specific volcanic eruption, they discovered Omo I is 36,000 years older than previously believed. Ash from an enormous eruption of the Ethiopian Rift’s Shala volcano was put down atop the sediment layer containing the Omo I fossil approximately 233,000 years ago, which means that Omo I and her kind lived here at least that long ago.

“Each eruption has a unique geochemical composition, a kind of fingerprint which we can use to try to figure out exactly which eruption on the Ethiopian Rift would have created a layer of volcanic ash,” Vidal explains. “We found a match for the ash layer that covers the fossils, so we know which eruption produced that ash and the age of that eruption.”

The findings, published this week in the journal Nature, show that Omo I had to be older than the layer that later fell from the sky to rest atop her remains, but they don’t reveal her maximum age. It may later be possible to determine the oldest possible date for Omo I if the team can similarly identify another volcanic layer from below the fossil. (Read more.)

Share

Masterpieces from Buckingham Palace

 From History Scotland:

Masterpieces from Buckingham Palace will bring together more than 30 spectacular works by artists such as Rembrandt, Rubens, Claude, Artemisia Gentileschi and Van Dyck to be enjoyed close-up by audiences in Edinburgh.

The paintings will be arranged by school, beginning with a group of pictures created in Italy between 1530 and 1660, including both figurative subjects and landscapes. Several Italian works feature idealised female figures derived from the study of antique sculpture. These include Guido Reni’s Cleopatra with the Asp, 1628, whose once-rosy skin seems to turn to cold marble before our eyes, and Parmigianino’s Pallas Athene, 1535, whose finely spun hair is as bright as the gold of her breastplate. In Judith with the Head of Holofernes by Cristofano Allori, 1613, Judith’s faultless complexion contrasts with the grotesquerie of her victim’s severed head.

Two atmospheric landscapes painted in Italy will be on display in Scotland for the first time. The diffuse golden light and harmonious composition of Claude Lorrain’s A View of the Campagna from Tivoli, 1645, feels a world away from the ominous skies and crashing waves of Gaspard Dughet’s Seascape with Jonah and the Whale, 1653–4, yet both demonstrate the expressive potential of landscape painting.

The exhibition will also contain a series of works created in the Low Countries between 1630 and 1680, the heyday of the so-called Dutch Golden Age. Scenes of everyday life, such as the leisurely card game depicted in Pieter de Hooch’s Cardplayers in a Sunlit Room, 1658, are imbued with an arresting realism through the artists’ command of perspective, colour and detail. (Read more.)

Share

Let’s Bring Back Gregorian Chant

 From Dr. Esolen at Crisis:

When most Catholics hear the phrase “Gregorian chant,” they either have no recollection of it, or they think of the only chants they ever hear: the Kyrie, the Sanctus, and the Agnus Dei for the single Cantus Missa that appears in the hymnal and missal Worship. These are stark, exceedingly simple, quite unlike any other common chants for those prayers, and utterly inappropriate for Mass on any feast day or during the great octaves. That is because they come from the old Mass for the Dead.

You have read that correctly.

Mrs. Wilfer, in Charles Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend, casts a pall upon her family’s ordinary daily life by doing all things as if to the “Dead March” in Handel’s Saul. When she welcomes her husband home from work, it is to the “Dead March” in Saul. When she serves dinner, it is to the “Dead March” in Saul. When she comments upon how the children have been, it is to the “Dead March” in Saul. (Read more.)

 

Also from Crisis:

The parish Mass is the central spiritual activity for Catholics; it’s literally the most important thing a Catholic does each week. Yet most Catholics have to endure some form of a priest’s personal preferences at their parish’s Masses. (Ironically, celebrating ad orientem would likely decrease the priest’s temptation to insert his “private choices” into the Mass.) Masses at different parishes—and even in the same parish with multiple priests—can vary widely, and often Catholics have to search far and wide for a priest who just “says the black and does the red.” Catholics are there to worship God and they don’t want to be distracted by whatever Fr. Feelgood thinks might be fun or interesting. 

Yet for decades Church leaders have ignored this reality. One of the biggest howlers in Traditionis Custodes was Pope Francis’s statement, “I am saddened by abuses in the celebration of the liturgy on all sides. In common with Benedict XVI, I deplore the fact that ‘in many places the prescriptions of the new Missal are not observed in celebration, but indeed come to be interpreted as an authorization for or even a requirement of creativity, which leads to almost unbearable distortions.’” For the average lay Catholic who has had to endure these abuses on a regular basis for decades, such concern sounds hollow indeed, considering leaders have had decades to correct these abuses and have done nothing.

And it would be one thing if prelates simply ignored the abuses—that’s bad enough. Now they seem intent on demonizing and politicizing any attempt to bring reverence to the New Mass as an “attack on Vatican II” and shutting it down. Even though Vatican II never forbid ad orientem (I’m sure the Council Fathers would have been shocked to see later bishops deem ad orientem “anti-Vatican II”) and ad orientem has been the norm for over a millennia in both East and West, it’s now seen as an attempt to go back to the “bad old days” of pre-Vatican II Catholicism. That’s not just benign neglect of the liturgy anymore; it’s an aggressive attack on Catholic tradition.

As anyone paying attention knows, the traditional Latin Mass, as well as the Ordinariate Mass, has seen a surging of interest in recent years. While there are many factors involved, surely liturgies like Fr. Jerry’s are near the top of the list. Catholics don’t want groovy 1970’s retreads forcing their personal preferences into the liturgy; they just want basic reverence. If they can’t find it at the local parish, they will find it elsewhere. To work to root out any attempt at reverence is, frankly, diabolical. Henry VIII didn’t even go as far as some of these prelates are going to rework the liturgy in their own image.

Faithful Catholics, whether they attend the traditional Latin Mass, the Ordinariate Mass, Eastern liturgies, or the New Mass, should be united in asking, even demanding, reverently-celebrated liturgies consistent with Catholic tradition. Each attack on tradition, whether it be against the whole TLM or traditional aspects of the New Mass, is an attack on the fundamentals of Catholicism. Hopefully, the contrast of outdated 1970’s influences on the liturgy and the perennial traditions of the Church will inspire a lay-led movement that will encourage priests and bishops to make reverent liturgies the norm, rather than the exception. (Read more.)

In the Anglican Church. From Tim Wyatt:

Almost everything about services at St Bartholomew the Great church is old-fashioned. Purple-robed choristers process through clouds of pungent incense. The priest, the Rev Marcus Walker, brandishes an ornate golden King James Bible above his head before reading from the 1611 text. The liturgy is a mixture of 16th-century prose and sung Latin. The medieval priory church, which sits a stone’s throw from the central London hospital of the same name, was founded in 1123.

However, the congregation watching on at a recent service were younger than most would expect; at least a quarter were under 35. They had come to observe a handful of men and women, mostly in their late twenties, be baptised into the Anglican faith. Afterwards the millennials gathered inside the stone cloisters to explain why the archaic drama of traditional worship still appealed.

Several said they relished the connection to past generations of believers through reciting the Book of Common Prayer, which English Christians have been using since 1549. Others valued the beauty and history of the choral music and Shakespearean liturgy. They were not simply “young fogeys”, they insisted. Three of the group had separately found their way to St Bartholomew’s after becoming friendly with Walker on Twitter.

For years most of those longing for revival within the church have placed their hopes in the energetic evangelical wing exemplified by megachurches such as Holy Trinity Brompton (HTB) in west London. However, the baptisms at St Bartholomew’s were part of what some regard as a similar resurgence among the young within the Church of England’s Catholic wing.

Westcott House, a traditionalist theological college in Cambridge, has welcomed a steady stream of ordinands in their twenties and thirties. The two churches in the region sending the most young ordinands were Anglo-Catholic, the Rev Anna Matthews, a local vicar and diocesan official, said. Her church has produced six candidates in the past four years.

Some millennials raised in the more informal evangelical tradition are crossing over to the older style of worship. They describe the lure of a Christianity that does not aspire to be relevant or fashionable. The Rev Fergus Butler-Gallie, a 27-year-old priest in Liverpool, said churches did not need to “pretend to be your nightclub” to appeal to the young. “It can be church and have an air of mystery.” (Read more.)

Share