BarbariansAtBay

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

How to Escape from Voice Mail Hell.

Although NPR really irritates me sometimes, I was quite glad to hear a story they ran today: NPR : Phone Guide Is a Real Customer Service. The story was about a guide that Paul English has published which gives you shortcuts to avoid wasting time with voicemail menus and to get directly to a live person. For example, to get a live person when calling Capital One Visa you simply press #0 four times.

I, for one, am very grateful to Mr. English. No doubt his guide will save me time and aggravation.

Monday, November 14, 2005

Places That Suit Your Personality. Phoenix?

Came across this test at A Glass of Chianti. I did live in Phoenix for a year and quite enjoyed it.

Test Results

Extroversion |||||||||||||||||||| 83%
Emotional Stability |||||||||||||||| 70%
Orderliness |||||||||||| 46%
Accommodation |||||||||||||||| 70%
Inquisitiveness |||||||||||||||||| 80%

Your sloan type is SCUAI
Your primary type is Social
#################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### ####################################################
Your personality type is SCUAI
You are social, calm, moderately unstructured, accommodating, and intellectual, and may prefer a city which matches those traits.

The largest representation of your personality type can be found in the these U.S. cities: Providence, Austin, Denver, Salt Lake City, Charlotte, San Antonio, Albuquerque/Santa Fe, Indianapolis, Phoenix, Portland/Salem, Nashville, Louisville and these international countries/regions Turkey, Croatia, Slovenia, Caribbean, Puerto Rico, Iceland, Norway, Ukraine, Sweden, Denmark, Spain, Netherlands, Russia, Japan, India

What Places In The World Match Your Personality?
City Reviews at CityCulture.org

Churchgoers are wealthier.

It's true: Churchgoers are wealthier | csmonitor.com. And what are the ramifications of this?

Saturday, November 12, 2005

The Latest on Potential Rapprochement With SSPX.

From De Civitate Dei: Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos on the SSPX.

Secret Catholic Code in Shakespeare.

Clare Asquith's book Shadowplay: The Hidden Beliefs and Coded Politics of William Shakespeare claims Shakespeare was Catholic and included cryptic religious and political messages in his plays which those in the know would understand. EWTN recently aired a September episode of The World Over where Raymond Arroyo conducted a fascinating interview of Asquith (archived audio of the show is available here). Blogger Dad29 reviews the book here. The Washington Post reviews it here.

Asquith is not the first to say Shakespeare was Catholic, but she is the most convincing. Asquith is the wife of a British diplomat. She first suspected the existence of a coded subtext in Shakespeare after attending dissident plays in cold war Moscow which employed the same device.

As the Guardian's review puts it: "As a result the Catholic resistance, which had been going for 70 years by the time Shakespeare was writing, had already developed its own secret code words; a subversive communication system which the playwright developed further in his work." Asquith says the Bard would use terms such as high to refer to Catholic characters and low to refer to the Protestant - referring to their altars, and light or fair to refer to Catholic and dark to refer to Protestant - a reference to certain clerical garb.

Asquith also detected in Shakespeare's work the use of an simple code used by the Jesuit underground in England which took the form of a mercantile terminology wherein priests were merchants and souls were jewels, the people pursuing them were creditors, and the Tyburn scaffold where the members of the underground died was called the place of much trading. The Jesuit underground used this code so their correspondences looked like innocuous commercial letters. Asquith says Shakespeare also used this code. She claims that, "Even the 'The Merchant of Venice' is a title which has deliberate resonance for those in the know." The use of the moon in Shakespeare references Elizabeth, as she adopted Diana or the moon goddess as her persona. Consider this from Romeo and Juliet:

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief,
That thou her maid art far more fair than she:
Be not her maid, since she is envious;
Her vestal livery is but sick and green
And none but fools do wear it; cast it off.


The fair sun is the "old faith". Green and white were the color of Elizabeth's livery. But, according to Asquith, Shakespeare is not endorsing Romeo's view. Romeo was a "hothead" and his approach ended only in sorrow.

The use of earthquakes had a particular meaning. In 1581 England had its worst earthquake ever. In the same year St. Edmund Campion the underground Jesuit priest and his cohorts spurred an immense charge to their movement.

Just as there were plays which were addressed to the Crown, Asquith says all the Roman plays are addressed to the Catholic Church. "Julius Caesar", which many believe to be the first which was performed at the Globe, holds out the sympathetic conspirators as the Reformers. Caesar, strikingly less than perfect, is the Papacy as seen through the eyes of the English reformers. The unreformed Church, imperfect as it was, like Caesar, left chaos in its absence. Caesar continues to haunt the conspirators. Asquith also tells of the inspiration for "A Winter's Tale", Magdalen Brown Montague, his benefactor and a stalwart of the English Catholic community.

The audio of the interview, linked above, is certainly worth a listen for those interested in this intriguing subject.

Monday, November 07, 2005

Axis Mundi.

In honor of the discovery of the 3rd-Century Church found at Megiddo, from Richard John Neuhaus' Death on a Friday Afternoon: Meditations on the Last Words of Jesus from the Cross:

In the cross we see that of which humanity is capable: self-transcendence in surrender to the Other. All the evidence to the contrary, we are capable of love. The sign of shame and death becomes the sign of cosmic possibility. Here is the axis mundi, the moment upon which all reality turns. A third-century paschal homily captures the full reach of the truth:

This tree of heavenly dimensions rose up from earth to heaven, the foundation of all things, support of the universe, holder of the whole world, cosmic bond keeping unstable human nature united and securing it with the invisible nails of the Spirit so that, firmly gripped to the divinity, it can no loner break away. With its top branches touching the sky and its roots firmly set in the earth, it holds in its infinite embrace the many and intermediate spirits of the air.

Is it coincidence that the Church was found at Megiddo, or that it lies beneath a prison - like the cross itself a "sign of death and shame", or that I came upon a third century homily the same time I read of the Church's discovery? A prison on top of a church - "top branches touching the sky and its roots firmly set in the earth".

Bubble? Shack sells for $269,000 in Dublin.

Via StreetSideInvestor is this MSNBC story of a 10-foot-wide shed selling for $269,100 in Dublin.

I've had several posts on this subject recently, but I'm not looking for them, I've just come across them. And this one was so preposterous, I had to shine a light on it. I suppose if I had lived in Holland at a certain time I'd have been writing about a Tulip bulb selling for the price of a home.

Friday, November 04, 2005

November 5 is Guy Fawkes Day.

Guy Fawkes day, for those who don't know, is the day the English celebrate the capture and execution of the Catholic Mr. Fawkes who 400 years ago spearheaded the Gunpowder Plot to blow up parliament in a time when that government was executing priests and persecuting Catholics. John Zmirak on Godspy, in an excerpt from his book The Bad Catholic's Guide to Good Living, with tongue half in cheek says we should celebrate Guy Fawkes Day with a bang - blowing up ginger bread parliament houses.

In response to a commenter on Godspy, Zmirak says he was "kinda joking" and asks, "Is it wrong to use violence to overthrow tyrants?"

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

Real Estate Has Peaked.

More news suggesting that real estate has peaked. This time in the NYT, via The Bull Trader.