The Eternal City

The blogging half (cough) of MC is off to Rome today so posting will be even lighter than usual unless Her Highness deigns to comment on whatever suits her fancy. Moi? I'm in Rome and the rest of you are not. Poda.

Liz Cheney 2012?

Liz Cheney appears on Mornin' Joe and destroys the foolish MSNBC anchors who gang up to take her on. Click on the title of this post to see an astonishing tour de force in defending enhanced interrogation techniques and the prior administration's war on terror which kept us safe for the last 7 1/2 years. Kudos Liz!

Parsing The Pontiff

MC is religious. We believe. We just don't fight about it. Click on the title of this post to read George Weigel's piece about what Benedict XVI faces as he flies into the Middle East and Israel.

Israel Today, The West Tomorrow.

MC tends not to fret in public. Yet we admit to fretting about the welfare of Israel and its citizens. We hope Mark Steyn (no, not Jewish) is wrong but click on the title of this post to read his latest.

Spengler: Confessions Of A Coward

Exhausted by the hoi polloi. Figure it out yourselves. Sing me Spanish Techno. Click on this post to learn more.

The Enigma Of Arrival*

A dear friend of MC's is leaving for Rome shortly. He's probably too young to know much about Joni Mitchell. He'd do well to make her acquaintance. The lyrics below speak for themselves, although LL should listen to the song in its entirety.

Maybe I’ll go to Amsterdam

Or maybe I’ll go to Rome
And rent me a grand piano and put some flowers ’round my room

But let’s not talk about fare-thee-wells now
The night is a starry dome.
And they’re playin’ that scratchy rock and roll
Beneath the mantle of the moon.

*Apologies to VS Naipaul

Margaret Thatcher 30 Years Ago Today

Thirty years ago today Maggie Thatcher took up residence at 10 Downing Street. It is difficult to overstate her importance. The always superb John O'Sullivan makes the case that she halted Great Britain's decline. Click on the title of this post to read him.

In Defense Of Shoes

OK, look. Small potatoes: things that don't amount to much. Now it's Michelle Obama's sneakers? Not so long ago it was John McCain's Ferragamo shoes. Do the media, left and right, think we're so stupid that we don't realize people who make it this far can buy very very expensive shoes? Are we the mob being told to eat cake? MC doesn't think so and wishes everyone would buy the most expensive shoes they can afford. For the economy's sake, of course! The Edina half of MC is fond of Jimmy Choo. The St. Paul part is fine with Ferragamo. Both halves of MC prefer black, naturlich.

Open Thread On JG Ballard

MC has received substantial traffic since the posting below on the late JG Ballard. Please use the comments function to express your opinion of this author. No comments are censored if you don't use obscenity. All the comments to MC's original post have been critical but all have been published. Tell MC and others what you find important about this author and why.

JG Ballard 1930-2009

Much comment has been occasioned on the death of JG Ballard.

The following Ballard quote struck MC as interesting:

"We live in a world ruled by fictions of every kind — mass-merchandizing, advertising, politics conducted as a branch of advertising, the instant translation of science and technology into popular imagery, the increasing blurring and intermingling of identities within the realm of consumer goods, the pre-empting of any original imaginative response to experience by the television screen. We live inside an enormous novel. For the writer in particular it is less and less necessary for him to invent the fictional content of his novel. The fiction is already there. The writer’s task is to invent the reality."

This, we think, could only be said by a science fiction writer, which Ballard was but which he somehow managed to escape the confines of and move into better company. His name, hideously, is now an adjective "resembling or suggestive of the conditions described in J. G. Ballard's novels and stories, especially dystopian modernity, bleak man-made landscapes and the psychological effects of technological, social or environmental developments."

Haven't we seen this movie? Ballard died about two years after being diagnosed with prostate cancer and is now being feted in death as somehow making a genuine contribution to culture.

He was put in the same category as William S. Burroughs, who at least one half of MC considers to be genuinely evil. He also was the author of "Crash" which the same one half of MC had the misfortune of viewing, in all places, in Istanbul with Turkish subtitles (plot=people have erotic encounters in and around crashes!). The director was David Cronenberg who made the film "Naked Lunch," from the Burroughs signature novel. Sickness attracts sickness.

Still, MC refers readers to Jorge Luis Borges who could write fiction, who was far too familiar with reality (no need to make up failing eyesight and blindness, thanks!) to pretend it needed to be invented and who could actually write.

Click on the title of this post to read the Wiki entry (sorry) on Borges. It will at least get you started.

Correction: Ballard did not commit suicide and references in the post above to such have been deleted. MC regrets the error and thanks attentive readers for bringing this to their attention.