Tea at Trianon

Illness in the Temple

2026-03-11T02:00:00.001-04:00

Both of Marie-Antoinette's children fell sick while in the Temple prison. From Vive la Reine:

Madame Royale treated by the physician Brunier on January 24th, 1793 by Jean-Baptiste Mallet Grasse (1759-1835). [source: Artcurial, via Auction.fr]

This painting depicts the physician who was allowed to come into the Temple and treat Madame Royale, who became ill in the days following her father’s execution.

But nothing was able to calm the anguish of my mother–we could make no hope of any sort enter her heart; she was indifferent whether she lived or died. She looked at us sometimes with a pity that made us shudder. Happily, grief increased my illness, and that occupied her. My own doctor, Brunier, and the surgeon La Caze were brought, and they cured me in a month.

When a Nation Loses Its Moral Language

2026-03-11T01:00:00.001-04:00

From Unlicensed Punditry:

In nearly every nation surveyed, large majorities said their fellow citizens were good people. They might complain about politicians or corruption, but they still believed the average person around them was fundamentally decent.
Except in the United States.
In America, the survey found that a majority of respondents believed their fellow citizens were morally bad rather than morally good. The most common explanation offered is political polarization and there is certainly some truth to that explanation. Our politics have become increasingly hostile, and the language used to describe opponents often sounds less like disagreement and more like moral condemnation. Political arguments are increasingly framed as battles between good people and bad people, but the deeper problem may not be that Americans have suddenly become less moral than people in other countries. It may be something more basic: Americans increasingly disagree about what morality even means.
Words like “good” and “bad” sound simple, but they are not. Their meaning depends on the moral framework someone is using. For most of American history, that framework was broadly shared. Even people who were not personally religious lived within a culture shaped by religious assumptions about right and wrong. Ideas such as honesty, responsibility, loyalty, charity, and restraint formed a common vocabulary of morality.
Americans argued constantly about policy, but they were generally speaking the same moral language when they did so.
Over the past several decades, that shared framework has weakened. Religious affiliation has declined, church attendance has fallen, and the number of Americans who identify with no religious tradition has grown steadily. As those institutions faded, the common moral vocabulary that accompanied them faded as well.
In its place, several competing moral systems have taken root. (Read more.)

Affirmation of Joy

2026-03-11T00:00:00.001-04:00

From Word on Fire:

Such gentle beauty and light stand as a bulwark against final despair. Sam is in a bad spot, and it seems to him that all hope has gone. Nevertheless, he does not despair, “though here at journey’s end I lie / in darkness buried deep.” He thinks he has reached the bitter end of his journey, and he has been unable to save Frodo. Even so, the words that come unbidden to him affirm a power greater than the darkness and evil that surround him. There is something beyond the evil that oppresses and seeks mastery. “Beyond all towers strong and high, / beyond all mountains steep, / above all shadows rides the Sun / and Stars for ever dwell,” he says. The sun and stars are not held captive by the artifacts of instrumentalized reason, for they are beyond and so greater than all such products of war. Indeed, the sun and stars are “above all shadows” whatsoever, and untouched by them. For this reason, although Sam thinks he is going to die, he will not despair: “I will not say the Day is done, / nor bid the Stars farewell.”

Sam’s song affirms a primordial light and beauty that no shadow, no matter how powerful and complete it may seem, can touch. In this way, the sorrow and grief that seem so absolute are relativized against the backdrop of an ever-greater goodness and beauty. Even though it seems certain that he himself will perish, a final despair is not Sam’s decision to make. Miraculously, he does not perish, for Frodo hears him singing, and the two are reunited and able to escape the tower.

“Dover Beach” and “In Western Lands Beneath the Sun” offer two distinct ways to look upon the world. Arnold looks out upon the beauty of the world and concludes to its irrationality. Sam looks upon the darkness and shadows that surround him and sees beyond them a light and beauty untouched by any passing shadow. In this way, Sam Gamgee affirms what Arnold, in “Dover Beach,” denies. (Read more.)

Wanted: An Ideal American Childhood

2026-03-10T02:00:00.001-04:00

From Matriarch Goals:

This first generation of culture-rebel parents in the 70s-80s maintained a kind of libertarian philosophy of raising children. The main objective was getting kids out of the primary, popular culture. A rugged, denim-jumper individualism, if you will: Keep the children clear of corruption, and save their souls. For many devout Christians at that time, America’s embrace of abortion, contraception, homosexual lifestyles, and modern education curricula presented a five-alarm fire. They prioritized getting the hell away from it.
Courting the Village
Their children—my peers—grew up and tried to correct some of the downsides of their parents’ cultural rebellion: instead of isolation, they were more likely to seek out community and homeschool groups in order to mirror or even replace the popular culture they still rejected. What that first homeschooling generation learned through experience was that kids can’t really be raised without a larger culture—without a village. It doesn’t matter how much the parents try to provide a home culture, and it doesn’t matter how ideal the home life is.
There is a distinct and necessary third level between home and “the world.” That third place (heh) is the village or the group of families we raise our children in and among. That village is composed of other adults who are given nearly equal respect and deference as the child’s own parents. (Read more.)

Parliamentary Debate on Far-Left Violence

2026-03-10T01:00:00.001-04:00

From Hélène de Lauzun at The European Conservative:

The murder of the young nationalist activist Quentin Deranque in Lyon in February highlighted the presence of extreme left-wing violence in European societies—tolerated, if not encouraged, by some politicians and the media. The MEPs of the Patriots group nevertheless succeeded in forcing a debate in the European Parliament on the threat posed today by the far left in Europe.

The French delegation welcomed the adoption of the request to include a debate on “the rise of political violence attributable to far-left organisations in Europe” in the LIBE Committee (Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs). The adoption of the Patriots initiative, the result of an agreement reached between representatives of the various groups represented in the European Parliament, is a sign that some consensus is emerging on the need to address the issue. (Read more.)

The Physics of Imagination

2026-03-10T00:00:00.001-04:00

From Under the Peach Tree:

Science class in a classical school should teach a story - the human story. This is not only necessary, but I believe it is a moral imperative in a world in which the movies are becoming real: RoboCop and Hal are no longer science fiction.
A classical education should, at its heart, integrate the intellectual, moral, and spiritual, and in the sciences, we rarely see that accomplished well. Either the focus is devoid of theory and application, and leans so heavily on primary sources and their analysis, that students who may have a charism for the sciences find themselves at a disadvantage when trying to pursue the field after high school. Or, the subject matter is taught as a freestanding subject, somehow isolated from the others - and possibly even in opposition to the humanities. Those tend to be primarily focused on application. Many teachers have told me that the sciences, like mathematics, are ‘factual’ and aren’t really meant to be taught ‘classically.’ At a conference with other Catholic science teachers, many echoed that sentiment arguing that it is impossible to teach all that a higher level science class requires and add in any form of discussion. I have always taught the sciences as something that needs both an understanding of history, as well as an experiential aspect, and is incomplete without the ethical and spiritual. In fact, not teaching science ‘classically’ is partially to blame for our dystopian realities, and it does not take any more time to teach in this manner than it does a standard honors science class.
In fact, it may actually take less time, and produce better outcomes.
In science classes, teachers have the unique opportunity to help bridge the gaps by integrating a world often viewed as the antithesis of the spiritual world with the humanities, and asking students to wonder. St. John Newman wrote, “religion is here, and science there, and young men converse with science all day, and lodge with religion in the evening. …young men eat and drink and sleep in one place, and think in another: I want the same roof to contain both the intellectual and moral discipline.” How do we do that in the science class?
A classical education should develop students’ curiosity and help them articulate truths beautifully. Ultimately, education should shape and create a moral foundation. In our modern world, it is essential that highschool science teachers embrace this integration, so that students can articulate and advocate for a moral future in which the sciences will control ever more of our realities. We need nurses who can make ethical decisions, physicists who know where to draw the line on invading digital privacy, and an educated public capable of articulating an informed answer to AI, bots, and modern technological and medical advances. (Read more.)

The Royal Family at the Foundling Hospital, 1790

2026-03-09T02:00:00.001-04:00

Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette contributed a great deal throughout their reign to the care of orphans and foundlings. They patronized foundling hospitals, which the Queen often visited with her children. Above is a picture of an occasion in February, 1790, after their removal to Paris, when the king, the queen and their children toured such a facility, where the nuns cared for abandoned babies and little children. As is reported by Maxime de la Rocheterie, the young Dauphin, soon to be an orphan himself, was particularly drawn to the foundlings and gave all of his small savings to aid them.

(Pictures from L'Affaire Madame Royale)

What’s Going on in England?

2026-03-09T01:00:00.001-04:00

From Charles Coulombe:

Love her or hate her, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland retains a deep hold on the imaginations of those nations which have sprung from her — including our own, as witness the popularity of Downton Abbey. But, as we all know, both President Trump and his Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, Sarah Rogers, have been regularly criticising British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer for what they characterise as his attacks on free speech and tolerance for “groomer gangs.” So just what is going on?

Well, quite a bit, actually. But first — what are “groomer gangs?” These are packs of immigrant Pakistani men who in various ways inveigle underage native British girls — some as young as 11 — into prostitution. This erupted into public notice with a documentary and some trials in 2013; but it has been going on since the 1980s. From 2008 to 2013, Sir Keir was director of public prosecutions (DPP), thusly head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). This body conducts criminal prosecutions in England and Wales. It has been heavily alleged that he was “soft” on the groomers — warning them instead of prosecuting them. A great many police and local political figures have been caught up in the scandal — most of whom are themselves Pakistani or of Pakistani descent.

Now, there are a lot of connected issues bobbing around Britain right now. “Two-tier policing,” for example, where native Britons guilty of thoughtcrime online are prosecuted and imprisoned, but non-whites who rape, murder, pillage and/or burn are allowed to go free. Non-white protesters are protected; white ones — as in those who protested the July 29, 2024 mass stabbing at a Taylor Swift-themed yoga and dance workshop in Southport, perpetrated by the 17-year-old son of Rwandan immigrants — are harshly suppressed. The internet constantly puts out stories of immigrants attacking native, while the government thunders against racism and tries to throttle freedom of speech. Local council elections the Labour Party might lose are being postponed for various reasons. In a word, Sir Keir seems hell-bent on making 1984 a reality.

Of course, in some ways Sir Keir is simply following Tony Blair’s lead. As Blair began the campaign to push most of the hereditary peers out of the House of Lords, Sir Keir has expelled the last of them. Blair’s invention of a Supreme Court and vivisecting the office of Lord Chancellor had helped make Sir Keir’s pantomime totalitarianism possible. At this point then, the question might be asked — but what of the Tories (a.k.a., the Conservative Party)? (Read more.)

Atlantis: How Plato’s Story Corresponds to Real History

2026-03-09T00:00:00.001-04:00

From Greek Reporter:

Although most people around the world agree that the original Santorini hypothesis so far made the most compelling case where Plato’s Atlantis once was, unfortunately, there are two critical flaws with that theory, which have allowed critics over the years to maintain the story was just a myth.

The first problem is that the hypothesis entirely discards Plato’s given chronology of 9,600 BC. A more significant problem with the original theory is that the primary island of Atlantis, an island the size of Crete, one Plato said was supposed to be nine kilometers away from the circular island within an island setting, is not around the Santorini backdrop of 1,600 BC.
As is common knowledge, a genuine discovery requires that all elements of a physical description are present, and all are in the given order. In this case, if any of the clues given to us by Plato are missing, the elements are not arranged in the correct order, or the chronology does not coincide with Plato’s given chronology, then all is speculation.

The book ATLANTIS The Find of a Lifetime embarks on a 10,000-year journey that effectively reveals Atlantis’s submerged island and demonstrates how Plato’s 2400-year-old story corresponds to real history. (Read more.)

Louis XVI Gives a Marriage Dowry to 100 Poor French Girls

2026-03-08T03:00:00.001-04:00

From Nobility:

On February 9th, 1779 (in the narrative of Louise de Grandpré, to whom the study of Notre Dame has been a veritable passion), a large crowd pressed towards the cathedral; the ground was strewed with fresh grass and flowers and leaves; the pillars were decorated with many coloured banners. In the choir the vestments of the saints were displayed: the burning 36tapers lit up the interior with a dazzling brightness: the organ filled the church with joyful harmony, and the bells rang out with all their might. The whole court was present, the King himself assisting at the ceremony, and the galleries were full to overflowing of ladies of distinction in the gayest of dresses.
Then slowly, through the door of St. Anne, entered a hundred young girls dressed in white, covered with long veils and with orange blossom on their heads. These were the hundred poor girls whom Louis XVI. had dowered in memory of the birth of Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte of France, afterwards Duchess of Angoulême, and it was his wish to assist personally at their wedding and to seal their marriage licences with his sword, which was ornamented on the handle or pommel with the “fleur de lys”.
Through the door of the Virgin entered at the same time one hundred young men, having each a sprig of orange blossom in his button-hole. The two rows advanced together with measured steps, preceded by two Swiss, who struck the pavement heavily with their halberds. They advanced as far as the chancel rails, where each young man gave his hand to a young girl, his fiancée, and marched slowly before the King, bowing to him and receiving a bow in return. They were then married by the Archbishop in person. (Read more.)

The Donroe Doctrine: Break the Tyrant, Not the Country

2026-03-08T01:00:00.001-05:00

From Unlicensed Punditry:

For decades, American foreign policy was guided—at least informally—by what came to be known as the Powell Doctrine. Colin Powell summarized the concept with what became known as the “Pottery Barn Rule”: if you break it, you bought it. The idea was that if the United States toppled a regime or destabilized a country, we then inherited responsibility for rebuilding it. That assumption was the philosophical foundation for the long nation-building exercises in Iraq and Afghanistan, where American forces were expected not only to defeat hostile regimes but to rebuild political systems, civil institutions, and entire economies.
Donald Trump appears to have rejected that premise entirely.
Americans instinctively understand how unrealistic that idea is because we would never apply it to ordinary life. If a neighbor’s house catches fire and the flames are spreading toward your property, you grab a hose and help put the fire out. What you don’t do is assume responsibility for rebuilding the entire house, choosing the new furniture, and deciding how the family should live from that point forward. The Powell Doctrine effectively told the United States that every time we helped extinguish a dangerous fire abroad, we were obligated to become the contractor for rebuilding the whole neighborhood.
Uncharacteristically for Donald J. Trump, a significant part of what he did in Venezuela was understated and has largely gone unnoticed—I’m not sure that if something isn’t hyperbolized or gilded in gold, people can recognize a Trump plan—but may represent a quiet but profound shift in how American power is applied. Instead of launching a long occupation or attempting to remake the country’s political system, the United States simply removed the central figure responsible for the regime’s worst abuses and left the state structure largely intact. (Read more.)

The Three Tongues on the Cross and The Inheritance of Christianity

2026-03-08T00:03:00.000-05:00

From Jared Selim:

When Our Lord hung with outstretched arms upon the tormenting Cross of Golgotha, Pilate fixed a titulus above His Head. It declared before the world in the three great languages that resounded through Judea: “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.”
These languages were Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. In the scornful inscription of the Romans, they declared despite themselves what the Jews who delivered their Messiah to death would not: the true and universal Kingship of the Logos made flesh, Filius Dei—the Son of God. As St. Jerome said, “the voices and writings of all nations proclaim the passion and the resurrection of Christ. […] the Jews, the Greeks, and the Romans, [were] peoples which the Lord has dedicated to His faith by the title written on His cross.”1
If these three peoples represent all nations, then every Christian, by our baptism and life in Mother Catholic Church, enters into the Hebraic, Greek, and Roman expressions of Christ.2 The Messiah shines in the particular forms and manners of these nations.(Read more.)

Marie-Antoinette's Library at Versailles

2026-03-07T02:00:00.001-05:00

All of the Queen's books were bound in red Moroccan leather and stamped in gold with her coat-of-arms

From Les Carnets de Versailles [translated by Tea at Trianon]:

Several handwritten catalogs, written between 1781 and 1792, list the Queen's books: nearly 500 titles, for a set of around 1,800 volumes. We find on the shelves of Versailles all the great authors, Latin and Greek classics as well as French and foreign writers. The ancients...but also La Fontaine, Boileau, Corneille, Molière, Racine, Regnard, Crébillon, Destouches, Madame de Sévigné, Madame de La Fayette, Lesage rub shoulders with the contemporaries - Voltaire, Rousseau, Beaumarchais , Goldoni, Defoe, Mme Riccoboni, Fielding, Richardson…

Marie-Antoinette had a certain predilection for romantic literature, entertaining works, theater and music. It also has a large music library (scores and booklets) supplied by the Menus Plaisirs. The more austere books, less appreciated by the sovereign, are not overlooked: theology (Pascal, Bossuet, Fénelon, Bourdaloue, Massillon, Nicole), history (Mézeray, Montfaucon…), science (Buffon, Nollet, Duhamel du Monceau …) are present on the shelves. There are also large volumes of travel and archeology, illustrated with magnificent engravings....

Like many of the Château's collections, the books formerly stored in the Queen's library have been scattered. The shelves today hold a deposit from the National Library of France, composed of 18th century works, of royal origin, selected for their binding in red morocco. Some books with the arms of Queen Marie-Antoinette were nevertheless able to return to the site, in particular the two acquisitions made in 2019: an Office of the Virgin, printed in 1771 by Michel Lambert, and Les Lacunes de la philosophie, by François Louis d ' Escherny, published in 1783. (Read more.)

Faux bookshelf disguising a door panel

More on the Queen's library, HERE. Marie-Antoinette also had a library at Petit Trianon, HERE and HERE.

Dark Woke, Rage Rooms, and the Blinding Narcissism of Online Tribalism

2026-03-07T01:00:00.001-05:00

From Chronicles:

Why are white liberal women from affluent backgrounds willing to man the ramparts and put their lives on the line to protect illegal immigrants, some of whom are rapists and murderers, from deportation? There are many possible answers: a self-perceived need to oppose injustice, or to have a sense of agency, community, purpose, or even an antidote to loneliness. All are plausible explanations considering the average progressive’s mindset is like layers of onion skin. But I believe there is a simple answer.

Over the past decade, Gallup World Poll data show that women globally have become 6 percentage points angrier than men. Forget the gender wage gap—there’s now a gender rage gap. Thomas Sowell may have been right: not all disparities come from discrimination. Women are mad as hell, and they aren’t going to take it anymore. This surge in reported anger hasn’t gone unnoticed—in fact, it’s now being actively commodified through the growing popularity of “rage rooms.”

A rage room is a place for women to vent pent-up anger. When a middle-aged liberal woman is denied the chance to speak with a manager or is mansplained to, she can simply pay to smash items in a padded, soundproofed room. Just book a slot, grab a sledgehammer, and let off steam. It’s a commercialized catharsis that’s cheaper than therapy, or a divorce lawyer. Capitalism at its finest. (Read more.)

From The Capitalist:

The phenomenon of these deeply unhappy individuals is so commonly experienced in society that we have even given it a name: “The Karen.” And these Karens saw themselves in Spanberger who treated them as want to be treated: victims.
Virginia’s Karens are victims of Donald Trump who twice has denied them an equally miserable woman Presidency. They are victims of Elon Musk’s DOGE cuts to their government funded nonprofit which raises awareness about heart disease in lesbian snails. Victims of the “Republican shut down” which furloughed them from their Department of Whatever day job under the cruel moniker “non-essential personnel”. Victims of male Justices on the Supreme Court who threatened their sacred right to abortion. Victims of War Secretary Pete Hegseth who said they must train at the same physical standards as men. (Pete perhaps they hate the most because no man who looks like Pete winks at them anymore).
Winsome Sears did not coddle these women. The former Marine did not indulge their Karenocity, feed their Karenness, ignite their Karenisms.
Sears, the black immigrant Republican, does not see herself as a victim. Spanberger did, as all liberal women do, and they loved her for it.
For a Karen, elections are not about who is the better leader or which policies best serve society. No, elections are a rage-filled debate on The View, a self- empowering episode of Oprah, or a candle-lit bathtub and a well-worn copy of Fifty Shades of Grey.
Electoral politics are affirmation. They are therapy.
Think about it: The pointless “No Kings” protest last month was mostly comprised of white women in their 40’s, and that is very odd. This is not 1970’s, where women are called “toots” with their fanny’s smacked in smoke filled offices. These Karens are not Norma Rae demanding the right to unionize. Women have overcome legitimate trials, and triumphantly so. But that is not today’s Karen who almost certainly has experienced nothing comparable without an immediate HR action, lawsuit, or exposé in a print magazine.
Today’s 40-year old women have only known a red-carpet life in the majority with every effort of institutions and corporations catering to their needs. The majority of college and university students are women. The majority of post- graduate and doctoral students, medical school, law school students are women. Women out-earn men in the same professional field, a statistic that makes them apparently so unhappy, they have to invent the “pay gap” myth.
No Kings? If anything, the protest should be called “No Queens”. Women in America have it so good they can yell at a man for holding open a door but still demand they exit first in a fire. (Read more.)

A New Planet

2026-03-07T00:00:00.001-05:00

From Earth:

Enaiposha, that also goes by the identifier GJ 1214 b, was first placed in a category that normally describes small, gas-rich worlds. New observations, however, suggest that it is more like Venus but on a bigger scale.
Researchers propose calling it a super-venus because it appears to have a thick atmosphere composed of hydrogen, helium, water, methane and carbon dioxide.
This finding came from recent measurements that showed faint traces of molecules at key parts of the spectrum.
Sub-Neptune planets that are smaller than Neptune in size are the most common type of planet known to exist in the Milky Way, but they are absent from the solar system.
They have atmospheres that consist of a variety of gases and atmospheric spectroscopy is used to analyze what gases are present.
Enaiposha differs from a typical sub-neptune in that its upper layers are blanketed by haze and aerosols.
This makes it very difficult to analyze the atmosphere spectroscopically to establish which gases form the atmosphere on the exoplanet.
Venus also has clouds that block most views of its surface, but Enaiposha takes this phenomenon further. It is bigger, hotter, and enveloped by layers that make it especially hard to examine. (Read more.)

Hamnet (2025)

2026-03-06T02:00:00.001-05:00

From The Catholic Thing:

Hamnet begins with the meeting and mating of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway, called Agnes in the book and film, because her father’s will refers to her by that name. O’Farrell, who came across Richard Hathaway’s will, sees “Agnes” as a kind of revelation about the way, historically, the fame of fathers, sons, and husbands has subsumed female identities.

There’s truth in that, although probably not in this case. In O’Farrell’s novel, the playwright’s surname never appears. He’s just “Will.” So, in a fair exchange for “history’s” marginalization of Anne Hathaway, Farrell and Zhao place William Shakespeare in the margins of the book and the film. And, twee as I think that is, it doesn’t diminish the movie’s power. Besides, we know perfectly well who’s wooing Agnes.

Hamnet moves slowly through their courtship: a kind of midsummer-night’s-dream of wonder in what’s probably the Forest of Arden. Agnes is an almost pagan figure, gathering medicinal plants and cavorting with her falcon. Is she a witch? Will, his father being a glover, presents her with a hawking gauntlet. He tells her the story of the ill-fated love between Orpheus and Eurydice. Will and Agnes have sexual intercourse. They marry and have three children. By and by, Will leaves for London.

At the heart of Hamnet, of course, is the boy, Hamnet, the Shakespeares’ only son, born with his twin sister, Judith, in 1585. (Their oldest, Susanna, had come two years earlier.) The real Hamnet would die of bubonic plague at age 11, and is buried (as are his father and mother) at the Church of the Holy Trinity in Stratford-upon-Avon.

The loss of a child is devastating. It was even in the 16th century when infant and childhood deaths were commonplace. The film does not explicitly suggest that Will retreated to London out of grief, but it seems that way, especially because we are given no hint that this young, grieving father will dominate the literature of the English-speaking world as no one ever had, or has since.

Perhaps his success, his fortune, and his work don’t justify “abandonment.” But, perhaps, there was no abandonment.

After all, Agnes was no poor child. When they married, Will was 18, and she was 26. We don’t know when Shakespeare left Warwickshire for London, but it was certainly after the births of the twins and may have been after Hamnet’s death. Anne would then have been in her early to mid 30s. (Read more.)

Iran and the Vindication of Christopher Hitchens

2026-03-06T01:00:00.001-05:00

From Mark Judge at Hot Air:

In a brilliant essay in the collection A Hitch in Time, Hitchens defends Rushdie, making the point that the attack against the author was fought not just by Western liberals but by plenty of artists and writers in the Muslim world. In fact, Hitchens noted, many Western elites were showing cowardice in coming to Rushdie’s defense:
It’s been remarked before, by keener minds than my own, that almost all great moments in the history of censorship and free expression have turned on the question of blasphemy. There’s a question of proportion here, and I’m sure that Rushdie himself would blush and wriggle at the implied comparison with Socrates, Jesus Christ, Galileo, Luther, Spinoza and Tyndale. Still, a phrase keeps recurring to my mind. It comes, bizarrely, from Paul Newman in The Verdict, as he mutters anxiously outside the courtroom: “There are no other cases. This is the case.” By this he plainly means to convey, not that there are no other disputes or dramas or miscarriages of justice, but that this one has become the unavoidable one, or the defining one. The acid test. The test case. The crux. In our time, those of us who unavoidably missed the opportunity to discover where we might have stood on earlier occasions of sheep-goat separation have now been offered the chance in a rather direct fashion. Paradoxically, perhaps, it is the minds of certain “Oriental” scholars and dissidents which have been swifter to recognize this than many of their self-constrained “Western” counterparts.
Bingo. While Iranian women are dancing in the streets to celebrate their newfound freedom, American and European “intellectuals” are ambivalent - or worse, rooting for the mullahs. I want to emphasize that I am not arguing that you have to agree with war or have no questions about President Trump’s foreign policy. I’m saying that when it comes to free speech and artistic expression, conservatives and liberals have both fallen short.
Readers of Hot Air have accused me, with justification, of obsessively bringing up the Brett Kavanaugh nightmare that I was involved in, yet in re-reading Hitchens and witnessing the cowardice of those who said Salmon Rushdie “had it coming” - a sentiment Hitchens finds absolutely nauseating - I relived a nasty memory of conservative editors going silent when I was under fire in 2018 and no one was speaking up. Conservative author and editor Joseph Bottum was an exception: “The treatment of @markgjudge was awful,” he tweeted, “and the failure of those who published him to defend him was among the most despicable.” Yes, it was. (Read more.)

A Lost Medieval Stronghold

2026-03-06T00:00:00.001-05:00

From Heritage Daily:

In the heart of the Włodawa Forests, amid an expansive forest-marsh complex, archaeologists are uncovering the secrets of a remarkable early medieval stronghold. Located near the village of Kaplonosy Kolonia in Wyryki Commune, Włodawa County, the site—first identified in 2016 through remote sensing analysis—continues to reshape understanding of settlement patterns in eastern Poland. The discovery was made by G. Mączka of the Voivodeship Office for the Protection of Monuments in Lublin (WUOZ) during an aerial and LiDAR-based survey. Initial interpretations suggested a structure resembling a hillfort, concealed beneath dense woodland and wetlands.
A large-scale reconnaissance expedition in spring 2024 brought together archaeologists to conduct systematic surface surveys, environmental assessments, and preliminary conservation analysis. Their findings were published later that year in Zeszyty Muzealne, issued by the Włodawa Synagogue Complex Museum. Building on those results, the LWKZ commissioned further non-invasive and minimally invasive research in autumn 2025. The work was formally undertaken by the Lublin-based firm Gorgona Patrycja Piotrowska, alongside a broader interdisciplinary team that will continue investigations. (Read more.)

Banshees

2026-03-05T02:00:00.001-05:00

"The Banshee Appears"

The Irish people have a colorful folklore, rich with stories of creatures from the Otherworld. In spite of the obviously pagan origins, many legends have endured to modern times. One legend is that of the banshee (bean-sidhe), a spirit which is supposed to haunt certain Irish families when a member is about to die. According to Ireland's Eye:

The bean-sidhe (woman of the fairy) may be an ancestral spirit appointed to forewarn members of certain ancient Irish families of their time of death. According to tradition, the banshee can only cry for five major Irish families: the O'Neills, the O'Briens, the O'Connors, the O'Gradys and the Kavanaughs. Intermarriage has since extended this select list.

Here is a more detailed description from Irish Culture and Customs:

The Bean Sidhe or Banshee makes her appearance when someone in the household is about to die. She haunts only the families of the "high Milesian race" - those whose names have an "O", "Mac" or other prefix. One exception to this rule has been granted by virtue of the Irish poets who have given her to some of the Norman-Irish families - the FitzGerald's for example. In any event, she heralds the demise of only those who are of authentic noble stock and it is with great dread when her piercing "caoine" or keening is heard. In many respects, this mysterious creature resembles traditional Irish keeners or mourners of old; as with her mortal counterparts, those who have seen her describe her as drawing a comb through her hair, similar to tearing the hair out in anguish, which the ancient mourners used to do. Incidentally, or maybe not, while the Banshee is considered benign, she supposedly has a sister force who isn't; this force is called the Lianhan Sidhe and her sole purpose is to seek the love of mortal men. Their desire for her ultimately destroys them.

The banshee, according to legend, is usually heard at night, but sometimes in the morning, and at noon. An old Irish poem refers to the appearance of the Banshee in the morning:

Hast thou heard the Banshee at morn,
Passing by the silent lake,
Or walking the fields by the orchard?
Alas! that I do not rather behold
White garlands in the hall of my fathers.

There were a few banshee stories among some of my older relatives. (I suppose being descended from the Kavanaughs and the O'Neills as well as the O'Connors made them especially worthy of hauntings!) Irish lore is full of tales of the preternatural; the banshee is definitely one of the most interesting.

My Irish novel is HERE.

"I Came to the West Because I Wanted the West"

2026-03-05T01:00:00.002-05:00

From The European Conservative:

I am finishing a book titled The Triumph of the Normal. In it, I explain that the word “normal” is not ancient, like “justice” or “virtue.” It is a 19th-century term, born in the age of statistics, modern medicine, and scientific positivism.

The idea was to replace the old Western conception—inherited from the classical world and taken up by Christianity—according to which “is” and “ought” were united. In that tradition, stating that a house is on fire and stating that one should not commit arson are, fundamentally, objective statements about reality and the human good.

With modernity, that unity is broken. “Normal” sought to provide a moral framework without resorting to metaphysics or to Aristotle; it was enough to observe statistical patterns of human behavior to determine what is good for the human being.

However, when ordinary people speak of “a normal life,” they are intuitively recovering older moral categories: being able to practice a religion, form a family, live in community, participate in civic life, and carry out meaningful work. (Read more.)

The Infamous Lady Rochford

2026-03-05T00:00:00.002-05:00

From History...the Interesting Bits:

Jane Boleyn, Lady Rochford is generally regarded as one of the key witnesses if not the key witness in the court case against Anne Boleyn. Jane was married to Anne’s brother George Boleyn. As Anne’s sister-in-law and with her own husband, George Boleyn accused of having had an affair with his sister Anne, Jane’s betrayal is seen as a particular heinous crime. Jane is also accused to have been the source of this accusation of incest against her husband and her sister-in-law.

In an article on Jane’s father for example, James P. Carley declares ‘Morley’s daughter Jane, was principal witness against her husband, George Boleyn, Lord Rochford, at the time of his trial in 1536.’

However, most historians agree that the charges against Anne Boleyn, her brother, and the others accused were trumped up to rid Henry VIII of his wife. Eric Ives for example states, ‘Under analysis, the case presented by the Crown in May 1536 collapses’. If the outcome of the trial and the guilty verdicts were a forgone conclusion, surely it made absolutely no difference who had said or may have said what during or before the trials?

Why then did Jane Boleyn become the ‘infamous Lady Rochford‘?

Let me first introduce you to Jane Boleyn, née Parker.

Jane was the daughter of Henry Parker, Lord Morley, and his wife Alice St John. Alice was the daughter of Margaret Beaufort’s half-brother John St John. The match was almost certainly arranged by Margaret Beaufort in whose household Henry Parker had served from a young age. During this time Margaret Beaufort became his patroness. She supported him financially and looked after his wife Alice and their children when Henry was away. Margaret Beaufort was also a major influence on his religious beliefs. (Read more.)

Chivalry as a Way of Life

2026-03-04T02:00:00.001-05:00

From Crisis:

Chivalry, as we said, wasn’t only a martial code. It was a way of life. It was, as one scholar put it, the “framework for lay society” in the Middle Ages. The Middle Ages, meanwhile, were nothing more or less than the application of Christianity to the whole of society. The so-called Dark Ages nearly severed the former Roman Empire from its pagan roots. Every aspect of religious, political, economic, military, and cultural life was reorganized by the Church along Christian grounds; that was their only point of reference.

The Church was unfettered from control by emperors and dictators. Slavery was abolished. Every aspect of public and private life was ordered to the salvation of souls through the Faith.

I have written here before that the West is on its way to another Dark Age. Ours is no longer a Christian society, but a pagan one. Our liberal democracies are now succumbing to the same twin errors—decadence and gnosticism—that destroyed the Roman Empire. Within a few centuries, nothing of the old order will remain. We Christians will have to rebuild civilization from its ruins. It’s only natural, then, that we should look to the Middle Ages for guidance.

Rod Dreher has been thinking along these lines for years. His book The Benedict Option urged us to look to the example of another great Medieval saint, Benedict of Norcia, for inspiration on how to build strong “intentional communities”: bastions of Christendom, safe-havens for the faithful, which can withstand the terror that will inevitably follow when our own Empire collapses. I agree with him wholeheartedly.

Yet it won’t be enough to build intentional Christian communities. We must also build intentional Christian men. Those men must be capable of building those communities and, when the time comes, defending them against the barbarian hordes—winning new souls for God all the while. To this end, I propose that we also follow the example of Saint Francis of Assisi. Call it the Francis Option. (Read more.)

SS. Michael, Margaret and Catherine appear to St. Joan

Jeanne d'Arc

Iran's Golden Age

2026-03-04T01:00:00.001-05:00

From Alexander Muse:

The story of Iran is a story of civilizational brilliance undone. Persia, the land of Cyrus and Darius, stood for centuries as one of the great pillars of human advancement. Its engineers carved rivers through deserts. Its kings issued the first known declaration of human rights. Its physicians established the world’s first university hospital. And its philosophers gathered knowledge from Greece, India, and Babylon into an intellectual engine of progress. By the sixth century, Persia was not only a rival to Rome; it was in many respects its superior. Then came the year 651. Arab armies swept in. Islam took root. And the gears of this astonishing civilization began, slowly and then all at once, to grind to a halt.
Now, let us be clear. The Islamic conquest did not immediately obliterate Persia’s brilliance. For a few generations, Persian scholars thrived within the new Islamic order. But the transformation of Iran from a Zoroastrian, pluralistic, and innovative society into a rigidly Islamic theocracy laid the groundwork for long-term stagnation. Today, nearly 1,400 years later, that stagnation is measurable in everything from economic output to scientific discovery. And the men who just died in those airstrikes were its most ardent custodians.
Begin with the economic case. In 1977, on the eve of the Islamic Revolution, Iran’s per capita GDP stood at approximately $10,980 (in 2025-adjusted dollars). It was a modernizing economy. The Shah’s Iran, for all its flaws, was investing heavily in infrastructure, science, and education. Then, in 1979, came the Ayatollahs. The theocrats promised a return to purity, justice, and dignity. What followed was none of these. By 1990, per capita GDP had collapsed to $6,175. A decade later, it dropped further to $3,196. By 2025, after decades of sanctions and mismanagement, it had clawed back to roughly $5,000. In plain terms, the Iranian economy was cut nearly in half since the mullahs took power, and it has never returned to the heights it reached under secular governance. That is not a failure of the Persian people. It is a failure of a governing theology.
But the problem is not merely economic. It is civilizational. Ancient Persia gave the world qanats, yakhchals, algebraic precursors, windmills, and postal systems. It was a society that respected knowledge and rewarded inquiry. Under the Achaemenids, engineers invented subterranean aqueducts that could irrigate the desert. Under the Sasanians, physicians trained in Gundeshapur, the first known teaching hospital. Kings like Khosrow I welcomed Greek and Indian scholars fleeing persecution, building an empire that fused cultures rather than purged them. This was not incidental to Persian greatness. It was its engine. (Read more.)

The Unsettling Brain Impact of Screen Time in Kids

2026-03-04T00:00:00.012-05:00

From The Vigilant Fox:

Researchers scanned the brains of 60 preschool-aged children—and what they discovered about screens was “truly shocking.”
“Interactive screen time causes a LOSS of white matter in the brain.”
In simple terms, Prof. Mike Nagel calls it a measure of “BRAIN DAMAGE.”
What is white matter?
White matter is the part of the brain made up of insulated nerve fibers that help different areas of the brain communicate quickly and efficiently.
It acts like the brain’s wiring system, carrying signals from one region to another so thinking, movement, emotion, and learning can work smoothly.
“So if we’re seeing deficits in myelin production early in life, we’re probably seeing deficits in neural connectivity,” Prof. Nagel warns.
“The study shows the more screen time a child is exposed to, the greater the loss of white matter.”
But it’s not just loss of white matter we have to worry about. When you understand how screens rewire dopamine in developing brains, the story gets even darker. (Read more.)

Outsourcing our children. From Claremont Review of Books:

The culture quickly changed, however, with the arrival of a career-oriented feminist movement. Feminists successfully propagated the message that homemaking and childrearing were second-class endeavors, which prevented women from achieving the personal fulfillment and social status secured by participation in the paid work force. Our society, in particular the media and academia, wholeheartedly endorsed this feminist ideology, and homemakers were consistently disparaged and their social and economic security were fatally undermined by the enactment in all 50 states of no-fault divorce laws that warned mothers it was unsafe to devote themselves to raising children. The result was an unprecedented influx of mothers into the workplace so that, by 1985, the majority of mothers with children under six were working outside the home.

In her wonderfully insightful and eminently sensible book, Mary Eberstadt, a mother of four children who works from home for the Hoover Institution, sets forth evidence of the harm done to children by the maternal exodus responsible for the “Home-Alone America” she rightly deplores. Discussing many facets of children’s lives, she may tell us what we already know, but she analyzes the subject with a fresh insight. She recognizes that her book violates a major taboo today about any discussion of “whether and just how much children need their parents—especially their mothers.” This taboo seeks to protect working mothers from feeling guilty, and Eberstadt sensibly concludes her book by observing that those who “cannot choose otherwise,” such as single parents, “have nothing to feel guilty about.” As for those who do have a choice, perhaps the “continuing complaints about the guilt felt by absent mothers” may be “further proof of a social experiment run amok.”

This social experiment is, of course, the mother-child separation required by the feminist notion that a woman’s personal fulfillment requires her energetic participation in the workplace. Eberstadt calls defenders of this conceit “separationists”: those who believe that women’s freedom to work in the paid marketplace justifies separation from their children, and who refuse to consider whether the children and adolescents left behind by the adult exodus have suffered. She challenges a society, which only seems concerned with making it easier and cheaper for women to “combine work and family,” to consider how small children actually experience being in daycare all day. She makes the very sensible point that the daycare debate is never about what it feels like for the infant and children in day care, but always about what the outcomes are in terms of personality development and cognitive ability. “The daycare proof,” separationists believe, “is in the achievement pudding.” Separationists, however, are often not around children, who, in their lives, have been made “someone else’s problem.” (Read more.)

The Many Marriages of Bess of Hardwick

2026-03-03T02:00:00.001-05:00

From History...the Interesting Bits:

Bess was born around 1527, one of four daughters and a son born to John Hardwick of Hardwick, Derbyshire. It was a moderately prosperous gentry family. When her father died in 1528, When her father died in 1528, most of the family lands were taken into royal wardship until her brother James came of age. Bess’s mother, Elizabeth Leeke, remarried around 1529, to Ralph Leche of nearby Chatsworth, and had three more children, stretching the family finances even tighter. Leche’s constant problems with money meant that Leche spent the years from 1538 to 1544 in the Fleet Prison for debt and in 1545 he was committed to the debtors’ prison in Derby

With no dowry to attract a husband, 11-year-old Bess was sent into service in the household of Sir George and Lady Anne Zouche of Codnor Castle, a neighbouring family. Lady Zouche was a distant cousin of both of Bess’s parents and a friend and lady-in-waiting to Queen Anne Boleyn; following the queen’s downfall, she served her successor, Jane Seymour. Sir George was a gentleman pensioner to the king. It was in this household that Bess would have learned the ways of the aristocracy, whilst acting as a lady-in-waiting. Bess would have also made connections with various families through the other young people of the household.
It was while she was living in the Zouche’s household that Bess met her first husband, Robert Barlow. The Barlows were acquainted with Bess’s stepfather, who was owed money on a land deal by Robert’s father, Arthur Barlow. It may well be that Arthur offered his oldest son and heir in marriage to Bess, with the amount owing from the court case written off in lieu of Bess’s dowry. Bess and Robert were married in the spring of 1543, with Bess being about fifteen and Robert a couple of months short of his fourteenth birthday.

The marriage was short-lived and possibly unconsummated, given their ages. Robert fell ill and died within eighteen months of their wedding day, on Christmas Eve 1544. When Bess applied to the Barlows for her widow’s dower, one-third of the income in rents and revenues from her husband’s estates, she was refused and a lengthy court battle ensued. A settlement was finally in 1546. It did not make her rich, but the annual income of £30 gave Bess a measure of independence when she was only 17 years of age. (Read more.)