Hayley Westenra / Paul Mealor / Brendan Graham - Sleep On

Gift for Royal Baby

Michael Pollan and Wendell Berry

Five Takeaways From a Conversation Between Michael Pollan and Wendell Berry - soundcloud

Best Fries in NYC

The Village Voice: The 10 Best French Fries in New York City, 2013 Edition

The list includes Bareburger.

AICN: Medieval Times: The Motion Picture

I've been to the one in SoCal once, when I was in high school. It was fun. But they couldn't commission something original and faithful to life during that period?

Building on Luigi Giussani, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI

Beauty: A Necessity, Not a Luxury by Fr. Charles Klamut

And yet only Benedict XVI is known for making the connection with respect to the liturgy.

RT: Monsanto wins landmark patent case in Supreme Court

Article. Some were cursing Clarence Thomas for this. Did he write the majority opinion? It was that Obama appointee Elena Kagan, writing for a unanimous court. Who owns the National Government?

NPR: The Salt

Video of Mgr. Dominque Rey

(via NLM)


Sacra Liturgia 2013

Tonus Peregrinus on The Early Music Show

BBC3 - expires in 5 days.

Their website.
Naxos

“Cross pollination:” Japan and Europe

Harmonia Early Music: From Japan To Europe, And Back Again By JANELLE DAVIS

In the 16th century, Jesuit missionaries from Portugal and Spain brought violas da gamba and other instruments to Japan to accompany the singing of masses in their newly founded churches. By the middle of the century the missions were becoming well established. Perhaps to show proof of their success, or, as a way to raise European support for missions in the East, the Jesuits appointed four young Japanese converts to go Europe and meet the Pope.

In 1582, the envoy of these four young men, known as the Tensho boys, set off from Nagasaki travelling first to Portugal and then to Spain. Travel records show that the boys were given royal treatment during their journey, and that along the way, they enjoyed many splendid concerts in European courts and churches.

More:
The Tenshō embassy
Chapter Sixteen The Adolescent Envoys of the Tenshō Era
Stamps

Related:
Vocal Recital: Yamada, Chiyomi - NARVAEZ, L. de / FUENLLANA, M. de / CACCINI, G. / DOWLAND, J. / ICHIJURO, K. / HUYGENS, C. (Kurofune)

More on Patriarch Kirill's Visit to China

Patriarch Kirill celebrates Divine Liturgy in Beijing
Patriarch Kirill: The dreams of the Chinese Orthodox Church’s bright future begins to come true

More:
Patriarch Kirill meets with director of Chinese State Administration for Religious Affairs
Patriarch Kirill: The dreams of the Chinese Orthodox Church’s bright future begin to come true
Patriarch Kirill celebrates Divine Liturgy in Beijing

Farewell Concert for The Stairwell Sisters

This Wednesday at Strings in Emeryville.

The group's website. From their FB page:

• WEDS, MAY 15
Stairwell Sisters Say Farewell
Strings, Oakland, CA
6320 San Pablo Ave, just south of Alcatraz
8pm Concert, $10-20 donation
Strings is an intimate house concert-type venue, with no sign, just look for the address. There are no advance tickets - first-come first-served. Doors open at 7:30 and (we hope) it will be crowded! People bring snacks and drinks to share (if you like), and wine is available for purchase. Let's make it a party!

It's Official: 24 is Returning to FOX

Yahoo
AICN

It appears that they'll keep the "realtime" format but skip hours - 24 hours in 12 episodes. I think most 24 fans would be willing to see the format go. Why don't they reinvent the show as a normal one-hour drama? Some more "traditional" action/spy dramas have been successful, Strike Back being the most recent example.

Only one summer season is in the works so far. Will the soul patch, Tony Almeida return once again in the future, if this reprise is successful? I don't think they should bring Chloe back, except perhaps in a brief cameo. When the series ended, Jack was on the run again, and I wouldn't mind seeing him in hiding again, rather than starting off with him back in the good graces of the U.S. government.

Rethinking State Sovereignty

Hidden Power Grab Stops Communities From Deciding Their Own Futures | On the Commons

Aren't such "power grabs" a natural consequence of state sovereignty? One may disagree with it, but this conception has been present since the beginning. What is needed is to rewrite the state constitution, either partially so that "home rule" is recognized, or more thoroughly.

Deti:

Agree with Furious Ferret. Most men just aren’t very attractive. They don’t look attractive or act/behave attractive. It used to be 50 or 60 years ago that a lawyer with beachfront property would have no trouble attracting a woman. Those days are over. He has to have something else — good looks, great personality, Game.

SD is right too: when you’re in your 20s and working on getting a law degree and you’re young and trying to establish a practice, you don’t have time to work on game or make yourself attractive as a husband. It used to be that young women were trained (or their dads helped them) to find men with potential, and they married early to those men. Women don’t do that anymore for a number of reasons; They want to date and have sex with who they want. Women have their own money and jobs and places and took control over mate selection from fathers and authority figures. The churches as institutions ceded control to individual women in the interest of “progress” and “compassion” and “fairness”. Divorce laws make it much, much easier for women to leave a marriage in which her only reason for wanting to end the marriage is “unhappiness” or “we’ve grown apart”. Because “irreconcilable differences/irretrievable breakdown” is really just lawyerspeak for “I don’t wanna be married anymore to him/her”.

Now, you’re unattractive and don’t get noticed because at 21 there’s not all that much that distinguishes you. You have no money, no job and no place of your own. Worse, you have no confidence because no one taught you how to “stride through the world without apology or excuse” because you have inherent worth as a man. You have no dominance or dominant personality because you have no authority over anything. You can’t make any decisions on your own at work; you have to ask for permission to wipe your own ass.

Your own church is against you: You’re told constantly you need to be kinder, gentler, more in touch with your feelings and emotions. You’re told nothing about what really attracts women. You’re browbeaten every other Sunday about how wonderful and caring women are and how boorish, crude and terrible you and your dad are. Then you’re told you’re going to hell if you don’t marry a nice girl from your church to avoid being “unequally yoked”. Then you’re told to “man up and marry the slut!”

The Tuttles with AJ Lee and special guest Brittany Haas - Beaumont Rag

The Tuttles with AJ Lee and special guest Brittany Haas - Beaumont Rag


The band will be performing in Mountain View this coming Saturday. You can hear some tracks from their new album on the latest episode of Bluegrass Signal.

HoffPo: Why the Copts Matter in Egypt by James Cowan

The Coptic Church matters because it is the West's last link with an earlier form of Christianity, and with a tradition of eremitical life that has all but disappeared from the modern world. It matters also because it reminds us of what Egypt means to us as a repository of all that the West holds dear in terms of thought, culture and the civilizing process itself. The Copts are descendents of the original Egyptians, and share their grave and stable approach to governance and belief. Furthermore, they continue to act as a restraining influence upon the passionate and often disruptive forces that are currently abroad in the streets of Cairo today.

Divine Liturgy in Beijing

From last weekend: Divine service on the holy day of Christ's Radiant Resurrection

Related:
Patriarch Kirill visits China
Patriarch Kirill pays historical visit to China
Russian Patriarch Conducts Service in Beijing

Sample April Verch's Newest Album

Bluegrass Today

NYT Profile of Esther Gokhale

The Posture Guru of Silicon Valley

An Argument for Monarchy

Exalted Hierarchy by John Maelstrom

The monarch would be elected and not inherit his office from his father; this would be more in accordance with distributive justice.

More on Gregorian Chant as the People's Music

Music scholar says chant is for everyone, not just elite by Carl Bunderson

Background Causes for Uhmerican Social Atomism

Westward Expansion: How the West was Won? by Bruce Frohnen

On Brad’s more important point, the problem of western expansion, I’d like to simply encourage him in further beating up on Thomas Jefferson–always a good thing, and particularly appropriate in this instance. It probably was inevitable that Americans would settle the bulk of habitable North America. From their beginnings, Americans have been a restless people perhaps too enamored of adventure and material self-betterment. Our national character is not perfect, but it is a thing we must recognize. However, that this expansion was made far more harmful to America and Americans as well as the peoples who “got in our way,” is beyond question. Old fashioned greed, being a part of our fallen nature, is to be expected, but was made far worse by a combination of racism and power. When our thug-in-chief at the time, Andrew Jackson, decided that peaceful, law-abiding Cherokee, living in European-style settlements, were to be removed with deadly force because their land was too valuable to let them keep, we saw the worst in America come forth. Most westward expansion was far more morally ambiguous than this, with blame and praise earned on both sides, but expansion was almost always made worse by a progressive drive on the part of the government.

Related:
The global land grab: The new enclosures by Liz Alden Wily (Resilience)

Greenhorns

An older film...


website

Related:
Economy of the Tao: Wendell Berry & Economic Health by Ralph E. Ancil

Another on Archbishop Gomez

Is the Rule of Law Immoral? Ask Archbishop José Gomez! by Christopher Manion

Pride and Prejudice: Having a Ball

Jane Austen: Strictly Ballroom
Parmesan ice cream, rouge for Mr Darcy and chamber pots galore - what experts discovered when they tried to recreate the Pride And Prejudice ball for television



Related:
Tea at Trianon: The Allure of Regency Fashion

Something about Cape Breton:
How to look - and dance - like a local at a Cape Breton ceilidh