More Christmas Ideas: Books, etc.

Frank McCourt's new book, Teacher Man. Review in CSM

Christian scholarship: First Things Magazine

Advice to the Brits, on school bullying: Ankle-Biter

The Prof. didn't like the Iraq vote stunt. He has a point.

Pro-war vote a "disgrace", said Pelosi, before voting for it.

Never understood why airlines just don't allow smokers to walk out on the wing and have a smoke outside.

Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.

John F. Kennedy

"The choice of fools," from Dr. Bob:

"Do you know my life story, LJ? Do you know how a man, filled with empty knowledge and the false assurances of gifts and youth, a loving family and a life undeservedly blessed, can squander it all for the pursuit of self-satisfying intellect, arrogance, self-sufficiency, and contempt of others? Have you been in that place of desperate emptiness, having pushed away your children and made your wife a living widow, driving forward with blind foolishness until your own hollow life is endangered? You say you have prayed and those prayers were not answered; I too have prayed–years on end–to a God I once served but who in mercy left me to suffer the consequences of a life driven by self-will and self-satisfaction. Hollow prayers, desperate prayers, prayers a fool’s cry for help to a now-empty universe. A God I once understood completely proved completely inscrutable, hopelessly distant, His ear–if He existed at all–turned elsewhere, His eye on more worthy subjects. Have you then seen–in an hour unimaginably dark–that same God you never knew reach down with gentle hands and unspeakable love, to scoop up this poor refuse and restore him to a life and hope he could never have imagined?"

Read entire.

The Big O?

Comments on OSM from Least Loved Bedtime Stories and from Buzzmachine.  On studying it, I can't figure out exactly what OSM is supposed to be, nor do I see that I need it. On the other hand, I rely a great deal on those extraordinary bloggers who put it together. Good luck to them.

Prada, Firenze, last week. Guess who was outside, practicing taking night shots, and who was inside? (bought nothing, though)

Carnival of Digital Cameras. H/T, Instapundit

Dems fell into their own trap: RWNH,  and New England Repub summarizes.

Michelle pushes back.

Good piece on the essential Peter Drucker in The Economist.

Charity Season

Send a Cow. One Maggie's favorite charities. Check it out.

Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121 - 180)

Mahna Mahna

Addictive, silly Muppets tune: here.

Tell Ol' Bill

Can now be gotten on iTunes. Get it. We did the lyrics a couple of weeks ago - check our Song and Dance Man category. And download that Dylan clip posted on Sat: you won't regret it.

The moon over San Miniato's bell tower, one hard week ago. Remarkable  Michelangelo, wearing his military engineer hat, ordered cannon emplaced up in that tower during the Siege of Florence. A famous graffito during that ten-month siege in 1529: "Poor but free." The armies of the Pope and his Spanish and French allies finally prevailed, marking the end of the free Republic of Florence and the installation of the Medici as autocratic rulers of Tuscany.

Enjoy odd facts? Michelangelo died the year both Galileo and Shakespeare were born: 1564.

The ancient seeds of the memory of Greek political freedom were germinating, back then. The pursuit of freedom, self-reliance, and dignity is an endless battle for mankind, is it not, against those who seek power and authority over us, and "responsibility" for us? Like we are weak, or children. Give me God's, or even nature's fate - not man's. I will deal with those.

Like those Florentines, I do not trust human power, because it is always the wrong sorts of folks who seek it: people who want to be too big for their boots. Bush, however well-intentioned, and all the rest included. While the regular people just want to live life in God's amazing and scary world, or to figger out how to. But che bella vita, and to Hell with all of the power-seekers. Which circle? Dante knew.  That's all I have to say, today, on a holy Sabbath.

For those who had trouble posting to Friday's San Miniato post, try here.

San Dominico

Fra Angelico (1387-1455), the early Renaissance painter, was a Dominican brother in the San Dominico monastery in the hamlet of San Domenico, on the #7 bus route between Firenze and Fiesole, where a Bird Dog daughter is dwelling at present. This is an alterpiece of his, still there performing its holy function, and not hanging under bright lights in an art cemetery.

Dominicans - Domine canis - The Dogs of God, charged with rounding up the lost sheep.

By coincidence (thanks Alert Reader - man, do we have good readers), Fra Angelico has a big show at the Met in NY right now.

Truth

Mark Twain said that a rumor can go around the world before the truth can get its pants on. Seems to apply to the insidious Whiskey Pete story. Instapundit. I know someone who was already taught the unproven story today in a government class in college.

Help Desk: Technical Support

Don't know where this came from:

Dear Tech Support:

Last year I upgraded from Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0.  I soon noticed that the new program began unexpected child processing that took up a lot of space and valuable resources.  In addition , Wife 1.0 installed itself into all other programs and now monitors all other system activity.  Applications such as Poker Night 10.3, Football 5.0, Hunting and Fishing 7.5, Beer and TV 3.0, and the now-antique but still functional  Stay out Late and Get Drunk and Stupid with Pals and Then Drive Home Drunk 1.0.  I can't seem to keep Wife 1.0 in the background while attempting to run my favorite applications.  I'm thinking about going back to Girlfriend 7.0, but my uninstall doesn't seem to work on Wife 1.0.  Please help. Thanks,

Troubled User

Reply: Dear Troubled User:

This is a very common problem that men complain about.

Many people upgrade from Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0, thinking that it is
just a Utilities and Entertainment program. Wife 1.0 is an OPERATING SYSTEM and is designed to monitor everything. It is also impossible to delete Wife 1.0 and to return to Girlfriend 7.0. It is impossible to uninstall, or purge the program files from the system once installed.

You cannot go back to Girlfriend 7.0 because Wife 1.0 is designed to not
allow this. Look in your Wife 1.0 manual under Warnings-Alimony-Child
Support. I recommend that you keep Wife 1.0 and work on improving the
situation. I suggest installing the background application "Yes Dear" to alleviate software augmentation.

The best course of action is to enter the command C:\APOLOGIZE because ultimately you will have to give the APOLOGIZE command before the system will return to normal anyway.

Wife 1.0 is a great program, but it tends to be very high maintenance. Wife 1.0 comes with several support programs, such as Clean, Dust and Sweep 3.0,  Cook It 1.5,  Do Me Once a Month Maybe 3.2,  Constructive Criticism 4.o, and Do Bills 4.2 .

However, be very careful how you use these programs. Improper use will cause the system to launch the program Nag Nag 9.5. Once this happens, the only way to improve the performance of Wife 1.0 is to purchase additional software. I recommend Flowers 2.1 and Diamonds 5.0 !

WARNING!!! DO NOT, under any circumstances, install Dumb Secretary With Short Skirt 3.3. This application is not supported by Wife 1.0 and will cause irreversible damage to the operating system.

Best of luck,

Your Friendly Helpdesk

The rear wall, behind the altar, of San Miniato, the Benedictine chapel which we posted yesterday. Note the painted timbers of the roof beams - my flash couldn't quite reach that high. How come only Catholics get to have this kind of stuff? (I know, I know.)

The books some celebs, etc. loved most in college.

 In Slate.

Blow, blow, thou winter wind
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude.

WS, As You Like It

San Miniato al Monte

One of the oldest buildings in Florence, construction of San Miniato was begun in 1013. It is now the chapel of an Olivetan Benedictine monastery.

I was fortunate to hear the monks do Vespers in the crypt, in Gregorian chant, last Friday night.

Michelangelo integrated the chapel in his rapidly-designed battlements in the 1500s, as he did with that entire part of Florence. Like DaVinci, a multi-talented fellow. Unlike the Duomo, the marble facade is old. Many consider San Miniato to be the finest Romanesque building it Italy.

Did not know that Carlo Collodi was buried there. The hike from downtown Florence to the top of the hill is a good, scenic way to burn off lunch, and to get some looks at Michelangelo's defenses against the great siege on the Republic of Firenze by the Pope and the King of France, neither of whom liked the idea of an independent republic. Here's a nice timeline of those crazy 1500s. Has anything changed in Italian politics?

Grizzlies and Sea Otters

It's a pleasure to have two conservation success stories at once. First, a report on studying the Yellowstone Grizzlies who have made a remarkable comeback. It looks to be a short series in the CSM.

Second, the resurgence of the Pacific coast's Sea Otter has fishermen bent out of shape, although the otters' numbers are nowhere close to what they were historically. They have to eat, too. CNN

Things brought home from Italy, Part 3

1. Don't judge a church by its cover. You could walk past San Lorenzo or Santo Spirito, (photo) for just two examples, with their original, undecorated mortar or stucco surfaces, and hardly give them a glance. Wrong, as Jim Cramer would say. Them oysters contain magnificent pearls.

2. Those Eyewitness Travel Guides, like this one, are absolutely the best. For depth, you need to read something else but they are handy-dandy, full of basic info and good ideas.

(DK Publishing also produces the Eyewitness series for young people on a variety of subjects, which are hugely informative and enjoyable, with tons of great pictures and good detail. I've read every one in our house at least once: they are good for adults, too. To call them picture books does not do them justice.)

Some things brought home from Italy, Part 2

1. Savonarola was an interesting dude. Worth a piece when I get the chance, if only for my own education. One of the precursors of Luther, among many others, in retrospect: voices crying in the wilderness and vox clematis in deserto too.

2. Art Museums are Art Cemeteries.

3. Botticelli's 1489 Annunciation is the most compelling painting I have ever seen - and I've seen my share of them. Even though it is in the Uffizi Art Cemetery. Will post it today.

4. Cosimo Vecchio's family line contained the "good Medicis". Cosimo l's line were the "bad Medicis". History made simple.

5. I am not fascinated by High Renaissance art and architecture.

"Barbarians at the Gates of Paris" - Dalrymple:

"Whether France was wise to have permitted the mass immigration of people culturally very different from its own population to solve a temporary labor shortage and to assuage its own abstract liberal conscience is disputable: there are now an estimated 8 or 9 million people of North and West African origin in France, twice the number in 1975—and at least 5 million of them are Muslims. Demographic projections (though projections are not predictions) suggest that their descendants will number 35 million before this century is out, more than a third of the likely total population of France.

Indisputably, however, France has handled the resultant situation in the worst possible way. Unless it assimilates these millions successfully, its future will be grim. But it has separated and isolated immigrants and their descendants geographically into dehumanizing ghettos; it has pursued economic policies to promote unemployment and create dependence among them, with all the inevitable psychological consequences; it has flattered the repellent and worthless culture that they have developed; and it has withdrawn the protection of the law from them, allowing them to create their own lawless order."

Read entire at City Journal.

To insist that diligent thought would bring an understanding of change was to limit life to the comprehensible.

William Least Heat Moon, as quoted last week here, from Blue Highways.