How many Thracians does it take to change a light bulb???

This is the most popular search for this blog at the moment. My apologies to those across the globe who consider themselves Thracians. If you're from the Bulgarian region, I love your folk music, honestly.

Nevertheless, anyone have any answers??? Anyone???

Actually, a lot of people arrive here by searching for Shakespeare, specifically the "holy palmers" bit from Romeo & Juliet. But everyone searches differently, so the questions about Thracians and lightbulb wins out. Seriously, if anyone knows the punchline (all two of you that read this thing), by all means, share.

You may also notice that I've begun to label the posts. I may stop soon, since many of categories are becoming like the Latin ablative case.

How did we become a community of reasonable men?

An absolutely brilliant article in The Weekly Standard about the real implications of Pope Benedict XVI's Regensburg speech. Since I can't copy it all, a few paragraphs:

Modern reason, to be sure, cannot prove scientifically that a community of reasonable men is ethically superior to a community governed by violent men. But a critique of modern reason from within must recognize that a community of reasonable men is a necessary precondition of the very existence of modern reason. He who wills to preserve and maintain the achievements of modern reason must also will to live in a community made up of reasonable men who abstain from the use of violence to enforce their own values and ideas. Such a community is the a priori ethical foundation of modern reason. Thus, modern reason, despite its claim that it can give no scientific advice about ethics and religion, must recognize that its own existence and survival demand both an ethical postulate and a religious postulate. The ethical postulate is: Do whatever is possible to create a community of reasonable men who abstain from violence, and who prefer to use reason. The religious postulate is: If you are given a choice between religions, always prefer the religion that is most conducive to creating a community of reasonable men, even if you don't believe in it yourself.

Modern reason cannot hope to prove these postulates to be scientifically true; but it must recognize that a refusal to adopt and act on these postulates will threaten the very survival of modern reason itself. That is the point of Ratzinger's warning that "the West has long been endangered by [its] aversion to the questions which underlie its rationality, and can only suffer great harm thereby." Because it is ultimately a community of reasonable men that underlies the rationality of the West, modern reason is risking suicide by not squarely confronting the question: How did such a community of reasonable men come into being in the first place? By what miracle did men turn from brute force and decide to reason with one another?

It is important to stress that Ratzinger is not repudiating the critical examination of reason that was initiated by Kant. Instead, he is urging us to examine the cultural and historical conditions that made the emergence of modern reason possible. Modern reason required a preexisting community of reasonable men before it could emerge in the West; modern reason, therefore, could not create the cultural and historical condition that made its own existence possible. But in this case, modern reason must ask itself: What created the communities of reasonable men that eventually made modern reason possible?

It deserves to read in full, if only to get us to consider those questions about where we've come from. The whole idea seems strange, but our modern education system is so focused on the latest fad in criticism that we take for granted everything that went into making this clunky miracle that is Western civilization.

Meanwhile, the Pope seems to be on the move in regard to Islam: true religious freedom. Via Amy Welborn:

But Benedict XVI said more, in a sense going beyond Regensburg. For many Muslims, there is a taboo word that is never said: reciprocity. Exploiting to their advantage the Western ideology of multi-culturalism, they affirm that each culture should be judged according to its traditions.

Therefore they think it is only right that Muslims can build mosques and seek converts in the West, consistent with the Western principle of religious freedom, as it is only right that in Saudi Arabia, for instance, Christians cannot build churches, and in great parts of the Muslim world, cannot seek converts, because Islamic culture does not allow that.

Relativism today allows Muslims to maintain that there are no universal human rights that can be imposed on everyone regardless of the local context. That is why it is normal that religious freedom protects Muslims in Rome but not Christians in Pakistan.

And this is what gave the Pope an opportunity to make his countermove.

Responding implicitly to those who have accused him of being more hardline on Islam than John Paul II, he cited his predecessor who, in a "memorable" speech in 1985 in Casablanca, reminded Muslims present, including the King of Morocco, that ther are universal rights, that religious freedom is not limited to freedom of worship but includes missionary activity and conversion, and that dialog requires 'reciprocity in all areas, especially where it concerns fundamental freedoms, and most particularly, religious freedom."

How audacious! This is why the man keeps inching up on my list of most admired people every time I have to fill out a job questionnaire.

Lastly, in this post that has become a bit of a Pope-a-thon, an observation in a defense of the Pope from the Left by Kirsten Powers with whom I disagree much of the time but respect:

It’s a curious world where liberals decline to focus condemnation on a violent reaction perpetrated in the name of a religious ideology (Islam) that jails women for being raped or declares it legal for women to be murdered in the streets by angry male relatives. Even stranger to side against a religious ideology (Catholicism) that has vigorously opposed the Iraq war, torture, the mistreatment of detainees, and the death penalty.

Indeed.

Guess who???

"He is what he is—a half-grown-up, but canny chameleon, blessed with considerable skills at the impromptu rant and instant repartee, with a sharp mind and little real knowledge that ensure he has a veneer of impressive knowledge about an inch thick."

Click here and find out. It brings me back to my junior high and high school days when scandal was a daily occurrence. My last post from a couple weeks ago was about how things haven't changed all that much over the centuries, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that little has changed in the last decade.

9/11 Thoughts from 1494

Wann man alleyn sich zamen haldt
Truw / frid / vnd lieb sich bruchen důt
Ich hoff zů gott / es werd als gůt /
Ir sindt regyerer doch der land
Wachen / vnd důnt von üch all schand
Das man üch nit dem schiffman glich
Der vff dem mer flißt schloffes sich
So er das vngewitter sicht /
Oder eym hund der bœllet nicht /
Oder eym wæchter der nit wacht
Vnd vff syn hůtt hatt gantz keyn acht
Stont vff / vnd wachen von dem troum
Worlich / die axt stat an dem boum
Ach gott gib vnsern hœubtern jn
Das sie sůchen die ere dyn
Vnd nit yeder syn nutz alleyn...
Ich mane all stædt der gantzen welt
Was würde / vnd tyttel die sint gezœlt
Das sie nit důnt / als die schifflüt
Die vneynß sint / vnd hant eyn stritt
Wann sie sint mitten vff dem mer
Inn wynd / vnd vngewitter ser
Vnd ee sie werden eyns der fůr
So nymbt die Galee eyn gruntrůr /
Wer oren hab / der merck vnd hœr
Das schifflin schwancket vff dem mer
Wann Christus yetz nit selber wacht
Es ist bald worden vmb vns nacht
Dar vmb ir die noch üwerm stadt
Dar zů gott vsserwelet hatt
Das ir sœnt vornan an die spytz
Nit lont / das es an uch ersitz
Důnt was üch zymbt noch üwerm grad
Do mit nit grœsser werd der schad
Vnd gantz abnem die Sunn / vnd mon
Das houbt / vnd glyder vndergon /
Es loßt sich eben sœrglich an
Leb ich / jch man noch manchen dran
Vnd wer nit an myn wort gedenck
Die narren kappen / ich jm schenck

-Sebastian Brant, Das Narrenschiff XCIX

*If they would only stick together

and exercise Truth, Peace, and Love,

I hope to God, it would then be good!

You are the rulers of the lands,

Watch and earn not disgrace

So that you are not compared to the boatman

Upon whom sleep creeps as he sails

While the storm is in sight;

Or to the dog that doesn't growl;

Or the watcher who doesn't watch

And to his Entrusted pays no attention.

Stand up! Awake from your dream!

Indeed, the axe is in the tree!

Oh God, may our leaders

Desire your honor

And not what they alone need!

...I warn the peoples of the whole world,

How your grandeur also bespeaks,

That they not be like boatmen

Who disagree and argue

While in the middle of the sea

During strong wind and tempest.

And who, before they agree to the journey,

Run their ship hard aground.

Whoever has ears, notice and hear:

The boat is tottering on the sea!

If Christ is not now watching himself,

It will soon be Night around us.

Therefore, you, who for once because of your position,

Have been chosen by God's Hand

That you should stand at the Summit,

Take care that ignominy sits not on you!

Do what befits your status,

So that the harm will not be greater

And the sun and moon lose not their shine

And Head and Limbs do not founder:

It appears to be truly worrying!

So live I - I warn still many about it,

And whoever does not wish to think on my word,

To him I wish to send the Fool's hood.

*My quick and rough translation.

Oh, du schönes Deutschland

Only in Germany would they commemorate the Pope's visit with a special beer.

Some "Low" Culture

Click at your own risk: The Gallery of Hair Tragedy

"Die unheimliche Heimat": Home Edition

So, for the few of you who actually read this blog, you probably already know that I've moved back to Chicago from DC. Tonight I decided to take a jog/walk around my parent's town on the North Shore around 10:30 PM and it was one of the creepiest experiences I've had in a long time.

Back in DC, since it's a city and all, everything's light and bright and there are people walking all over the place, especially in Georgetown. But here it was dark and desolate. It was fine walking on the main streets, but once you got onto side streets there was practically nothing: occasionally a street light maybe a car or two and almost no houselights on anywhere. It's a beautiful town during the day, but the houses somehow seem menacing in the dark.

The wind and clouded moon added to the atmosphere and it only got worse as I walked east towards the lake and heard this muffled roaring sound - the waves crashing against the shore. But being several blocks away, staring into pitch black lots with really only the outlines of trees and maybe the outline of house being visible, it was somewhat unsettling, even though I knew exactly what the noise was. I almost ran over a possum in the street last night a few blocks away from my house, so the presence of unseen animals also lurked in my mind. The only person I encountered was a girl (or woman?) covered in a quilt, dragging it on the rough, soon-to-be-paved street as she walked in the darkness - it was particularly gothic in quality.

In the end, though, all of this was motivation for more jogging and less walking, and I decided that it says a lot about my hometown that it requires so little lighting for the safety of, since I've taken up this German/romantic theme, I guess you would call them "villagers". I also realized that I could never truly appreciate the German desire for "Waldeinsamkeit" if I couldn't handle "Vororteinsamkeit". It was funny, though: what disturbed me most about the girl walking down the street was not that it was a girl walking in the darkness, or a girl covered in a quilt walking down the street, but that she was dragging the quilt on the dusty grooved pavement.

Making Shakespeare "Accessible"

Romeo & Juliet Act I, Scene 5:

ROMEO If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

JULIET Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.

ROMEO Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?

JULIET Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.

ROMEO O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;
They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.

JULIET Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.

ROMEO Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take.
Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged.

From a reworking by Coordination Group Publications of the UK:

Girl: What are you thinking about?
Boy: Oh, just moons and spoons, in June.
Girl: Wow. Give us a snog then.

So quotes Martin Samuel in today's London Times, lamenting the fact that everyone seems to forget about how making things like Shakespeare accessible by dumbing it down no good whatsoever:

Go to the CGP chatroom and find a thousand satisfied customers. One thought the books “helpfull”. Another was “espacially pleased” (maybe he was in a very big classroom). A young girl felt encouraged because “my weekest subject would have to be biology” (wow, is she in for a shock). “The system recommended in the books works very well if you want to learn something thouroughly,” announced another student. And juxtaposed with these innocent revelations were endorsements from teachers. A school in Leyland, a college in Havant, a deputy head writing in London. Not one noticed that certain correspondents appeared unable to spell their names (unless Gema and Johny really were born one consonant short of a load). Nobody associated dumbing down with growing up dumb.
[...]

Instead of attempting to engage the class in the work of a genius who brought such richness to our language, the entry level for the modern student is now crass and unsophisticated. Instead of trying to shake future generations out of complacency, their ignorance and lack of interest is presumed. We no longer aspire to education but to maintenance. We babysit, really, until X Factor begins. We depict Shakespeare as boring and obscure, then wonder why teenagers produce exam papers full of gibberish and misunderstanding.[Italics mine]

I have slightly more hope for us in the U.S. This past weekend I was fortunate enough to attend a really great production of Pericles, Prince of Tyre. The audience contained a lot of kids, too, many of whom were captivated by the rather silly, melodramatic convoluted but thoroughly entertaining story and very good acting. For those of you unfamiliar with the play, it's seems like fairly typical Jacobean theatre (Shakespeare probably wrote only the last three Acts and you can tell where the words of Shakespeare start because the language shift is so pronounced). Anyway, I sat there in that full outdoor amphitheatre in Rock Creek Park with lightning flashing in the distance amazed at how many people showed up on a Friday night to watch a rather obscure play of Willam Shakespeare, even if it had been free.

A couple extra points if you can ID the artwork.

Listening to....Monteverdi's Vespro della Beata Vergine

The Child is Father of the Man: University Edition

...I quote Wordsworth literally, let's say superficially. Students in Britain are protesting. Ah, student protests...they hearken back to the good old days of the 60s right? Um, no, since these protesters are protesting the old protesters to give them something so basic like grades.

After lecturers' unions rejected a proposed national 13.1 per cent pay rise over three years, around 100 students marched round the University of Kent's Canterbury campus chanting: "Give us our marks."

Emma Powell, president of the students' union, urged the lecturers to "grow up and get back to the table". "We don't want to be used as leverage any more," she added. "We do support the Association of University Teachers and their demands for better pay, but we just want our marks."

I can't imagine that comment went over well with the lofty lecturers, but it's wonderful to see some evidence that my generation has a lot more sense that my parents'.

The Telegraph comes up with an interesting theory though on those 60s student protesters:

"Perhaps there was method in their youthful madness, and they actually sought to abolish written exams in the unsettling knowledge that they might otherwise, one day, have to mark them."