Various Topics

Ave Maria

James Tent brings us up to date on the use of "Ave"."Admittedly, this is free association, but the term "Ave" also reminds me of the witty cabaretist of the 1950s and 1960s, Tom Lehrer. His "Vatican Rag" dates slightly later in the mid-1960s, slightly after Vatican II. The telling line was
"Ave Maria! Gee, it's good to see ya!
Gettin' ecstatic and,
feelin' dramatic and,
Doin the Vaa-tican Rag!"

What I sincerely regret in the American political scene today is the presence of a genuine political cabaretist. Tom Lehrer came as close as we ever got to that delightful genre. The French started it just prior to WWI with their "Chat Noir" in Paris. The Germans of the Weimar Republic and early into the Nazi debacle perfected it.
Now, more than ever, given this gruesome presidential race, just under way, we need cabaret more than ever".

RH: British politics is mean, but in parliament there is a lot of humorous give and take. The US Congress does not have this light touch. I suspect it may be in part due to the difference between the parliamentary and presidential systems. But it also suggests that US politics is more like America football than cricket. I am not sure that cabaret is the answer.

Anthony Smith explains that 'Aveo' (or 'Haveo') is from a Latin verb which has the meaning 'to be well'. It exists only in the imperative (singular = 'ave' and plural = 'avete') and has no other forms. It can mean both 'hail' and 'farewell' as in the Middle English translation of St. Luke's salutation of the Virgin ('Ave Maria Gratia Plena') as 'Hail Mary Full of Grace'. RH: I wonder why the other forms disappeared.

Michele Horaney says "I'm not puzzled by the use of the word "ave." In Rome, in Latin, that is the same as "hello," or "welcome." And I remember that from Latin at Peoria High School in the 1970s". RH: Of course. It is the etymology which is puzzling.

Integrity of the Media

Mike Sullivan forwards an article on hatred of America in the media, with the comment " It appears the media needs to get back to reporting the news vice spinning it". It is true that both side use the media to advance their ends. However, there is still plenty of factual reporting. From a long article, I excerpt the section on the BBC:

TOM NEUMANN: Why they hate us
Modesto Bee/ Scripps Howard News Service ^ | Feb. 24, 2004 | Tom Neumann

Sadly, one of the chief offenders is the British Broadcasting Corporation, known everywhere as the BBC, the world's largest news organization. Once highly respected for its objectivity, it has in recent years become a major factor not only in misrepresenting the United States, but also in misrepresenting its own government's policies and support of the United States. The harm is multiplied by the fact that the BBC influences other media - print as well as broadcast - throughout the world, including the United States.

"If anti-Americanism is on the rise in the world, the BBC can take a fair share of the credit," says the distinguished British journalist Gerard Baker, associate editor of the Financial Times, who spent several years as a BBC writer and producer. "Its Middle East coverage is notoriously one-sided," Baker writes in the current Weekly Standard. "Its pro-Palestinian bias is so marked that recently the London bureau chief of the Jerusalem Post refused to take part in any more BBC news programs because he believed the corporation was actually fomenting anti-Semitism."

As for BBC coverage of the United States, "it depicts a cartoonish image of a nation of obese, Bible-wielding half-wits, blissfully dedicated to shooting or suing each other." Its worldview is summarized by Baker as follows: American power is bad; European multilateralism is good; organized religion is bad; atheism is good; Israel is evil; Palestinians (especially Yasser Arafat) are innocent victims; business is corrupt; poverty is the result of government failure; economic success is the product of exploitation or crookedness. And so on.

We are all familiar with media bias in the United States. But the BBC bias is much more powerful and more pernicious, writes Baker, "because the BBC is still seen by viewers and listeners, in Britain and around the world, as objective. And when the BBC conveys its slanted views of the world, there is very little means of checking and correcting it."

Baker is not the first journalist to complain about the BBC's biased coverage. But he has eloquently identified a principal cause of the irrational "hatred" people around the world are said to feel towards us. We can only hope that, in the end, our positive actions will speak louder than their misleading, hate-inducing words".

Tom Neumann is executive director of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs.

RH. I watch the BBC every day, and this is simply untrue. Neumann is a Zionist who wants the press to reflect the Zionist viewpoint. Articles like this give ammunition to those who denounce Jewish control oft e media.

Pompeii. "Ave"

Rob Gaudet writes: "In the ruins of the ancient city of Pompeii, I noticed that many rich Romans had mosaic doormats on their front steps which read, "Ave..." I thought doormats (ie the removable kind) were a modern invention but it appears that they were common among the Romans who mastered many things which we think of as
modern---e.g. plumbing, centralized heating, organized public sports, medicine, etc". RH: I am puzzled by the word "Ave". The Oxford English Dictionary gives this etymology: L. ave, 2nd sing. imp. of avere to be or fare well, used as an expression of welcome or farewell. (In earliest use = Ave Maria.). RH. My Latin mus be getting rusty. I don't recognize the verb "avere". What does the OED mean by "earliest use 'Ave Maria'? Any clarification would be appreciated.

Rob Gaudet described the welcoming mats with "Ave"in Pompeii houses. Tim Ashby comments: "At Pompeii may also be seen a mosaic depicting a chained snarling dog and the words "Cave Canem" - "Beware of Dog." The Romans must have had security problems familiar to modern day residents of our cities and towns".

Postings on Pompeii stressed the advanced nature of its organization. Harry Papasotiriou adds: "Another peculiarly American modern phenomenon that has precedents in the ancient Roman world is the naming of streets by numbers (1st street, 2nd street etc.)".

AGRARIANS: John Crowe Ransom and Charles Maurras

Cameron Sawyer explained the ideas and ideals of the Confederacy. Christopher Jones comments: "Cameron is correct. As a great admirer of the founder of Action Française, Charles Maurras, I am also an admirer of the Southern nationalist John Crowe Ransom, the leader of the Agrarians. Both men had a lot in common. In 1925, the brilliant John Crowe Ransom and Donald Wade became enamored of certain forms of Southern nationalism. By 1930 they were ready to argue that the South's distinctive characteristic was that it was still an agrarian society and that as such it stood as a bulwark against the industrial materialism and communism of the age. Maurras himself once said that he who works the land cultivates heaven.

In I'll Take My Stand: The South and the Agrarian Tradition, a collection of essays published in 1930 by twelve Southerners, John Crowe Ransom argued that it was only in an agricultural society that humanity had a true perception of its place in the universe: as beings subject to suffering and death; industrialized society tended to dull this sense of human contingency and so falsified the perception of life. It sounds amazingly like the doctrines of Action Française, known as national intégralisme.

In fact, even in 1930, Ransom's ambivalence about modern society was expressed in his God without Thunder: An Unorthodox Defense of Orthodoxy. There, with considerable ingenuity and knowledge of contemporary philosophy and science, he argued at length for the need to revive the Old Testament God who would represent the harshness of the universe as it actually is rather than continue exalting a gentle Jesus (or his parallels in liberal society--the social reformers) who merely confirms our complacencies. However, like Maurras, Ransom admitted that religion is simply a creation of man and that the modern mind cannot accept many of its traditional premises.

Maurras and Ransom are so similar that one wonders if they ever met".

RH: Few Americans have heard of Charles Maurras, who was generally viewed as a reactionary monarchist when I lived in France. Here is a bio of him: Charles Maurras (1868 - 1952) was a French monarchist poet, critic and in 1899 founder of the anti-Dreyfus Action Française movement. Born in the south of France, he came to Paris and worked on a number of periodicals including La Cocarde (The Cockade), a republican review which supported Boulanger, a presidential aspirant on horseback. He became involved in politics at the time of the Dreyfus affair and in 1899 founded the review L'Action Française, where he was joined by Léon Daudet.

Although an agnostic almost until the end of his life, he was a proponent of Roman Catholicism as a social cohesive, although his writings were proscribed by the Papacy in 1926. A French patriot, he turned away from Republicanism because of the corruption and lack of national spirit that he saw in the political class of the Third Republic, and he became a supporter of the Orleanist pretender to the throne. He supported France's entry into the First World War, but was ambivalent about the Second World War. Both Pétain and De Gaulle were influenced by his philosophy of integralism. He described the Petain's accession to power as a "divine surprise." Under the occupation, he opposed both the collaborators in Paris and the "dissidents" in London.

He was arrested in September 1944, and sentenced to death for collaboration. The sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, deprivation of civil liberties and expulsion from the Académie française (to which he is reputed to have replied "it is revenge for Dreyfus"). Imprisoned in Riom and then Clairvaux, he was reprieved in 1952 and placed under surveillance in a clinic, where he died in 1952 - when he was said to have converted to Catholicism.

Adriana Pena rejects Christopher Jones' praise of farm life, commended by John Crowe Ransom and Charles Maurras: "Permit me to be cynical about agrarianism. It is easy to sing the praises of the rural life if one is not doing the hard work oneself... If it had been Maurras behind the plow, or doing any of the hard chores that farming requires, he would understand why so many left the farm for the industrial materialism of the towns. As for Ransom, well, maybe he should consider what the agrarian life would be if there were no darkies to do the heavy lifting and give him the free time to wax poetical about the simple life".

Christopher Jones praised the Southern Agrarians, especially John Crowe Ransom. Cameron Sawyer comments: "Well, I do consider the Fugitives/Agrarians to be the greatest concentration of literary talent ever formed in America. I grew up in Nashville very much under the impression of the Fugitive/Agrarian legacy. My best friend in my early school years was William Ransom, John Crowe Ransoms nephew; my aunt (actually, the aunt of my fathers best friend), later the archivist of the State of Tennessee, had been a member of the group, and I visited Andrew Lytle, the last survivor of the group, in Monteagle. I think Ransom was the giant of the group, although Robert Penn Warren is probably more famous, and Allen Tate may have been the better poet. Ransoms writings about poetry are probably the best things I have ever read in the field of aesthetics.

But I have no use for Southern nationalism, any more than any other kind of nationalism. Nationalism is just ethnic particularism, which is the enhancement of ties among members of ethnic or national groups to the exclusion of outsiders, usually on the basis of sentimental ideas about what such people have in common. Nazism is nationalism taken to its logical extreme, and perfectly illustrates the essence of nationalism. Nationalism is the refuge of people with insecurity complexes, who need some kind of supraindividual identity to make up for feelings of individual inferiority. And Southern nationalism is even more ridiculous, in my opinion, than other forms of nationalism, because the Southern nation simply does not exist. Southerners today are Americans like any others, with a slightly different accent, perhaps, but otherwise just as industrialized or post-industrialized, McDonalds-chomping, suburb-dwelling, minivan-driving, television-watching as any other Americans, and with nothing agrarian in their world-view whatsoever.

I have deep roots in the South, but I have lived most of my adult life in Europe. I am happy to think of myself as an American, which is a lovely, universal, inclusive, non-ethnic, non-national identify. I am no more (or less) American than any Ethiopian immigrant with a freshly minted U.S. passport, and that suits me just fine. American citizenship is the best passport of all to being a world citizen, and the best escape from the idiocy of nationalism".

RH: Well; Cameron's nationality is American, and the word "national" is widely used in America (National Guard, etc.). Also "one nation under God" (or "one nation" if the last two words are dropped). As for the South, Cameron may be thinking of"The Birth of a Nation". A Mexican may chomp a McDonald, but he is still Mexican. The abundant display of the American flag shows that the US is nationalist.

Christopher Jones says: "Adriana Pena's argument is truly cynical: without knowing if these gentlemen actually did any farming, she insults their integrity because they rejected the barbarisms of industrial life she seems to love so much. In fact, she has painted a perfect justification for mass immigration by Africans and Moslems to the EU and Mexicans to the US. Oh dear, they are only escaping the hard life down on the farm! Is life so much harder after all in Morocco or Mexico? Or have these poor people succumbed to a mass hysteria that the streets of Europe and the US are paved in gold? Wasn't it the same in Europe's rural folk or the US for that matter? It seems that for her the industrial nirvana, including exploitation as semi slaves is better than life in the country. As someone who has worked his own farm, I can assure her that agriculture is a worthy and spiritual endeavor that although hard, ennobles and does not demean -- just the opposite of what her barbarians in industry have in store for the poor".

The continuing use of Latin at Oxbridge

We discussed the continuing use of Latin at Oxbridge. George Sassoon reports on Cambridge: "My Director of Studies at Cambridge was Patrick Wilkinson, who was also the University Orator. In this capacity, he had to write and deliver eulogies in Latin on people who were awarded honorary degrees. He said that he had to devise circumlocutions when describing modern institutions. A great cricketer, for example, was rex saligis, a king of
the willow. I asked how he would translate President of the South-East Cambridgeshire Small Bore Rifle-Shooting Association, and he admitted to being stumped - for the moment!"

RH: It was this way at Oxford too. Can Anthony Smith tell us if it is still so? A modern audience would be lost. At Christ Church, we scholars took turns reading the grace in Latin an dinner. Various entities including the Vatican try to keep Latin alive. Do they cooperate on lexicography?

C.S.Lewis used to correspond with intellectuals in Eastern Europe in Latin, and one of these collections of letters has recently been published. I find it very useful as a crib for useful Latin phrases.

At Magdalen on the first Monday of the summer term (Trinity Term) a student delivers the Perrot Oration, an account of the affairs of the College over the previous twelve months in Latin composed by the student. It is always full of witty translations of people's names. This oration was endowed some hundreds of years ago and is attended by a great throng of scholars (who are furnished by me with translations).

I think that is only an abbreviated list of the Latin events which are held in Oxford. It is a wonderful language in which to express ideas and in which to give a sense of significance to the account of any event".

RH: I am familiar with the universities of "Latin" Europe (France, Spain, Italy, Portugal) and of Germany. My impression is that this use of Latin survives only at Oxbridge.

I said "At Christ Church, Oxford, we scholars took turns reading the grace in Latin an dinner". George Sassoon reports: "As a scholar I did the same at Kings, Cambridge. I can still remember the grace, which was handed to one by a college servant printed on a ping-pong bat:

Benedic, Domine, nobis et his donis tuis, quae de tua munificencia sumus jam sumpturi. Et concede ut, illis salubriter a te nutritis, tibi debitum obsequium praestare valeamus. Per Christum Dominum nostrum, Amen.

[Bless, O Lord, us and these thy gifts which through thy munificence we are about to consume. And concede that, healthily nourished by thee with them, we are worthy to give to thee the due obsequies. Through Christ our Lord, Amen.]

When I went to dinner at other colleges their versions were different if I remember correctly. Regarding survival of Latin, I saw some time ago that Finnish radio is broadcasting in it. And there was a wonderful time years ago when the Pope was on television and one of the cardinals said to him: "venite ad telephoniam".

Rob Gaudet says: "Regents Park College at Oxford does not follow this tradition of saying grace in Latin before dinner. People may respond that Regents is not a true "college" but rather a "permanent private hall" of
Oxford. That is true. I should note that grace is said at Regents but, it is said in English. I believe that grace at Trinity College of Oxford is said in Latin. That's my hazy recollection from an occasional dinner (perhaps once per week)". RH: My guess is that at the newer colleges (St. Antony's, Nuffield, etc), grace is said in English or not at all.

USSR/EUSSIA: Iinternal passports

From Moscow, Cameron Sawyer reports: "The Soviet “internal passport” had information about your family status – your spouse and children. In Soviet times, a man and woman could not rent a hotel room without showing that they were in each other’s passports. As far as ethnicity is concerned, remember that the Soviet Union was an extraordinarily diverse multi-ethnic empire, with scores of peoples represented. Your citizenship was “Soviet” but your “nationality” – ethnicity – was shown on line 5. Russian, Ukrainian, Tatar, Jewish, Bashkir, Chechen, Armenian, etc. Some Soviet citizens, particularly of mixed ancestry, bribed the officials to get the nationality of their choice into line 5. Now that the Soviet Union is gone, “Russian” has a double meaning – it designates citizenship as well as nationality. Line 5 is gone.

As far as registration of your residence with the police, this institution remains as it does everywhere, as far as I know, in Europe. The Russians took this from the Germans at the beginning of the century. When I lived in Germany, I spent several days in lines getting my “polizeiliche Anmeldebestaetigung” from police bureaucrats who sat peering into huge, dusty ledgers, occasionally looking up to invite the next person in line, with a look of disdain. The registration office (“Einwohnermeldeamt”) was open only three hours a day, and not every day, so the lines were tremendous, guarantying violation of the seven-day period within one is required to register. The last time I did this was in 1985, but the scene was absolutely out of Kafka – not a computer in sight, huge piles of dusty ledgers everywhere, sour-faced bureaucrats with little spectacles.

In Russia it’s much easier (I presume that by now that it’s better in Germany, too). The relevant authorities set up private companies outside the back door of the relevant offices. They send a courier for your passport so that you don’t have to appear yourself, and by the end of the day, for a nominal fee, you’re registered. As to residence permits, these were banned by the new Russian constitution, which guarantees freedom of movement to all Russian citizens. However, Moscow to this day refuses to abolish its residence permit, and continues to restrict immigration into the city. The criteria for getting a residence permit is ownership of real estate. If a non-Muscovite Russian cannot prove that he owns an apartment, he may be refused a residence permit. This is one factor driving the boom in residential construction in Moscow – prosperous natives of other cities nearly all covet a pied a terre in the capital, which gives them into the bargain that same freedom of movement they were promised by the new constitution".

The Khrushchev tapes

Randy Black writes: "The reference regarding who helped smuggle the Khrushchev tapes out of the USSR is in the Talbott book (p.636). It states that it was Yuri Andropov, head of the KGB, and a complex man, who looked the other way while the USSR Foreign Intelligence Service made sure that the tapes got out. An intermediary was Viktor Louis, who was evidently involved with the eventual publisher, Little Brown.

Miles Seeley writes: "Viktor Louis was responsible for getting several manuscripts out of the USSR. As I recall (dimly, it was a long time ago), there were conflicting opinions about whether Louis was really a KGB agent or not; and if he was, why the KGB allowed the writings (samizdhat?) to get out. Conspiracy theorists came up with a number of ideas, but I do not recall any solid evidence".

Randy Black says: "The Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev make good reading if you are interested in a very long story as to how Mr. K rose to the top, considering his lack of education and everything else that worked against him. The particular section as to the tapes and their distribution to the West indicates that two copies were made on the premise that those in power in the USSR would certainly confiscate them once their existence was known but would not suspect that there was an extra copy hidden. And with even Mr. K's toilet bugged, he knew he would eventually be exposed, no pun intended.

Sergei K. was instrumental in arranging for the smuggle operation but did so ONLY with his father's approval, after the first set of tapes was grabbed from his dacha by the Central Committee while Nikita was in the hospital recovering from a heart attack. The publisher, Little Brown, was a bit skeptical of the authenticity of the tapes and the proposed deal and thus, with Viktor's help, sent two rather bright hats to Moscow as a gift. Mr. K was to be publicly photographed in one of the hats, a red one I recall, and something he would have never worn otherwise, as a "message" that the deal was done. Once the publisher saw the picture, they knew that the tapes were authentic.

The commentary of the author indicates that even Mr. K's wife was somewhat puzzled about the hat incident, as she evidently was not in on the secret. The commentary even mentions that Andropov was offered a "review" copy of the transcriptions, in advance of the smuggling deal, but smiled and declined the opportunity.

My personal opinion as to how a man of Khrushev's background, essentially uneducated beyond the 4th grade, from a very humble, rural upbringing, could rise to the top parallels closely the tale of the tortoise and the hare. Nikita was slow, but steady. And he was virtually the last man standing".

RH. Well, he came to a sorry end. I am puzzled. Penn State University Press published the Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev, Vol 1, The Commssar,1919-1945, edited by Sergei Khrushchev, translated by George Shriver and co.published with the Thomas J. Watson, Jr. Institute of International Studies, Brown University. Can anyone explain the relationship between this edition and that of Little Brown?

Homosexuality in Nazi Germany and Cuba

.Alberto Gutiérrez says: " "Hitler" wrote Albert Speer in his memories,"believed he had a powerful erotic radiation for women. But he never knew ,he used to say, whether a woman preferred him as Chancellor or as Adolf Hitler"
"Women are attracted to me because I am unmarried" Hitler said, and often remarked that he did not want witty and intelligent women about him. However his secretaries were allowed to fuss over and make fun of him. Many women were drawn to Hitler in his early years. Apparently he was indifferent to all, except his niece Angela Raubal, who committed suicide. Yet, many times Hitler broke into the little jig step that marked his exultant moments and delighted at the women who overwhelmed the Nazi rallies . In 1932 Eva Braun became his mistress, at least in name. In spite of few comments it is not clear what part sex played in their liaison.

From the early days of the Nazi Party, Hitler knew that many of his associates were sexual perverts. For instance he knew that not only Roehm, but Heines sent S.A. men all over Germany to find male lovers. Hitler condoned the depravity among those he considered his close and staunch supporters. But when he clashed with his two lieutenants he declared that they deserved to die because of their corrupt morals.

During the fifties, some homosexuals in Pinar del Río endured constant harassment. A few went to Italy , became fashion designers and eventually died. Since Havana was a much larger city , homosexuals were more tolerated there. When I entered the Naval Academy, an effeminate student also passed the entrance exam, but he was sent home for good some weeks after he became a midshipman. After 1959 many Cuban homosexuals moved to New York City for political reasons. However, according to one I met at Times Square, he (she?) felt "liberated" just because of the many friends, connections and the lack of inhibitions among New Yorkers! Today Key West, Florida is a center of male homosexuality. Another large group is noticeable in tourist sectors of Miami's South Beach.

In Cuba homosexuality under the Castro tyranny has experienced a few trying moments. Early in the sixties, some students were expelled from Havana University accused of "improper behavior" .The repressive wave hit those who had long hair, wore odd clothes, listened to rock and roll music,etc. Thousands of "antisocials" were sent to the UMAP (the military units to assist production) for "rehabilitation through revolutionary education". Those concentration camps of Camagüey deserve a full commentary. Ironically homosexuality within the ruling elite is linked to Raúl Castro. For instance about two years ago I heard the report of a young man who allegedly he raped . The kind of sexual dissipation that fits among the stories of popular US tabloids.

Political Satire

Dwight Peterson says: "James Tent brings up a wonderful name from the past, Tom Lehrer. I think he performed throughout the 1970's and into the 1980's. He really was our Victor Borge when it came to political satire, without the exceptional musical talent. Politics is such a volatile subject but Lehrer could make politicians of every persuasion buffoons or saints depending on the situation, and his lyrics always tempered the occasion. I can hear that piano and his silly voice now singing "Vatican Rag" and many other equally entertaining songs". RH: I repeat my caveat about the role of satire in politics, a serious business comparable to the practice of medicine. How many votes were won by the satirical references to "my dog Falla"?

James Tent said "What I sincerely regret in the American political scene today is the presence of a genuine political cabaretist". Ed Jajko replies: "What about Mark Russell? From the web page http://www.washingtonspeakers.com/speakers/speaker.cfm?SpeakerId=546: "Comedy, Music, Bribery and Conspiracy. Mark's answer to the frequently asked question, "Do you have any writers?" is "Oh yes. I have 535 writers. 100 in the Senate . . . and 435 in the House of Representatives." Just like his PBS specials, which have been so popular for more than two decades, Mark Russell's live presentations parody the biggest political stories in the news right now. The piano-playing satirist blends hilarious one-liners and music - brilliantly funny lyrics set to familiar tunes - and provides one of the most entertaining experiences in America." There is also the D.C.-based group the Capital Steps". RH: I just heard Senator Tom Daschle give an excellent speech on the abuse of the nomination and confirmation process.

God's Banker

George Sassoon has sent me "God's banker: the final judgment! (Sunday Times, 3/14/04) about the killing by mafiosi of banker Roberto Calvi, known as Goid's banker because of his close ties with the Vatican. Four people are on trial in Rome. It was a terrible death: "Among the chilling evidence is that Calvi was probably still alive when he was hanged from the scaffolding under Blackfriars Bridge in London shortly after midnight on June 18, 1982, and may have taken up to an hour to die". We hope that the trial leads to convictions, but unfortunately the Italian record in this regard is not good.

George Sassoon sent me "God's banker: the final judgment! (Sunday Times, 3/14/04) about the killing by mafiosi of banker Roberto Calvi, known as God's banker because of his close ties with the Vatican. Christopher Jones comments: "Whoever is on trial and whatever its outcome, rest assured justice will NOT be done. Calvi and Michele Sindona were rubbed out because they "knew" too much about the finances of the IOR or the Vatican bank. Its maffoso chief, Archbishop Marcinkus is the one who should be on trial". RH: "Mafia" or "maffia" is a word of dubious origin. It first appeared in Italian in 1865, The New English Dictionary listed it in 1904, Webster's in 1911.

Ronald Hilton -

Webmaster