It may occur to the gentle reader to ask why a congenital rake like me should want to observe the minutiae of religious practices long vanished from most civilized places and enlightened minds. One possible answer lies in the psychology of Christian belief.
Speaking in the broadest generalities, a healthy and thriving religious civilization does not have to reassure itself by burning temples and overthrowing altars. The atrocious vandalisms and massacres perpetrated by bands of Isis thugs in the name of Islam tells us something about Islam, and the same can be said for Christian sects whose members have broken stained glass windows and destroyed images of Christ, his Mother, and the saints. They have moral and spiritual screw lose, not just individually but collectively.
On Thursday, I took a break from slogging on this blog–does that make me a Slogger Trogger?– and we drove to Heraclea Minoa, a colony projected (6th century?) by the colonial city of Selinus as a frontier defense against the encroaching forces of the more powerful Akragas (Agrigento). In time, Akragas got the upper hand and took the town, only to lose it in the disastrous struggle with Carthage at the end of the Fifth Century. Sikeliot Greeks, led by the tyrants of Syracuse and Akragas, had defeated Carthage decisively in 480, but their incessant conflicts among themselves, aggravated by...
Last night, we celebrated my partial recovery by drinking a bottle of Zibibbo. The grape, otherwise known as the Muscat of Alexandria, is most often made into a sweet wine or even a passito. Passiti, which go back to the ancient Mediterranean, are wines made from grapes left to dry on the vine. Columella says the Carthaginian version was called Passum, a term that may be preserved in the Italian.
A young lady – well, not that young, actually, let’s say about my age – has reviewed my new book in The Spectator, a British literary and political weekly once known for its conservative sympathies. Suffice it to say that when I wrote for it in the 80’s and 90’s the magazine was under the editorship of a man who was later appointed the authorized biographer of Margaret Thatcher. But that’s all water under the bridge now. The reviewer, named Sara Wheeler, is a “travel writer.” In the West, where anybody can travel as easily and as fast as she...
On Saturday, I finally was able to fall asleep in the afternoon, but my slumbers were cut short by the expected arrival of Il nostro amico Russo, who had driven down with my landlord, a lawyer in Palermo, who returns to his home periodically. I was not the most entertaining of hosts, though I did bring out a good bottle of grappa di amarone, barricata. I had managed to drink a glass or two the previous Thursday and now had to watch as Navrozov ruthlessly swilled glass after glass. I begrudged him not my liquor, but I did resent his enjoyment.
Baby, it’s dumb outside! The revolutionaries are blaming Trump for the divisions they have been creating for over 50 years.
Ecumenism for Orphans –Carl Hildebrand “Ut unum sint…” Zivania—the “dry traditional aperitif” of Cyprus. My American vulgarity wonders how it would go with Coca-Cola. Not as good as Jack and Coke, but I won’t let that get in the way. Some months ago, I lived off-and-on in Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus, whose current partial occupation by the Turks since 1974 is only the latest chapter in that Levantine island’s storied history of invasion and seizure. Cyprus’ strategic position, jabbing its spindly north-eastern finger of land into the armpit of Asia Minor, made the occupation of Aphrodite’s famed birth-place a...
The French riots must have more behind them than a revolt against gas tax increases to fund climate programs. As we’re seeing in the revolts of common people against the rancid ruling elites throughout Europe, and with Trump’s election, large chunks of the population now longer want to go along with seeing their livelihoods reduced and their families destroyed to make the elites feel good about their absurd abstractions, such as Gaia worship. Yet the Main Sleaze Media continue to pump out Fake News and nothing but Fake News. A good example is the climate “reporting” in the Los Angeles...
This is perhaps my sixth trip to Sicily. I say “perhaps,” because I’m not very good about dates. It’s not that my math skills are particularly deficient. As a schoolboy, I always tested higher in math than in verbal skills. It’s not even my almost complete lack of interest in mathematics, which has kept me blissfully ignorant of most higher math. My real deficiency is something I regard as a virtue: an instinctive refusal to apply numbers to the phenomena of human life. Aristotle did not make the mistake that has been made, over and over, by philosophers since Descartes...
