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Thursday 25 April 2013

Ear Feast Two


Famous Coloratura soprano singers in the order of appearance:
Mado Robin (lyric coloratura, soprano acuto sfogato)
Mady Mesplé (lyric coloratura)
Lily Pons (lyric coloratura)
Silvia Voinea (lyric coloratura)
Anna Moffo (lyric coloratura)
Beverly Sills (lyric coloratura)
Luciana Serra (lyric coloratura)
Edita Gruberova (dramatic coloratura)
Joan Sutherland (dramatic coloratura)
June Anderson (dramatic coloratura)
Mariella Devia (dramatic coloratura)
Ruth Ann Swenson (lyric coloratura)
Natalie Dessay (lyric coloratura)
Elisabeth Vidal (lyric coloratura)
Diana Damrau (lyric and dramtic coloratura)
Désirée Rancatore (lyric coloratura)
Jessica Pratt (dramatic coloratura)
Maria Aleida Rodriguez (lyric coloratura)

And, of course, the first one I heard on black and white television as a child, Maria Callas

Sometimes, a girl just has to go wild-Diane Damrau


View from the Bridge



This is the new "Iron Bridge", not the one in Little Dorrit, my favourite book. A complete replica of the old one was made for the 2008 television series.


When I was there, the rule was in loco parentis-What has happened at Notre Dame?

http://www.cardinalnewmansociety.org/CatholicEducationDaily/DetailsPage/tabid/102/ArticleID/2182/Survey-Reveals-Widespread-Pornography-Use-at-Notre-Dame.aspx

Porn and in loco parentis?

Happy St. Mark Day


He is writing to the tribes of Israel. The lion can represent his strong, fast words (16 chapters) or his writing to the Sons of Judah, the tribe of the King. Of course, Christ is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah Himself.

Today, I am grateful for my wonderful instructors in college who taught me Scripture. I had superb teachers and God bless them all.


Kyrie Eleison

http://www.lifenews.com/2013/04/24/jury-will-consider-hundreds-of-counts-against-abortionist-gosnell/

Why are we so stupid about this? Why are we in denial about this?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/escapee-from-psychiatric-hospital-slashes-rabbi-son-with-box-cutter-outside-paris-synagogue/2013/04/23/493d8252-ac23-11e2-9493-2ff3bf26c4b4_story.html

First They Voted for This and Now They Want to Opt Out

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/04/obamacare-exemption-lawmakers-aides-90610.html

A Re-Post on Blessed Karl


Because one of my readers reminded that Blessed Karl was a military man, I am reposting something from earlier this year.

Monday, 14 January 2013

Blessed Karl, pray for us...

“The husband is the head of the wife just in so far as he is to her what Christ is to the Church - read on - and give his life for her (Eph. V, 25). This headship, then, is most fully embodied not in the husband we should all wish to be but in him whose marriage is most like a crucifixion; whose wife receives most and gives least, is most unworthy of him, is - in her own mere nature - lease lovable. For the Church has not beauty but what the Bride-groom gives her; he does not find, but makes her, lovely. The chrism of this terrible coronation is to be seen not in the joys of any man's marriage but in its sorrows, in the sickness and sufferings of a good wife or the faults of a bad one, in his unwearying (never paraded) care or his inexhaustible forgiveness: forgiveness, not acquiescence. As Christ sees in the flawed, proud, fanatical or lukewarm Church on earth that Bride who will one day be without spot or wrinkle, and labours to produce the latter, so the husband whose headship is Christ-like (and he is allowed no other sort) never despairs.” The Four Loves

A man must assume headship. He must be the authority over his children. We need such leaders more than ever in these days of chaos.

I have written a lot on the male person on this blog.

I grew up with three brothers and a dad.

I have a son.

I was a bit of a tom-boy.

But, I am continually praying for my single, female friends to find real men.

Less and less am I convinced this will happen.

Too many men have abdicated their roles as leaders in society, in the Church, in their families.

They think that being pals with the kids is being a dad.

They think that women can protect themselves.

They think that they do not have to take responsibility for the lives of family members

Blessed Karl of Austria is one of the patrons of this blog. He gave his life for his country.

He was a man. He will be canonized for his holiness, sacrifice and manliness.

His example is one of Christ on the Cross.



He faced the evils of socialism and apostasy in his country. Some men turn a blind eye to such.

They think that they can ignore apostasy, deceit and pride in their friends.

Some even ignore sin in their friends and families.

C.S. Lewis had a few things to say on the character of men, friendship and love. The first I chose is above. Blessed Karl taught by example, but a few words seem apropos.

"Surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of a man he is? Surely what pops out before the man has time to put on a disguise is the truth? If there are rats in a cellar you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly. But the suddenness does not create the rats: it only prevents them from hiding. In the same way the suddenness of the provocation does not make me an ill-tempered man; it only shows me what an ill-tempered man I am. The rats are always there in the cellar, but if you go in shouting and noisily they will have taken cover before you switch on the light." 
Mere Christianity

“There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.” The Four Loves

“We make men without chests and expect from them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.” The Abolition of Man



Countries which have a long history of matriarchy have more problems with real masculinity than patriarchies. This might surprise some readers. Matriarchies insist on the women taking control of the household entirely. Matriarchies keep the boys at home too long, turning them into "momma boys". Matriarchies take the power away from men. We in the West find such paradigms funny, but these are deadly for raising boys.

Men must lead not only by example, but becoming strong Catholic men, obedient to Holy Church, but obvious in the prayer life of the family. The kids should see dad praying the rosary, going to Holy Communion, getting to Adoration and regular Confession. Otherwise, words are useless. A weak and pliable dad is a bad example. He will be accountable to God for his over-lenience or misplaced tolerance.

This leads to the lack of discipline of the children and sometimes, the lack of protection for the women. Men need to lead by example and in humility, but not weakness.

To lead is to be able to suffer and to love without counting the cost.  Women friends, do not settle for less....

This is brilliant-liberals against America and revisionist history


From an article from Newsmax-a large snippet....

....only part of a longer article 


....Aaronson is an acolyte of the raving, America-hating, deceased “revisionist historian” Howard Zinn.

Zinn was a liberal elite darling. Zinn claimed his eyes were opened to the racist, imperialist horror that is America by writer I.F. Stone, who later was confirmed to be a KGB covert influence agent when the Iron Curtain fell and certain Soviet documents became public.

Aaronson, who retired in 2007, used to brag to anyone who would listen that he had taught Zinn’s textbook to CLRS students since the beginning of his career in 1981.

.......

If you don’t know Zinn’s handiwork, here’s a sample of his writing in The Progressive. Zinn’s contempt for America and its citizens fairly drips from each word: “The deeply ingrained belief — no, not from birth but from the educational system and from our culture in general that the United States is an especially virtuous nation makes us especially vulnerable to government deception. It starts early, in the first grade, when we are compelled to ‘pledge allegiance’ (before we even know what that means), forced to proclaim that we are a nation with ‘liberty and justice for all.’

“And then come the countless ceremonies, whether at the ballpark or elsewhere, where we are expected to stand and bow our heads during the singing of the ‘Star Spangled Banner,’ announcing that we are ‘the land of the free and the home of the brave.’ There is also the unofficial national anthem ‘God Bless America,’ and you are looked on with suspicion if you ask why we would expect God to single out this one nation — just 5 percent of the world’s population — for his or her blessing.”

Aaronson boasted that angry parents called him to say their kids were talking about “that bastard Christopher Columbus … and his genocide, and how we have to question our history books and re-examine the evidence.” The CRLS teacher continued with relish, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

......

After the Marathon massacre, the media quoted the Zinn-acolyte Aaronson in its stories about the terrorist mass murderer.

Aaronson was “utterly shocked by the news.” The media reported that, “Aaronson taught social studies at Cambridge Rindge and Latin, where Dzhokhar was a student.”
The media reports continued, “Dzhokhar also lives just about three houses down from Aaronson’s condo, so they would talk from time to time after Dzhokhar's graduation in 2011.”

......

ABC, CBS, USA Today, The New York Times, and CNN all carried versions of Aaronson’s comments about “how normal” his neighbor and student Dzhokhar was.
None of the media provided any other background on Aaronson and his brainwashing of students at CRLS with Zinn’s history.

......

As for the older brother Tamerlan’s “education,” it appears that he was a follower of a Lebanese-Australian extremist cleric whose messages of hatred for Western culture were prominent on Tamerlan’s YouTube playlists, and he may well have been taught terrorist techniques during a recent trip abroad.


Kent Clizbe is a former CIA counterterrorism operations officer. His two books, “Willing Accomplices” and “Obliterating Exceptionalism,” detail how political correctness became part of American culture. His website is KentClizbe.com
© 2013 Newsmax. 



Thanks to all the commentators; swamps, shoes and an owl


I have had many fantastic comments on this blog. Thanks to all those polite and rational people who have contributed in the combox.

My pilgrimage to Walsingham has been interesting and diverse. Now, I am moving on.

I say goodbye to the owl in the garden. My only disappointment has been the incredibly cold weather, except for about two days.

Goodbye to Norfolk. I did get to the sea one day. The air is distinctly better than in Walsingham, which has a heavy atmosphere.


One local person told me today that when the Catholic shrine was at its height, the Carmelites had many houses in East Anglia and helped the pilgrims come by sea from other places in the area. These Carmelites were hermits, or anchorites, and boated pilgrims from certain gathering places.

In addition, there was, before the destruction of the shrine, a shoe "factory", that is, a great many shoemakers in Walsingham, as the pilgrims would leave their shoes at the Slipper Chapel and walk barefoot to the priory. However, they would need to buy new shoes.

One of those shoemaking families were still working in the village into the 20th century. Imagine, a business lasting 500-600 years.

The shoe business was so profitable, that barges of shoes were shipped to other parts of East Anglia and elsewhere for sale. I have bought new shoes in this area as well for my new adventure. Sadly, I am leaving in the rain....