These are all the Blogs posted on Sunday, 20, 2009.
Sunday, 20 December 2009
Christmas Carols VII
Some people seek to make a distinction between Christmas Carols and Christmas songs. I believe that such a distinction is spurious because originally all Christmas Carols were merely songs which celebrated Christmas and were sung by the laity or the choir inside, and outside of, Church services at Christmastide. They were often, as I have demonstrated earlier in this series of posts, teaching songs – they taught the unlettered the meaning of Christmas in an easy to remember way – or were songs of celebration and joy sung to honour the Birth of Our Lord and Saviour. Sometimes they were songs from our ancient, pagan past which were given a Christian twist or two in order to make them acceptable and to allow a harmless tradition to continue uninterrupted into the Christian ages (as I argued here, yesterday).
There is a modern myth that it was St. Francis of Assisi who first introduced Carols at Christmas into Church services, but there is ample evidence to indicate that specifically Christmas Carols were known and sung by Christians at Christmas Services as early as the 300s AD in imperial Rome and its provinces. Often the words of such Hymns (Carols) were deliberately set to known tunes of the time – we have every reason to believe that even St. Ambrose’s starkly simple and very beautiful Veni redemptor gentium (a Christmas Carol composed by that Saint of Milan to counter the influence of the Arian heresy and explain the truly Christian view of the Incarnation of Christ – a teaching song again, it seems) used a much older, well-known and haunting tune.
The Roman imperial Latin poet and lawyer Aurelius Prudentius Clemens, 348(?) – 413(?) AD, composed the very popular Corde natus ex Parentis (‘Of the Father's love begotten’) which is still sung at Christmas in many Churches today and you can listen to it here (he also composed that great Hymn of the Epiphany which we still sing sing today: O sola magnarum urbium (‘Earth Has Many a Noble City’), but that’s another story and the tune we all know to that Hymn is probably a much more modern creation, I think!). I’ve no reason to believe that the surviving and ancient tunes, in general, no matter that they have been ‘modernised’, do not carry with them some relationship to the originals for there is copious evidence in many collections and ancient libraries which demonstrates the persistence of musical tradition.
However, let’s move the story on a bit. The Saxons came into England after the fall of Rome and they brought their traditions of worship of their pagan gods with them. They were, as you all know, gradually Christianised and many of their ancient traditions were incorporated into English Christianity and then disseminated throughout the world over the next many centuries as England grew to be an imperial power and an important player on the world stage. Long before that process began to happen a Cistercian monk, St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090 to 1153 AD), championed the developing Christmas music in the cloisters under his control and such music was usually sung by his chorister monks at Christmastide. It has to be remembered that the Monastic Churches were often, indeed usually, also Parish Churches and the Parish priest often lived within the cloister and that this meant that whatever the monks in a particular locality practised the laity usually followed. Where Monasteries emphasised, once again, Christmas music and songs, as the Bernardine Cistercians did, then a rich tradition of such songs sprang up very easily amongst the local laity.
Encouraged by the cloistered ones, ancient tunes and dimly remembered lyrics were pressed by the lay peoples into the service of their Christian Faith and the choirmasters in the cloisters fed off the ancient musicality of the laity also. Much of the ancient Roman musical tradition of Christmas that was on the very edge of extinction in England and Northern France was resurrected and rewritten – just as the Victorian collectors resurrected and rewrote that which the idiot Puritans of the so-called Reformation sought in killjoy fashion to suppress – by those Cistercian music masters in their Monasteries. We owe those many un-named and unremembered musicians of the Cistercian cloisters of England a debt of gratitude for without them there would have been nothing left for the great scholars of the Victorian era to collect and we would have been, this Christmastide, frighteningly bereft of our ancient Carols.
However, we do know the name of one very prominent monastic musician who fed from common pool – Adam of St. Victor (a Monastery just outside medieval Paris) – and we know that he wrote (in the twelfth century) many great Hymns, and great Christmas Hymns, based on vernacular words and music. He wrote, to name but a few, Laudes crucis attolamus, Verbi vere substantivi and Stola regni laureatus, which are all still sung today.
Moving on, again, I must ask why so many of us believe, in the face of all the evidence to the contrary, that St. Francis initiated the modern Christmas Carol singing tradition in our Churches. Well, simply put, that’s because he revived the musical legacy of the Bernardine Cistercians and the early Roman Church’s music which they revived, and he was the last great Saint to do so. His revival of the great songs (Carols) of Christmas is still with us today – and salvaged for us by the great collectors of Victorian England as it almost died out once again in our country because of the Puritans. But St. Francis was merely reviving the legacy of Bernard of Clairvaux and the impact that the Cistercians made on the Yuletide musicality of Northern Europe – and on England – and they, the Cistercians, in their turn, were merely reviving a much older Roman tradition which, in England, had previously melded with the songs of the Saxon conversion. The music masters of the Franciscans found easy and rich pickings in England!
And the Ancient Roman Christians in whose time all this Carolling business started? Well they were merely rewriting in Christian terms the ancient pagan Hymns which were in turn based on something which musicologists suggest was even older. We are connected to this ancient past through an unbroken line of singers – monks and laity – and we forget that at our peril.
But new tunes and new words have been born from our ancient past, and a new musicality for our age has arisen from all the ancient tunes and much loved words – but that’s for later.
A Literary Interlude: The King's Breakfast (A. A. Milne)
The King asked
The Queen, and
The Queen asked
The Dairymaid:
"Could we have some butter for
The Royal slice of bread?"
The Queen asked the Dairymaid,
The Dairymaid
Said, "Certainly,
I'll go and tell the cow
Now
Before she goes to bed."
The Dairymaid
She curtsied,
And went and told the Alderney:
"Don't forget the butter for
The Royal slice of bread."
The Alderney said sleepily:
"You'd better tell
His Majesty
That many people nowadays
Like marmalade
Instead."
The Dairymaid
Said "Fancy!"
And went to
Her Majesty.
She curtsied to the Queen, and
She turned a little red:
"Excuse me,
Your Majesty,
For taking of
The liberty,
But marmalade is tasty, if
It's very
Thickly
Spread."
The Queen said
"Oh!"
And went to his Majesty:
"Talking of the butter for
The royal slice of bread,
Many people
Think that
Marmalade
Is nicer.
Would you like to try a little
Marmalade
Instead?"
The King said,
"Bother!"
And then he said,
"Oh, deary me!"
The King sobbed, "Oh, deary me!"
And went back to bed.
"Nobody,"
He whimpered,
"Could call me
A fussy man;
I only want
A little bit
Of butter for
My bread!"
The Queen said,
"There, there!"
And went to
The Dairymaid.
The Dairymaid
Said, "There, there!"
And went to the shed.
The cow said,
"There, there!
I didn't really
Mean it;
Here's milk for his porringer
And butter for his bread."
The queen took the butter
And brought it to
His Majesty.
The King said
"Butter, eh?"
And bounced out of bed.
"Nobody," he said,
As he kissed her
Tenderly,
"Nobody," he said,
As he slid down
The banisters,
"Nobody,
My darling,
Could call me
A fussy man -
BUT
I do like a little bit of butter to my bread!"
Attempted Blackmail Of The FBI By Members Of The "Muslim Community"
FBI walks tightrope in outreach to Muslims
Probe into 5 Americans held in Pakistan could undermine relationships
By Jerry Markon
The Washington Post
Sun., Dec . 20, 2009
WASHINGTON - At a retirement party last week for the head of the FBI's Washington field office, Muslim and Arab leaders presented the guest of honor with a crystal plaque.
It thanked Joseph Persichini Jr. for reaching out to the local Muslim and Arab communities. Yet even as the tribute on Capitol Hill went on, his agents had a different mission. They were flying to Pakistan to interrogate five Washington area Muslim men arrested in a terrorism probe. The outcome of that investigation threatens to undermine the very relationships their boss tried to foster.
Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, FBI agents from the same office have met with Muslim leaders, fielded questions at mosques and participated in Ramadan feasts. The outreach might well have resulted in the families of the five men coming forward to the FBI to report them missing.
But that action now has agents and prosecutors facing a dilemma as the case has morphed from a missing persons investigation into a counter-terrorism probe. As U.S. officials consider whether to file criminal charges against the men and how aggressively to prosecute any potential case, some Muslim leaders are calling for leniency, saying the tough approach often used by the Bush administration would alienate a community whose relationship with law enforcement is uneasy.
"Charging them and throwing them in jail is not the solution," said Nihad Awad, national head of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which approached the FBI on behalf of the families. "The government has to show some appreciation for the actions of the parents and the community. That will encourage other families to come forward."
The men, ages 18 to 24, traveled overseas just after Thanksgiving without telling their families and were arrested near Lahore on Dec. 8. A Pakistani court this week ordered them held for up to 10 more days of interrogation, but officials say their likely return to the United States could take months. Pakistani officials say the men were in touch with a Taliban recruiter and were aiming to join up with al-Qaeda and battle U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
No one has been charged, and the men's friends and spiritual advisers say they never saw any sign of radical beliefs or activities.
Federal prosecutors in Alexandria, where any criminal case would probably be brought, declined to comment. But law enforcement sources say prosecutors are likely to consider charges that include providing material support to terrorist organizations. Prosecutors face complexities that include whether the men's reported admissions to Pakistani authorities are admissible in a U.S. court and whether any statements were coerced.
'Home-based terrorism is here' Senior Justice Department officials are expected to balance broader issues in any charging decisions, such as concern over a growing threat from domestic extremism.
"Home-based terrorism is here," Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said in a recent speech in which she cited the arrests of U.S. citizens suspected of plotting attacks with al-Qaeda and other Muslim groups. The five Virginia men are U.S. citizens.
But the law enforcement imperative could clash with President Obama's desire to improve relations with Muslims abroad and in the United States. When asked about the arrests in Pakistan, Obama praised "the extraordinary contributions of the Muslim-American community."
U.S. law enforcement also views relations with Muslims as critical for its mandate to prevent terror attacks. The Northern Virginia families "alerted their community and the authorities immediately when they knew there was something wrong with their sons," said one federal official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the case is unfolding. "That's a very positive step."
Current and former law enforcement officials said the families' actions will not affect the FBI's intensifying investigation. "When you come upon information that the law may have been violated, the way you receive that information does not change your obligation to respond to it accordingly," said Michael A. Mason, who preceded Persichini as head of the FBI's D.C. field office.
Other officials said cooperation could affect any decision on whether to file charges and what penalties to seek, although that might depend on whether the five men cooperate. The key factor, officials said, is always the evidence.
"Cooperation typically does not override public safety," said Paul J. McNulty, who as U.S. attorney in Alexandria oversaw many terrorism cases, "but it does play a role."
Infiltration of mosques The case is unfolding against a backdrop of increased tension nationally between the FBI and the Muslim community. A coalition of two dozen Muslim groups in March suspended most contacts with the FBI over what it called inappropriate infiltration of mosques.
Relations between the FBI and Muslim groups are generally less strained in the Washington area, where the field office — the bureau's second largest, with about 800 agents — is continuing its intensive outreach to the region's estimated 250,000 Muslims.
"They've made a very sincere effort," said Rizwan Jaka, a board member at the Sterling-based ADAMS Center, the area's largest mosque. The center has held FBI town hall meetings and hosted agents during the breaking of the daily Ramadan fast.
Supervisory Special Agent Katherine Schweit, spokeswoman for the field office, said the FBI "recognizes there are issues and concerns that have been raised from the Muslim community and will continue to be raised. We always try to address them by maintaining a regular dialogue.
"We have to have the trust and understanding of the public to do our job," she added.
Yet tensions remain, and local Muslims still decry the prosecution of terrorism cases in Northern Virginia after Sept. 11, especially the conviction of 11 men in what prosecutors called a "Virginia jihad network."
Nawar Shora, legal director for the American-Arab Anti Discrimination Committee — who, with a representative from a Muslim group presented the award to Persichini — said the Arab and Muslim communities will accept any charges against the men arrested in Pakistan as long as they are treated fairly.
Yet he indicated that tensions could flare, depending how the government approaches a case. "If the FBI and the prosecutors say these were five Muslims and they were trying to commit jihad, and they throw out all of these incendiary religious terms, that's different," Shora said.
An intrusive piece of management speak exhorts the human resource component to find his – or of course her – “best self”. But one’s “best self” can be but a poor copy of Barry Dainton’s “Phenomenal Self”, reviewed in the Times Literary Supplement. Philosophers aren’t usually called Barry – is there something going on here? Read and find out:
Barry Dainton, in The Phenomenal Self, aims to provide a new kind of neo-Lockean account of the self and its persistence – what he calls an “experience-based” account. And, although his working assumption is that consciousness is causally dependent on activity in the brain, he is agnostic about reductionism. Instead, he says that while his account is fully compatible with reductionist approaches that aim to reduce persons and phenomenal (conscious) goings-on to sub-personal parts and to non-phenomenal (non-conscious) goings on respectively, he would prefer that reductionists, contrary to their usual practice, first gave an experience-based account of the self and only later attempted their reductions.
There seem, to my layman’s eye, to be two things going on here: “goings-on” and “goings on”. I hope neither involves hanky-panky, or “mouchoir-pouchoir” as Jacques Derrida might call it, especially with the sub-personal parts.
New English Review has a Regular Reader called Reductionry, but he is very much the old kind of neo-Lockean.
Americans who wish to give 110%, redouble their efforts, thereby getting one up – or two up – on those lazy Brits. Or so says Hugh. What does today's philosopher Barry Dainton say?
In the philosophical literature on self and personal identity, fission examples are ones in which one self splits into two. Imagine, for instance, a Star Trek style scenario in which a person aims to get beamed from a spaceship to a planet’s surface, but, because of a malfunction in the beamer, he winds up being replicated twice on the planet’s surface, rather than just once. In cases like this [and there must be at least two – M. J.] it seems that the pre-fission subject of experience might be diachronically co-conscious with two (or more) subsequent post-fission subjects of experience that are differently embodied and are not currently or subsequently co-conscious with each other. If we imagine further that subsequently one of these fission descendants teaches mathematics at a university in London while the other runs an art gallery in New York, and neither is aware of the existence of the other, then intuitively this would seem to be a paradigm case in which one self has become two. Dainton is committed to the view that such post-fission subjects of experience constitute a single self.
I’m in two minds about it, but I’m put in mind(s) of that scary story of Mr and Mrs Haktak, who fall into a pot and then there are two of each.
Cue for a song (or two):
I'm a nut,
I'm a nut,
I'm a nut, nut, nut-nut-nut.
Called myself on the telephone
Just to see if I was home.
Made a date for half past eight,
Better hurry or I'll be late!
- Chorus
Took myself to the picture show
Sat myself in the very last row
Wrapped my arms around my waist
Got so fresh I slapped my face!
- Chorus
Bought some roses at the store.
Told myself I wanted more.
That's why I broke up with me.
Now I am a nut that's free!
- Chorus
Gee, I miss me all the time.
Wonder if I'm doing fine.
Maybe I'll stop by to see
If I have a chance with me.
- Chorus
Al-Qaradawi Outraged At Any Sign Of Christmas In Muslim Lands
Watch Al-Qaradawi here, as he denounces any hint of Christmas in Muslim lands, even though in thosevery lands it is the foreigners, and above all the wage-slaves from "Christian" lands, who keep the local economies humming.
"Lockerbie bomber Megrahi's health deteriorates," from AFP:
TRIPOLI (AFP) – The condition of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, the Libyan sentenced to life imprisonment for the Lockerbie bombing and repatriated in August, has deteriorated and the cancer that afflicts him has spread through his body, a medical bulletin said early Sunday.
"A scan has shown a worsening of the disease which has spread more than before," said the bulletin from the Tripoli Medical Centre where Megrahi is being treated for terminal cancer.
The bulletin received by AFP said Megrahi, 57, arrived at the hospital on Saturday coughing and vomiting.
He was also suffering from "secondary effects of the sessions of chemotherapy" that he has been undergoing, including a weight gain, high blood pressure and sugar in the blood along with muscular fatigue.
"His condition was examined Saturday by a team of European experts who agreed on the continuation of chemotherapy sessions while also administering other medicaments to treat the disease," the hospital said in its first bulletin released since Megrahi's return in August.
Last week the Scottish authorities charged with supervising the Lockerbie bomber said they had contacted him in Tripoli on Wednesday, following concerns about his whereabouts.
As it happens, over the past few years I have been afflicted with the same above symptoms. I have coughed, and even vomited. I have suffered weight gain, have borderline high blood pressure, slightly elevated sugar in the blood and, after a day of playing with the kids, muscular fatigue.
I hope I can type this out before my time is up too. I may not get there with you [cough], but I wish each and every one of you a belated Happy Channukah or a [sneeze] Merry Christmas. Wait, my feet are feeling sore, this might be it.
A classic from Sanford and Son. This is the Big One. He's coming, Weezi!
An explanatory note for readers who were not residents of the U.S. in the 1970's: "Sanford and Son" was a comedy show about a father and son who owned a junkyard. Every episode when the son did something the father didn't like (in this case the son was planning to get married, leaving the father to live by himself), the father would clutch his chest and claim that a heart attack was imminent unless the son capitulated.
Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi had secret �1.8m
From The Times
The Lockerbie bomber had £1.8m in a Swiss bank account when he was convicted eight years ago, it has been revealed.
The Crown Office, Scotland’s equivalent of the Crown Prosecution Service, has confirmed it refused to grant bail to Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi as recently as November last year because of concerns he might try to gain access to the money.
The existence of such a large sum in a personal account casts doubt on claims by the Libyan government that Megrahi was a low-ranking airline worker.
The disclosure also raises further questions about the wisdom of the Scottish government in releasing the bomber, who has terminal prostate cancer, on compassionate grounds in August.
Sources close to Megrahi’s defence team said they were aware of the bank account and had several explanations prepared ahead of his trial in the Netherlands in 2000.
They included the claim that he had been given the money by Libyan Arab Airlines, his employer, to buy aircraft parts abroad in breach of the western trade embargo in place against his country at the time of the 1988 bombing of the Pan Am plane over Scotland, in which 270 people died.
Another explanation would have been that Megrahi had been entrusted with the funds to finance an attempt to include Libya in the Paris to Dakar rally. The issue of the account was never raised by the prosecution because it came too late to be introduced as evidence at his trial.
A source close to Megrahi said: “The crown would have said that the money was being used to buy explosives and pay bribes to people.
“It would have undermined his position as being a simple employee and that he had no big connections with anybody because someone with that status in life wouldn’t have that kind of money in bank accounts.”
Ben Wallace, Conservative MP for Lancaster and Wyre and a member of the Scottish affairs committee, which is inquiring into the circumstances of Megrahi’s release, said the existence of the account was a “startling” revelation.
“Had this been known at the time, the financial web that linked Libya and Megrahi to international terrorism would have been a major plank in the crown’s case,” he said. “Far from being the wrong man, I think this suggests Megrahi was an international co-ordinator of terrorism for Libya.”
Megrahi was released in August by Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish justice secretary, who decided Megrahi was released in August by Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish justice secretary, who decided he should be sent home to die after receiving medical advice that the Libyan had about three months to live.
The decision angered the American government and families of the victims who said he should not have been allowed to return to Tripoli.
Others have demanded the release of Megrahi’s medical records amid questions about whether he was as sick as MacAskill claimed. Concerns were raised early last week after Megrahi could not be contacted. He was eventually tracked down on Wednesday.
Holy academia, Batman! Scots universities offer courses in comics
Students at Edinburgh Napier University will learn from Batman stories how to create graphic novels
Tom Maxwell
It was only a matter of time. The graphic novel along with its on-screen equivalent, computer games, are to be offered to students as a new university course.
From next month Edinburgh Napier University will become the first institution in Britain to teach writing for graphic novels — books in comic strip form — at Masters level.
Dave Bishop, the former editor of the British science fiction comic 2000AD and the course lecturer, said that “poetry is banned” in his classes; he will focus instead on the practicalities of getting work published.
“We are willing to get a little bit grubby and talk about the filthy lucre,” he said.
The University of Dundee has joined the trend by introducing a module on British comic writers — including Batman writer Grant Morrison and Watchmen creator Alan Moore — as part of its English degree.
Bishop, the author of 20 novels and the computer game State of Emergency 2, will teach the Napier course alongside Sam Kelly, a former literary agent and book reviewer.
Ms Kelly said that graphic novels and interactive entertainment were growth industries, unlike many other forms of literature. “We know there’s a huge amount of talent out there among people who want to write for so-called commercial and popular forms,” she said. “This is their chance to get knowledgeable in types of fiction and types of writing that have large, popular audiences. These are areas where the people who run companies are actively looking for fresh, new, young, inventive talent.”
Guest lecturers will include the crime author Ian Rankin and the Edinburgh-born comic book writer Alan Grant.
Ms Kelly said that the course, which will teach 24 students initially, represented a radical departure in creative writing tutorials. Instead of students’ work being judged by their peers, Bishop and Ms Kelly will use “one-to-one mentoring”.
“Peer critique doesn’t teach you how to be a better writer — it also doesn’t teach you to be a good critic or a good reader,” she said.
“It tends to flatten things out to one level. As professional writers they would tend to work with one person, such as an editor, script editor, a producer and so on, and a workshop gives you no preparation for that. We’ve tossed out the artificial environment.”
“The danger is that [workshops] create the next generation of creative writing teachers — God forbid that they should do that,” Bishop said. “There are 1,000 ways of telling a story and we’re looking at the other 998 ways.”
Bishop said that many institutions had a tendency to dismiss genre writing as downmarket forms of literature.
“Most of the other creative writing courses in the UK didn’t even mention genre writing,” he said. “The ones that did talked about it with disdain dripping out of every syllable. It really got my back up. Just because someone is writing in a genre doesn’t mean that it’s a lesser form than any other kind of writing.”
Grant, who began his own comic book apprenticeship with the Dundee-based publisher DC Thomson in 1967 and wrote Judge Dredd for 2000AD, said that the creative writing course was “unquestionably a good idea”.
“Everybody has at least one story in them, though most never manage to get it told. I applaud any method of improving that number,” he said.
Recommended reading
Dark Knight Returns Frank Miller killed the camp and turned Batman into a psychologically flawed hero
Persepolis Marjane Satrapi’s memories of growing up in Iran show that graphic novels do not have to be about men in capes
Watchmen What would superheroes be like in the real world? Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’s answer is frightening
Spider-Man Stan Lee captures the exuberance of the 1960s
Steptoe and Son - father and son run a junkyard. In this episode Harold (the son) discovers that (his father) Albert has 'neglected' to inform the tax department that his wife has died - over 30 years ago.
Father and son didn't always get on well in the script. Real life actors Wilfred Brambell and Harry H Corbett are said to have never got on well on set. Harry H Corbett was a fine straight actor who became typecast as Harold Steptoe and died young. Wilfred Brambell was an alchoholic convicted of cottaging and persistent importuning. In fairness it may have been the strain of his private life drove him to drink.
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