Friday, November 11, 2011
An Empire’s Silence.
[Staff report, Feilding (New Zealand) Star] – To-day is Armistice Day, and, at the King’s command, the tribute of two minutes’ silence was generally observed from 11 o’clock throughout the British Empire.
In Feilding, the steam whistles at the factories and the bells rang out to give notice of the silent tribute to follow. Machinery was stopped and work ceased in factory and office and shop and home. Even the trains were held up for the two minutes.
The executive of the Feilding Chamber of Commerce was in session when the hour struck. Immediately, members rose up and stood in silence at the prescribed time. Continue reading “• Remembering on the elevenses.” »
Friday, November 11, 2011
By Wilfred Owen.
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.
Continue reading “Dulce et Decorum Est.” »
By THOMAS STORCK [Anamnesis] – We are accustomed to make a distinction between popular culture and high culture. I suggest this is inexact. In fact, popular culture in the true sense hardly exists anymore. What we have is mass culture and high culture. Mass culture is a centralized culture, dependent on technology, and largely divorced from any real cultural roots. It is a sad product of industrial civilization. Continue reading “• Thus Rihanna does not sing in your valley nor for your village.” »
By ED VOVES [California Literary Review] – This year, the wave of political dissent known as the Arab Spring convulsed the North African nations bordering the Mediterranean. On the other side of this inland sea, a near economic melt-down has threatened the southern tier of the European Union – Greece, Spain and Italy, as well as nearby Portugal – with a landslide of debt and soaring unemployment. Jobless rates among young people in these Mediterranean nations are especially high, with Spain in the unenviable lead position with 44.4% unemployment for workers under the age of 25 years. Revolt in such volatile circumstances may only be a matter of time. Continue reading “• A great wine-dark sea of crises.” »
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
By GEORGE WEIGEL [First Things] – The long-awaited introduction of the new translation of the Roman Missal on Nov. 27, the first Sunday of Advent, offers the Church in the Anglosphere an opportunity to reflect on the riches of the liturgy, its biblical vocabulary, and its virtually inexhaustible storehouse of images. Much of that vocabulary, and a great many of those images, were lost under the “dynamic equivalence” theory of translation; they have now been restored under the “formal equivalence” method of translating. Over the next years and decades, the Catholic Church will be reminded of just what a treasure-house of wonders the liturgy is. Continue reading “• The liturgy of details in the new Roman Missal.” »
By Elizabeth Young-Bruehl [Hannah Arendt Center] – The first thing that I would like to say about Hannah Arendt is that she was not afraid; that her anxieties simply did not go over into fear. She lived through a time which was even more frightening than our own, but which was, also, like our own, defined by a combination of economic disaster –the Great Depression—followed by a prolonged political crisis in which some regimes went in the direction of a new form of government, totalitarianism, and some in the direction of trying to save their half-formed democracies and their political freedom. She thought and wrote as the division of the world into totalitarian regimes –chiefly in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union—on the one side and struggling democracies on the other, turned into the Second World War, a war novel in its extent and in the technologies used to carry it on, including technologies used in what Arendt called “factories of death.” But she did not become fearful, or write out of fear. Continue reading “• Arendt’s courage: anxieties that ‘did not go over into fear’.” »
It only looks like chicken feed.
By EDWARD P. LAZEAR [Wall Street Journal] – It seems everyone is worried that problems in Europe will derail our fragile recovery. For this reason, markets breathed a sigh of relief when the Europeans came up with a plan to provide yet another reprieve to Greece. The main worry, now somewhat eased, was that a Greek default would spread to countries like Italy, Spain and Portugal.
Although there are legitimate concerns about contagion, the fundamental problem facing Europe is one of governments becoming too big to be supported by the economy. Unless Europe solves its fundamental problems with meaningful structural reform, a temporary debt restructuring, no matter how clever, will fail to right the ship. Closer to home, the same issues that threaten Europe may soon become immediate concerns to Americans. Continue reading “• Dominoes worked for Dulles, but the euro crisis obeys the laws of popcorn.” »
By DOUGLAS M. DYE [Juneau Empire] – All Saints’ Day is a luminous antidote to the darkness that so often takes center stage on Halloween.
I first celebrated All Saints’ Day when living in Sweden many years ago. During my stay there, I happened to visit my great Uncle Axel on that holy day. Several months earlier his wife and soul mate of over 50 years, my great aunt Ida, had passed away. As the pastor in their small Swedish church lit a candle for her and spoke of her simple faith in Jesus, dear Uncle Axel quietly wept. After he regained his composure, he turned to me, smiled, and reassured me that he would one day be with Ida again. Continue reading “• ‘A luminous antidote to the darkness’ of Hallowe’en, even for Joey Ramone.” »
By M. R. James.
THIS MATTER BEGAN, as far as I am concerned, with the reading of a notice in the obituary section of the Gentleman’s Magazine for an early year in the nineteenth century:
On February 26th, at his residence in the Cathedral Close of Barchester, the Venerable John Benwell Haynes, D.D., aged 57, Archdeacon of Sowerbridge and Rector of Pickhill and Candley. He was of——College, Cambridge, and where, by talent and assiduity, he commanded the esteem of his seniors; when, at the usual time, he took his first degree, his name stood high in the list of wranglers. These academical honours procured for him within a short time a Fellowship of his College. In the year 1783 he received Holy Orders, and was shortly afterwards presented to the perpetual Curacy of Ranxton-sub-Ashe by his friend and patron the late truly venerable Bishop of Lichfield…. His speedy preferments, first to a Prebend, and subsequently to the dignity of Precentor in the Cathedral of Barchester, form an eloquent testimony to the respect in which he was held and to his eminent qualifications. He succeeded to the Archdeaconry upon the sudden decease of Archdeacon Pulteney in 1810. His sermons, ever conformable to the principles of the religion and Church which he adorned, displayed in no ordinary degree, without the least trace of enthusiasm, the refinement of the scholar united with the graces of the Christian. Free from sectarian violence, and informed by the spirit of the truest charity, they will long dwell in the memories of his hearers. [Here a further omission.] The productions of his pen include an able defence of Episcopacy, which, though often perused by the author of this tribute to his memory, affords but one additional instance of the want of liberality and enterprise which is a too common characteristic of the publishers of our generation. His published works are, indeed, confined to a spirited and elegant version of the Argonautica of Valerius Flacus, a volume of Discourses upon the Several Events in the Life of Joshua, delivered in his Cathedral, and a number of the charges which he pronounced at various visitations to the clergy of his Archdeaconry. These are distinguished by etc., etc. The urbanity and hospitality of the subject of these lines will not readily be forgotten by those who enjoyed his acquaintance. His interest in the venerable and awful pile under whose hoary vault he was so punctual an attendant, and particularly in the musical portion of its rites, might be termed filial, and formed a strong and delightful contrast to the polite indifference displayed by too many of our Cathedral dignitaries at the present time. Continue reading “• The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral.” »
Leading Article [New Statesman] – The debate over Europe has obscured a far more significant constitutional development. Largely unnoticed by Westminster, Alex Salmond has been advancing his strategy for independence. As the Scottish National Party leader told the SNP conference in Inverness, the referendum ballot paper will contain two questions: the first on full independence and the second on fiscal autonomy or “devolution max”. Aware that he may not be able to win a majority for the full break-up of the Union, Scotland’s First Minister is hedging his bets.
But talk of devolution max as an agreeable compromise disguises what a bold step it would be. Continue reading “• Scots, aspiring to be Basques.” »
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
By DAVID ENRICH and DEBORAH BALL [Wall Street Journal] – The world’s oldest bank, Siena-based Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA, is now caught in the storm. European leaders are expected to force Monte dei Paschi to raise €2 billion, or about $2.8 billion, or more in new capital, analysts say. The bank’s troubles are reverberating through the region: The powerful foundation that owns half the bank is drastically cutting back charitable donations, retreating from its role as a modern-day Medici. Continue reading “• The euro-crisis: crying all the way into history’s bank.” »
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
By DAVE TROTT [CampaignLive.com] – I come from, according to The Guinness Book of Records, the largest council estate in Europe.
A massive working class section of east London, bordering on Essex.
East London itself is around 2 million people.
Everyone judges themselves according to their context.
And, in our context, we thought we were doing okay.
The houses weren’t slums, no one was out of work Continue reading “• The education of a British ad man: from working class teen to ‘art school in New York’.” »
By CHARLES FORELLE, COSTAS PARIS and MATINA STEVIS [The Wall Street Journal] – The options being debated now [to save the eurozone] are more severe and far-reaching than those under consideration in months past. Last year, when the crisis first threatened the euro zone’s stability, leaders insisted that Greece would not default and that assistance would only be provided to countries on the brink of collapse, and at punitive cost to discourage free-riders.
Now, the question is how big a default Greece will have, and leaders are scrambling to open floodgates of aid to several countries. Continue reading “• ‘Now, the question is how big a default Greece will have.’” »
By ROGER BERKOWITZ [Hannah Arendt Center] – It is true that not all wealthy Americans were bailed out. It is not an accident that the protesters aren’t picketing at Apple or Microsoft and they are not picketing Alcoa or Johnson & Johnson. I am sure we can complain about the tax strategies, outsourcing, and off-shore accounts such companies use, but they are running businesses that have not failed. These companies produce products. Their executives live well, often very well, but they don’t ask for bailouts when they lose. Similarly, hedge fund investors did not take bailouts in 2008. These managers should pay income taxes on their income rather than the much lower capital gains rates, and Occupy Wall Street should make this a core of its message. But most hedge fund managers have large parts of their personal fortune in their funds, giving them a huge incentive to manage risk well, and thus distinguishing them from bankers who typically risk only other people’s money. It is a mistake to lump the wealthy into one boat, just as it is a mistake to personally target individuals simply because they are wealthy. Continue reading “• The difference between companies that produce products and banks.” »
Thursday, October 13, 2011
By CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE [her blog] – My interest in ebooks is a tiny percentage of my interest in books. I didn’t dream of being a writer so I could spend my time discussing file formats and what Author X (even if X= me) did to sell a whole bunch of copies. Maybe it’s stupid and romantic, but I got into this because I loved books. Because stories were the most important things in the world to me, and I had so many of them to tell. Don’t get me wrong, there are vital and important things to talk about with regards to ebooks, and it is changing the industry. But when we discuss writing these days, we almost always end up talking about self-publishing and ebooks. And then any other conversation is over. Continue reading “‘Amanda Hocking sold a million ebooks’ may be all you need to know about Amanda Hocking.” »
