June 7

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by gerryadmin

1495 Treaty of Tordesillas

By the late 15th century European marine architecture had advanced to the point that long ocean-going voyages were possible. The nation states on the Atlantic coast invested in exploration whose purpose was to find a sea-route to Asia and its trade riches. The country that achieved this might thus cut out Mediterranean middle-men and avoid dealing with hostile Islamic powers. Portugal was first to take up this challenge and a series of expeditions down the coast of Africa in the 1480s and 1490s would eventually find a way to round the southern cape and reach India. At the same time Castile, the leading Spanish power, financed Christopher Columbus’s attempt to reach Asia by a western route, a serendipitous blunder that ended up in the discovery of the Americas. When Columbus returned from the Caribbean in March, 1493 he was sure that he had touched on the offshore islands of Japan and the Khanate of Cathay

The problem was that Columbus’s voyage violated two papal bulls and a Spanish-Portuguese treaty that awarded Portugal the right to explore and occupy non-Christian lands “in the Ocean Seas” (in mari oceano) and usque ad Indos – all the way to the Indies. After all sorts of diplomatic moves, Pope Alexander VI, a Spaniard, issued the 1493 bull Inter cetera which bolstered Spanish claims:

Among other works well pleasing to the Divine Majesty and cherished of our heart, this assuredly ranks highest, that in our times especially the Catholic faith and the Christian religion be exalted and be everywhere increased and spread, that the health of souls be cared for and that barbarous nations be overthrown and brought to the faith itself. …[W]e … assign to you and your heirs and successors, kings of Castile and Leon, … all islands and mainlands found and to be found, discovered and to be discovered towards the west and south, by drawing and establishing a line from … the north, …to …the south, … the said line to be distant one hundred leagues towards the west and south from any of the islands commonly known as the Azores and Cape Verde.

The Portuguese were unhappy with this rather vague division of the globe and saw that it precluded their hopes of claiming rights in India. They secured their future by negotiating the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas with Spain. This agreement, which ignored the papal bull, drew a north-south line down the Atlantic, giving Portugal territory to the east and Spain the lands to the west. Interestingly, the treaty specifically forbade any appeal to the pope.

June 6

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by gerryadmin

It’s June 6 and time for my annual D-Day post. This year I thought I would concentrate on the goings-on on Juno Beach, the sector of the Normandy coastline allotted to the Canadian Army, supported by the Royal Canadian Navy and the Royal Canadian Airforce.

Juno was the second-most easterly beach of the five assaulted that morning, sandwiched between Sword and Gold, the responsibility of the British while the Americans attacked Utah and Omaha beaches to the west. It was defended by the 716th Infantry Division and the 22nd Panzers. The 718th was not a first-class unit; like most German static defensive formations they were recruited from older troops and foreign conscripts (in this case largely Ukrainian). They had seen no combat but the Panzers were a veteran force, having fought with the Afrika Korps under Rommel.

Few of the Canadian troops had seen battle either. Their brothers in arms had fared badly at Hong Kong and Dieppe but had done great things in Sicily and the Italian peninsula as well as battling the Japanese in Burma. The regiments chosen for the Normandy assault were drawn from across the country. The 1st Canadian Scottish, for example were a British Columbia unit; the Regina Rifles and the Royal Winnipeg Rifles represented the prairies; the Cameron Highlanders and the Queen’s Own Rifles came from Ontario; the Régiment de la Chaudière was Québécois; while the North Shore Regiment and the North Nova Scotia Highlanders hailed from the Maritime provinces.

Shortly before 8:00 a.m. the first wave of infantry landed, supported by amphibious tanks. They took very heavy casualties; some perished when their landing craft hit mines, some were killed by pill-box fire as they disembarked and tried to clear barbed wire emplacements, or raced to the seawall against machine-gun fire. The Queen’s Own took the worst of it, facing a dug-in enemy who had not been affected by shelling from the initial bombardments. Eventually they fought their way off the shore and established a beach-head. Reserve units landed and moved inland, breaching the first German line of resistance. By the end of the day’s fighting, the Canadians had not reached their hoped-for objectives but had penetrated farther than any other Allied army, at a cost in casualties much higher than other Commonwealth forces. The dead, wounded, and captured totaled 960 men. Only the Americans on Omaha beach suffered higher losses.

Worse was to come in the following days as the Germans counter-attacked with elite SS troops and tanks that were vastly superior to the under-gunned Shermans and Churchills. It would not be August that the Allies were in a position to break out of northeast France and head for Paris.

June 5

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by gerryadmin

1864 The Great Leicester Balloon Riot

Henry Coxwell (1819-1900) was Britain’ pre-eminent aeronaut of the mid-Victorian period, dazzling crowds throughout Europe with his ballooning feats. He and his partner James Glaisher had ascended in 1862 to a height  of 35,000 feet, an altitude at which Glaisher fainted and Coxwell lost feeling in his hands. They would have perished had not Coxwell been able to engage the gas release mechanism with his teeth and land safely.

In 1864 he proposed to ascend in his balloon, dubbed the Britannia, as part of an Order of Foresters celebration at Leicester Racecourse. Because such feats were novel at the time, an estimated crowd of 50,000 people showed up. As Coxwell was making his preparations, a bystander remarked that Coxwell’s balloon seemed rather small. In fact, the man charged, the people of Leicester were being robbed of a chance to see a bigger and better balloon.

Though Coxwell would later dub this a “cruel libel,” the man’s allegations seemed to stir the large crowd into a surly mob that began jockeying for a better look at this disappointing craft. Some had paid to accompany Coxwell into the air, but so many spectators surrounded the balloon that it made take-off impossible. This in turn sparked a rumor that Coxwell was refusing to operate it, which only made them angrier.

People were acting so aggressively that the Britannia began to suffer damage. Coxwell scolded the crowd and insisted they behave, or else he would simply let the gas out. He made good on his threat. The balloon quickly collapsed, ending any hope of a spectacle. The act also reinforced the idea that Coxwell was trying to present them with an inferior balloon.

Already incited, they began tearing the balloon to pieces. The basket was set on fire. Two policemen, Inspector Haynes and Sergeant Chapman, arrived in an attempt to control the scene, but it proved difficult. They soon turned their attention to getting Coxwell away from the area before the crowd—already screaming for his head—began tearing into him.

Coxwell escaped intact, though Leicester’s reputation did not. Maligned by Coxwell as “balloonatics,” the spectators were criticized for their behaviour, though townsfolk blamed visitors. The incident proved embarrassing, but some chose to cash in on the notoriety. Pieces of the trampled balloon were sold as souvenirs.

June 4

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by gerryadmin

The Preacher of Divine Love

St Francis Caracciolo (1563-1608) was the co-founder with St John Augustine Adorno of the Congregation of the Clerics Regular Minor or “the Adorno Fathers” whose motto is “Ad majorem Resurgentis gloriam” (“to the greater glory of the Risen One”).

Butler’s Lives of the Saints tells us Francis was born in the kingdom of Naples, of the princely family of Caracciolo. In childhood he shunned all amusements, recited the Rosary regularly, and loved to visit the Blessed Sacrament and to distribute his food to the poor. An attack of leprosy taught him the vileness of the human body and the vanity of the world. Almost miraculously cured, he renounced his home to study for the priesthood at Naples, where he spent his leisure hours in the prisons or visiting the Blessed Sacrament in unfrequented churches. God called him, when only twenty-five, to found an Order of Clerks Regular, whose rule was that each day one father fasted on bread and water, another took the discipline, a third wore a hair-shirt, while they always watched by turns in perpetual adoration before the Blessed Sacrament. They took the usual vows, adding a fourth—not to desire dignities [high church office]. To establish his Order, Francis undertook many journeys through Italy and Spain, on foot and without money, content with the shelter and crusts given him in charity. Being elected general, he redoubled his austerities, and devoted seven hours daily to meditation on the Passion, besides passing most of the night praying before the Blessed Sacrament. Francis was commonly called the Preacher of Divine Love. But it was before the Blessed Sacrament that his ardent devotion was most clearly perceptible. In presence of his divine Lord his face usually emitted brilliant rays of light; and he often bathed the ground with his tears when he prayed, according to his custom, prostrate on his face before the tabernacle, and constantly repeating, as one devoured by internal fire, “The zeal of Thy house hath eaten me up.” He died of fever, aged forty-four, on the eve of Corpus Christi, 1608, saying, “Let us go, let us go to heaven!” When his body was opened after death, his heart was found as it were burnt up, and these words imprinted around it: “Zelus domus Tuæ comedit me“—”The zeal of Thy house hath eaten me up.”

Francis is the patron saint of Naples and Italian cooks.

June 3

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by gerryadmin

Some quotes about dogs in memory of Grendel, a dog of little brain but enormous heart.

Near this spot are deposited the Remains of one who possessed Beauty without Vanity, Strength without Insolence, Courage without Ferocity, And all the virtues of Man, without his Vices. This Praise, which would be unmeaning Flattery if inscribed over human ashes, is but a just tribute to the Memory of BOATSWAIN, a DOG. – Lord Byron, inscription on the monument of a Newfoundland dog, 1808

There were two classes of created objects which he held in the deepest and most unmingled horror: they were, dogs and children. He was not unamiable, but he could at any time have viewed the execution of a dog, or the assassination of an infant, with the liveliest satisfaction. Their habits were at variance with his love of order; and his love of order, was as powerful as his love of life. – Charles Dickens, “A Dinner at Poplar Walk”, 1833

And just as he has the sense of virtue, so also he has the sense of sin. A cat may be taught not to do certain things, but if it is caught out and flees, it flees not from shame, but from fear. But the shame of a dog touches an abyss of misery as bottomless as any human emotion. He has fallen out of the state of grace, and nothing but the absolution and remission of his sin will restore him to happiness. – Alfred George Gardiner”A Dithyramb on a Dog”, 1920

There are three faithful friends: an old wife, an old dog, and ready money. – Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1734

There is sorrow enough in the natural way
From men and women to fill our day;
But when we are certain of sorrow in store
Why do we always arrange for more?
Brothers and sisters I bid you beware
Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.  

– Rudyard Kipling, “The Power of the Dog”

June 2

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by gerryadmin

1983 The death of Air Canada flight 797

Among the greatest Canadian disasters –- the Halifax explosion of 1917, the abortive raid on Dieppe in 1942, the Trudeau constitution of 1981 – we must include the fatal fire on board an Air Canada DC-9 flying from Dallas to Montreal. While in midair, passengers reported a smell and smoke coming from the rear washroom area. After some delay the pilot decided to make an emergency landing in Cincinnati. When the doors to the plane were opened the fresh air ignited a flash fire that killed 23 passengers.

The fire was significant in two ways. It led to a series of industry-wide safety improvements designed to prevent fires and to ensure a safe exit within 90 seconds. These changes have undoubtedly saved many lives. Sadly for Canada, one of the 23 dead was singer-songwriter Stan Rogers (1949-1983).

It is impossible to overestimate Roger’s impact on Canadian music and, more importantly, the spirit of Canadian nationalism. He would be the Canadian equivalent of Woody Guthrie or Peter Seeger but without the Marxist baggage, or Bob Dylan but with the ability to sing. Compositions such as “Northwest Passage”, “Barrett’s Privateers”, “White Squall” and “The Mary-Ellen Carter” are still sung with gusto whenever Canadians meet up in a foreign land. His songs were of common folk — fishermen, sailors, farmers, soldiers – and in true Canadian fashion they are often about losers: battles lost, ships sunk, jobs threatened. Had he lived our nation would be culturally richer and more united than we are now.

For those new to Stan Rogers, start with this tragic-comic song of a would-be pirate and a cruise for American gold. 

June 1

Home / Something Wise / June 1
by gerryadmin

My favourite twentieth-century philosopher is David Stove (1927-1994), an Australian atheist, positivist, anti-Platonist and anti-Darwinian. A third of what he says I don’t understand, half of what I do understand I don’t agree with, but I always find reading him a pleasure.

Here are three quotes from The Plato Cult and Other Philosophical Follies, 1991.

The Great Schism of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, which split the Western from the Eastern Church, took place, on its theological side, over a question concerning the Trinity. This was, of course, that most famous of all theological questions, the question of the procession of the Holy Ghost, or of the filioque. The Orthodox theory was that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father alone. The Western bishops, however, were equally adamant that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father filioque – “and the Son”. It is obvious enough that these two opinions could not both be right, though both could be wrong. It is equally obvious that both opinions are wrong, or at least, that they each have got something dreadfully wrong with them, and the same thing. They both have some fatal congenital defect, whatever the exact nature of this defect may be. And it is equally obvious too, that this defect will also be shared by any other answer to the question, what or whom the Holy Ghost proceeds from. It does not matter much how you answer this question: something has already gone fatally wrong with your thoughts, once you find yourself so much as asking it.

Nothing which was ever expressed originally in the English language resembles, except in the most distant way, the thought of Plotinus, or Hegel, or Foucault. I take this to be enormously to the credit of our language. 

For Professor Harris, however, no manuscript, no scrap of paper, quite literally no doodle even, lacks profound significance, as long as it is Hegel’s. Indeed, all previous instances of philosopholatry, even the one which had Plato as its object and perhaps as its founder, are thrown entirely into the shade by Professor Harris. He does not actually say that Hegel’s philosophy can cure wooden legs, but I do not think he would like to hear it denied. 

May 31

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by gerryadmin

A mean letter

The great age of vituperation has long since passed. Personal abuse in the 21st century is tediously predictable: “racist!”, “libtard!”, “transphobe!”, “reTHUGlican!”, “fascist!”, etc. Donald Trump lowered the bar even further with zingers such as “fat pig”, “loser”, or “disgusting animal”. In the old days, there was no less hateful speech — John Adams called Alexander Hamilton “the bastard son of a Scotch peddler” – but there was a more imaginative use of language that connoisseurs of English could appreciate.

Consider this letter of defiance sent by the redoubtable Mary Cavendish, Countess of Shrewsbury, to Sir Thomas Stanhope. Their families were involved in a heated quarrel over a river weir, a disagreement which had broken out in bloodshed between groups of their followers. The countess had earlier called Stanhope a reprobate and his son John a rascal but she clearly felt that more needed to said on the subject of her opponents’ personal deficiencies. Therefore she deputed two of her men to deliver the following hymn of opprobrium: 

My lady hath commanded me to say thus much to you. That though you be more wretched, vile, and miserable, than any creature living; and, for your wickedness, become more ugly in shape than the vilest toad in the world; and one to whom none of reputation would vouchsafe to send any message : yet she hath thought good to send thus much to you–that she be contented you should live (and doth no ways wish your death), but to this end–that all the plagues and miseries that may befall any man may light upon such a caitiff as you are; and that you should live to have all your friends forsake you; and without your great repentance, which she looketh not for, because your life hath been so bad, you will be damned perpetually in hell fire.

The only possible reply to such an attack would be that uttered by The Dude in the Coen Brothers’ masterpiece The Big Lebowski:

 
 

May 30

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by gerryadmin

St Dymphna’s Day

If you think that your family dynamics are odd or distressing, spare a thought for young Dymphna, a 7th-century daughter of a petty Irish king named Damon.

As a teenager Dymphna took a vow of chastity, an act which would lead to her persecution and death. Her father, you see, had conceived an unnatural attraction for the girl after the death of his beloved wife. As she was the image of her beautiful mother, Damon vowed he would marry her. Creeped out by this news, Dymphna fled to the Continent with her priestly confessor and the court fool. This menagerie settled in a village in what is now Belgium.

When Damon tracked her down, he had his men kill the priest and tried to force his daughter to return with him to Ireland. She resisted and, in a rage, she chopped off her head. Her tomb attracted those seeking a miraculous cure from a variety of derangements. To this day, the town where she is buried has a reputation for caring for the mentally ill.

Dymphna may be invoked against sleepwalking, epilepsy, insanity, mental disorders, neurological disorders and epilepsy. She is the patron saint of family happiness, incest victims, loss of parents, martyrs, mental asylums, mental health caregivers, mentally ill people, the demon-possessed, princesses, psychiatrists, rape victims, and runaways.

May 29

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by gerryadmin

1453 The Fall of Constantinople

Mehmed the Conquerer enters Constantinople

After successfully repelling attacks by Slavs, Persians, Avars, Vikings, Arabs, and Bulgars, the thousand-year-old walls of Constantinople were finally penetrated by the Ottoman Turks under Mehmed II. The last Byzantine Emperor, Constantine XI, died defending the city and with him perished the the last remnants of the Roman Empire.

For centuries that empire had been shrinking, losing the Middle East and Levant to the Arabs, southern Italy to the Normans, and Anatolia and the Balkans to the Turks. It was in financial peril, with its trade in the hands of Genoa and Venice; its crown jewels were glass (the real ones having been pawned); and the Catholic powers of Europe demanded that Constantinople abandon Orthodox Christianity before they would give any aid. Though its walls were still formidable, the city inside them was a shrunken husk of former glory, never having recovered from its sack at the hands of the Fourth Crusade in 1204.

Finally, the young Ottoman sultan, Mehmed II, decided to end the charade. He built a fort to cut off Constantinople from the Black Sea, and brought a huge army and fleet to besiege the city. Massive artillery bombarded the ancient walls, a fleet was hauled on rollers over the hills from the Bosporus to the Golden Horn, and miners tunneled under the fortifications. The vastly outnumbered defenders finally succumbed on May 29, 1453, whereupon Mehmed, ever after known as The Conqueror, gave the city over to three days of rape, massacre, and looting, and its inhabitants were sold into slavery. The great Church of Holy Wisdom, Hagia Sophia, was immediately turned into a mosque. The most sacred relic of eastern Christians, the Hodegetria, a portrait of Mary and the baby Jesus supposedly painted by Luke the Evangelist, was chopped into bits for the gold in its frame.

By that time, Constantinople, once the grandest city on the planet, was only a hollow shell of its former self and the Roman Empire, of which it had been its capital, was reduced to a few scattered holdings. But the capture of the city had enormous political and symbolic importance. Both the Turks and the Russians claimed to be the heirs of Byzantium. Mehmet styled himself the Kayser-i-Rum, “Roman Emperor” and decreed that his next conquest would be Rome itself. The ruler of Muscovy, Ivan III, married a Byzantine princess and declared that he was the successor of Orthodox supremacy, appropriating the title of Czar, or “Caesar”. The flood of exiles from the city who found refuge in Italy brought with them manuscripts and a knowledge of Greek that helped fuel a second stage in the Renaissance. Turkish expansion brought with it a strangling of the trade between Asia and Europe, encouraging Europeans to embark on direct voyages to the East rather than relying on Islamic middle men; the expeditions of Columbus and Vasco da Gama are results of the fall of Constantinople.

Today, visitors to Constantinople, called “Istanbul” by the Turks, can visit a tiny enclave in the Fener district by the Golden Horn and see the compound of the Patriarch of Constantinople, the last remaining official of the Roman Empire.

In recent years, the Islamist government of President Erdogan has made political capital out of the Conqueror and Turkey’s Ottoman past — television movies have been made about Mehmet II and his descendant Suleiman the Magnificent; a new bridge across the Bosporus has been named after Mehmet — all part of Erdogan’s plan to erase the nonsectarian republicanism of Ataturk.