Wind Rose Hotel

And Super-Mario Became "The Iron Monti"

2012-01-28T00:53:00.003+01:00

“Most Italians regard their government as something that’s not going to help them, and as something that is to be avoided as much as possible,” said David Gilmour—a British biographer and historian, and the author of The Pursuit of Italy: A History of a Land, Its Regions, and Their Peoples—in a “cultural conversation” with him, published in the Wall Street Journal on November 25, 2011. Of course

Burning for Freedom in Tibet

2012-01-26T20:02:00.002+01:00

“No people should be forced to live in such desperate circumstances that they feel they must resort to desperate means like suicide,” writes the Christian Science Monitor commenting the tragic type of protest that has become popular in two different parts of the world in the past two years. The kind of protest in question is setting fire to oneself, and the two different parts of the world that

Roman Glories: Scipio Tombs Reopen in Rome

2012-01-23T14:38:00.002+01:00

Not many remember who Consul Lucius Cornelius Scipio Barbato was. Yet there is a very good reason why we should remember him, in fact, besides being a member of the distinguished gens Cornelia, he was the founder of one of ancient Rome’s most illustrious clans, the father of Lucius Cornelius Scipio and Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Asina, and, what is most important, the great-grandfather of Publius

Against the Myth of American Decline

2012-01-23T00:28:00.001+01:00

“Is the United States in decline, as so many seem to believe these days? Or are Americans in danger of committing pre-emptive superpower suicide out of a misplaced fear of their own declining power? A great deal depends on the answer to these questions.” American historian and foreign policy commentator Robert Kagan, the cofounder of the neocon central organ Weekly Standard and of the Project

On Following a Crazy Person

2012-01-21T18:32:00.002+01:00

Andrei Rublev, Christ the Redeemer Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow Just a few posts ago, I was hinting at a subject that I have always been passionate about and that I believe to be at the core of my Christian faith: the “folly of God” which, in St Paul’s words, “is wiser than the wisdom of men.” Well, today Fr. Philip Neri Powell has something to say about “following a crazy person,” that crazy

Stop SOPA & PIPA

2012-01-18T16:04:00.001+01:00

Right now, the U.S. Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open Internet. The two bills in question are known as the Protect IP Act, PIPA, in the Senate (“IP” stands for “intellectual property”), and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), in the House. Both SOPA and PIPA would censor the Web and impose harmful regulations on American business. To raise awareness

Ship Commander? This Guy... Not So Much (Updated)

2012-01-18T10:14:00.006+01:00

Capt. Francesco Schettino and Capt. Gregorio De Falco I really think there’s not much to be said about what happened that night, except that there are no words. However, here (and here) is a translation of the transcript of the conversation between Capt. Francesco Schettino, commander of the grounded Costa Concordia, and Capt. Gregorio De Falco of the Italian Coast Guard in Livorno. De Falco

And the Markets Didn't Give a Damn What S&P Said

2012-01-17T00:14:00.001+01:00

People demonstrate with "a" placards in front of the headquarters of Standard & Poor's in Paris. First of all let me state that I generally don’t like people who say, “I knew it was going to be like that.” But now I’m going to contradict myself by saying, “And sure enough, the markets didn’t give a damn what Standard & Poor’s said.” In fact they shrugged off S&P decision to downgrade the

Downgrading the World

2012-01-14T19:57:00.008+01:00

Hey, just kidding... Everybody knows he is an honourable man! (Image couretsy of iMaksim.com) “In our view, the policy initiatives taken by European policymakers in recent weeks may be insufficient to fully address ongoing systemic stresses in the eurozone.” One might say that Standard & Poor’s, which took away the United States’ AAA rating last summer and yesterday downgraded the government

New Hampshire: the Bigger Winner Was Ron Paul

2012-01-13T22:15:00.003+01:00

As a diligent but very prudent observer of U.S. politics, that is, the politics of a country that I don’t live in, I have always taken the liberty of maintaining these two basic convictions: a) Ron Paul is “a principled, somewhat wacky, highly engaging eccentric,” as Charles Krauthammer puts it, who may be (terribly) wrong on a couple or so issues—though rather important, to say the least—but he

Obama’s New Year’s Resolution

2012-01-11T20:11:00.000+01:00

Cartoon by William Warren - Via NetRightDaily

Elections, Corruption, Predictions

2012-01-07T18:53:00.004+01:00

~ “LETTERS FROM AMERICA” - by The Metaphysical Peregrine In his latest puff piece interview with Steve Croft on the program “60 Minutes”, President Obama claimed there were only three presidents greater than him, Lincoln, FDR and Johnson, i.e., he’s the forth greatest president ever. On the flip side, Jimmy Carter, who gave us double digit inflation and unemployment, may correctly say he’s no

Where Do the Ducks Go in the Winter?

2012-01-06T23:04:00.006+01:00

You might well ask yourself, “What’s the use of Italian foreign correspondents in the U.S.?” Well, just ask them the famous Holden Caulfield question of where the Central Park ducks go when all the lakes are frozen over, and if you’re lucky—hey, just kidding…he’s a very good foreign correspondent!—you’ll know the answers to both of these questions. Sara Cedar Miller, the Conservancy’s

Epiphany

2012-01-06T19:43:00.000+01:00

Duccio di Buoninsegna, Adoration of the Magi Museo dell'Opera del Duomo - Siena “ Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of Jehovah is risen upon thee. For, behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the peoples; but Jehovah will arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. And nations shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising

The Folly of God-Denial

2012-01-04T23:40:00.003+01:00

Giotto, The Kiss of Judas - Cappella degli Scrovegni, Padua An anonymous follower of this blog emailed me this post (thanks!) by Matt Barber on Townhall.com, the title of which is eloquent enough: “The Folly of God-Denial.” I suppose it is neither philosophically expedient nor politically correct—even if we grant for the sake of argument that it was meant to be a political and/or philosophical

Those Overpaid Italian Parliamentarians

2012-01-03T22:35:00.002+01:00

Enrico Giovannini “In short,” writes today the Corriere della Sera newspaper, “Italy’s deputies and senators pocket 60% more than the European average.” That’s no surprise, of course. The big news, if anything, is that this is what has just been posted by the Giovannini Committee on the Civil Service ministry website (.pdf, in Italian). The working group chaired by Enrico Giovannini, the

Waiting for the 'Liberal' Revolution

2012-01-03T00:13:00.000+01:00

“The pledge to liberalise Italy’s service industries has proved more often a campaign slogan than reality,” says the Financial Times. Yet Mario Monti’s new government has already chalked up one “revolution,” as the Corriere della Sera newspaper put it, “that puts the country ahead of much of Europe.” Read the rest to learn more about the whole thing. Meanwhile we are keeping our fingers crossed

Snowy Time

2011-12-30T19:22:00.007+01:00

Pieter Bruegel, The Hunters in the Snow - Kunsthistorisches Museum - Vienna Announced by all the trumpets of the sky Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields, Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven, And veils the farm-house at the garden's end. The steed and traveller stopped, the courier's feetDelayed, all friends shut out, the

An Infinite Idea

2011-12-24T23:31:00.003+01:00

“ The progress of our soul is like a perfect poem. It has an infinite idea which once realized makes all movements full of meaning and joy. But if we detach its movements from that ultimate idea, if we do not see the infinite rest and only see the infinite motion, then existence appears to us a monstrous evil, impetuously rushing towards an unending aimlessness. ” ~ Rabindranath Tagore

The Turin Shroud: Created by Flash of Supernatural Light

2011-12-23T04:09:00.001+01:00

This is more an Easter story than a Christmas story, but then again, as the French saying goes, “tout se tient” (“to some degree everything is connected to everything else”), and that’s one more reason why we need to pay attention to it, rather than pretend nothing happened, as the mainstream media seem to be doing. Unfortunately for them, though, there is someone who doesn’t observe the rule of

Adeste Fideles

2011-12-21T22:53:00.005+01:00

Duccio di Buoninsegna, The Nativity with the Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel National Gallery of Art - Washington “Adeste Fideles” is not only one of the most popular of all Christmas hymns, it is also one of which the origins are less generally known. As a matter of fact, the history of this most beloved hymn was shrouded in mystery for many years—perhaps that’s also the secret of its charm—and

R.I.P. Václav Havel

2011-12-21T00:09:00.001+01:00

Candles illuminate a portrait of former Czech President Vaclav Havel Prague - December 19, 2011 (AFP PHOTO/ STR) The strange coincidence of December 18 will be remembered for a long time: the deaths of both Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s totalitarian “Dear Leader,” and Václav Havel, the Czech dissident playwright who stood firm against Communism and led his people to freedom in 1989 and turned

Theologians of the 20th Century

2011-12-20T16:51:00.001+01:00

What the “Credo” proclaims, from the ecumenical councils of Nicaea and Chalcedon on, that the only-begotten Son of God became man without ceasing to be God, is also “what is most contested or obfuscated or forgotten today, inside and outside of the Church.” Which 20th Century theologians have given the most brilliant responses to this crucial problem? They are Oscar Cullmann, Wolfhart Pannenberg,

The Versatile Blogger Award

2011-12-19T20:27:00.002+01:00

As a Nobel Prize winner recently said, “Prizes are always a nice thing. It doesn’t change the research per se, of course, but it’s lovely to have the recognition.” Well, er, mutatis mutandis, this could apply to me, too… In fact last Thursday, a talented young lady from India—a country I deeply love and which has always inspired me—was kind enough to nominate me for the Versatile Blogger Award.

R.I.P. Christopher Hitchens

2011-12-17T02:54:00.003+01:00

Christopher Hitchens died Thursday night at 62. Journalist, essayist, and one of England’s most celebrated, yet controversial polemicists, he waged countless battles on behalf of causes left and right. The following excerpt from the full interview with him by Richard Dawkins in the New Statesman, that was trailed a few days ago, is perhaps the most effective portrait of him—it is not yet online