Italy's stimulus spending

In 2008 the Italian economy contracted 1.0 per cent, its worst showing since 1975, and last Wednesday the Bank of Italy predicted that the economy would likely shrink by 2.6 per cent this year. There is absolutely nothing to be happy about, but, as common sense suggests, if there is something that can make things even worse, it is to paint this crisis as a tragedy, and that is exactly what the center-left opposition is doing, along with some of the mainstream media. By the way, believe me when I say that this inner attitude of mind is another reason why so many former liberals—and I am one of them—became conservative voters, and proud to be so.

“Our greatest fear is that people will change their lifestyles just because they’re afraid, and thus worsen the crisis,” Berlusconi told reporters some days ago, after a Cabinet meeting in which the government gave its green light to funding for a major public works program valued at 17.8 billion euros. The program includes the Strait of Messina bridge, to connect the toe of the boot-shaped peninsula to Sicily (see my previous post). This, in addition to 5 billion for poor families and 2 billion for car rebates and incentives to buy energy-saving appliances, previously set aside by the government.

Moreover, next Friday the government will formalize a measure intended to stimulate the construction industry. Home owners will be allowed to add additional rooms to their homes (without exceeding 20 percent of the cubic volume of the existing structure). Practically, balconies and terraces could be covered and converted into indoor living space as extra bedrooms, bathrooms or kitchens. The plan will help families deal with the economic crisis while boosting activity for small, local construction firms.

This seems to me to be an effective and non harmful way to stimulate the economy. “Other countries have had to shell out money for bailouts,” said Finance minister Giulio Tremonti, “but they’ve done less for the economy.” Obama docet, I would dare to say. To give an idea, the new infrastructure program could be worth about 0.6 percent of Italy’s GDP, save some 65,000 jobs that would be otherwise lost due to lack of funds and create 140,000 new jobs. Public Works minister Altero Matteoli told Il Messaggero daily newspaper.

Of course, with regard to the Strait of Messina bridge, the opposition say it will be an ecological disaster, vulnerable to high winds, earthquakes and tidal waves, if not a boon for the mafia. But the truth is, as I told in a comment to my previous post (sorry to quote myself, but I’m lazy …), that for every public works project, here in Italy, there have always been crowds of Cassandras, objectors, hypercritical experts (or would-be experts) and, above all, political opponents who talk big and do nothing …, so most of the times I, as well most of my countrymen, just don’t trust them. There is no reason to think that the planners are so naïve, incompetent and irresponsible as to have not fully considered the possible impact of the bridge, its feasibility, etc. While there are very good reasons to think that Renato Schifani, speaker of the Senate and a Sicilian, was right when he declared the project to be of enormous importance for the whole of Italy’s depressed south.

Sources:
Financial Times, International Herald Tribune, Timesonline, The Guardian, Ansa.

A bridge to the future?

Italy’s government has revived plans to build the Strait of Messina bridge, linking Sicily to the mainland. The single-span suspension bridge, with a central span of 3,300 m (about 2 miles), would be the longest in the world. The project is part of a massive 17.8bn-euro public works program to create new jobs and boost the economy.

Italy’s Foreign minister delays Iran visit

In light of the “unacceptable statements” made by Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “against the state of Israel and the American administration,” Italy Foreign minister Franco Frattini has delayed a visit to Tehran. Yesterday Ali Khamenei described Israel as a “cancerous tumor,” and criticized Washington’s “unconditional support” for Israel. He also said that the Holocaust was used to “usurp” Palestinian land.

The Italian reaction to both the hateful and hurtful anti-Semitic statements made by Ali Khamenei and the equally unacceptable statements contained in the draft of the final document of the upcoming United Nations World Conference Against Racism (see my previous post), has been as severe as quick. Which is something new, to tell the truth, in comparison with the standards of our political decision-making. I think Franco Frattini earns a “bravo” for this.

Italy pulls out of UN racism conference

Soon after Israel, Canada and the United States, Italy decided today to withdraw its delegation from the preparatory negotiations ahead of the upcoming United Nations World Conference Against Racism known as the Durban Review Conference, which is a follow-up to the 2001 World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.

The conference is due to take place in Geneva on April 20-24. Italian Foreign minister Franco Frattini said that the decision is due to “aggressive and anti-Semitic statements” in the draft of the event’s final document, which he described as “totally unacceptable.” Ministry spokesman Maurizio Massari confirmed Frattini’s statements and said Rome would not participate in the conference unless the document was changed.

The mistery of Fr. Giussani

Today Communion and Liberation, the movement founded by Fr. Luigi Giussani, is present in more than 70 countries. There are about 100,000 people belonging to the Fraternity. Then there are the members of Memores Domini (men and women under vows), the priests of the Fraternity of the Missionaries of St. Charles Borromeo, the Sisters of Charity of the Assumption, and the Companionship of Works Association, which links about 30,000 industrial businesses, magazines, publishers, etc.

Who really was Fr. Luigi Giussani? For the first time, a book presents his spiritual biography: Don Giussani. La sua esperienza dell'uomo e di Dio, by Massimo Camisasca. An extract from the volume’s culminating chapter can be read in English translation at Sandro Magister’s website. Of course, at the center of everything are a “coming” and an “encounter.”

'Pope Ratzinger’s solitude'

Italian vaticanist Luigi Accattoli has written a very interesting piece, “La solitudine di Ratzinger” (“Pope Ratzinger’s solitude”), published today in Liberal. Fr. John Zuhlsdorf has had the great idea of providing an English translation of it on his What Does The Prayer Really Say? If you don’t know Luigi Accattoli yet, just read the article and you will understand why he is one of my favorite writers.

The Crusades: myth and reality

The Siege of Antioch (Medieval miniature)

The following post is a very modest attempt to pay tribute to one of the most controversial issues in Western intellectual history. Thanks to Steven, who wrote some very interesting posts on this subject, making me willing to tackle this admittedly difficult task.

While the events known as “Crusades” remain one of the most misinterpreted aspects of medieval history, “Crusades” and “Crusaders” are among the most misunderstood terms of our time.

In the West the Crusades have been described in a huge number of books and articles as “Holy Wars” (and by consequence the antecedents of every religious and ideological wars), which was a thesis upheld by the historians and philosophers of the 18th-century Enlightenment. Voltaire, for instance, depicted the Crusaders as blood-thirsty fanatics, while portraying their opponents, particularly Saladin and al-Kamil, as wise and just monarchs. But there was a reason why the Enlightenment circles cast that “black legend” shadow on the Crusades: they wanted to use it as a weapon in their anti-religious campaigns, and particularly in their psychological war against the Roman Catholic Church.

Today, in the Western countries the black legend, imbued with a collective sense of guilt, is being continued in the spirit of political correctness, while in the Muslim world it is being continued by Islamists, who use it to paint the West as evil and Islam as a victim of Christian aggression. Al-Qaeda often uses the terms “Crusades” and “Crusaders” to refer to the West and its presumed (past and present) “aggressive” attitude towards the Muslim world. Which of course, according to Al-Qaeda and its affiliates and supporters, “justifies” Islamic terrorism as a “response” and a means of defense.

“We all pay—and will continue to pay—the consequences of the Islamic masses’ desire for revenge, of their call for vengeance against the ‘Great Satan,’ which, by the way, is not just the United States, but the whole of Christianity, the very one responsible for the Crusades,” wrote Italian Catholic writer Vittorio Messori—who interviewed Pope John Paul II in Crossing the Threshold of Hope—in a July 1999 article in Corriere della Sera newspaper. “After all,” he argued, “is it not Westerners themselves who insist on saying that it was a terrible, unforgivable aggression against the pious, devout and meek followers of the Koran?”

But the historical truth is quite different. Even the term “Crusades,” according to Messori, is a lie:

It was anti-Catholic propaganda that invented the name, just as it invented the term Middle Ages, chosen by ‘enlightened’ historiography to describe the parenthesis of darkness and fanaticism between the splendors of Antiquity and the Renaissance.

And it goes without saying that

those who attacked Jerusalem 900 years ago would have been very surprised had they been told that they were engaged in what eventually would be known as the 'first Crusade.' For them it was an itinerary, a 'pilgrimage,' a route, a passage. Those same 'armed pilgrims' would have been even more surprised had they foreseen the accusations leveled against them of trying to convert the 'infidel,' of securing commercial routes to the West, of creating European 'colonies' in the Middle East ...

Furthermore,

there is a question we must ask ourselves. In the context of more than a thousand years of Christian-Islamic relations, who has been the victim and who the aggressor? […] When Caliph Omar conquered Jerusalem in 638, the city had been Christian for over three centuries. Soon after, the Prophet's disciples invaded and destroyed the glorious churches of Egypt, first, and then of North Africa, causing the extinction of Christianity in places that had had Bishops like St. Augustine. Later it was the turn of Spain, Sicily and Greece, and the land that would eventually become Turkey, where the communities founded by St. Paul himself were turned into ruins. In 1453, after seven centuries of siege, Constantinople, the second Rome, capitulated and became Islamic. The Islamic threat reached the Balkans but, miraculously, the onslaught was stopped and forced to turn back at Vienna's walls. If the Jerusalem massacre of 1099 is execrated, Mohammed II's action in Otranto [Italy] in 1480 

must not be forgotten, a raw example of a bloody funeral procession of sufferings.

And here were Messori’s final remarks:

A simple review of history, along very general lines, confirms an obvious truth: Christianity is constantly on the defensive when it comes to Moslem aggression; this has been the case from the beginning until now. […] Admittedly, some in the course of history need to ask for forgiveness. But, in this instance, must it be Catholics who ask for forgiveness for actions in self-defense, and for keeping the road open for pilgrimage to Jesus' places, which was the reason for the Crusades?

This is a very similar approach to that of historian Franco Cardini of the University of Florence, the author of Europe and Islam (2001). In an article published on July 21, 1999 in Avvenire newspaper, to the question whether or not the Crusades are to be considered as “Holy Wars” or “religious wars” Cardini’s answer is unequivocally negative:

[T]he real interest in these expeditions, in service of Christian brethren threatened by Moslems, was the restoration of peace in the East, and the early stirring of the idea of rescue for distant fellow-Christians.
[…]
[T]he Crusades were never 'religious wars,' their purpose was not to force conversions or suppress the infidel. The excesses and violence committed in the course of the expeditions (which did occur and must not be forgotten) must be evaluated in the painful but usual context of the phenomenology of military events, keeping in mind that, undoubtedly, some theological reason always justified them.
[…]
The Crusade was an armed pilgrimage that developed slowly over time, between the 11th and 13th centuries, which must be understood by being inserted in the context of the extended relations between Christianity and Islam, which have produced positive cultural and economic results. […] If this was not the case, how could one explain the frequent friendships, including military alliances, between Christians and Moslems, in the history of the Crusades?

The Crusades issue is not so easy, after all. When correctly interpreted, it shows that there has been an over emphasis on what, on the Christian side, was wrong, negative, cruel, while what was positive and right has been kept quiet. And that Muslims and Christians did not only make wars. It is also worth noting that several European authors claimed that not only did the Crusades era produce active intellectual exchanges between East and West in all fields of science and culture, but also that there has been direct, although discreet, contact between the spirituality of Islam and that of medieval Christian Europe, to say nothing about the supposed liaisons between Dante and the tradition of Arab mystical poetry, and between the so-called Christian “initiatory organizations” and the Sufism, which is generally understood to be the inner, mystical dimension of Islam.

Even from this point of view the case of the Templars, who played a fundamental role in the Crusades, is paradigmatic. This order of knights was founded in Jerusalem in 1119 and was given its Rule by St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who opposed the lay knighthood, which in the 12th century was often made up of avid, violent and amoral persons, with “a new knighthood” made up of monks at the exclusive service of the poor and pilgrims and well-aware that an enemy might have to be killed during war if there is no option, but must never be hated. Well, as Franco Cardini recalls in his Gerusalemme d’oro, di rame e di luce (1991, no English version, as far as I know), Usama ibn Muniqidh, an Arab-Syrian noble and warrior of the twelfth century and Emir of Shaizar, wrote in his autobiography that he was friendly with one European Christian knight, talked with Christians, and stayed with the Templars, “who were my friends,” when he was in Jerusalem. The Templars would also allow him to pray in a chapel they had built in the former Aqsa mosque.

And this is just one example among many.

Having said that, it’s obvious that the Crusades remain an insult to all those who reject war “without any ifs and buts,” as well as to those Christians whose basic tenet is to turn the other cheek, and to forgive everybody for everything, at all times, regardless of circumstances, consequences, and common sense—the kind of Christians the author of this article was referring to ...

Bye bye bishop Williamson

The “absolutely unequivocal and public” taking of distance from his positions regarding the Shoah, which the Vatican was expecting from bishop Williamson, has not come to pass. Which is perhaps no surprise, given the nature of the case—a desperate one, indeed.

What is surprising is, in my opinion, that Richardson felt the need to perform an attempt to apologize for the interview he gave to a Swedish TV program last November (aired in January), in which, as it is well known, he disputed that six million Jews had been killed by the Nazis, and said that none had died in gas chambers.

So, in a declaration released on February 26, he said that he “regretted” having made such remarks, “because their consequences have been so heavy,” and that, had he known beforehand “the full harm and hurt to which they would give rise, especially to the Church, but also to survivors and relatives of victims of injustice under the Third Reich,” he would not have made them. Furthermore, in a vain attempt to minimize the significance of his remarks, he added that on Swedish television he “gave only the opinion (...”I believe”...”I believe”...) of a non-historian, an opinion formed 20 years ago on the basis of evidence then available, and rarely expressed in public since.”

But the simple truth, as Norm Geras points out, is that

[t]he one thing he doesn’t say—and you have to assume that this statement has been thought about carefully—is that he has now concluded in light of a review of the evidence that those opinions were wrong. It looks […] like an apology because some were offended, as opposed to an apology for a falsehood now recognized by him.

And that’s why Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office, said yesterday in a verbal statement that the apology “does not seem to respect the conditions” set out by Vatican Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone. The Vatican spokesman also described the apology as “generic and equivocal.”

However, once again it is to be noted that, even if Williamson would have “respected the conditions,” his status within the Catholic Church wouldn’t change, since the lifting of the excommunication by the Pope did not by any means heal the schism between Rome and Lefebvrists. In fact, as canon lawyer Peter Vere points out, Williamson’s ordination—along with that of the other three bishops—20 years ago was illicit, because it was against the wishes of the Pope, but nonetheless valid. Which means that Williamson “is in fact a bishop with episcopal powers,” because his episcopal consecration was valid, but “not a Catholic bishop.”

The remission of the excommunication has freed the four bishops from a very serious canonical penalty, but it has not changed the juridical status of the Society of St. Pius X, which presently does not enjoy any canonical recognition by the Catholic Church. The four bishops, even though they have been released from excommunication, have no canonical function in the Church and do not licitly exercise any ministry within it.

As for the attitude of the Catholic Church towards the deniers of the Holocaust, what Pope Benedict said on February 12, speaking to American Jewish leaders at the Vatican, swept away any reasonable doubt, while the latest declaration by Williamson seems to have raised an insuperable wall between Williamson himself and Rome. Which I guess is not that bad.

March 10, 2009: Display the Tibetan flag

Next March 10 will mark a double anniversary for Tibet: 50 years since Tibetans rose up to protest China’s illegal invasion of their homeland, and one year since unprecedented protests broke out across the Land of Snow showing China and the world that Tibetans are determined to be free. The images in March 2008 of Tibetans in Tibet bravely displaying Tibetan flags is an image that none, among those who love freedom and justice, will ever forget.

That’s why the Students For Tibet web site is inviting people to display a Tibetan flag on March 10, 2009. And that’s also why I am linking here to their site.

There are many places where a Tibetan flag can be raised or displayed. Here are just a few of the suggested places that could fly a flag:

> Schools
> Shops
> Libraries
> Pubs/bars
> Sports grounds
> Village/Public Halls
> Offices
> Local landmarks
> Your home
> On cars

Moreover, in taking that a step further, as the “Dalai Lama blog” suggests, it would be great that all bloggers and webmasters displayed an image of the Tibetan flag on their blogs and web sites during the entire month of March. And that’s what I’ll be doing next week.

Moving backwards?

Moving backwards on the foreign policy front with Barack Obama in charge? Perhaps they forgot Machiavelli's lesson …

From this arises an argument: whether it is better to be loved than feared. I reply that one should like to be both one and the other; but since it is difficult to join them together, it is much safer to be feared than to be loved when one of the two must be lacking.

Slaying Leviathan

“Slaying Leviathan envisions an approach to tax policy rooted in natural justice. To achieve this goal, Ms. Carbone first traces the historical evolution of U.S. tax policy, from the 1765 Stamp Act to the 1997 tax cut. She then assesses the current American tax burden and former president George W. Bush’s tax cuts and explores the fundamental problems with U.S. tax policy. After providing a historical analysis of federal spending and of expanding governmental expectations, she offers a set of over-arching principles and instructions on how to apply them to tax policy proposals. Anyone interested in restoring justice and raising prosperity in America will find Slaying Leviathan a valuable resource.”

Slaying Leviathan: The Moral Case for Tax Reform, by Leslie Carbone. To be published on June 30, 2009, by Potomac Books Inc. Pre-ordering the book is possible through amazon.com. 

'It is written . . .'

Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, which occurs forty-six days (forty days not counting Sundays) before Easter. I thought these “few provisions for your Lenten trek,” by Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP, might be a very appropriate way to celebrate this day.

P.S. Ah, don’t worry about the title of the post to which I linked ... a thorough reading and understanding of this piece is required and highly recommended. As for “thanking the devil,” well, for the moment I limit myself to only send the Author a BIG thank you for this awesome post. After all, if Heaven Can Wait, then the devil can wait at least twice as long before I thank him ... notwithstanding the fact that Fr. Philip Neri Powell is absolutely right! ;-)

Carnival of Venice

I don’t have any particular feeling for or against this period of the year, but I generally refrain from going to Venice during these days, when the Carnival—the famous Carnevale di Venezia, first recorded in 1268—is whooping it up in the streets (my misanthropic side’s fault?). But nothing prevents me from enjoying these beautiful pictures.

Geert Wilders in the US (updated)

“Oriana has always been my idol, my point of reference, and I am proud to receive this award,” Geert Wilders said in an interview with Il Giornale (in Italian) the day before receiving the “Premio Oriana Fallaci” (Oriana Fallaci Award, see here his acceptance speech). Asked how he felt about the UK government’s decision to ban him from entering the country, he said: “It was a scandalous event and Gordon Brown is the greatest [ “*” … what follows is a “compliment” with reference to the presumed lack of courage by the UK Prime minister] of Europe. This is what I was expecting from Jordan and Indonesia, where I am persecuted because of Fitna, not from England.”

Now, Geert Wilders is about to fly to the United States from Rome. He is scheduled to make public appearances in Washington this week, including a Feb. 27 press conference at the National Press Club. The chief sponsor of the event, reports Newsweek magazine, is Frank Gaffney, the founder and president of the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C., a prominent neoconservative think tank.

Geert Wilders, writes the National Review, “is the latest victim” of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), an “enormous world machinery,” a unique organization with no equivalent in the world, which unites the religious, economic, military, and political strength of 56 states and whose aim is to punish and suppress any alleged Islamophobia, around the world but particularly in Europe :

In its efforts to defend the “true image” of Islam and combat its defamation, the organization has requested the UN and the Western countries to punish “Islamophobia” and blasphemy. Among the manifestations of Islamophobia, in the OIC’s view, are European opposition to illegal immigration, anti-terrorist measures, criticism of multiculturalism, and indeed any efforts to defend Western cultural and national identities. The OIC has massive funding from oil sources, which it lavishly spends on the Western media and academia and in countless “dialogues.” It influences Western policy, laws, and even textbooks through pressures brought by Muslim immigrants and by the Western nations’ own leftist parties. Hence, we have seen Kristallnacht-like incitements of hate and murder against European Jews and Israel conducted with impunity in the cities of Europe — where respect for human rights is supposed to be one of the highest values.

This reminds me of a dialogue I had some days ago with one of my readers. The subject, which is very much to the point, was Oriana Fallaci. “Rob, isn’t Fallaci a tad, shall we say, excessive if not distasteful? I’m all for being vigilant but ... there are limits, no?” he told me. I answered him that, in my view, Oriana was a kind of lay prophet who turned out to have been right on all fronts. She was never a right-wing hawk, nor a “fanatic Christian fundamentalist.” On the contrary, she was an agnostic and secularist journalist, trained, so to speak, in the school of facts and objectivity. Of course she was very provocative, and her latest writings—actually a very peculiar “literary genre”—were imbued with a sense of urgency that makes them both disturbing and enlightening. If she was “excessive,” I argued, it was because of the “excessiveness” of our times. Well, actually I find that what happened to Wilders in his own Country and in the UK is “excessive,” as much as what happened in Milan and in Bologna on January 3 was “exaggerated.” And if so many people—here in Italy, as well as in other European countries—who, to speak frankly, are not and have never been extremists, who have always been respectful of other’s religious beliefs, political views, and opinions on life and the world, have become or are becoming aware that it’s time to wake up and to start facing facts, does this mean that they have suddenly become crazed fanatics and extremists?

Geert Wilders is maintaining that Europe's is rooted in the values of Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, and not in Mecca? What is wrong with it? Is this a crime? It would seem so, if we pay attention to some European governments, or the mainstream Western media and their grotesque mischaracterization of Wilders’ unequivocal defense of free speech. “Demonizing Wilders, and imposing de facto limitations on his free speech criticism of Islam—not matter how reasonable his concerns may be—is a task for which our craven, lemming-like media elites are far better suited,” writes Andrew G. Bostom on American Thinker.

Last but not least, to those who pretend that Wilders is an insignificant personality who makes “provocative” statements only in search of fame, along with the above mentioned National Review’s article we can answer that “if his motivation were self-interest, he could do far better by courting the OIC’s favors — as so many Europeans are doing, consciously or unconsciously — rather than risking his freedom and indeed his life.”


UPDATE FEBRUARY 25, 2:30 PM

Cassandra has interesting updates on Geert Wilders. Here is the clip of Wilders’ interview with Bill O’Reilly on Fox News (the one which Steven mentioned in the comments):

The Wager

While browsing my Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, I found an effective synthesis of the famous Pascal’s wager, so I thought it might be useful—above all for my younger readers—to share at least a portion of the item. Here it goes:

The ancient and popular (or vulgar) view that belief in God is the ‘best bet’, given its classic formulation in the Pensées of Pascal. Suppose that metaphysical argument leaves us knowing nothing about divine matters. Nevertheless, we can ask if it is better for us to believe in God. If God exists then it is clearly better: infinitely better, given the prospect of eternal bliss for believers, and eternal damnation for non-believers. If God does not exist, then we lose nothing, and may even gain in this life by losing ‘poisonous pleasures’. So belief is the dominant strategy. It can win, and cannot lose. The wager is ‘infini-rien’: infinity to nothing.

Pascal knew that you could not just chose to believe because of this kind of consideration, but thought, perceptively, that beliefs are contagious, and you could deliberately deaden you’re your intelligence by choosing to associate with people who would pass their belief to you. You would thus end up believing, and the argument has shown that this is the most desirable strategy.

And to complete the job, here is how the wager is described by Pascal himself in the Pensées (from Wikipedia):

If there is a God, He is infinitely incomprehensible, since, having neither parts nor limits, He has no affinity to us. We are then incapable of knowing either what He is or if He is [...].
[..] "God is, or He is not." But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separated us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up. What will you wager? According to reason, you can do neither the one thing nor the other; according to reason, you can defend neither of the propositions.
Do not, then, reprove for error those who have made a choice; for you know nothing about it. "No, but I blame them for having made, not this choice, but a choice; for again both he who chooses heads and he who chooses tails are equally at fault, they are both in the wrong. The true course is not to wager at all."
Yes; but you must wager. It is not optional. You are embarked. Which will you choose then? Let us see. Since you must choose, let us see which interests you least. You have two things to lose, the true and the good; and two things to stake, your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness; and your nature has two things to shun, error and misery. Your reason is no more shocked in choosing one rather than the other, since you must of necessity choose. This is one point settled. But your happiness? Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is.
"That is very fine. Yes, I must wager; but I may perhaps wager too much." Let us see. Since there is an equal risk of gain and of loss, if you had only to gain two lives, instead of one, you might still wager. But if there were three lives to gain, you would have to play (since you are under the necessity of playing), and you would be imprudent, when you are forced to play, not to chance your life to gain three at a game where there is an equal risk of loss and gain. But there is an eternity of life and happiness. And this being so, if there were an infinity of chances, of which one only would be for you, you would still be right in wagering one to win two, and you would act stupidly, being obliged to play, by refusing to stake one life against three at a game in which out of an infinity of chances there is one for you, if there were an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain. But there is here an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain, a chance of gain against a finite number of chances of loss, and what you stake is finite.

'Giotto and the 14th Century'

Giotto, Crucifixion - Cappella degli Scrovegni, Padua

“Giotto e il Trecento” (Giotto and the 14th Century), the major exhibition opening on March 6 at the Vittoriano in Rome and running through June 29, will be the first ever realized outside of Florence—the latest one was at the Uffizi Gallery in 1937—and one of the artistic highlights of the year.

An event not to be missed by anyone who loves art. Ok, I’m not what you’d call a neutral witness, because I have a passion for Giotto, and have loved him since the first time I saw his frescoes of the St. Francis cycle in the upper Basilica in Assisi, when I was little more than a child—but it is authoritatively said that Medieval art came to an end and the modern era began with Giotto’s frescoes of the life of Christ and the Virgin in the Cappella degli Scrovegni (Padua). He made “a decisive break with the Byzantine style,” and “brought to life the great art of painting as we know it today,” wrote the later 16th century biographer Giorgio Vasari in his Lives of the Artists:

One day Cimabue was on his way from Florence to Vespignano, where he had some business to attend to, when he came across Giotto who, while the sheep were grazing near by, was drawing one of them by scratching with a slightly pointed stone on a smooth clean piece of rock. And this was before he had received any instruction except for what he saw in nature itself. Cimabue stopped in astonishment to watch him, and then he asked the boy whether he would like to come and live with him. Giotto answered that if his father agreed he would love to do so. So Cimabue approached Bondone, who was delighted to grant his request and allowed him to take the boy to Florence. After he had gone to live there, helped by his natural talent and instructed by Cimabue, in a very short space of time Giotto not only captured his master's own style but also began to draw so ably from life that he made a decisive break with the crude traditional Byzantine style and brought to life the great art of painting as we know it today, introducing the technique of drawing accurately from life, which had been neglected for more than two hundred years. Although […] one or two people had tried to do this, no one succeeded as completely and as immediately as Giotto.

Giotto, Stigmata - Cappella degli Scrovegni, Padua

But his greatness was also acknowledged during his lifetime, to the point that his contemporary Giovanni Villani— the famous Florentine chronicler who wrote the Nuova Cronica on the history of Florence—wrote that Giotto was “the most sovereign master of painting in his time, who drew all his figures and their postures according to nature.”

”This event will not simply commemorate Giotto’s work, it aims to approach the master from a fresh point of view,” said Architectural Heritage Superintendent Roberto Cecchi at the presentation of the event. ”There are so many aspects to Giotto that we still know little about, such as his interest in architecture, and the exhibition will contain some appealing ideas for future studies,” he added.

Yet, as Culture minister Sandro Bondi pointed out, this won’t be only a cultural event, but also “a civic and democratic one,” in fact, “discussing Giotto is trying to find again the deepest sources of our society.” Well said, but it seems to be a very hard search, given the times in which we live ...

Over 150 masterpieces will give an idea of Giotto not only as a painter but also as “a European artist who transmits a serene message of gratifying Christianity,” says Louis Godart, a member of the Artistic Heritage Conservation Board for the Italian Presidency of the Republic.

This is enough to make me want to go and to recommend that you do the same, if you can.

Giotto, Raising of Lazarus - Cappella degli Scrovegni, Padua

'I need a beachfront condo, Mr. President!'

Some hundred people protesting against the the $787 billion stimulus package, signed by President Obama Tuesday in Denver, gathered outside Dobson High School in Mesa (Az) at 10 a.m. and expressed their frustration with signs. Nice pics of the event at Michelle Malkin’s blog.

All books are equal!

Librarians are being told to move the Bible to the top shelf to avoid giving offence to followers of Islam.
Muslims have complained of finding the Koran on lower shelves, saying it should be put above commonplace things.
So officials have responded with guidance, backed by ministers, that all holy books should be treated equally and go on the top shelf together.
This means that Christian works, which also have immense historical and literary value, will be kept out of the reach and sight of many readers.
The guidance was published by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, a quango answering to Culture Secretary Andy Burnham.

I must confess that, while reading through this news story—and thinking to myself that each and every one of those “honourable men” who had such a brilliant idea should be graciously thanked by every one that takes an interest and pride in the history of Europe—, I couldn’t help but wonder, ‘How about transferring Westminster cathedral, Duomo di Milano and Notre-Dame de Paris from their respective center cities to the suburbs to avoid giving offence to followers of Islam, or, alternatively, placing new shining mosques just in front of those old-fashioned buildings, nothing more than an embarrassing legacy of the days of Crusades and knights in bloody armor?’
(Thanks: Sandra K. S.)

The debacle of the Italian left

So, now that most of the ballots have been counted, there is no doubt that the center-right candidate Ugo Cappellacci has won—with about 52 percent of the vote against 43 percent—regional elections in Sardinia against a left-wing coalition led by the outgoing governor and Tiscali internet company-founder, Renato Soru.

It’s quite a surprising result, since most pre-election surveys had predicted a narrow victory for Soru, and also a terrible blow for the Democratic party (PD) and its secretary Walter Veltroni, who in fact offered his resignation this morning, and this afternoon confirmed it despite his party’s (weak) rejection. As a matter of fact Sardinia is the second region (after Abruzzo last December) the center-right have captured from the center-left since its victory in April 2008’s national elections.

The center-left’s defeat is confirmation that last year’s electoral win by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is “a watershed event,” and that “Silvio Berlusconi’s adversaries are incapable of analysis and of facing a new political era,” writes Corriere della Sera newspaper in his today’s editorial (in Italian), titled “The roller.” But, in his j’accuse, Massimo Franco, the author of the editorial, should have included some other people in the bunch, for example most of the mainstream Italian media … er, by the way, what about  Corriere itself, Massimo?

Is the flag of Shariah already waving over the US?

When the hard part of what you are trying to do or to understand or to investigate is in the many small details, you can say, along with the old saying, “the devil is in the details.” So, it may happen that an apparently minor news might turned out to be much less insignificant than anyone thought.

Take, for instance, the case of the beheading of a woman whose husband, Muzzammil Hassan, an influential member of the local Muslim community of Orchard Park (a town south of Buffalo, New York), has been charged with second-degree murder after he himself reported her death to police Thursday. Hassan is the founder and chief executive officer of a broadcasting station, Bridges TV, aimed to help portray Muslims in a more positive light.

What would be interesting to know is why this Muslim leader, should he be found guilty, chose beheading as a means to murder his wife. Furthermore, what do Qur’an and Hadith say about beheading enemies? And which relation is there between honor killings, beheadings, and Shariah law? Of course, finding the answers to these questions would help us understand whether or not the flag of Shariah is already waving over the US. Will the mainstream media investigate all of this, or will political correctness trump investigative journalism? (Thanks: ACT! for America)