Maggie's Farm

The Dylanologist noted to me that almost every town in Italy has a Via Gramsci or a Piazza Gramsci. No wonder Italy's politics and economics are so messed up.

Readers know what we think about Gramsci (and his latter-day followers on the Left) from this and this.

Here's two I noticed in Italy a few weeks ago. Gramsci Street in Baveno, next to the train station:

 And here's Piazza Gramsci in Verbania, not far from the ferry dock:

If Gramsci is your hero, you are in trouble. He's the guy who invented the notion of incremental socialist fascism, which is the unspoken long-term plan of the American Left, I believe. Stepwise and slowly, so as not to scare people until we finally wake up one day and find our lives boxed in by communitarian goals as determined by elitist masters who "care so much" about us poor schmucks and suckers that they want to run every detail of our pitiful, ignorant lives.

Richard Gatling believed that his rapid-fire gun would be a boon to mankind.

A quote from a review of the book on the right by Jonathan Yardley in the WaPo:

 'It occurred to me,' he wrote to a friend in 1877, 'that if I could invent a machine -- a gun -- which could by rapidity of fire, enable one man to do as much battle duty as a hundred, that it would, to a great extent, supersede the necessity of large armies, and consequently, exposure to battle and disease be greatly diminished.' As disingenuous and self-serving as that sentiment sounds, it ended up being quite correct: Innovations in arms steadily reduced the relative lethality of battles (not to mention the cost of waging war) throughout the twentieth century."

What did Manhattan, or Manahatta in the Lenapi language, look like in 1609 when Henry Hudson arrived? It is often forgotten that NY Harbor is where the Pilgrims were headed. November storms interfered with that.

A landscape ecologist is mapping it out. Slide show here. h/t, Neatorama

Photo: The gardens of Villa Pallavicini in Stresa, two weeks ago. If a garden space is like a room, they put a row of picture windows in it.

In A Tribute to Italy, The Fjordman posting at Gates of Vienna takes a look at the European sickness, and sees a ray of hope in Italy:

Italy is by no means immune to the problems affecting everybody else in the Western world, but her odds are better than those of several other countries. Through contact with Italians, I get the impression of a country whose national heart is still beating, a people still in touch with their roots and believing that their cultural survival is desirable, which is no mean feat given the suicidal state of our civilization in this age. When observing Italy, I see sickness but also life; and where there is life, there is hope. Something tells me that the story of Italy as a vibrant heartland of European civilization still contains more chapters to be written. If we are lucky, her struggle for survival and rebirth can inspire others far beyond her borders.

Gates speculates about Italy's resistance to PC and modern multiculturalism:

...commenters speculated that Italy’s innate regionalism might be one of the key factors that inoculates it against the most pernicious post-modern political diseases.

Our regular Italian commenter Ioshkafutz confirmed this viewpoint, and provided us with a comprehensive and engaging summary of Italian culture, which is reproduced below. It has been edited minimally for spelling, punctuation, and clarity:

Italy is many countries. A Milanese is closer to an Austrian than to a Sicilian, A Torinese to a Frenchman than a Calabrese. When I go to my Roman caffé / bar at night and Neapolitans truckdrivers enter, I don’t understand a word, or rather, just barely enough to know they are Italians. The rest could be Ancient Greek.

They — the Neapolitans — have their own musical genres, theater, and even cinema… all still thriving.

They’ll defend the legacy of the Borboni when Naples was a Capital city. They never really digested the Piedmontese invasion. The Romans instead have, also because when Rome became the Capital city and Mussolini brought cinema to Rome (he is responsible for cinecittà) Turin was marginalized.

Maybe Italy is already multicultural enough. Ever since Italy was a province of the Roman empire, it never became a political entity again until 1861.

From a letter from John Adams to Abigail on July 2, 1776:

The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America.

I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.

A quote from the piece in Smithsonian Magazine of the above title:

As a young man, Muir felt he was a student in what he called the ‘University of the Wilderness,'" Gisel said. "Yosemite was his graduate course. This is where he decided who he was, what he wanted to say and how he was going to say it."

When he first strode into Yosemite in the spring of 1868, Muir was a scruffy Midwestern vagabond wandering the wilderness fringes of post-bellum America, taking odd jobs where he could. In retrospect, visiting Yosemite might seem an inevitable stop on his life's journey. But his later recollections reveal a young man plagued with self-doubt and uncertainty, often lonely and confused about the future. "I was tormented with soul hunger," he wrote of his meandering youth. "I was on the world. But was I in it?"

When reflecting on my re-post yesterday on Lionel Trilling, I realized that I had neglected to reference what is perhaps his most-read work, The Liberal Imagination. It's still worth reading:

“The Liberal Imagination (1950) applied the dialectical method to cultural themes by exploring the ways in which literary masterworks deflated the pieties of trendy left-wing politics. Trilling, who identified himself as a liberal, called for a new kind of criticism that 'might find its most useful work not in confirming liberalism in its sense of general rightness but rather in putting under some degree of pressure the liberal ideas and assumptions of the present time.' That statement was almost a blueprint, or prophecy, of the neoconservative creed.” –The New York Times

And my allusion to Jacques Barzun, who as far as I know is still alive and retired in Texas, reminded me to reference his sweeping book, From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life 1500-Present. Via Amazon:

From Publishers Weekly

Now 92, Barzun, the renowned cultural critic, historian and former Columbia provost and professor, offers much more than a summation of his life's work in this profound, eloquent, often witty historical survey. A book of enormous riches, it's sprinkled with provocations. For example, Barzun contradicts Max Weber, arguing that the Protestant Reformation did not galvanize the capitalist spirit. With feminist ardor, he depicts the 16th century as molded and directed by women "as brilliant as the men, and sometimes more powerful" (e.g., Queens Elizabeth and Isabella). His eclectic synthesis is organized around a dozen or so themes--including emancipation, abstraction and individualism--that in his judgment define the modern era. Barzun keeps up the momentum with scores of snappy profiles, including of Luther, Erasmus, Cromwell, Mozart, Rousseau and Byron, as well as of numerous unsung figures such as German educator Friedrich Froebel, inventor of kindergarten, and turn-of-the-century American pioneer ecologist George Marsh. Other devices help make this tome user-friendly--the margins are chock-full of quotes, while vignettes of Venice in 1650, Weimar in 1790 and Chicago in 1895 give a taste of the zeitgeist. In Barzun's glum estimate, the late 20th century has brought decadence into full bloom--separatism in all forms, apathetic electorates, amoral art that embraces filth or mere shock value, the decline of the humanities, the mechanization of life--but he remains hopeful that humanity will find its way again. This is a book to be reckoned with. First serial to American Scholar; BOMC selection.

Both books well-worth reading, if you haven't.

Would either of these great Columbia profs, who knew almost everything about almost everything, be welcomed on any campuses today?

We re-post this essay by Gertrude Himmelfarb each year. One quote, on the thoughtful Columbia guy Lionel Trilling's thoughts about T.S. Eliot:

Marxism was not the only thing that Trilling (by way of Eliot) called into question. He challenged liberalism as well. Totalitarianism, Eliot had said, was inherently "pagan," for it recognized no authority or principle but that of the state. And liberalism, far from providing an alternative to paganism, actually contained within itself the seeds of paganism, in its materialism and relativism. Only Christianity, Eliot argued--the "Idea" of Christianity, not its pietistic or revivalist expressions--could resist totalitarianism, because only Christianity offered a view of man and society that promoted the ideal of "moral perfection" and "the good life." "I am inclined," Trilling quoted Eliot, "to approach public affairs from the point of view of the moralist."

Trilling hastened to qualify his endorsement of Eliot in "Elements That Are Wanted"; he did not believe morality was absolute or a "religious politics" desirable. But Eliot's vision of morality and politics was superior to the vision of liberals and radicals, who had contempt for the past and worshiped the future. Liberals, in the name of progress, put off the realization of the good life to some indefinite future; radicals put off the good life in the expectation of a revolution that would usher in not only a new society but also a new man, a man who would be "wholly changed by socialism."

Marxism was especially dangerous, Trilling found, because it combined "a kind of disgust with humanity as it is and a perfect faith in humanity as it is to be."

A "new man" was all the rage for those who wanted me to be just like they weren't - but who wanted people like me to become some subservient but heroic prole they fantasized about. They were just the new version of the same "old men" of history - self-anointed for "virtue" and "wisdom," and seeking power and perks on our backs and on our nickel while they spun their grand theories. I think they forgot that proles like me learned to read in the meantime.

Eliot, and Trilling, knew otherwise.

Photo: Lionel Trilling. As demanding a Prof as you could ever have.

The equally-great Jacques Barzun was out of that same mold: dignified, formal, remote, but willing to give you two chances to prove that you weren't a complete idiot and just an educated fool. No tolerance for fools, and these guys had a radar for glib assertions, shallow sentiment, and cant - and for out-of-context quotes. Academic boot camp is what these guys offered you.

Stumbled into this Teddy Roosevelt web site recently. Teddy is a hero and a role model to many because of his overcoming illness as a youth, his adventures in the West, his wide range of interests, his voluminous writings on all subjects from hunting and natural history to policy (he published more books than any other President), his robust approach to life which allowed him to gallop his horse straight down the sand dunes of Oyster Bay and straight up San Juan Hill, and to hike through the chest-deep ice-covered Rock Creek in January as President, often with diplomats in tow. Not to mention his achievements as President, from negotiating the truce in the Russo-Japanese War, projecting American power world-wide, championing conservation, and championing economic justice for workers. The two Edmund Morris volumes tell it all, down to the details of Teddy's wacky tennis game and his remarkable skills as a rifleman, despite poor eyesight. This bird-watching family man with the high squeaky voice, a fine pedigree but chronic money problems, and a giant faith in America, was larger than life.

It's well-known that folks from the NY Metropolitan area rarely or never visit their own tourist attractions, but a visit to Roosevelt's relatively modest home, Sagamore Hill, in Oyster Bay on Long Island (not far from NYC) is a good outing. Little has changed there since his death, except, sadly, for the selling off of much of his farm, which originally extended down to the shores of Long Island Sound. Read the Sagamore Hill sites here and here before you go, because tickets sell out.

Photo of Teddy as NYC Police Commissioner around 1895.

I did promise that I would pre-post some interesting things while I am away.

If you read this piece, you get a sense of how little that part of the Middle East has changed.

Shorpy's comment: "Washington, D.C., 1920. 'Penn Oil Company, Massachusetts Avenue and North Capitol.' National Photo Company Collection glass negative."

I like the 1920s-era a/c.

A long-lost Wellfleet, Cape Cod 30' lighthouse which stood outside the harbor until 1925 has finally been located at Point Montara, CA.

How it arrived in California is, as yet, a mystery. Some blame aliens, some blame Halliburton, but only I know how and why lighthouses migrate - and I ain't gonna tell.

To keep up with all of your lighthouse news, read Lighthouse Digest.

Few family lines can claim wealth and influence in a straight line from the 12th Century to today. Usually, decadence, disease, dilution, war - and taxes - take their toll.

Here's a brief history of the family through 1652, from the family's rise in Tuscany, to their power in Milan, to their landholdings in Lombardy. I do not know what their current status is, but they do own at least three islands in Lago Maggiore, including Isola Bella with its palace and remarkably ornate Italian gardens (which are studied in all garden design classes, I am told, even though they may look vulgar to today's spartan Yankee eye). Such things were designed to impress as much as to delight.

All of the soil was brought in by boat:

The family even has a family website, but I don't want to try to struggle with the Italian.

I'll be there in a week or two, mainly to do some Alpine hiking, some eating, and to see a medieval village or two, and I like to know what I am looking at.

Best of History

Hyperhistory - they make excellent timelines. Timelines give me the context I need.

Dan Ford begins:

Two years ago I signed on for this master's "programme" at King's College London, where half of my classmates were majors in the British army and the rest were civilians and military around the world. The discipline is War in the Modern World--i.e., 1945 to date. Since everyone else in the course was born after 1970, it didn't surprise me that none of the students remembered the harsh days that followed the Second World War, nor our tutors either. But the textbooks--surely they got it right?

Read the rest of this brief post.

Catlin (1796-1872), a Philadelphia lawyer, built his artistic career on paintings of American Indians. This Buffalo Hunt is from this Catlin website.

 This newspaper announcement is from the Smithsonian's collection of Catlin papers:

Old postcards from around the US. Here are some cattle (oxen, I think) at the old Danbury, CT State Fair: