On the Same Latitude as Cairo

Some thoughts on William Turpin's edition of Apuleius' Metamorphoses

2012-01-30T09:33:00.000-06:00

Happen to be teaching Apuleius' Golden Ass this semester. Given my research interests in Roman religion, mystery cults, Latin literature from North Africa, the later Roman empire, this text is great fun. I particularly enjoy giving students some passages from some strident Christian voices of the late Roman empire (not pointing figures, Lactantius and Augustine)--especially because they all seem a bit apoplectic, nigh downright fearful, that their peers would turn into magicians, just for having read the thing. Sound familiar, Public Libraries Who Tried to Ban Harry Potter?

Now, we'll be reading a bunch of the text in Latin (Book 3 and Book 11, in their entirety, and maybe even the story of the Trojan Bear, poor guy) and it's on that topic that I want to put something out there for the Latin commentary crowd: Anyone want to weigh in on the Bryn Mawr Classical Commentary series for Book 3?A

Lame

2011-09-19T22:24:00.003-05:00

Someone, um, I mean me, just wrote this to the New York Times about the invention of books. Hey New York Times, thanks for listening!

Lev Grossman’s essay (“From Scroll to Screen,” Sept. 4) on the emergence of the codex as a form of transmitting writing was an enjoyable encapsulation of classical and Renaissance history. Late antiquity, however, could use further review. Attributing the rise of the codex specifically to Christians (and stressing the ways in which their use of it differed from the Jewish use of scrolls) misses the fact that Christians, Jews and followers of traditional religion (“pagans”) all used the codex in the late antique world.
To continue to think that only one form of religious identity was synonymous with cultural trends that were adopted more broadly throughout the period is, unfortunately, one of the legacies of this still too poorly understood time in history. It may be convenient to think of the period of the “rise of the codex” through the lens of religious identities (like “the rise of Christianity”) but the truth is more complex.

Graduates: Why Religion and History Matter, Not Just Spirituality

2011-05-16T22:43:00.009-05:00

Graduation nears. The thoughts on the role of classics (especially at a Jesuit university) come to the fore. What is the point? For anyone who has had to take Theology requirements (capital T), the question is: Why does anyone really need *more* classes that teach us about the world of Jesus? Aren't generic spiritual approaches all we need?

Here's why.

College graduates, as idealistic as they are and I love them all for it (see: me), are going to go out into the world where they're going to engage with people who have far different backgrounds than they do. Some of them may even be fundamentalist Christian and some of them may even think that our liberal-educated Jesuit-trained students are actually fundamentally wrong about their world view.

So, the question becomes: How do we as educators train the next generation of world leaders to engage with their peers on issues of religion, belief, Christian history and interpretation?

Is it really, as some theology schools would have it, by encouraging students to read works like Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek without, say, engaging in any study of the social-historical context of early Christianity?

How does a liberally-educated Jesuit-schooled college graduate even begin to engage with a fundamentalist Christian (who accepts the "Bible" as literally true) by referencing a work of popular, modern "theology"?

What tools are we giving are students if, at the end of the day, in conversation with the most extreme members of their peer group, all they can muster is, "Well, the Jesuits told me that I should interpret the Bible in this way. Besides, (this liberal concern for the poor) makes me feel good about myself."

Now, that all may be well and good. I'm the first to stand up and say, "We need more concern for the underprivileged and under-represented of society."

The problem is, nothing will change--politically, socially, culturally in our country--until historians of religion stand up to say, "Your interpretation of Scripture" (insert: homophobic, misogynist, other...) "cannot bear the weight of any historical-contextual approach to the reading of this text. Not in its first-, second- or third-century context."

We need people to stand up and say, "Your interpretation of Scripture is wrong. And here's why--historically!"

In short, we are short-changing our students by *not* giving them the social-historical context that they need in order to dismantle the tenets of fundamentalist theology.

In fact, we are selling ourselves short (as teachers) in thinking that "There will always be many or several ways to interpret a text, so why get involved in the specifics?"

The point of the matter is: There are, in fact, *limited ways of interpreting historical texts.

Texts *cannot* always means what it is we may want them to mean, at any given point in time. Think that the Gospels say Jews killed Jesus?

Historical-cultural context *prevents* atrocities like the anti-Judaism of the 20th century from happening because it asserts, fundamentally, that interpretations of Christian Scripture that are used to support that fringe viewpoint are and always will be wrong.

Texts have culturally determined meaning that can be used to show how our uses of them distort and alter the intent of the original writers. Ever read Pale Fire by Nabokov? People can invent their own meanings for the texts they read whenever they want.

In sum, laughing at or with Jesus is all well and good. But without checks and balances, anyone can make a text say whatever it is they want it to. Having seen what happened in the 20th century, I'd vote for more Classicists (trained in religion). Theology: We can leave that to (Benedict) No. 16.

Classics 1. Religious Studies 1. Theology 0.

The Cemetery of Prague

2011-04-03T13:30:00.001-05:00

Yes, there are snippets of Umberto Eco's newest novel, Il Cimitero di Praga (The Cemetery of Prague) on Twitter before it comes out in English translation this November.

I can't resist

2011-03-07T16:13:00.001-06:00

The following screenshot of the NYTimes hails the new David Brooks' blog!

Is this what it takes to be a NYTimes columnist? You sit passively at your desk and wait for juicy tidbits of intellectual and scientific news to land on your desk so you can summarize them in your little book-report pieces for the masses? Geeez. How creative.

"I will fight for you" (Spartanburg, SC | November 03, 2007).

2010-11-12T12:27:00.002-06:00

That's the kind of leadership we need right now. That's why I'm this race. Because I don't think you should settle for a President who's only there for you when it's easy or convenient or popular--I think you deserve a President who's willing to fight for you every hour of every day for the next four years.

Except when it comes to raising the tax rate on millionaires in order to balance our country's check-book.
Except when it comes to advocating for the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell--in the courts and in Congress.
Except when it comes to actually leading Congress and the country to invest in new roads, highways, railways for a twenty-first century country (one interview's not going suffice).

But it is par for the course so far.

"...fight[ing] for you every hour of every day for the next four years"?

Fat chance of that happening--
post November 9, 2010.

Updated (for posterity) on April 3, 2011:

Except when workers' rights are being stripped in Wisconsin.

Archaeology, Ground Zero, and Our Notions of Religious Faith

2010-08-17T21:08:00.000-05:00

Apropos of my Fall 2010 Georgetown University class: The Archaeology of Religion (Classics 216)

Politics, religion, and rhetoric—the three are often curiously intertwined. Ask anyone to weigh in on the construction of Cordoba House, and you can spend the rest of the afternoon entangling yourself from the cords.

Exactly how these three were intertwined in the past, on the other hand, is something historians of religion, social scientists, and anthropologists, to name a few, are always striving to understand in clearer terms—in part, to gain purchase on how they operate now. The study of the Roman and late Roman empire, my field of research, provides one rich laboratory for investigating that overlap because the three monotheistic religions of today flourished or were born during those times. Current research may prove surprising in the context of the present debate about religion at Ground Zero.

Archaeologists likes me, for example, have now begun to define with much more certainty the circumstances that accompanied the construction of a synagogue or an early Christian church—or the construction of a mosque in the much later Eastern Roman Empire—in cities throughout the Mediterranean. To take one example: earlier scholars, following ancient Christian authors, used to interpret the rise of churches after Constantine as a sign marking Christianity’s triumph over the pagan past. Sound familiar?

Today, the study of the cities in which these sacred spaces were constructed, near thriving Roman temples, has debunked earlier interpretations which equated increasing visibility on the part of one religion with wholesale triumph over another. This research has led to a less divisive understanding of this period of religious transformation than previously thought.

These approaches will no doubt make sense to anyone who knows that plans for a mosque at Cordoba House are only one aspect of the building and that the building itself is only one component of the urban landscape of lower Manhattan. But current events also provide a unique opportunity to think about material culture, like art and architecture, and how it relates to the study of our religious faiths.

In fact, the nature of the present debate suggests that archaeological knowledge of our most well known ancient religions needs to take a more prominent place in our theological and religious discussions of how those faiths were and are expressed, if we want to understand the present. Material culture, for example, provides one way to investigate how a religious community perceived of its own beliefs and how it may have wished to express those beliefs within a larger urban context.

Those are exactly the questions surrounding Cordoba House. “Does it represent an Islamic take-over of Manhattan, or is it a constructive contribution to the city?” Unfortunately, many people on both sides of the debate have weighed in without even considering how religions like Judaism and Christianity have also used material culture to express aspects of social accommodation as well as religious belief.

Several ancient synagogues, for example, were decorated with mosaics or paintings which featured stories from the Hebrew Bible. The fact that human figures appear so prominently in them has led to a much more nuanced understanding of the Mosaic commandment against graven images, suggesting that some communities strove to find a middle ground between popular artistic conventions and the complete absence of representation, as purportedly advocated by scripture.

Likewise, depictions of Jesus on several ancient sarcophagi represent him performing miracles, such as the raising Lazarus, while holding a wand, the instrument of ancient magicians. The prevalence of these depictions makes clear that Christians were able to conceive of Jesus in a visual language borrowed from the conventions of the time and from the larger society in which they were living, perhaps as way to reach out to those who continued to followed traditional pagan religions.

Both of these examples offer an opportunity for us to reflect on the overlooked role that material evidence can play in confirming or challenging notions of our religious beliefs. Above all, they demonstrate, in far different contexts, how Judaism and Christianity used material culture to engage, not antagonize, the complex social and political worlds in which they were living at the time. We should not immediately discount that the same motives might operating today.

On Plagiarism, from Stanley Fish

2010-08-17T18:19:00.002-05:00

...[I]f you say to the students, “The enterprise you and I are engaged in here is underwritten by the assumption of originality and the possibility and desirability of the advancement of thought,” you can then say that these assumptions and the outcomes they look forward to — new insights, solutions to problems — will be undermined if students and researchers take the easy way out and just copy something someone else has already done."

Archaeology of Religion: Here I Come

2010-08-03T12:45:00.002-05:00

Something I'll be sharing with my Fall 2010 students at Georgetown...

The year is 4010 ce. You are an archaeologist working with a team excavating a hilltop settlement known from inscriptions as “Georgiopolitanum ad ripas Potomaci.” Based on the proliferation of Latin and English on seals, coins, and money found around the hilltop, some have suggested that all the residents may have spoken at least these two languages. All other written material seems either to have been burned or was removed over time. The analysis of glass shards suggests that the settlement layers currently being excavated date to the first quarter of twenty-first century.

You have been assigned to excavate a trench in a building known as: the Jewish Students Association House; Dahlgren Chapel; Copley Crypt; the Copley Muslim Prayer Room.

Visit your assigned space. Take account of the kinds of objects you might find if you were excavating it. What would have been preserved? Imagine what might have been lost. How would the found objects help you reconstruct the nature of religious practices or rituals that were once performed in these spaces? What might the material culture, more broadly, such as the shape of the space or the plan of the building, tell you about the nature of the beliefs of the people who worshiped there? How would you make the strongest possible case for your interpretation of the evidence?

This class is going to be fun.

Nero, MAXXI, Contemporary Rome

2010-07-08T10:37:00.000-05:00

I have to say, I found this recent piece in the New York Times amusing (about the state of preservation of Rome's ancient monuments and the money being poured into the construction of modern ones), not the least because of a reader's comment about Nero.

16.
July 7th, 2010
2:59 pm
I am far more passionate about Rome's history than about its current art scene, but I would like to see the Domus Aurea [Nero's house] thoroughly documented and then left to crumble. The world needs no more monuments to monomaniacal rulers such as Nero.

Incidentally, just last week, June 28, 2010, the town of Anzio along the western coat (between Rome and Naples) just decided to erect a statue for their home town hero: Nero.

The past can be present, too, eh?

Wanted: Graphic Designer, Rome

2010-06-24T16:38:00.000-05:00

I particularly like (a) the stick figure trying to sit down; and (b) the Egyptian-Pac Man stick figure walking away. The "sanitizing vapor" which "comes out" is simply a bonus.

Looking for the 21st century?

2010-06-19T11:34:00.000-05:00

Gino De Dominicis's sculpture went on display as part of the permanent collection at the MAXXI Museum, Rome (from 30 May through 7 November 2010); and his outdoor piece, sheltered by the utterly confounding architecture of Zaha Hadid, is a playful skeleton that had almost every visitor I saw on Saturday lining up to take a picture. Entitled Cosmic Calamity (in Italian), it's a massive human skeleton with a hooked nose and a gold pencil-thin pointed rod affixed through one of its digits.

The other showstopper of the facade is a corner of Hadid's facade, which reflects the architecture of the Flaminia Quarter where the museum is located). Obviously, images from the inside were impossible to shoot, without forfeiting my 11 EUR ticket. So until I procure the guide--and some time to do some linking--I'll have to summarize De Dominicis' sculpture show as rather witty conceit of "imaginary sculptures" (based in real forms), the likes of which I have not had any encounter with before. A perfectly representative title of one was "Red ball dropped from a height of 2 meters before it bounces up again"; the piece: a semi-deflated red ball resting on the ground of the gallery.

Now to editorialize, briefly: This site strikes me as one of the first truly monumental museums of its kind to finally give up the need for contextualizing contemporary art by needing to begin its narrative with Impressionism (MoMA or Tate Modern, to wit, even despite the latter's emphasis on a thematic, not chronological, approach to art). Does this mean we as a culture have finally recognized the importance of those early modern masters enough to give them up by putting them safely away in their own, quaint museums? Probably not. Plenty of people will still show up to tour those collections and think of them as the most "contemporary" or "modern" editions to whatever canon of art history they adhere to, if any at all. It seems equally amiss at this stage, however--at least, in the face of a museum like this one--to think that all that baggage needs to come along every time a new modern art museum opens its doors. In short, if you're looking for the 21st century, start here.

Rome Will Never (My advertisment)

2010-06-19T11:15:00.000-05:00

10th century BC -- Rome will never be a real city.
6th century BC -- Rome will never be a republic.
1st century AD -- Rome will never be Christian.
4th century AD -- Rome will never fall.
9th century AD -- Rome will never be built again.
17th century AD -- Rome will never be free from the Papacy.
21st century AD -- Rome will never be a center for modern art.

For those who approach art and architecture as a mere reflection of -- not a vibrant participant in -- the creation of entirely new, exciting ways of viewing the world, meet MAXXI, the Museo delle Arti del XXI Secolo, in Rome. Architecture has a voice, too. Don't think people aren't going to be listening.

Una bella giornata (Rome, 10 AM)

2010-06-16T10:55:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, while listening to a baritone opera singer practice his scales to the accompaniment of a piano somewhere outside my window, I was called to the river by the sound of gulls which had come off the Tiber around sunset. I wish I were making this up. This morning, I shot this view while crossing the Ponte Sisto, just outside my apartment, where I also spent a good deal of 2007. I'm posting it here because there is no reason "Paris" should have more posts than "Rome" on my blog. I truly feel at home here. Here's to five weeks of adding to the record, when I'm not in the library, or the truly futuristic museum of the 21st century, MAXXI.

Umberto Eco strikes again

2010-05-27T17:37:00.002-05:00

On the subject of popular democracy, I found this excerpt to be most revealing. It's especially poignant fodder for an American audience and, in particular, a Christian audience that often claims "the will of the people" often justifies legislating against gays (insert other human right violation, social issue here).

Now, the fact that the majority can often be wrong has many times over been pointed out. But here's the zinger, from a Christian point of view:

Quote Eco, from a recent interview in the Italian weekly magazine L'Espresso, "[T]he majority was wrong at Jersualem when they expressed preference for Barbarbas over Jesus" (la maggioranza a Gerusalemme si è sbagliata a preferire Barabba a Gesù...). It's a wonderful observation that raises an important, dare I say, ironic point: why do today's right-wing Christians not see that having the loudest voice doesn't always mean your viewpoint is the "correct" one?

On Holiday Political Malaise (Democratic-Style)

2009-12-26T22:52:00.000-06:00

The Health Care bill has plenty of people riled up, left and right. On the left, I have not heard it put any more succinctly than this: (Click below for Drew Westen's take on Obama's leadership style). We both voted for him. Westen is right on:

Do you think Americans ought to have one choice of health insurance plans the insurance companies don't control, or don't you? I don't want to hear that it would sort of, kind of, maybe be your preference, all other things being equal. Do you think we ought to use health care as a Trojan Horse for right-wing abortion policies? Say something, for God's sake.

Makes me think there's a larger forum yet for some future humanities' prof and his riffs on politics.... For the time being, this guy has a lot thought out.

And it's persuasive.

Drew Westen
Psychologist and neuroscientist; Emory University Professor

Crazy Counter. 1+

2009-11-28T12:42:00.003-06:00

Let's not forget, says one of the people in line at a recent Sarah Palin book signing event, "The state that she did govern was right across the street from Russia."

Now, today's post will leave aside for another time how it is that quitting your only elected government office shows the type of commitment to the job that would reassure even the most balanced Americans about your future qualifications for office.

Click over for a glimpse of people, instead, who seem to have been beset with a strange but increasingly common disease of small town America: loss of any faculty for reasoning.

So let's be clear: the more money we spend on professional sports and stadiums, the more money given away as tax breaks, the less money goes to education -- and by extension, our country gets dumber, embracing its stupidity and risking its future.

Richard Hoftstadter's article on "The Paranoid Style of American Politics" is especially apropos, four decades after it was written (1964, Harper's Magazine). And his book length treatment of a similar topic, "Anti-Intellectualism in American Life," is just as relevant today as it was in 1966. Quoting from the former:

The basic elements of contemporary right-wing thought [in 1964] can be reduced to three: First, there has been the now-familiar sustained conspiracy, running over more than a generation, and reaching its climax in Roosevelt’s New Deal, to undermine free capitalism, to bring the economy under the direction of the federal government, and to pave the way for socialism or communism. A great many right-wingers would agree with Frank Chodorov, the author of The Income Tax: The Root of All Evil, that this campaign began with the passage of the income-tax amendment to the Constitution in 1913.
The second contention is that top government officialdom has been so infiltrated by Communists that American policy, at least since the days leading up to Pearl Harbor, has been dominated by men who were shrewdly and consistently selling out American national interests.
Finally, the country is infused with a network of Communist agents...so that the whole apparatus of education, religion, the press, and the mass media is engaged in a common effort to paralyze the resistance of loyal Americans.

Now fortunately, post 11/9, as Thomas Friedman would say -- that is, the fall of the Berlin Wall -- the last of these three can no longer subsist under the suspicion of plots by "Communist agents." Substitute al-Qaeda or even the frequent assertion in the 2008 campaign that Barack Obama was untrustworthy because "he's a Muslim" -- and you've got the spirit of the same paranoia of number 3. The first two ideas -- the paranoid idea of (1) a grand plan to end capitalism and of (2) fervent belief that liberals are anti-America -- are still red meat for conservatives of today.

Question is, Is anyone else buying it?

On Precious

2009-11-13T14:32:00.001-06:00

OK, I cheated. We saw the movie when it premiered at the Austin Film Festival about two weeks ago; and I've got some thoughts I will save til another time.

This review from the Washington Post, however, caught my eye because...

But as adroitly as Daniels handles the multilayered details, textures and tones of "Precious's" rich visual design...

You can clearly spot a boom microphone in at least four shots of this movie. Dare I say, the opposite of "adroit"?

I wrote a novel about this once

2009-11-03T19:35:00.001-06:00

It's been a tough week for my alma mater (College of Arts and Sciences 1999). The two incidences of gay-bashing, reported in the Post, are troubling, to say the least. What concerns me even more is the none-too-friendly atmosphere that results when even the best liberal Catholic theologians and social justice advocates around can't find the intellectual room to speak out for the gay and lesbian community on their campus, even with their strong independence from the Catholic hierarchy.

Then again, I don't know which riles me more: the frequency of the occurrences in the past decade or the fact that only 50 people out of an undergraduate population of c. 5000 came to the rally for this past one.

See If A Tree Falls (unpublished manuscript).

North American Patristics Society: Panel Announcement

2009-10-12T10:36:00.002-05:00

I'm pleased to announce the following session, which I will chair, has now been approved for the 2010 Chicago meeting of the North American Patristics Association. The call for papers will soon be posted on the conference website, but here's a preview of what I'll be looking for. I look forward to all submissions, which should be entered on-line through the link here.

Touching Religion in Late Antiquity

It’s become de rigeur to characterize the three great monotheistic religions (Judaisim, Christianity, and Islam) as “religions of the book,” holding, as they do, certain sacred writings in common. Our modern shorthand, however, rarely accounts for the fact that during most of antiquity—at least during those centuries when the first two of these religious groups flourished side-by-side—books, as we would call them, were a very rare thing indeed. Religion, then, at least for most people in the ancient Mediterranean world who were neither rabbis nor theologians, was for a long time intricately bound up with other things. This session is concerned with the physical traces which Greco-Roman, Jewish, Christian religious practices left behind in the ancient and late ancient world (c. 150 B.C.E.-600 C.E.). Seeking papers that address how tangible things (like altars, statues, and dining halls, not to mention sacred sites) helped people of antiquity construct diverse ideas about their religions, this session is particularly keen to explore how the wide array of historical artifacts — from amulets to mosaics, sculptures to architecture — often nuance or directly challenge Jewish or Christian theological assumptions developed, passed down, and codified in later textual sources.

Chinati and Donald Judd in Marfa, TX

2009-10-12T10:01:00.006-05:00

Just returned from a seven hour car-ride to and from Marfa, TX -- you know, the center of art house cool in the middle of nowhere (otherwise known as the site of famed modern artist Donald Judd's foundation, Chinati). The reason for this pilgrimage? The grand re-opening of a series of site-specific concrete works Judd fashioned in the 1980s.

Here's a screen-shot view (at right) of the foundation's website, showing the pieces in the west Texas landscape.

Certainly one of the highlights was the series of talks by art historians and conservators who spoke about Judd's work at Chinati and around the globe, as well as the restoration issues involved in the 15 cement block pieces which just reopened to the public this past weekend.

A discussion of Judd's outdoor sculpture project in the late 1980s at Münster in Westphalia, (West) Germany (at the time) generated one question I thought I'd post here (since I asked it, naturally).

Here's an image of the piece from the town's website (and one from Wikicommons, at right). My question, in response to a great survey of Judd's work by independent scholar James Lawrence, ran as follows:

I was taken by the collective gasp of the audience at seeing a group of German school children standing on top of Judd's concrete circle [shown in Lawrence's slide] and of the audible horror of those present at seeing the graffiti on the interior of the piece [ c. 1987 and present]. But I'm wondering whether Judd ever recognized the significance of imposing a concrete wall on this part of the West German landscape, where walls were not easily accepted and were correspondingly treated with painterly disdain.

So I wonder: Would you agree with others whom you've mentioned in your talk who have criticized Judd for not showing a greater social awareness in his art, or at least aiming for social significance? Is it right, in fact, do see Judd here as the victim or might it be more appropriate to his piece as the aggressor?

Yes, I did manage to get all that out in front of the microphone in the Q&A. The panel's answers, including that of UT-Austin art historian Richard Shiff, can be viewed online. (No one ever accused me of being too afraid to question hagiography). And certainly no one can say I went solely for the free cookies.

What a strange little Chartres-like city Marfa is.

Oh the irony of Dan Brown

2009-09-16T23:15:00.002-05:00

From the Associated Press, of all people, on the new Dan Brown book:

An additional 500,000 copies has been ordered, bringing the total print run to 5.6 million copies. "The Lost Symbol" came out Tuesday.

(Don't tell me his books aren't affecting the use of our own language).

See English Grammar: Subject-Verb Agreement.

Will someone please tell journalists that anecdotes do not substitute for reporting?

2009-08-05T10:02:00.004-05:00

Headline:

Is Race for Governor More About Obama?
Some Voters Who Backed President Disillusioned Over Economic Pledges

Followed by:

"There is no empirical evidence at this point in Virginia's race for governor showing that huge numbers of voters think like Cleland [interviewed in article] and will respond by sending a message to Washington."

So, question: Why bill the article as a supposed "question"? Why not say, "One or two people are disillusioned; most are not." Answer: Journalist could not write such a story with so little news value. Result: the journalist must make up the story.

Question: When did reporting become the process of taking one or two people's reactions to events and, while burying the context, elevate these singular opinions to news? Why can't the interviewed people just write an op-ed?

On the "rule of law" and Republican hypocrisy

2009-04-27T10:17:00.003-05:00

Something smell fishy about the right-wing's response to torture memos? (Check out the link to the nonsense spouted by Michael Gerson in the Washington Post; or Peggy Noonan's theological response that some things in life should be left "mysterious.") Then, consider history:

(1) Rep. NEWT GINGRICH, (R), Speaker of the House: This is not some "shall we get together and gossip about the President, did the family have a fight, did he get drunk one night and go off to a party." This is about the rule of law. This is the heart of America. This is what the Constitution means. This is what Richard Nixon had to resign over. No person in America is above the rule of law (emphasis added).

Quoted:
ABC NEWS
APRIL 28, 1998
SHOW: ABC WORLD NEWS THIS MORNING (6:30 am ET)

(2) ... Republicans insisted on bringing the discussion back to what they saw as the higher ground and the underlying theme of their case against Mr. Clinton. "The rule of law in America is under fire," said Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia.
Rep. James E. Rogan, California Republican, accused the Democrats of trying to "trivialize felony perjury. What is the impact on our system of justice when perjury is marginalized or excused for embarrassment?" (emphasis added)
Excerpt:
The Washington Times
December 19, 1998, Saturday, Final Edition
Headline: "Republican focus on 'rule of law' leaves Democrats cold"
(3) Excerpts from the House of Representatives' presentation at
the Senate impeachment trial of President Clinton.
House Judiciary Chairman Henry Hyde, R-Ill.: This case
is a test of whether what the founding fathers described as "sacred
honor" still has meaning in our time. . . .
We must never tolerate (having) one law for the ruler and another
for the ruled. If we do, we break faith with our ancestors from
Bunker Hill, Lexington, Concord to Flanders Fields, Normandy,
Hiroshima, Panmunjom, Saigon and Desert Storm.
Let's be clear -- the vote you are asked to cast is in the final
analysis a vote about the rule of law. The rule of law is one
of the great achievements of our civilization for the alternative
to the rule of law is the rule of raw power. (emphasis added)
QUOTED:
USA TODAY
January 18, 1999, Monday, FINAL EDITION
HEADLINE: "House managers conclude their case"
(4) Rep. DeLAY: ... The president of the United States has his finger on the button and sends our sons and daughters to war and to die and he's sitting in the White House being serviced by an intern while he's talking to the chairman of the Foreign Operations Appropriations Committee about sending our sons and daughters to Bosnia. Th--this is serious stuff that we're talking about, and the American people have the right to know the truth. ...
There's no good time for this, but the American people need to see the truth, no matter how bad the truth looks. They need to face the reality of the seriousness and the graveness of what we are undertaking.
QUOTED:
CBS News Transcripts
September 20, 1998, SundaySHOW: FACE THE NATION (10:30 AM ET)

(5)
REP. JON CHRISTENSEN (R), NEBRASKA: Last week my wife and I toured the CIA headquarters and chiseled in the granite as you walk in the door are these words: You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. I believe that every woman is entitled to the truth in a sexual harassment lawsuit. The American people are entitled to the truth.
We the Congress are entitled to the truth. Members of Congress told President Clinton, do not lie in your grand jury testimony or you will be impeached. I support the articles of impeachment. Not out of disrespect for President Clinton, but out of respect for our rule of law. A constituent of mine from Omaha told me last week, "I wish it wasn't about sexual harassment, but the facts are he lied under oath. He covered it up for as long as he could and he used his office to try and obstruct the work of the Independent Counsel and the rule of law."
She went on to say we have men on death row that were sentenced based upon the sworn testimony of witnesses. Sworn testimony that people who took an oath to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help them God. Well my colleagues, this is the same oath that the president took, raising his right hand, stating those sacred words in front of witnesses, a federal judge and a grand jury.
If the president doesn't honor those words, how can we ensure that other witnesses will honor those words? Some of my colleagues have said that we should not dumb down the impeachment process, but I say we should not dumb down the rule of law, the damage is done.
QUOTED:
CNNDecember 18, 1998; Friday 6:49 pm Eastern TimeSHOW: CNN LIVE EVENT/SPECIAL 18:49 pm ET

And on and on and on.

On Benedict (I / XVI) and the Idea of Europe

2009-03-19T12:17:00.002-05:00

Pope Ratzinger chose as his name "Benedict" to put himself in the line of papal successors who trace their lineage to the founder of the monastic movement in Europe, the one which established a small but vital link in shepherding the ancient world (as lived on the European continent) into the Middle Ages. Ratzinger, as Benedict XVI, sought to elevate the 21st century church as a smaller organization which would entrench itself around more conservative common ideals in the face of a secularized Europe, one in which Benedict envisioned a greater and renewed role for Catholicsm.

Well, the governments of France and Germany -- one, predominantly a Catholic country; the other, the pope's home -- have nicely stood up to that idea, in particular on the issue of condoms and the fight against AIDS. They recently reacted vehemently to the pope's pronoucements against such civil services, such as handing out condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS; and in doing so, offered a strong countervoice to the idea that 21st century Europe is a land ripe for "Benedict's" molding. In fact, what these governments' common sense pratical approach reveals to the health crisis in their countries is that it is the contemporary Vatican which is increasingly out of step with the world in which it finds itself.

This is not a time of civil and civic collapse, as Benedict (I) faced; it is a richa and complex and complicated world which the Papacy is, in fact, attempted to leave behind in favor of complete disengagement from complexity.

Point, modern Europe. The door continues to close on the Vatican's relevance and moral authority.

PARIGI - Suscitano forti polemiche le parole del papa sull'uso del preservativo. "Grandissima preoccupazione" è stata espressa oggi dal ministero degli Esteri francese per "le conseguenze" sulla lotta contro l'Aids delle frasi pronunciate dal Pontefice durante il suo viaggio in Africa: "La Francia esprime la sua più viva inquietudine per le consequenze delle dichiarazioni di Benedetto XVI", ha dichiarato il portavoce del ministero Eric Chevallier. Gli fa eco Berlino: "I preservativi salvano la vita, tanto in Europa quanto in altri continenti", affermano in un comunicato stampa congiunto il ministro della Salute Ulla Schmidt, e della Cooperazione economica e dello sviluppo, Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul. [= La Repubblica]

On journalists bowing down to the mighty AIG

2009-03-19T12:09:00.002-05:00

"They've chosen to throw us under the bus," said a Financial Products executive, one of several who spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing reprisals. "They have vilified us."

This line is blatantly irresponsible journalism on behalf of Brady Dennis-- one which is based upon the idea that the public cannot or will not treat information in a manner appropriate to public discourse. "Fearing reprisals": From whom? Why? When? How?

There is little public reason to protect the name of the source just because the source himself/herself screwed up so badly. That's not the public's fault. So don't hide it from us under the pretense of protecting the source.

Senior Citizens & Computers

2009-03-01T11:55:00.003-06:00

OK, it's really about my mom's role in all this at Brookdale Senior Living, Chicago.

Check out my mom on NBC Chicago News; she's interviewed at the end. Way to go, Mom!

Note to the Washington Post

2009-02-10T13:26:00.003-06:00

She died. A day and half ago. Update your newspaper. Please. It's called journalism.

From the Post (Tuesday 1:30 PM).

Italy govt. tries new tactic in right-to-die case

By NICOLE WINFIELD
The Associated Press
Sunday, February 8, 2009; 1:14 PM

On the Society of Pius X

2009-02-04T10:41:00.003-06:00

OK, the recent media coverage of Pope Ratzinger's decision to lift the excommunication of select bishops who belong to the Society of Pius X inspired me to do a little investigation of my own, given the just uproar over the fact that some of these bishops are Holocaust deniers.

Here's a little excerpt from the Society of Pius X website about the "errors" that have infiltrated Catholicism and which they use to argue for a more conservative approach to the faith--one which eliminates all "foreign" or "Protestant" strands of influence from the "pure" Catholic core.

Thus, the Society says we should be skeptical of the Mass we celebrate today because:

What are the ELEMENTS that make up the New Rite [of Mass]? Some are Catholic:

a priest,
bread and wine,
genuflections,
signs of the Cross, etc.,

but some are Protestant:

a table

I had no idea that "tables" were Protestant. Food for thought, from some religious nuts. Do these guys have any formal training whatsoever in the History of Early Christianity?

Everyone had tables. There wasn't any other option.

Oh, glorious TV producers

2008-12-05T15:09:00.003-06:00

Why is it that Italian news has a link to this MSNBC producer melting down and calling on air correspondent a b*^@! and a search for 'MSNBC producer' turns up nothing on, say, the washingtopost.com?

Maybe the Italians like to see America's TV people going crazy every once and a while. Hope it makes the YouTube circuit.

"...Make It Uncomfortable To Be a Bigot."

2008-11-23T22:28:00.002-06:00

Fragment of a Recent Cocktail Party Conversation at the Society of Biblical Literature convention, Boston (21-25 November 2008).

A male and female, young, mid twenties, engaged, approach their slightly-older male peer ('Peer') over drinks.

Female: What do you study?
Peer: I study Late Antiquity. You?
Female: Ethics. Thomas Aquinas and 20th century approaches to eating disorders.
Peer: Oh!
Male: I study Second Temple Judaism.
Peer: I see!
Female: You're from the University of Texas, I see.
Peer: Yes!
Female: I want to move there. I'm tired of Boston. I feel like I am much more conservative than the people here and would like to move to Texas.
Peer: Really?
Female: Yes, I felt disenfranchised during the last election. Like I didn't have a voice. So I supported the Constitution Party.
Peer: Interesting! Why?
Female: I felt that our imperialist presidency was running amok and I needed a way to voice that view.
Peer: It seems like other political parties would have accommodated such a position. What specifically led you to join the Constitution Party?
Female: Well, I feel the Democratic party really let me down on the issue of life and the unborn.
Peer: I see. Abortion, then. And by unborn, I assume you mean fetuses. Don't you find it problematic, though, that several hundreds of fertilized eggs are flushed out of a woman's reproductive tract after sex? I mean, are these not 'unborn' people that God himself, by nature, is killing?
Female: I see this as an issue between accidental moral sin and intentional moral sin. Those are accidental deaths. The intentional abortion of a fetus is much more serious.
Peer: But then what about a woman who aborts a pregnancy in order to save her own life? Bringing the pregnancy to term would, in effect, result in the 'accidental' death of the mother. Isn't that equally problematic?
Female: I believe that we should not be intentionally killing souls.
Peer: Ah, so the fertilized egg has a soul?
Female: Yes. I believe that all souls are in potentiality. They may not be the same as they are later, but they are still there in some form.
Peer: And what happens when a fertilized egg splits in two, producing twins? Does one soul then beget a second soul?
Female: Yes.
Peer: This does not conform to Catholic theological teaching, even the most conservative teaching.

Author's Note: "Man, though made of body and soul, is a unity" (GS 14 § 1). The doctrine of the faith affirms that the spiritual and immortal soul is created immediately by God. [= Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 382].

Peer (cont'd): This raises interesting questions, of course, given the way we started by discussing politics. Could you speak, then, about, say, your view of the role of women--in the church, in th world--and how you formulated that view?
Female: I take a natural law approach. I believe women and men have their own teloi (ends) and that each is suited for those particular ends, drawn from nature.
Peer: Such as?
Female: Well, for women, one of those is childbearing. And also child rearing. Women are the only ones who can breast feed, for example.

Author's Note: Unfortunately, as with most examples drawn from 'nature,' there are often competing pieces of evidence that complicate a normative view of what the 'natural law' is. So, for example, see cases of male lactation.

Peer: That's interesting that your two examples deal with instances of human sexuality. (Pause). And it's also interesting that you use the idea of two different 'ends' for two different people. So I'm wondering--I suppose it's only natural--whether you would say that gay people and straight people have two different 'ends' too. Meaning, whereas marraige is available to straight couples, there is no such thing available (or called as such) for gay couples.
Female: Yes, I suppose that's true.
Peer: Which leads me to wonder: What is the Constitution Party's stance on gay rights, for example? Is that something that led you to their platform, too?

Author's Note: "We reject the notion that sexual offenders are deserving of legal favor or special protection, and affirm the rights of states and localities to proscribe offensive sexual behavior. We oppose all efforts to impose a new sexual legal order through the federal court system. We stand against so-called "sexual orientation" and "hate crime" statutes that attempt to legitimize inappropriate sexual behavior and to stifle public resistance to its expression. We oppose government funding of "partner" benefits for unmarried individuals. Finally, we oppose any legal recognition of homosexual unions [= From the Constitution Party platform].

Female: The Constitution Party does not support an amendment to the Constitution defining marriage.
Peer: But that doesn't exactly say whether the Constitution Party is willing to stand up to achieve equal rights for gay couples.
Female: We do not support a constitutional amendment. Bu why is it so important for you to learn what the Constitution Party would or would not do?
Peer (laughing): Because I'm trying to figure out whether your a bigot!
Male (tapping fiance on shoulder): Ok, I think we should go.
Female: That's not very professional. To call someone a bigot.
Peer: My point is, you haven't denied it.
Female: So you're saying if I don't support marraige or any civil union being extended to gay couples, I'm a bigot?
Peer: Yep.
Female (extending wine glass): Well, cheers.
Peer: Cheers!

I type the following to illustrate putting words into practice: namely, at the nationwide rallies in support of gay rights that occured last weekend, several local speakers addressed the idea that "we must make it increasingly uncomfortable to be a bigot in America." Likewise (the point of this post) several spoke out about the need to enlist our straight allies in this cause because without them, our little minority will never be able to achieve its goals.

I take both of those things to heart.

Even the Astronauts Voted

2008-11-05T12:22:00.002-06:00

18:24 Al voto per la Casa Bianca anche astronauti Stazione spaziale
Per le presidenziali Usa 2008 si è votato anche dallo spazio. I due astronauti Greg Chamitoff e Michael Fincke hanno esercitato il loro diritto di elettori inviando il loro voto sulla Terra mentre erano in orbita a 354 chilometri dalla superficie terrestre, a bordo della Stazione Spaziale Internazionale. Un responsabile dell'ufficio elettorale di Houston, in Texas, ha inviato le schede elettorali digitali ai due astronauti, che le hanno reinviate sulla Terra debitamente compilate.

I found this posted in La Repubblica (Rome, Italy): Greg Chamitoff and Michael Finke were granted digital ballots from Huston, TX, to be able to cast their votes on election day, which they filled out and sent back down to Earth, 354 km away in space. How cool was that.

I'm confused: U.S. Embassy Attack

2008-09-18T13:17:00.006-05:00

So the President showed up for work on Wednesday of financial meltdown week and threw two minutes to the press without taking questions. So much for leadership and reassuring the "American people" during this time of crisis. Anyway, the media ate it up for lunch.

Question is, however, why was the President so silent on the bombings of our embassy in Yemen? And bigger still, why can't the media handle two issues at once?

Our embassy was attacked! This new event, quite simply, calls into question one of the premises of the war in Iraq, does it not? ("...and we haven't been hit again since September 11, have we?"
Well, London, Madrid, Bali -- they have gotten used to shrugging their shoulders over our short-sightedness; of course, "we" have been hit since Sept 11. The administration, however, likes playing up the fact that "the nation's homeland" hasn't been touched.

Well, an embassy is pretty close to the same thing, isn't it? Kenya, Tanzania -- weren't the Republicans blaming President Clinton for not responding too forcefully to the attacks on our African embassies 10 years ago? Now, another embassy attack -- and who should we look to for accountability of our public policy? Who is going to ask the questions, raise these issues, in order to ask find out this happened and who's responsible?

Certainly not the media, as of yet.

It's in meltdown mood.

I Know You're A Hoya, But Chris, Baby...

2008-09-14T15:04:00.004-05:00

Did you just phone this one in? (Full 'blog' entry below). What happened? Skip too many "Text and Context" classes to learn how to put together any meaningful analysis? Or do you just like navel gazing and calling it journalism?

Don't worry... Plenty of bloggers out there who are ready to take your job. Or maybe it was it just a slow news day with two months left until the election?

Palin's SNL Debut

A sure sign you've made it big in politics: you get impersonated on "Saturday Night Live".

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin -- played by Tina Fey with whom The Fix shared a ferry from Fire Island earlier this summer (!) -- got the SNL treatment last night alongside Hillary Rodham Clinton (Amy Poehler).

The result? Complete genius.

On David Frum and Inequality

2008-09-10T13:00:00.002-05:00

I used to think David Frum was, well, a little crazy. I've watched him on Chris Matthews over the years and come away thinking, here's the epitome of an ideologue. Nothing you can say will make him change his mind. And he certainly isn't a part of the same world I am.

I began reading his lengthy piece in the New York Times Magazine not expecting much. He stayed true to form in the opening paragraph.

I LIVE IN WASHINGTON, in a neighborhood that is home to lawyers, political consultants, television personalities and the chief executive of the TIAA-CREF pension fund. Not exactly an abode of the superrich, but the kind of neighborhood where almost nobody does her own yardwork or vacuums his own floor. Children’s birthday parties feature rented moon bounces or hired magicians. The local grocery stores offer elegant precooked dinners of salmon, duck and artichoke ravioli.

That sounds pretty much like upper-class to me (I don't know why he needed to set up a straw man called the "supperrich"). Sounds like his neighborhood has it good.

And, in fact, Frum admits as much. The rest of the opinion piece is devoted to the growing inequality in America and how policies from the 1990s to today have widened that gap instead of narrowing it. Frum's thesis is that Republicans better take a look around them because a greater perception of inequality has been correlated with a greater sense of voting Democratic.

And yet, despite this emphasis on voters and, ultimately, power, Frum's plea that we all do something to fight for social justice rings, at least on first reading, largely philanthropic. In particular, I was taken by the forthright way that he acknowleged this income disparty in the U.S. -- something you don't often hear these days when the rest of the right wing starts to claim, "Class warfare!" Whence this concern for inequality, Frum? I like it.

Failing Reading, Or, Why I Became a Journalist

2008-09-10T12:57:00.001-05:00

Journalist #1: Didn't that Palin lady use the word 'lipstick' last week?

Journalist #2: Yeah. And now Obama just said 'lipstick' too...

Journalist #1: Hey boss, think we have a story?

Editor: Run with it! Headline: "Obama Calls Palin A Pig!"

My Hiring Decision for Meet the Press

2008-09-09T10:25:00.004-05:00

I was out of the country when Tim Russert died, and I feel like, in some ways, he just sort of vanished for me from political coverage.

Given Tom Brokaw's increasing ineptitude in The Chair, the thought occurred to me: NBC better get this next host right.

And my decision is, hands down, Gwen Ifill.

Now, for the complaints: "But you can't have a black person in The Chair when one of the presidential candidates is black!" Answer: No one ever said anything when everyone was white. I bet she brings new questions and issues to the table.

"But you can't have a woman in The Chair when one of the vice-presidential candidates is a woman!" Answer: I bet she brings new questions and issues to the table.

(Notice how objection 1. [right wing] cancels out objection 2. [left wing]).

For the positives: She's sat at the table before, has hosted her own round table on PBS, interviewed everyone in politics, moderated presidential debates, comes across as cool and composed like Russert, and always lets her facts ask her questions for her.

A breath of fresh air, too, now for the morning institution which happens to be the longest running TV show in our planet's history.

Execs: Ifill's your "man."

Blogs Speak

2008-09-09T10:23:00.001-05:00

Well, good to see that some of us spoke loud enough to get through to the mass media.

The decision by MSNBC to yank Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews from anchor duty during live political events did not exactly send a thrill up the leg of liberal bloggers, writes Howard Kurtz.

Got that right.

NBC Follows Brokaw, Goes Red

2008-09-07T22:19:00.005-05:00

Well, consider the peacock turning "red," for its election coverage, at least. (Time will show it to be a hue caused by shame, not ideology).

After months of accusations of political bias and simmering animosity between MSNBC and its parent network NBC the channel decided over the weekend that the NBC News correspondent and MSNBC host David Gregory would anchor news coverage of the coming debates and election night, writes Brian Stelter in the New York Times.

Coming upon the heals of Tom Brokaw's blatantly, "anti-factual" questioning of Joe Biden on Sunday's Meet the Press (see the section on the Iraq), it is no wonder that the news division of NBC and MSNBC have now tried to placate Brokaw's general feeling of so-called uncomfortableness that he reports having experienced in Republican circles.

Poor retired Tom.

On Sunday morning, Biden did his best to ask Brokaw politely where he was getting the premises for his questions about Iraq's Sunni-Shia reconciliation and Biden's own policy proposals (one misses Russert here); and now, with "media bias" the story line post-Palin, the executives at NBC seem to have cowed to the right-wing pressure that "facts" deserve no place in our electoral discussion. That is, facts or well-researched journalism.

Open piece of unsolicited advice for the executives: The replacement of Olbermann and Matthews as co-chairs of the cable election coverage is a mistake -- financially and, yes, professionally, too.

Brokaw's lost touch with any sense of media operations in the 21st century and it shows -- not only in his blatant attempts to "self-correct" the network's image by asking ludicrously under-researched questions. But the issue is larger. "Media objectivity" is not a practice; it's a laudable aim. All networks, and media outlets, by virtue of their position will inevitably slant their presentation of the facts. The success of a right-wing fanatics has been to convince people that reality is the opposite: namely, that media objectivity is a commonly-held practice and that anyone faltering from it should be accused of "liberal" bias. Such a position flies in the face of Fox News which has no pretense to objectivity; they discuss facts, sure -- maybe not all of them -- but they do so with their particular slant. And guess what? People watch. Welcome to modern news outlets.

Olbermann and Matthews are doing nothing but the same. And where the facts are concerned, God forbid, they actually present more of them, oftentimes, and usually treat them in more depth than other news venues.

And David Gregory, for all his well styled hair and White House press briefing resume, is simply a bone to placate right-wing dogs who are breathing down the network's gate right now. "Tone down the messenger," they've asked. And one can't blame them: People will tune out just as fast. So much for the task of informing the public.

Final note: If NBC insists that journalistic credibility is really on the line with the eyes of the whole world upon them for their election coverage, it is singularly odd that NBC is only airing their coverage on cable and not on their regular channels. "Journalistic credibility" is a ruse. They caved to precisely what kept Olbermann in the studio last week: not-so-veiled threats of right-wing reprisals.

-- -- --
First political post of the election season. The language is unpolished, but I'm just warming up.

Something About a Train Station

2008-06-13T08:05:00.003-05:00

Echoes of Constaninople

2008-06-13T08:00:00.003-05:00

The crates were meant for Constantinople. The elixir, Veuve Cliquot Ponsardin from the cellars, 20-30 m beneath the ground in the chalk caverns underneath the town of Reims (see within).

A little tour of the champagne making process, a glass of champagne from Champagne, a better understanding of Madame Cliquot and her business and, now, a genuine snobbishness for the Veuve Yellow labels.

Reims (Rrahnce)

2008-06-13T07:54:00.003-05:00

There are two things I know for certain (well, at least two).

1. It will inevitably pour when I head out into the French countryside--something I actually like, I admit.

AND

2. Walking into a Gothic cathedral knocks me off my feet.

Even one that was bombed by the Allies in the last world war and whose stained glasses suffered damage (in the nave). Still, the windows that are in place, the stones that simultaneously soar and stand unmovable--the cathedral at Reims blew me away. That, and the rain. The picture doesn't even do justice to the dampness inside and the dreariness of the transept, where I was sitting, eying the shattered light of the north window. Imagine it darker; the window, more fractured, more clear.

On David Schuster, MSNBC, and Hillary

2008-02-10T18:53:00.000-06:00

I was intrigued enough by this developing "campaign issue" to post the following on the comment's board of the New York Times website. Note: (a) I think Schuster's reporting is, in general, top-notch; and (b) I own a Hillary for President hat.

My instincts as a word fanatic kicked in somewhere in the middle of the coverage, however, when I realized Schuster's claim, grammatically, made no sense; and that any "insulted reaction" was, therefore, confused, at best. In this case, 24 hour news seems to have led to a sort of verbal diarrhea that Schuster (no doubt) regrets having been captured on air. At least, let's hope so.

To wit,

I may be a stickler for language use, but has anyone picked up on the fact that Schuster has used this “urban slang” incorrectly?

pimp out (v.) A term used to describe massive modification of something to make it standout and look attractive. The term is derived from the way pimps modify their cars with various colors, lights and other hardware.

(from http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pimp+out).

As a result, I’m wondering whether the Clinton campaign, MSNBC or Schuster himself really understands how absurd the sentence is that has raised all this uproar. It has nothing to do with “being a prostitute,” working for a “pimp.” It would refer, if at all, to the actor-agent adopting a position of authority and, consequently, sprucing up a commodity in his-her position.

Thus, in deference to Schuster, the campaign could “pimp out” its media image or its public face. It cannot “pimp [out]” a person, not even in the traditional sense of the word! In that case, in deference to Schuster, the campaign would have “pimped” [the person].”

As in, pimp (v., intrans.)To act as a pimp; or (v., trans.) 1. To act as a pimp for.
2. to exploit.

“Pimp out,” however, is entirely different beast of a phrase. What is clear is that the MEANING of what Schuster said is not at issue. Only the WORD itself — which makes this whole debate entirely superficial, at best.

Let’s at least be clear: Schuster’s sentence was nonsense.

"Can Anyone Here Speak Ancient Greek?"

2007-11-04T16:06:00.001-06:00

Alright, so the first one's Latin ("To the Best and Most Forgiving Ruler, Our Lord, Diocletian, the Invincible* Augustus! ...")

Here's the Greek for Marcus Brody, who knows twelve languages, who can blend in, with any luck he's got the Grail already... First century B.C.E., friends of Agrippa, general of Octavian. A close-up view would help, gosh, who took this photo?

-----------------------------
* That word -- I do not think it means what you think it means.

Window to the World

2007-11-04T16:00:00.001-06:00

In Chicago, growing up, precocious kids watched WTTW ("your Window to the World"), a.k.a., the local PBS station. Well, inside Hagia Sophia, Sultanhamet, Istanbul, I found that window.

It looks out on the Blue Mosque, an Ottoman wonder just next door to the Justinianic church. (Who's this Justinian you keep writing about? And why are you making his name into an adjective like that?)

Give it time, Grasshopper. Constantinople was not built in a day. Or, wait, was it?

F *^# Robison Crusoe

2007-11-04T15:52:00.000-06:00

Themed-blogs are for non-creative types. I'm a creative type. Yeah, that's right. And I left my Bob Crusoe at home.

Welcome to Constantinople. That's Istanbul to you and me. And welcome underground to good ole' Roman engineering. Those columns? Why, Mr. Theodosius, the emperor, arranged for those. Er, his engineers did. And few people would have seen them, either. This whole underground space functioned as a cistern. Say it with me. Cistern. Big bucket of water for public works, fountains, public pipes etc.

"But it looks familiar."

Well, then you're really Sean Connery reliving your time in From Russia With Love (too ... lazy ... to ... link ...). Although, Mr. Connery, you were navigating in the Justinianic cistern, built approximately a hundred and fifty years later, in order to spy on the Russian Embassy.

Still, good memory.

"The Emperor Is Coming Here?"

2007-11-01T12:23:00.000-05:00

Your tiny fountain. Your little piazza. Your river bank. Your Roman government officials cleaning up the graffiti under the bridge (d'oh!). Your autumn trees drooping in the wind and rain. Your street free for the holiday (All Saints' Day). Your hill up above. Ah Roma.

Just a Peak

2007-10-29T11:03:00.000-05:00

The Roman-Hellenistic theater at Ephesus, Turkey, with three college pals performing for the camera. Yesterday (from the perspective of the picture) had been Pergamon (pictures to come). And previous to that, a nice sojourn in Istanbul (lots of pictures to come).

You will not see pictures of Asia, that is, the Asian shore of Istanbul, which is the gritty cool going-out hanging-out neighborhood of young partygoers, who, if American, have to take a ferry to get there.

Departing from the Golden Horn, crossing the Sea of Marmara and the Bosphoros, too.

Won't forget this picture

2007-10-03T07:39:00.001-05:00

"I thought at this time the rain felt cold, and I was something chilly, which I knew was not usual in that latitude."

The rain cleared over Paris that morning and the sight of the inflatable rugby ball strung up in the middle of the Tour Eiffel, shooting up from the trees that were just beginning to hint at approaching winter, was so welcoming to see. It reminds me of a poem I wrote about Rome a long time ago... (drb).

Personal Ad, Travel Section

Rain hastens my love
like snow inconveniently given--
cursed, more natural

to those at ease with sadness,
accepting its weakness
along with the weather

3 OCTOBER 2007

2007-10-03T07:29:00.000-05:00

"...it came into my thoughts that I should lose my reckoning of time for want of books and pen and ink and should even forget the Sabbath days from working days; but to prevent this I cult it with my knife upon a large post, in capital letters, and making it into a great cross, I set it up on the shore where I first landed, 'I came on shore here on the 30th of September 1659.'"

I am a few days ahead of Bob Crusoe, it seems. But not lacking for pen and ink, nor even e-ink. The Thinker. I forgot to include that one from Paris, Musèe Rodin. Dante, beholding all his creations from The Inferno, sculpted around and below him by Rodin in "The Gates of Hell." About thirty years' worth of work for Rodin. Any Dante scholars out there fill in the comparable dates for the poem?

Culture Reminder Number 1

2007-10-01T10:44:00.000-05:00

There are no cookies here. Yes, there are biscotti, but everything's biscotti and there's certainly nothing decadent or playful about eating biscotti. For one, it sounds too refined.

Cookies, however, are childish and whimsical but you cannot have that here--or at least, you have to find other outlets for it--instead of stuffing your face with chocolate chip biscotti like I am now.

Biscotti Monster.

Visitors to Rome, Put Down Your Maps!

2007-10-01T10:28:00.000-05:00

The number of people who walk around Rome clutching a square, folded colored drawing of the streets is, well, fill in the blank. In all my years of coming here, I have never seen as many people as I have (30 today alone) breaking down the fibers of their maps with the pressure-induced sweat of their fingers, grasping these squares as if they themselves were already corpses beset with rigor mortis.

I'm not exaggerating.

They hold on to it like a cast away who's found the only piece of toilet paper they've seen in weeks or even years; yes, it looks that crass. I don't mind it if you stop, sit down, consult; but walking around with that thing crunched up in your hands--how can you enjoy yourself if you're constantly worried about what direction you are heading?

In other news, I ditched the tourists and took a trip to La città dell'altra economia yesterday: a kind of Whole Foods Theme Park for Roman Adults. The site is the converted slaughterhouse of 20th century Rome. The mayor is proud of his campaign to transform the rundown space into something that speaks to urban renewal--in an environmentally conscious way. I like it because it's just Romans.

In the Jardin du Luxembourg

2007-09-30T15:38:00.000-05:00

"I confess this side of the country was much pleasanter than mine, but yet I had not the least inclination to remove; for as I was fixed in my habitation, it became natural to me, and I seemed all the while I was here to be, as it were, upon a journey and from home."

Wherein Things Get Heavy

2007-09-30T15:27:00.000-05:00

"...I resolved to set all other things apart, til I got everything out of the ship that I could get; then I called a council, that is to say, in my thoughts..."

Inside the cathedral at Chartres, it is dark, like a castle or mansion without electricity. The walls are of glass, inside it is dim; and still, it is illuminated. The stones give witness to the craftsmanship that stacked that one upon the other and the stained glass windows are jewels set in the side--almost modern in the way they form a curtain wall of crystal around the cavernous nave. During the rain, this effect is, well, too intimidating to photograph.

Only the facade, that staple of art history books, and the snapshot of summer lenses, will do.

For the nautalists out there*

2007-09-30T15:23:00.000-05:00

Mr. Crusoe writes:

"Towards evening the mate and boatswain begged the master of our ship to let them cut away the foremast, which he was very unwilling to do. But the boatswain protesting to him that if he did not the ship would founder, he consented; and when they had but away the foremast, the mainmast stood so loose and shook the ship so much, they were obliged to cut her away also, and make a clear deck."

If I were stranded on a deserted island with wi-fi, I would link to all those nautical terms. Then again, I'm in Rome right now.

Must press on.
-------------------------------------

* You know who you are.

Robinson Crusoe, or, Find the Iron Tower

2007-09-30T15:16:00.000-05:00

While reading this "story of [a] private man's adventures in the world," I realized that it would make good source material for my on-line journal, in that I could mine its pages for small or lengthy quotations with which to preface or frame the observations I had that, in Mr. Crusoe's words, "were worth making public." So, here goes.

"The wonders of this man's life exceed all that (he thinks) is to be found extant..."

Well, I don't really buy that hauteur, if you know what I mean; and I admit, my reliance upon these quotations-as-précis may be strained at times. But where is the fun in being forthright? A picture, such as above, wouldn't nearly be as delightful if it weren't hiding a large iron structure behind it, nicely, but not entirely, concealed in the foliage. See?

I Become Ancient

2007-06-29T11:03:00.000-05:00

Missing my canvas hat, glass cupboards, 1 through 12,
a hall of specimens brushed and dried though
never quite clean, ceramic lamps and faded ink--
Palestinian Antiquities Department.

Byzantine amulet, ivory (Bet Sh'ean)

Nearby, at noon, a call to prayer descends,
Al Aqsa, whose voices join and settled upon
old exorcisms, sand dusted demons,
the drama of extinct excavations.

FADE TO:

Me, crumbled oxford, walking the desert, touring
Jerusalem,
waiting to be washed and scrubbed, sought out uncovered
unearthed embraced beloved

How to Read Marisha Pessl

2007-05-28T15:38:00.000-05:00

Leaving the concept of unsympathetic narrators aside for the moment, I found Special Topics in Calamity Physics exasperating. I thought we were through with all this High Modernist excess? In the image: My Reader's Guide.

Reflections on a Columnist

2007-05-25T21:57:00.000-05:00

I often find David Brooks to be way too simplistic on various issues
and he has done a great job keeping up that stereotype here.

Please define "religious," first of all. What Brooks is really
driving at--but which he lacks any of the language to describe--is
that "religion," per se, is often times more influenced by
social-cultural forces than having anything to do with creed,
theology, etc. It is to the media's discredit (and America's, of
course, by and large) that the mainstream dialogue has for too long
seen religious identity as an either/or dichotomy.

Thus, why is the phrase "quasi" even necessary when describing any of
the features of the religious people that Brooks is purporting to describe
if for no other reason than to try to fit his observations into the
rubric of either/or. In his case, he decides there must be a middle
ground. What this really demonstrates is how uncritically he had
approached any of these issues, or worldview, to begin with.

[These observations stem, in part, from witnessing recent attempts by classical and Late Antique scholarship to identify everyone in the Late Roman Empire as either "pagan" or "Christian," when, in fact, society at large was a bit of a blur. Calling everyone "quasi-pagan" or "quasi-Christian" gets us nowhere.]

I like newspaper columnists, especially when they try to fill their spaces with book reports. Too bad Brooks wasn't reading anything when he wrote this one.

First try picking up Clifford Geertz's The Interpretation of Cultures.

I'm a poet. Who knew?

2007-05-25T21:48:00.000-05:00

I liked this link. It was titled "A site for the promotion of amateur and budding literary talents."

Web Site

2007-05-25T21:34:00.000-05:00

I have a web site, by the way. It's pretty static.
But it's a nice introduction. On tap: To Start Blogging about Stuff.