Latin Catholic by birth, Byzantine Catholic by the grace of God.
Pro: Restoration of the Holy and Universal Christian Roman Empire.
Caveat: The author makes no claim to being an exemplar of Catholicism or Monarchism (or blogging).
Under the patronage of St. George. Please view at 1024x768.

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Location: Upstate, New York, United States

Thursday, September 29, 2005

PHOTOPOST: Defunct consumer products

Rules:

1: I must have actually had/used the product.
2: The product must be defunct within the bounds of good reason.
3: Suggestions are welcome.

***

September 29, 2005: Original New York Seltzer.

Left:
A nice large shot of a Root Beer New York Seltzer Can.

Below: Promotional patch (for your jean jacket?) with a legible view of the logo. Note visible Twin Towers on your far left.

This was great stuff! The flavors were quite vibrant, especially for the mid-eighties - an era before food products could be "X-treme."

The memory of the grape lingers most. It didn't have that fake ice-pop grapiness, nor a medicinal grape Dimetapp quality. It was just perfect purple selzter beauty.

Apparently, Original New York Selzter was from California. It was based on a family recipe from from Upstate New York, however. Probably from somewhere down in the Catskills, if a guess were to be had.

Original New York Seltzer also seems to have more versions of its origin story than your average Batman villian. Okay, well, two.

October 12, 2005: Eagle snacks.


Left: Eagle brand roasted peanuts, airplane variety.

Right: Snapshot of actual Eagle Snacks pretzels.

Ah Eagle Snacks. Anheuser Busch's attempt to out-beer nut the Beer Nut. I was too young to drink in those days, but you certainly could put down piles and piles of Eagle pretzels.

There seems to have been a move to bring back Eagle in 1998, this time using Olestra cooking oil. Too bad, too. Olestra's a great product, and it was mostly killed off by hysteria. Olestra and Eagle would have been like ... chocolate and peanut butter ... or coffee and cigars ... another classic match.

I still have a bad of Eagle peanuts that I saved from my trip to Rome 17 years ago. It's in a closet somewhere. Hey, that's what kids do.

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Upcoming photoblogging; Two Cents on Ten Bucks

Inspired primarily by the on-going photoblogging at Fr. Tucker's Dappled Things, T&A has decided to do a little of its own. Forthwith we will have an evolving photopost dedicated to deceased consumer product lines.

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The Federal Reserve is releasing a new ten-spot. Rather tasteful, actually. It doesn't have the "Monopoly money" feel that one gets from some of the other designs.

Hamilton ... accused of being a monarchist, and was said to distrust republicanism ... really he was an oligarchist, if we want to be Aristotelian about it. He wanted a small cabal of financiers and (secondarily) landed gentry to run the country.

How he intellectually reconciled the patroon system (which he helped cement) with the idea of a "merchant republic" one can only guess. So much for natural rights ... or consistency.

Has anyone heard of the Anti-Rent War? It may be one historical episode that could unite distributists and libertarians. The War is a cute part of Upstate New York history about which I'd imagine most folks have no cognizance.

Saturday, September 24, 2005

"Have Scandal Your Way:" Part 3 of 3

A Throne and Altar Expose

So now the line of succession was reduced to a childless King and Queen, an illegitimate half-commoner who was raised outside of the True Church as a Pentecostal, and an unmarried 40-year-old simpleton for a Crown Prince that would be the worst monarch since Charles II.

The Burger King became desperate, trying all sorts of non-traditional means of improving his virility. At first, his foolishness was indulged in every-day superstition: powder of rhinocerous horn, drinking mead for a lunar cycle, selling curly fries for a limited time only, that sort of thing.

But then he turned to the occult. His workers in the Royal Foundry cobbled together a glorified Magic Eight Ball they called "The Wizard of Fries," left. They told the poor King that if he put gold under his pillow, the Wizard would let him know the best time to try for an heir.

Of course, as the King dreamed of child-safe toy prizes, the grubby blacksmiths would slip off with the gold. Every morning for six months, the King would ask the Wizard, tears dripping down his cheeks, "Is today the day I father a son?"

The Wizard would reply, "More likely than not," or sometimes "Ask again later."

After all of this heartbreak, the Queen took counsel with a traveling charlatan named Dr. Angus, right. Yes, he was charming, and had a beef-based cure for anything that ails you. Yet rumors tore through the Court that "The Angus Diet" that Her Highness was on had nothing to do with hamburgers.

The King knew his situation was hopeless. He could make sandwiches on silver trays appear out of thin air, but couldn't make a baby. Something had to be done.

An heir must be had. If he and the Queen were not compatible, a new wife was needed. Thankfully, this was first years of the 21st century, not the Middle Ages. The Pope immediately consented to their annulment, and spared the King all the messy business of head chopping. In fact, His Holiness stressed that he thought this "Catholic Divorce" would "throw open the windows" of the ancient monarchy.

***

Now, present day, the previous queen lives a comfortable if somewhat solitary life in the rural areas of the north. The Burger King has married a young foreign princess, left, and all the People have hopes this new marriage will produce heirs for their king, and maybe even unite the two kingdoms.

Tonight, please say a prayer for the humble folk and proud royalty of The Burger Kingdom.

Aren't you sorry for the Burger King ... now?

Friday, September 23, 2005

Alohas; Blog link; Moe; Pi--; Chiding etiquette

Belated "welcome backs" to Evil Steve and Hilary.

***

Hello to Roscoe Ellis, the first blogger to link here whose blog seemingly has nothing to do with monarchy or Traddery.

It's like ... being recognized by the outside world!

***

A female reader, name witheld, took me to task for calling Mohammedanism "Islam," because the I-word (in Arabic) implies that the false religion is true, therefore giving partial approval.

Okay, point well taken.

But we do this a lot. The Orthodox certainly aren't completely orthdox. In fact, a friend of mine points out that Protestant "churches" are a lot like presidential suites in hotels. Despite what they're called, the president never stayed there. Thusly, despite the name "church," God isn't actually there.

***

She also excoriated me on the use of the word "pi--ed" twice in an entry a while back. Also a good point. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa. Further, the entry has been edited.

Now, I must admit that I've never actually used the word in its bodily sense, nor can I remember ever hearing anyone else I know (in person, not on TV or such) use it that way, either. I dare say that its use in this part of the world is more often to mean "intoxicated" than anything else. Thus I chalked it up to a dialectical idiosyncracy to avoid in the future.

After agreeing, apologizing, and promising this very public self-flagellation that you are now reading, your servant was, as per the last paragraph, accused of rationalizing ...

***

... Unless you happen to be my confessor, that's just bad form. "Everybody gets one," is a favorite rule-of-thumb in the Haraldsson home. Outside of family, good friends, and spiritual and temporal authority, everybody gets one negative thing.

For example, at work, you can either get in 10 minutes late every day, or dress somewhat slovenly (I don't recommend either). Your boss and confreres will forgive one foible, not two. One is personality; two is decadence.

In the realm of blog criticism, if you don't fit the above criteria, you get one shot at me that will be taken in a fraternal spirit. Two makes you a complainer.

Monday, September 19, 2005

"Have Scandal Your Way:" Part 2 of 3

A Throne and Altar Expose

For the last King was a jealous man. An unfortunate noble known as the Duke of Doubt, left, began to have concerns about the divine blessings that the kings had always taken credit for: flavor, juiciness, value, and peace with the McSaracens. One day, the Duke simply did not show up for Court, and was never heard from again.

But the King's taste for Croissan'wiches had been replaced by a taste for blood. His own family could not be spared - no dissenting opinion was tolerated among the aristocracy.

Then there were the weak - he may have loved his People, but among the Royal Family, The King would broach no flaws - his image must be perfect. Crippled and lame alike went off to the deep fryers. Sir Shakes-A-Lot, right, a spasmodic ice-cream-treat addict, was an obvious drag on the photogenic House of Burger. His death, being beaten alive with Chicken Tenders, was neither Sweet nor Sour.

Years of bad breeding had finally taken its toll, and Her Highness was only able to bear the King two sons: the current King, and a hirsute simpleton, right, they named Prince Tendercrisp. Even into his twenties, the poor man would wander around the castle shouting meaningless nonsense like "Where's Herb?"

And then His Highness fell out of love with her, and in the swingin' disco era, fathered a child, left, with an African-Burgerian roller-skating champion.

Next: Sometimes You Gotta Break the Rules.

Sunday, September 18, 2005

No mercy for Istanbul

Check out the Hagia Sophia Blog. This one is floating around all the hip blogs recently. The Hagia Sophia should be a church, not a museum or a mosque. Yes, yes, yes.



Why doesn't Greece just take it back? It belongs to them; or at least more them than anyone else still around. The Turks have no right to anything - anything - and letting them play patty-cake with the Euroligarchy is sad.

Where's a Comnenus when you need him?

Saturday, September 17, 2005

Piling on The Shrine

Let T&A add its voice to those ruffled by the latest Jacobin assault at The Shrine of the Holy Whapping.

They really shouldn't be rewarded with so much free advertising, but this is too much fun.

Apparently, monarchism is a sin, and can be found with schism, heresy, and anti-Semitism. We know what kind of heresy too, not the standard Unitarian or even, say, Wycliffian types; this is the Trad Heresy!

Oh, you know the one, the one that, if you agree with HHBXVI that Vatican II was pastoral and not dogmatic, YOU ARE A HERETIC. Of course, this is unforgivable, whereas we invite real heretics and schismatics over for Inter-faith Prayer Breakfasts and yap endlessly about how the Holy Spirit works through them, too. Or just blow smoke up their dresses.

Is anyone else bored with people who are "so traditional," but still socially acceptable? I suppose if you're going to have tea with William Donohue and Tom Monahan you can't be a monarchist. It's bad form, chap.

Disclaimer: I don't read The Shrine that much anymore, so they may not be guilty of all of the charges of banality I'm hurling at them. Mea culpa. But they tried for a cheap laugh at our expense. So there.

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

"Have Scandal Your Way:" Part 1 of 3

A Throne and Altar Expose

There have been some recent developments in a small Christian kingdom that warrant much more attention than the news media have given them - the Jacobin press have been ignoring an upheaval that deeply affects a suffering people.

T&A brings this story to you.

***

The King of Burger, left, who draws his legitimacy from the Gilded Crown of St. Flame of Broiled, has been unable to give children to the Burger Queen, who is advancing in years.

Under normal circumstances, when there is no direct male heir, the Crown passes to the King's eldest brother, as the Burger Kingdom is a Pure Salic monarchy. There is no room for female leadership in The Home of The Whopper.

The People had loved their previous monarch, right, father of the current king, whose reign came to an end with his sad death in the late 1970s. Every year, on St. Patty's Day, he would appear personally at the grand balcony of Sesame Seed Palace, and throw freshly minted Silverburger coins, left, to the crowd. And on the last schoolday before every Christmas, each child was given a Bacon Double Goldburger, worth approximately seventeen American dollars.

Yet if the Folk of the Land knew that their beloved leader, whom they had dubbed "The Great Meat Father," would eventually be to blame for their current troubles, they would riot - plastic hand puppets would be smeared with ashes and rent in two in protest and public shame.

Next: Sins of the (Meat) Father.

Saturday, September 10, 2005

Goobers of all stripes today; policy change

Via Dyspeptic Mutterings: Ted Nugent cries like a spoiled girl who has her own giant hunting ranch about the big, bad, rich Catholic Church and how you shouldn't give them money.

He can almost be forgiven that last bit of Protestant-tinged stupidity for naming his current tour "The Uncle Ted Remember The Alamo Rockout 2005." ... almost.

***

Have you ever been to Che-Mart? Your purchases are "Sweatshop guranteed."

***

Che-Mart has apparently been censored by Cafe-Press.

Did you ever notice that Cafe Press always pushes the Godless commie merch pretty hard? Well, according to Cafe-Press Watch, it's worse than that. Apparently, C-P finds it tolerable to intimate on a t-shirt that you want to kill non-Hispanics, but intolerable to intimate that you want to kill Hispanics. And on, and on ...

***

By now we all know that Yahoo helped China jail a journalist. Now, while some reporter jailing would help the U.S.A. immesurably, we can be assured China is doing it for the wrong reasons.

Also, it's old news that MSN in China blocked access to the search word "Freedom," and other horrible concepts, like "Democracy." Wait, that is a horrible concept.

Either way, T&A will be here-to-fore taking a cue from Cato the Elder, and ending every post with the same finger-pointing at the Yahoo-MSN-China love triangle, in hopes of getting banned by them. Well, one can imagine that we're already banned in China. This will continue until at least one banning takes place or it gets boring.

***

Yahoo and Microsoft are the lackeys of Godless, evil China and are therefore indirectly partake in responsibility for the death and repression caused by that evil block of humanity in Beijing. The higher ups of all three should expect to rot in Hell unless they make a good sacramental confession.

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

Replies to replies on the last post

To GFvonB: Sure the Maronite liturgy is altered, and some of the Latinizations are now generations old. The versus populi stance really does put one off, and they have the Novus Ordo-style useless deacon (compare to the Byzantine deacon), but otherwise their liturgy runs from inoffensive to impressive.

I'm in the Albany Diocese, so I'm not one to be fussy. You get up to five languages at almost every liturgy: Arabic, English, Aramaic, Greek, and Latin. And the earthy, Semitic-style phrasing is nice, too.

To IQ: I've only seen three Eastern Liturgies: Ukrainian St. Chrysostom, Ruthenian St. Chrysostom, and Maronite St. James. Once a year the Ukies have a Liturgy of St. Basil around here, but I've never gone (apparently, St. Basil's is an earlier version of St. Chrysostom's - very similar, but longer and more repetitious, so they tell me.).

From those three, I'd personally pick the Ukrainian as the best. Scuttlebut has it that the Melkite Liturgy of St. Chrysostom is the real Gold Medal Winner of the Byzantine family, but good luck finding a parish.

Of the other Syriac churches and their Asian offshoots, the Alexandrian family, and any of the tiny churches that have cleaved back on after a schism or two, I know very little. Maybe Mr. Yong is floating around and can definitively name The Best Liturgy.

***

Incidentally, the "useless deacon" phenomenon is worthy of its own post. Some day.

Monday, September 05, 2005

Maronites; Heavy Metal; Books; Trad Benny


Took in a solid Maronite liturgy this weekend. Don't forget about them! There may be a parish near you.

***

Incidentally, what is it with Mediterraneans and jewelry? The Lebanese at that church wear almost as much gold as Italians do. What about Greeks? Actually, they don't wear much. Maybe it's a Catholic Mediterranean thing.

We Scandinavians don't wear a lot of jewelry. Then again, when you're the most naturally beautiful people on earth, you don't have to. *cough*

***

T&A Literary News:

Finished up: A biography of Rasputin. A solid easy-reading account of the crazy Slav. Have you ever bought a serious book published by Borders or Barnes & Noble? Typically, these titles run on par with The History Channel - this one is slightly better.

In the Middle Of: The Sword of Honour Trilogy. Your correspondant's first taste of Evelyn Waugh. How did I ever get my Evil Trad License and never read Waugh?

This brings a thought to mind:

***

Who wants an Evil Trad License? We could get Spencer's to sell them next to the "Bikini Inspector" and "Certified Dirty Old Man" cards.

I imagine a scene, a la Benny Hill, with the "Yakety Sax" theme playing, where an Evil Trad Benny Hill is running around a church replacing all the felt banners with bas reliefs, and the Novus Ordo pastor is chasing him around. The Altar Girls, college seniors in skimpy cassocks, bound about in circles not knowing what to do.

Just as Trad Benny is putting the altar rail back up, the pastor catches up to him and grabs him by the collar. The pastor looks down his nose, through his round John Lennon glasses, at Trad Benny, shaking his fist angrily.

He's about to give Our Man a good pop in the jaw, when Trad Benny whips out his Evil Trad License. Oh no! There's nothing the pastor can do! The bloke is licensed.

Saturday, September 03, 2005

Nature of kingly power

On the previous post, GFvonB replied:

Not a veto on the King, but rather a limit on his funding. Government funding should come from a healthy balance of the King's private funds and taxation, and all new taxation must be approved / consented to by Parliament. If this functions as a limited veto in practice, so be it, but the King is the ultimate Executive, Legislative, and Judicial power within the State (which is not to say that he has absolute power, nor that he can willy-nilly, nor that he can infringe on the rights of the Church), and no one can veto him but his superior (Emperor or Pope).

Now, while this would certainly be a superior system than any republican one which comes to mind, and while the King is the final/ultimate Executive/Legislator/Jurist in the state, my understanding of authority in Natural Law demands a different system of monarchy.

There are two sources of legitimate authority. One is the Divine Right or Divine Command, and the other Natural Law. Although one might be surprised by the title of the blog, I posit that secular kings (even Established-Catholicism kings) do not rule by Divine Right.

Since Christ, the only monarch who rules by true Divine Right is the Supreme Pontiff. Taking the phrase in its strict sense, in our world of free will, monarchs come to power by circumstance and may or may not be within God's blessing. Further, except for the papacy, no kingly throne was established by the direct Will of God. Christ in the Flesh did not say to William the Conqueror, "I give thee the Keys to The Kingdom of England. All that ye bind in London shall be bound in Heaven, all that ye loose in London shall be loosed in Heaven."

Of course, legitimate monarchs have the support of God insofar as it is immoral for a man to disobey legitimate authority, and God wills that all use whatever power they have for The Good.

It is presumtuous to assume that God wanted any given monarch to be where he is, any more than to guess that God wants someone to be president or wanted me to be an insurance salesman. Who knows? The argument that "The entire universe hangs on the Divine Mercy and Will, and therefore those kings that are, are there by the Will of God," discounts the free will of man, the influence of diabolic entities, and generally smacks of Oriental Fatalism.

So all other rules, save the Pontiff, draw their power from the Natural Law.

Atomization of Humanity is a problem common to republicanism, Divine Right monarchy, and Roman Civil Law/Code Civil. All of these systems, to one degree or another, place Man into two categories: ruler and ruled. Republicans see "The People," who choose leaders; Roman Civil Law distinguishes very clearly between "The State" and "The Rest;" Divine Rightists, although more clear-headed, still contend that authority flows from the top.

A good examination of Natural Law and subsidiarity in the light of Anglo-Saxon Common Law reveals a different reality. Individual persons are not the basic political unit, be they voters or emperors. In fact, politics is not possible without a relationship. There are no politics between two uninterested persons going their own way. They have no natural authority over one another.

So, what is the basic power relationship? The family. It starts as a wife subordinate to her husband, and later includes children subordinate to both. This is in our blood and in our souls and was the way of the world since God created Eve and put her under Adam.

From there, pragmatism and the Wages of Sin have seen to it that larger units be formed. But the old units are not removed, they simply delegate more power upwards in a patriarchal relationship. Multiple families delegate power to a Clan, the leader of which should view those families as his "children." Then clans cede some authority upwards to a Tribe, whereby tribes eventually appoint a Kingly Line, and kings gel together under an Emperor.

The paternal bond should never be loosened between any of these levels. Thus, the King, while now inviolable, still owes his power to the Lords of the Lands, who owe it to the Fathers of the Households. No one may have the power to remove the king, save the Divinely-sanctioned Pontiff, but the king must still operate within the framework granted him by the lesser patriarchs below him.

Thus the argument for some veto power to Parliament.

Thoughts?