With a 60.5% turnout, here are the results of the elections for the House of Commons:

The Bloc Québécois had the advantage of a very catchy election theme.

I must admit I rather have a soft spot for Québec, probably due to my general francophilia. Quebec is a nation that doesn’t live up to potential and I mean this in a very different way than the Bloc Québécois probably think…

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Thanks to our Hollandic foundation, Saint Nicholas is the patron saint of New York. The Saint Nicholas Center has a great website telling you all about good Saint Nick, including this page with tips for celebrating the Saint from none other than the great Joanna Bogle.

Joanna is a brilliant woman who I had a great conversation with after her talk ‘Does the Catholic Church Oppress Women?’ at Canmore during Martinmas term. Mrs. Bogle (whose other half is Jamie Bogle, another UK activist who has visited St Andrews) is a no-nonsense public speaker as well as a brilliant journalist covering issues relating to ethics, conception-to-natural-death, the Church, and women, her most interesting work being on culture. I hope to purchase her Book of Feasts and Seasons sometime soon.

His feast, December 6, is also the birthday of Miss Sofie von Hauch, good friend and Scandinavian femme fatale of polyphony who will be forever remembered for bringing Latin back into our parish’s liturgy at university.

A fascinating article demonstrates how the Democrats have shot themselves in the foot over the issue of abortion. Definitely worth a read. Published in the American Spectator, available here at OpinionJournal.

I bought a copy of France-Amerique, the international edition of Le Figaro, tonight and decided that I needed to brush up on la belle langue. I trekked up to the attic to find my old French textbook, and stumbled upon an indulgence granted by the Blessed Pope Pius XII and an Apostolic Blessing from Pope Paul VI. How random! Nonetheless, I must get on with France-Amerique.

Almighty God, Lord of Lords and King of Kings, in Your infinite fatherly love you are keeping watch over the fate of men and nations. You called Your servant, Emperor and King Charles of the House of Austria, to serve as a father to his peoples in difficult times and to promote peace with all his strength. By sacrificing his life, he sealed his willingness to fulfill Your holy will.

Grant us the grace, with his intercession, to follow his example and serve the true cause of peace, which we find in the faithful fulfillment of Your holy will. We ask this through him, Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.

This afternoon I found this photo of Thornton-Donovan back in the day in the School’s archives. The structural changes to the Main Building since then are slight but noticeable.

Via In Pectore.

As In Pectore points out, His Grace is only 53 and the coadjutor bishop of Orlando. Why do they send the good bishops to diocese that, to a New Yorker, are seemingly arcane? I can’t wait for the day we hear of Cardinal Bruskewitz, Archbishop of New York and Cardinal Chaput, Archbishop of Los Angeles. Perchance to dream. Instead they stick these folks in Nebraska and Colorado (respectively) and give New York the mindless bureaucract/enemy-of-Christ Egan whilst Los Angeles has Mahoney, the demon cardinal.

Today I came upon this old article from the Christian Science Monitor.

Translation: Seminary studies used to be about Christianity. Now its about kayaking. With offerings like Wilderness Spirituality, is anyone surprised by a 25 percent drop in enrollment?

These seminaries have been diluting Christianity for a generation now, and when they see they have no more students left, their ingenious solution is to dilute Christianity further. Further, and faster.

The greatest university in the world finally gets recognition in American news for granting Bob Dylan an honorary doctorate, of all things. It’s only the second honorary degree he’s accepted, the other being from Princeton (one of those newfangled schools here in the New World). Nonetheless, there’s Sir Ken capping the new Dr. Dylan and Jim Douglas, one of the nicest people I’ve met, about to give him his doctoral hood. Huzzah for St Andrews. And huzzah for Dr. Bob Dylan, even though I don’t like his music. Here is the AP’s take on events.

Have I ever mentioned how much I enjoy the New York Sun? It’s wonderful to come home to the Great Metropolis and read a broadsheet that doesn’t come off as sanctimonious and elitist (ahem, überliberal New York Times). I’m beginning to think the Sun may even be better than the Daily Telegraph. After all, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen any articles about ‘Posh and Becks’ in the New York Sun.

Like the Mitre, I dare say, it has a layout that is both contemporary and traditional. (There’s also a definite 1920’s aura to the Sun). And most unlike the Times, it is succint, taking up only twenty-two pages to the Times‘s one-hundred and sixteen. Mind you, I’d be the last to complain if it expanded in size. In fact, it could do to grow to perhaps thirty-something pages. But as our old headmaster used to say, to write, you have to be pompous. You have to believe others ought to be reading what you write. And at one-hundred-sixteen pages daily that means the New York Times is one of the most pompous newspapers around. No shocker there.

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The Armenian Seminary of St. Nersess has begun work on a massive extension which will greatly enhance their facilities. New Rochelle’s St. Nersess, in Stratton Road near Iona Prep, is the only seminary of the Armenian Apostolic Church (not in communion with Rome) that’s outside Armenia. The building it currently is house in was formerly owned by William Randolph Hearst. He never actually lived in it himself, but lent it out to friends he knew would be staying in New York. A new library and chapel will be built to serve the growing institution.

Ever explorers, fellow Thorntonian Lucas de Soto and I decided to check it out one day. The people there were incredibly inviting, and quite interesting as well. We just popped in without them expecting us and we got a short tour, as well as a conversation with who we were late told is “the world’s foremost expert on Armenian history.” We were also offered the chance to take Armenian language classes on the cheap, an idea which I found intriguing at the time. I still wouldn’t mind having a detailed knowledge of Armenian, but I’m crap with languages.

For more on St. Nersess, check out their website here.

Well today was graduation day at good ole Thornton-Donovan. A chance to see some faces old and new. I was very pleased that the Rev. Benoit van Lesberghe‘s heavenly opening Invocation ended with “we make this prayer in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” [See Touchstone’s Mere Comments on public prayer, and the necessity for Christians’ prayers to be unmistakably Christian in nature.]

Mr. George Herbert Peabody Brokaw, a real great guy from an old Huguenot family, was the valedictorian, and Miss Kelly Ann Webster, whom I was formerly engaged to (jokingly), was salutatorian. George, Kelly, and I were in Ecclesiastical Architecture together during my final year. That was a great class during which much mischief was had by all. It was held in the La Rochelle room, which has a beautiful yellow fleur-de-lys pattern on blue carpet.

Mr. Cove turned up in his old Morgan, pink trousers, purple sunglasses, and handlebar moustache. I believe he currently has possession of a certain flask gifted to me that I have yet to receive. I am currently fostering plans for its speedy reposession.

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THE SCENE: The Headmaster’s Office. The walls are glass-covered bookshelves with oak trim with intricate plasterwork on the ceiling. The room is full of books, paintings, artifacts from around the world. (e.g.: A carved jade chess set from Yucatan). The HEADMASTER is a grey-haired gentleman heading towards the evening of his life, seated in a comfortable chair behind his large desk. MR. CUSACK is seated in one of two seats on the other side of the desk.

HEADMASTER: Heh, watch this.

He picks up the phone, dials 4-1-1, then hits the Speakerphone function.

OPERATOR NO. 1: (aloud) City and state please?

HEADMASTER: Uh, correct!

OPERATOR NO. 1: One moment, please.

(Pause)

OPERATOR NO. 2: What listing?

HEADMASTER: Hello, I was wondering if you can help me. I’m looking for my socks.

OPERATOR NO. 2: I’m sorry, Sir?

HEADMASTER: My socks, do you have any idea where my socks are?

OPERATOR NO. 2: Sir, I have no idea where your socks are.

HEADMASTER: Well, I really need to find them.

OPERATOR NO. 2: Sir, you do realise you’re paying for this call?

HEADMASTER: Not as much as I paid for those socks! I’d really like to know where they are!

OPERATOR NO. 2: Sir, I can’t help you find your socks. You’re paying for this call.

HEADMASTER: You should be grateful!

(Click. OPERATOR NO. 2 has disconnected.)

HEADMASTER, with shocked expression, turns to MR. CUSACK and points to phone in hand: She’s not grateful.

MR. CUSACK nods approvingly.

The entire movie in thirty seconds, re-enacted by bunnies: hilarity!

Those in the United States who think the Soviet Union is on the verge of economic and social collapse [are] wishful thinkers who are only kidding themselves.

Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., the famous historian, said these words two years into the Reagan presidency, reflecting the general attitude of the liberal establishment in America.

One year later, in March of 1983, Reagan made his famous speech in which he called a spade a spade. The Soviet Union was “an evil empire” and “the focus of evil in the modern world.”

Roger Kimball notes Anthony Lewis of the New York Times described the speech varyingly as “primitive — the only word for it,” “simplistic,” “sectarian,” “terribly dangerous.” Anthony Lewis sitting in the comfort of Manhattan could afford to make such judgements.

Natan Sharansky couldn’t:

In 1983, I was confined to an eight-by-ten-foot prison cell on the border of Siberia. My Soviet jailers gave me the privilege of reading the latest copy of Pravda. Splashed across the front page was a condemnation of President Ronald Reagan for having the temerity to call the Soviet Union an “evil empire.” Tapping on walls and talking through toilets, word of Reagan’s “provocation” quickly spread throughout the prison. We dissidents were ecstatic. Finally, the leader of the free world had spoken the truth – a truth that burned inside the heart of each and every one of us.

And it was only a few years later that the whole impressive edifice of communism came crashing down.

Lech Walesa:

When talking about Ronald Reagan, I have to be personal. We in Poland took him so personally. Why? Because we owe him our liberty. This can’t be said often enough by people who lived under oppression for half a century, until communism fell in 1989.

In one of those truly bizarre things that you really have to see to believe, multimillionaire “Reverend” Sun Myung Moon was crowned messiah on March 13, 2004 in the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, DC. Attending the ceremony were apparently seventy-one congressmen, including two senators, dozens of ambassadors to the United States, and various other figures from the religious and political establishments of the nation. Rev. Moon runs the ‘Unification Church’ cult, as well as owning the faux conservative Washington Times and a number of other media outlets worldwide. (more…)

Whilst sipping a pint of de Koninck at about 1:00am in Croxley’s Beer Garden down on Avenue B in Manhattan, who did I run into but La Tuna de Derecho de Barçelona!!! Thorntonians will remember them as the group of law students from Barcelona that provided us with an evening of song and sangria in the Library way back in the fall of 2000. The funny costume, the guitars, the lively Catalonian folk tunes, it’s all apparently part of the academic tradition of the universities over in Spain.

Anyhow, it was quite interesting talking to a drunken Spaniard in a perhaps seventeenth-century academic costume at such an hour. I’m pretty sure I managed to use all my nifty Spanish phrases, e.g. “Dondé esta la biblioteca?”, “Me gusto los crustaceos”, and “Mis pantalones estan en fuego.”

It’s a tune we all know and love. And who can deny getting a bit sentimental during the scene in Casablanca when they sing it? But as all good traditionalists know, the lyrics to le Marseillaise are downright vulgar, republican, and revolutionary. So here we have reproduced the thoroughly-acceptable lyrics used in the die-hard Catholic region of la Vendée, and supposedly still sung today:

Perhaps this could be a marching tune for the annual Paris-Chartres pilgrimage?

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