In a fascinating interview, Canadian journalist and Monocle editor-in-chief Tyler Brûlé talks with Lady Yvonne Cochrane, “doyenne of the Christian East”, discussing Beirut past, Beirut present, and Beirut future.

Update: She is actually Yvonne, Lady Cochrane Sursock, not Lady Yvonne Cochrane as Monocle styles her. Hat tip to Mr. Bond.

Congratulations to that most-honoured son of the Empire State, Mr. Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson MP, more commonly known as Boris, on his election to the mayoralty of Greater London. Mr. Johnson was born on these sacred shores some forty-four years ago on a pleasant June day. Boris has politics in the blood as his father Stanley is a former Conservative MEP, but let us hope he does not take after his great-grandfather, Ali Kemal Bey, who made enough unfortunate decisions during his brief tenure as interior minister of the Ottoman Empire that he was knicked from the barber shop of the rather-smart Tokatlian Hotel in Constantinople and lynched shortly thereafter.

Strangely enough, this is not exactly the closest connection New York and London have ever had. Sir Gilbert Heathcote, 1st Baronet was Lord Mayor of London in 1710 while his brother Caleb Heathcote was Mayor of the City of New York, exhibiting how interconnected our transatlantic British world was in those days. Caleb Heathcote was also Lord of the Manor of Scarsdale, which is just five minutes north of here on the train. Created in 1703, Scarsdale was the last manor granted in the entire British Empire. There were about a dozen manorial lordships here in New York, bringing the proud heritage of feudalism to the New World. The Manor of Gardiner’s Island survives to this day as the only manor in America in which the land is still entirely owned by the descendants.

The bulk of manorial privileges (incorporating the pre-existing patroonships from the olden Dutch days) were, alas, abolished in the 1840s, with the final holdouts taken care of in some legislation of 1911, but the Lord of the Manor of Pelham was presented with a fatted calf each St. John’s Day from the City Council of New Rochelle (honoring the Huguenots’ agreement purchasing the land from the Pells) well into the twentieth century.

The Heathcote name survives, in Derbyshire I believe, but not in America. Caleb Heathcote married the daughter of Col. William Smith, Chief Justice of the Province of New York, but had only daughters.

(more…)

Millions of tax dollars taken from hard-working Americans are going to subsidise one of the wealthiest school districts in the country

The Bronxville School (as it is called, since all grades from kindergarten to 12th are in the same building) ostensibly has a number of things going for it. It has a rather splendid collegiate gothic building in an excellent setting in one of the handsomest villages in all of the Empire State. Its school district is a mere square-mile, meaning most students can walk to school and it doesn’t even have a bus system. It has a private foundation funded independently by parents and alumni to support the school. What more could a public school possibly need?

Well, according to the geniuses down in Washington, D.C., $5.4 million in federal grants. The school, you see, is built on a site which frequently floods. Our main street in Bronxville is called Pondfield Road for a reason: the field with the pond is the open space where the school now stands. It’s been flooding for decades and so floods should come as no surprise. The nor’easter that blew through town a year ago flooded the school severely, closing it for over a week. The flooding was particularly bad during the last nor’easter because the school had spent a great deal of money (privately-raised, not from the public purse) to replace its natural football field with a lower-maintenance fake turf alternative. They did this instead of saving the money for, oh, say, one of those floods that happens every so often.

The money has been secured from the Federal Emergency Management Agency by our congresswoman, Nita Lowey (D). “When a natural disaster occurs, the federal government has a responsibility to help communities recover,” said Lowey, who neglected to provide any legal or moral backing for such an untruthful and baseless claim.

The school district of one of the wealthiest communities in the country is filching off the hard-working people of America in order to clean up the mess that is a direct result of its own poor spending decisions and inability to plan properly. Is there no shame?

A vignette from the Holy Father’s recent youth rally in Yonkers:

From For God, For Country, and For Yale, via Benedicite, Pater reverende.

‘Rethinking Russia’, by Andrew Cusack, insidecatholic.com, 20 March 2008.

U.S.-backed Terrorists Complete Their Takeover of Serbian Province

ANOTHER STRIKE AGAINST Christendom’s fragile frontiers: the assembly of the UN-administered Serbian province of Kosovo has unilaterally and illegally declared independence. The United States government, which is bound by its own law to deny recognition to the putative country, nonetheless swiftly extended official recognition to the Kosovar assembly’s declaration. The U.S., which claims to currently be fighting a “Global War on Terror”, has backed the Albanian Muslim UÇK terror group that has run Kosovo for nearly a decade now, and continually encouraged it because Washington views any defeat for the Serbs as by extension a defeat for a Russians; and in Washington’s point-of-view, no matter how irrelevant it is to the actual safety and well-being of we Americans, any defeat for the Russians is a victory for Washington — or “the United States”, as the clique of insipid upper-middle-class bureaucrats supported by the taxes of hard-working Americans likes to style its rule. (Naturally, a complete inversion of this attitude — in which any defeat for America is regarded as a victory for Russia — now reigns in Moscow. After a decade of Washington kicking Mother Russia while she was down, the Ruskies finally took the hint and so we once more have nuclear missiles aimed at our shores.) (more…)

BELGRADE, 18 February 2008 – Their Royal Highnesses Crown Prince Alexander II and Crown Princess Katherine attended this afternoon at St. Sava Temple a public prayer for the salvation of the Serbian people in Kosovo and Metohija.

On behalf of His Holiness Patriarch Pavle of the Serbian Orthodox Church, the public prayer was led by His Eminence Archbishop Amfilohije of Cetinje and Metropolitan of Montenegro and Littoral, with the Vicar of His Holiness the Patriarch, His Grace Bishop of Hvostno Atanasije, priests and deacons from Belgrade churches. The performance of the Mokranjac Choir, in the presence of thousands of citizens who came to pray for the well-being for Kosovo’s Serbs and for Kosovo and Metohija, the heart and soul of Serbia, to remain in Serbia.

Many bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church were present at the public prayer, as well as various officials: HE Mr. Slobodan Samardzic, Minister for Kosovo and Metohija, HE Mr. Radomir Naumov, Minister of Religion, HE Archbishop Eugenio Sbarbaro, Apostolic Nuncio, and others.

After the Holy Liturgy and the Holy Oration, His Eminence Metropolitan Amfilohije and His Royal Highness Crown Prince Alexander addressed the present.

In his speech, the Crown Prince emphasized:

“We are here today in the great Saint Sava Temple. In disbelief and horror. United in pain at a time of great tragedy for our people. I am deeply hurt and shocked. What has happened is a big injustice. What was thrust on our Serbian people is very painful and illegal.

“My wife and I visited Kosovo on Saturday. It was very emotional and sad seeing our dear people. His Grace Bishop Artemije of Raska and Prizren led the prayers in Saint Dimitri Church in Kosovska Mitrovica.

“I stand, as Karadjordjevic, with all my heart by our people in Kosovo and by our Serbian Orthodox Church.

“It is very important that we remain united. Our actions must be peaceful, dignified, diplomatic and legal. We all pray to dear God for negations to continue and that a solution and compromise will be found. Therefore I appeal again for unity and responsibility of all our authorities. Violence or destruction of property will only damage our efforts. Therefore there must not be any violence – this is not Christian, it is not courageous, it is not in our tradition.

“May the Good Lord answer our prayers for the wellbeing of the Serbian people and all others!

“May Almighty God give our Serbia and our people strength and wisdom!”

Source: The Public Relations Office of HRH Crown Prince Alexander II

Link: Catholics for Ron Paul

Our Armed Forces Support Ron Paul With Their Checkbooks

THE RECENT REPORT from the Federal Election Commission on second-quarter donations to presidential candidates contained an interesting piece of information. Observers extrapolated those donors who listed the branches of the military as their employer to see who our fighting men (and women) were backing in the presidential election. Who came first in military donors? None other than our own Dr. Ron Paul, the Air Force veteran who is determined to end the empire and save the republic. This didn’t surprise me, but it was a welcome reassurance that good old-fashioned common sense still prevails amongst the brave souls in our armed forces. (more…)

Above, the scene outside as Ron Paul heads in to Stephen Colbert’s faux news show and below, the interview itself.

On the Daily Show:

Interestingly, Ron Paul remains on top for Technorati tags, tracking what people are talking about on blogs, even beating Paris Hilton at the height of her media kerfuffle.

What can one say about Ron Paul? This man is clearly the dream candidate for the presidency. A doctor and Air Force veteran with years of experience in congress (with a record to be proud of), Ron Paul tells the simple, honest truth and applies common sense to politics. Who knew, until Paul told us, that if we returned to year-2000 spending levels, we could eliminate the federal income tax entirely. Entirely. Imagine that! Paul is the only Republican candidate willing to tell it like it is rather than spew meaningless piously ideological bits of nonsense to please the Republican establishment. I almost wish I was a Republican so that I could have the satisfaction of voting for him in the primary.

Naturally, the media have done their utmost to ignore Dr. Paul or pidgeon-hole him as irrelevant but the word’s been getting out anyhow. He’s even managed to turn up as a topic of discussion on ABC’s ‘The View’, flagship television program of the bored suburban housewife.

(more…)

Die Burgemeester van Kaapstad

AND SO, Helen Zille, the Mayor of Cape Town, has been elected Leader of the Opposition in South Africa, a somewhat curious choice to head the country’s (liberal) Democratic Alliance against the current government (the ANC alliance of racial nationalists, the Communist Party, and the trade union confederation) as she is not actually a member of parliament and has stated that she has no intention of seeking election to that body. If only she would bring a little more reserve to the council chamber, a virtue she is sadly lacking (as evidenced in pictures above and below).

Ms. Zille has a reputation as a bit of a go-get-em mayor, and something of a pragmatist, which is welcome, as any efforts that chip away at the rule of the noxious African National Congress are wholeheartedly welcome. And she’d have to try hard to be any worse in her new job than her noxious predecessor, ‘Tony’ Leon. While we would probably vote (depending on geography) for the Inkhata Freedom Party or the Vryheidsfront, we wish Ms. Zille luck as Leader of the Opposition.

WAS I THE only one south of the border who was glued to the computer screen watching CBC TV’s streaming online coverage of the Quebec elections? The results of the vote for the provincial parliament proved surprisingly exciting, perhaps even dramatic. The star of the evening was the stunning success of Mario Dumont’s Action Democratique du Quebec, breaking out of their small strongholds and winning seats across the entire province. They even made inroads in the leftist bastion of Montreal. While they did not win any seats on the island of Montreal, the came second in a number of ridings (as constituencies are known in Canada), and took a number of seats in the Montreal suburbs. But perhaps I should give a little background to what’s going on. (more…)

BEING, AS WE are, in the midst of the presidential campaign pre-season, the press have been exploring the various candidates for the highest office in the land. It is a revolting parade of the sordid, the inane, the insane, the monomaniacal, and the self-obsessed. Needless to say, all of the candidates for both parties are thoroughly reprehensible in one way or another. The exception is Ron Paul, currently serving in the House of Representatives, and currently the only conservative (in any real sense) who has thrown his hat into the ring (or “formed an exploratory committee”, as it is officially termed). Unfortunately (?), Paul has principles, and has stuck to them, so we can immediately disregard his chances for the Republican nomination he seeks. (When he fails to get the GOP nomination, he really ought to run as an independent, ideally with Jim Webb for vice-president. Then the warmongers will vote GOP, the baby-killers for the Dems, and the sane for Paul/Webb).

Nonetheless, it gets one thinking. What would one desire in a president? What policies would we want him to execute? Here are our humble suggestions, in no particular order:

• A prompt withdrawal from Iraq. This is too common sensical to be worth explicating.
• End NATO now. The Soviet Union has been gone for over a decade. End Europe’s gravy train so they can grow up and defend themselves. Phase out foreign military aid, while maintaining strong informal links with Canada, as well as the U.K., Australia, and New Zealand.
• Appoint constitutionalist judges. The Constitution says ‘X’ but radical judges say ‘Y’.
• Abolish the Departments of Homeland Security, Education, and Housing & Urban Development. The federal government has no constitutional power to interfere in education, housing, and urban development. As for “homeland security”, isn’t that what the Department of Defense is for? It’d probably be worthwhile to merge a few of the remaining departments.
• Balance the budget. Again, common sense.
• Abolish income tax. Income tax is wicked. It must be abolished, and if an alternative tax is necessary, then it should be a value added tax (VAT).
• Enforce immigration law. Rampant, uncontrolled immigration is an assault on our safety and security, as well as a grave threat to the earning power of American workers.

Above all: obey the Constitution. (Or at least be honest and get rid of it).

But really, this is not a political blog. If you want the goods, head over to Eunomia, where Daniel Larison really dishes out the good stuff. Mr. Larison is to be crisply saluted for not only undergoing the suffering entailed by paying attention to politics, but for going even further by cutting through the spin, the propaganda, and the nonsense like a hot knife through butter.

The Permanent Revolution in Modern Britain

ONE OF THE CURIOUS things about folks in Britain today is that they are not too sure about where they live. And often, when they are sure, they’re not entirely correct. I have a friend from Abingdon in England and for ages she told me that she was from Abingdon in Oxfordshire. Imagine my surprise to discover that Abingdon is not only in Berkshire, but it’s traditionally the county town of Berkshire! The trouble originates in the reforms of local government which have ensured perpetual confusion amongst the populace, and have been pretty much ongoing for the past forty years — an example of permanent revolution that would make Fidel Castro envious.

The counties of England were created quite shortly after the beginning of time. The ancient sages debated voiciferously whether the Author of Creation initiated them on the eighth or the ninth day. (Curiously, the Venerable Bede is not known to have taken either position). They remained completely and utterly unchanged until the Victorians (a cohort quite bent on the idea of civic improvement) had a fiddle with them in the 1880s. From then, there were only periodic adjustment until the 1960s, when the forces of cultural revolution (the monotony monitors, as my old Latin teacher called them) demanded change in every quarter. The counties of England, sadly, did not escape their Sauronic all-seing eye.

Lancashire, in better days.

The real problem which arose was that the traditional counties were, thankfully, never abolished, but that administrative units were created which often shared the same name as an historic county, but with different boundaries. Despite the fact that the county didn’t change, the movement of cities, towns, villages, hamlets, barns, and rabbit warrens between various administrative units brought much confusion as to whether a given location which was in one particular place or another. Thus the people of the previously self-governing Bootle in Lancashire found themselves merged into the metropolitan district of Sefton, which itself became part of the metropolitan ‘county’ of ‘Merseyside’. Meanwhile, the southern part of Gloucestershire and the northern part of Somerset were merged into a new ‘county’ created ex nihilo and baptised with the name of ‘Avon’. So a town could be in real Somerset but administrative Avon. All a bit maddening and confusing. (more…)

The brilliant Mr. Peter Hitchens ruminates on the old Russian bear, and relays to us this account of the state of Britain today from the point of view of a Russian journalist:

I STAND IN AWE of Nigel Farage. He is the oratorical master of the European Parliament, which, of course, doesn’t count for much since about as much attention is paid to the European Parliament as was to the Reichstag in Nazi Germany. This is despite the fact that the majority of laws passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom are not actually initiated by British MPs, but rather rubber-stamped from Brussels on high.

If you’re asking yourself “Who is this fellow?”, then I should tell you that Farage is the somewhat-hokey leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party, the party which should get the votes of all visitors of this site. These days, one should be a Tory every day of the year except Election Day. The next general election is especially important as it must be proved to the bigwigs in the Conservative Party that Europe matters. Labour will likely win the next election anyhow (it’s even possible for the Tories to have 10% more of the popular vote but still come out with fewer seats than Labour), and the more seats that the Tories lose because just enough people voted UKIP instead of Conservative will hopefully turn the party round. (more…)

Or, What £40,000 Gets You in Today’s World

A

MONG THE MANY changes which the Rt. Hon. David Cameron MP has wrought in his ten months as leader of the Conservatives one of the most public is the change of the party’s emblem. The flaming torch is out and the solid oak is in, at a cost of £40,000 to Conservative Central Office (according to the Times). There are three slightly different designs of the tree for the UK-wide, Scottish, and Welsh parties. Previously, the national party used the ‘flaming torch of liberty’ logo while the Scottish party used a blue lion rampant and Wales had its rather comely red-white-and-blue dragon with fire pouring forth from its mouth. The former logo was the ‘flaming torch of liberty’, which only entered into usage in the 1980’s under Mrs. Thatcher. In its place, we find instead an oak tree with healthy greenery on its limbs and a trunk made out in the traditional Tory blue. (more…)

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