Baroque Court Dress

Beautiful baroque style dresses that were popular at the courts of Louis XIV and Charles II. (Via katybirdy95) To quote:

Women’s clothing became much less restricting.  Flexible stays replaced hard, tight-fitting corsets.  Flowing lace collars replaced stiff ruffs.  Large farthingales were discarded and skirts were merely layered or padded at the hips to produce a full, flowing look. Usually two skirts were worn, the overskirt (manteau) open at the front and would normally form a train or bustle at the back, and an underskirt. Decorative aprons became popular with the middle classes. The plunging neckline called the décolletage became popular, often accompanied with wide lace collars. Waistlines were also high during the first part of the period, though long, pointed bodices and stiff stomachers came back during the latter half of the period. Sleeves were large, gathered at the wrist or elbow and often with turned-back lace cuffs. They progressively became more and more ruffled and segmented as the period progressed. Solid-coloured silks and brocades were used more frequently than patterned fabrics, and usually decorations consisted only of lace, tied or rosetted ribbons, limited embroidery, and simple pearl jewellery. Women often wore their hair in tight curls at the forehead and on both sides of their head, which was known as “heartbreakers”.  However, hairstyles progressively became higher as fashions became more extravagant. Lips and cheeks were often rouged, which previously had only been done by courtesans. Face patches made of silk and velvet and cut into small shapes became fashionable. Shoes often had pointed toes and high heels, but strangely women’s shoes were ironically much simpler than men’s. Jewellery was very simple during this period, consisting of single strings of pearls or diamonds or sometimes a ribbon tied around the neck. (Read more.)

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Don’t Cry For Me, Westchester County

From The Stream:

This blend of leftist economic populism is what Ocasio-Cortez offers America. (Her mom now reports that Cortez has her eyes on the White House, by the way. Before she has even entered Congress. Echoes of Obama.) She’s not from the economic underclass. Her dad was an architect. He moved their family to Westchester for the sake of better public schools. But that was the seed of Cortez’s rage, as the New York Post reports. She saw that her schools were better than those of her cousins back in the Bronx. And that planted in her at a young age a (guilt-fueled?) rage at inequality.

Imagine that: Better-off families, who pay much higher taxes, getting in return a superior product for their children. That might strike you and me as simply unfortunate, an effect of living in a fallen world with limited resources. We might even condemn the government’s public school monopoly, and call for tuition tax credits that could be used at parochial schools. But it made Cortez a radical, egalitarian statist, on the model of Hugo Chavez. It drove her to work for Ted Kennedy. But toiling for that white male was a bland half measure. She soon joined the farthest left political movement with any visibility in the U.S., the Democratic Socialists of America. Her rage at inequality gave her the script for her rise from part-time bartender to the Democrats’ new Congressional Evita. In her campaign, Cortez showered promises on the voters like cash from a drunken sailor.

• Virtually open borders. Beyond a mass amnesty for illegal immigrants, Cortez would dismantle ICE, leaving the U.S. incapable of turning away any of the 147 million adult immigrants whom Gallup report wish to enter the U.S., along with their children.
• Medicare for all. Socialize all medicine in the United States, which would (as in Britain) bring all care down to the lowest common denominator.
• Free tuition for all public colleges and universities. Because not enough kids are wasting four to seven years pursuing degrees in Queer Theory, while skilled trade jobs go begging.
• A federal jobs guarantee. According to her campaign site, the federal government must provide “baseline quality for employments that guarantees a minimum $15 wage (pegged to inflation), full healthcare, and paid child and sick leave for all.”
• Housing as “a human right.” Reports Business Insider, “she wants to extend tax benefits to working- and middle-class homeowners, expand the Low Income Housing Tax Credit, provide housing for the homeless, and permanently fund the National Affordable Housing Trust Fund.” Never mind that the last time the federal government decided to make virtually every American a home-owner, it caused the economic crisis of 2008.
• Laxer law enforcement. Per Business Insider, she favors “legalizing marijuana at the federal level, releasing individuals sentenced for nonviolent drug offenses, ending cash bail, and ‘automatic, independent’ investigations when people are killed by law enforcement officials.” So every time a cop shoots a perp, he gets his own special prosecutor.
• Campaign censorship. Cortez wants to overturn the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which guarantees private citizens free speech during political campaigns. You know, the one context where our Founders considered it particularly essential.
• As Business Insider reports, “a carbon-free, 100% renewable energy system and a fully modernized electrical grid in the US by 2035 in an effort to combat climate change.” Because “green energy” is working out so well in brown-out ridden Europe.

(Read more.)

From The Daily Signal:

On the same day that Venezuela’s “democratically” elected socialist president, Nicolas Maduro, whose once-wealthy nation now has citizens foraging for food, announced he was lopping five zeros off the country’s currency to create a “stable financial and monetary system,” Meghan McCain of “The View” was the target of internet-wide condemnation for having stated some obvious truths about collectivism.

During the same week we learned that the democratic socialist president of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, is accused of massacring hundreds of protesters whose economic futures have been decimated by his economic policies, Soledad O’Brien and writers at outlets ranging from GQ, to BuzzFeed, to the Daily Beast were telling McCain to cool her jets.

In truth, McCain was being far too calm. After all, socialism is the leading man-made cause of death and misery in human existence. Whether implemented by a mob or a single strongman, collectivism is a poverty generator, an attack on human dignity, and a destroyer of individual rights. It’s true that not all socialism ends in the tyranny of Leninism or Stalinism or Maoism or Castroism or Ba’athism or Chavezism or the Khmer Rouge—only most of it does. And no, New York primary winner Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez doesn’t intend to set up gulags in Alaska. Most so-called democratic socialists—the qualifier affixed to denote that they live in a democratic system and have no choice but to ask for votes—aren’t consciously or explicitly endorsing violence or tyranny. But when they adopt the term “socialism” and the ideas associated with it, they deserve to be treated with the kind of contempt and derision that all those adopting authoritarian philosophies deserve. (Read more.)

 From the New York Post:

 It’s begun. We’re having a debate over socialism. Not over whether it’s fair to call Democrats socialists. Not over whether socialism has been good for Venezuela or some other faraway, unfortunate country. But no-kidding socialist policies right here in the United States. The press attention to a new study of the costs of Medicare for All, or universal health coverage paid for by the government that goes much further than ObamaCare, is a sign that it is a live issue.

Popularized by the socialist Bernie Sanders, Medicare for All is not just a fringy left-wing talking point anymore. It’s a fringy plank of a growing element of the Democratic Party. A raft of prospective Democratic presidential candidates have endorsed the policy, while about a third of Democratic members of the House have joined a caucus devoted to it. The good news for Sanders & Co. is that, in the wake of the failure of an attempted GOP repeal of ObamaCare, the health care debate is clearly moving left. The bad news is that Medicare for All is still a completely batty, politically unserious idea. The new study of its costs, from the conservative Mercatus Center, concludes that Medicare for All would increase federal spending by almost $33 trillion during the first 10 years. To put it in non-technical terms: That’s a lot. (Read more.)

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Making a Living Through Art

Part One, from Daniel Mitsui:

Can I really make a living at this sort of art? Is the market big enough to support one more illuminator or sacred artist?

I was asked these questions recently by a talented painter who had just begun to sell her work. This is the first part (of three) of my reply:

First, know that there are a lot of different ways to go about being a professional artist, and those I know who make religious art their specialty have very different modus operandi. I have a friend who makes artwork that is comparable to mine (small drawings in the manner of illuminated manuscripts) but his business is very different. He travels and teachs a lot, and I rarely ever do; I depend very much on a website for promoting my artwork and selling prints of it, and he doesn’t even have one.

I can only really speak about my own way of making a living here, and other religious artists are succeeding (or at least surviving) in very different ways - by exhibiting in galleries, illustrating picture books, teaching, getting grant money or something else that I do not do at all. I can attest that my own way has provided for me and my family for almost eight years. And it makes some sense for an artist in your situation, making the transition from an amateur to a professional. (Read more.)

Part Two, HERE. Part Three, HERE. Share

25 Makeup Tips for Women Over 50

 From the Trianon Health and Beauty Blog:

Is taking care of yourself vanity? No, especially if you have people who rely on you. Being your best helps you with the work you have been given. Women today are taking better care of themselves as they age, by exercising, dieting, and having a skincare regimen....I encourage all women over 50 to try my Midnight Bouquet Night Treatment and the Morning Bouquet Day Treatment, both of which are made from natural organic African shea butter. (Read more.)

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Build the Wall

From The Stream:

We must face facts. Mexico is quickly becoming a failed state, like Libya or Somalia. It has just elected a president for whom the best case scenario is that he will use brutal, Castro-style means to gain control of the country. The more likely outcome is that he will fail. That the cartels will continue to run the place — perhaps in a de facto coalition with Obrador. They’ll unite to fight their common enemy: the U.S. Border Patrol. With leftists leaking the names and addresses of these brave professionals — and a Homeland Security official in D.C. finding a decapitated animal burned on his front doorstep — expect more Border Patrol agents to die. Along with their families. That’s how the cartels roll.

What does all of this mean? That building a wall on our southern border will soon be a military emergency. President Trump should bypass the Swamp on Capitol Hill. He should declare a state of emergency on the border, and plant military bases at the main crossing points into the U.S. Then use Defense Department funding, eminent domain, and whatever else it takes, to cut off illegal entry into the U.S. from the south. (Read more.)

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The Creation of Covent Garden

From The History of London:

The first buildings to be completed in 1631 were two four-storey premises on what became the west side of the development. They were followed by twenty two five-storey stuccoed and pilastered houses along two terraces to the north and east. The top three floors of each house extended beyond the ground floor creating a public arcade at street level along which people could walk in all weathers. Below ground each house contained a large basement. A luxurious feature was that water was piped through conduits to the back yard of each building. By the standards of London at that time they were of a revolutionary style, with elegant, uniform façades. These dwellings were unusual in that middle class people lived side by side rather than individual premises of varying sorts as they had previously. They were more typical of Dutch towns such as Antwerp and Amsterdam than anything that had previously been built in England and set a new standard that would be followed in London and other British cities during the following centuries. The houses immediately became popular residences for wealthier Londoners. At the outset each house was leased to its tenants, with the first terms being of thirty-one years but later terms of forty-one years.

The new church of St.Paul’s was planned for local residents, sitting between the two original four-storey buildings on the west side. At that time almost all churches in London and elsewhere in England had existed since at least the Middle Ages and the one at Covent Garden was the first Anglican church to be built on a new site in England since the Reformation of the previous century. The Earl, presumably viewing a church as something that would bring no profit, did not want to pay a large sum for its building and (according to Horace Walpole, writing over a century later) instructed Jones that he “would have it not much better than a barn” to which the architect replied: “You shall have the handsomest barn in England!”.

Jones originally designed the church with the altar at the west end allowing for an entrance and grand portico, with two round and two square Tuscan columns, opening at the east into the piazza. However the unusual location for the altar was not accepted by the Anglican authorities and it was moved to the traditional east end. Nevertheless, Jones went ahead with his plan for the portico onto the piazza, making it at that time the dominant feature of the square. To complete the design a false door was created below the portico but with the church entered through the churchyard at the opposite end, giving it a strange and unique layout. (Read more.)

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A Neutral Palette

 I have never been one for neutral colors, but for those who lean in that direction, here are some ideas. From Southern Lady:

Although conventional wisdom says that dark colors make rooms appear smaller, this approach proves the opposite. Charcoal gray cloaks the walls, trim, and ceilings for a cozy and cohesive effect that’s amplified by the gray sofa. Gold, bronze, and taupe accents pick up the subtle hints of brown in the paint color. In this ivory kitchen, rustic woods and textural surfaces lend interest without disturbing the tone-on-tone scheme. A wash of barely-there green on the island and built-in hutch adds an extra layer of color, yet still reads as neutral. (Read more.)

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President Trump’s “Impossible” Economy

From Gingrich Productions:

Early in his presidency, when Donald Trump said U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) would exceed 3 percent growth, the supposed experts in the mainstream media claimed such growth would most likely be impossible. In fact, they claimed unemployment would have to reach zero percent and immigration would have to double to meet such a high growth rate (despite the fact that 3.22 percent has been the average GDP growth rate over the last 71 years).

Well, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce on Friday, “real gross domestic product increased at an annual rate of 4.1 percent in the second quarter of 2018.” It seems President Trump has once again achieved the impossible. As it turns out, despite refrains from the elites in the media and establishment, the self-made billionaire who now leads our country knows quite a bit about creating a healthy economy. As I explained Friday during a Facebook Live, his massive deregulation effort, his determination to cut taxes on individuals and businesses, and his plan to renegotiate our international trade agreements has started to pay dividends. (Read more.)

From Townhall:

 Meanwhile, the economy keeps on ticking.  On the heels of consecutive, excellent jobs reports and a very strong quarter of GDP growth, CNBC flags another hopeful sign of economic health.  One of the metrics on which the US economy has lagged for years is wages.  Democrats have been zeroing in on that issue in recent months, arguing that the tax reform law has failed to increase pay for the American workforce, in spite of robust hiring, growth, and the tax relief provided to families and businesses. (Read more.)

Obviously, Trump's enemies are not happy. From The New York Times:

 It is an embattled cause these days. Under Vladimir Putin, Russia has reverted to autocracy, and Poland and Hungary are moving in the same direction. With the rise of Donald Trump in the United States, where Soros is a major donor to Democratic candidates and progressive groups, and the growing strength of right-wing populist parties in Western Europe, Soros’s vision of liberal democracy is under threat in its longtime strongholds. Nationalism and tribalism are resurgent, barriers are being raised and borders reinforced and Soros is confronting the possibility that the goal to which he has devoted most of his wealth and the last chapter of his life will end in failure. Not only that: He also finds himself in the unsettling position of being the designated villain of this anti-globalization backlash, his Judaism and career in finance rendering him a made-to-order phantasm for reactionaries worldwide. “I’m standing for principles whether I win or lose,” Soros told me this spring. But, he went on, “unfortunately, I’m losing too much in too many places right now.” (Read more.)

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In Defense of Constantine

From First Things:

In the years before Constantine took the throne, Christianity was rapidly winning the hearts and minds of millions of Roman citizens, including the most gifted thinkers. The effort of Constantine’s immediate predecessors in the purple, most notably Diocletian, to impede the growth of Christianity through empire-wide persecution had failed miserably. At the beginning of the fourth century the Church was too large, its way of life and institutions too well established, its leaders too resourceful, for Christianity to be halted with the sword. The refusal of Christians to venerate the traditional gods, and hence to show honor to the emperor and fealty to the institutions of society, created a dilemma for the emperors. By forcing a choice between Rome and Christianity, the emperors badly misjudged the strength and resiliency of Christianity.

Constantine realized the shortsightedness of trying to purge the society of Christians and sought a way to make room for Christianity under the umbrella of a genial monotheism (which Christians confessed and philosophers taught). His policy, writes Drake, sought to “reconcile the imperial need for religious justification with the refusal of Christians to pay divine honors to any other deity.” In granting the Church legitimacy Constantine not only diffused a tense situation, he harnessed Christian energy in service to the state. (Read more.)

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