President Trump recently pulled the plug on PBS and NPR, ending their government welfare checks.

From the New York Sun.

President Trump  foretold plan to ax federal funding to PBS and National Public Radio with a sweeping executive order announced Thursday night.

PBS was founded by Congress in 1970 and created out of an assemblage of so-called educational television stations funded by state and local governments, as well donations from well-to-do, left-leaning charities. Its kissin’ cousin, National Public Radio, was created the same year, and in that year, the Holy of Holies of the left-leaning radio news, All Things Considered, first aired. As your Tatler recalls, the putative reason for those two institutions’s founding was to provide a non-biased source of news and to offer quality programming not available on commercial stations.

The joke about non-biased news is, were we ever supposed to believe the three networks’s news programs were somehow canted to the right? Regarding the claim of quality programming, your Tatler will concede that PBS had a lock on it, compared with the mostly wretched stuff aired by CBS, NBC, and ABC. But where did most of that quality programming come from? Answer, Britain. And who comprised most of the viewers of that quality programming? Answer, the upper-middle and upper classes, who hardly needed the government to pay for their entertainment. That is especially true in these satellite and Internet times, when there is a wealth of low-brow, middle-brow, and high-brow entertainment available for the asking. The only hitch is that the viewers must pay for it, not the government. The same holds true for PBS and NPR. Let those who are sure to be screaming their heads off at Villain Trump for taking away their government-paid entertainment: pay for it yourself.

Both mainstream parties, Labour and Conservative, are enervated, worn out wrecks, and have been for some time. Unfortunately,  there hasn’t been a viable alternative to fill the void. Recent local elections, however, suggest things may be changing in Britain. Maybe. From the BBC.

Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has made big gains in English local elections, cementing it as a prime challenger to Britain’s traditional main parties.

It won 677 of around 1,600 seats contested on Thursday across a clutch of mainly Tory-held councils last contested in 2021.

Reform seized control of eight authorities from the Conservatives, including former strongholds Kent and Staffordshire.

As that clever Greek put it, one swallow does not a summer make. However, there’s certainly cause to be hopeful. With the two moribund major parties as his only competition, Nigel Farage stands at least half a chance of becoming the PM of Britain. The Brits could certainly do worse. And he, “Trump with a pint,” and our president ought to get along famously.

From Life Site News:

Rome’s cardinal fears Church ‘reform’ in jeopardy, urges continuation of Francis’ legacy.

Ahead of the conclave start on May 7 there is much work for the cardinals to do and already talk that a struggle will emerge between Francis’ legacy and a reversal in style.

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This should not come as a great surprise as the majority of the cardinals are appointees of Francis. Presumably, most of them, at least, share the late pope’s Jesuitical views on modernization of the Catholic Church, even when they fly in the face of church teachings. On the other hand, some liberal Cardinals have come to realize that the continued drifting away from ancient teachings, most going back to the early days of the church, could do colossal and even irreversible damage, worse than already occurred during the reign of Francis. Those cardinals may be open to a papal candidate holding more traditional views.

Still, there is no doubting the liberals have the upper hand and will campaign hard for continued liberalization. Consider this quote from Cardinal Baldassare Reina, the vicar general of the Diocese of Rome, and a key player in the days to come.

Our duty should be to discern and organise what has been started, in the light of what our mission requires, in the direction of a new heaven and a new earth, adorning the Bride for her husband, whereas we might seek to clothe the Bride according to worldly conveniences, guided by ideological pretensions that tear apart the unity of Christ’s garments.

Your Tatler can’t help noticing in that statement, liberals in the Vatican share a trait with their counterparts in our Congress, which is to speak in generlizations and platitudes, rather speak plainly just which liberaliztions they favor. Presumably, that is for the fear many Catholics might think twice about further liberalization in Holy Church if they knew it meant women priests, communion for non-Catholics, gay marriages, and a plethora if other matters that are the darlings of the Left.

But the likelihood is that traditional Catholics will be disappointed when the white smoke rises from the Sistine Chapel, and they best hunker down for what is to come.

h/t William Teague

It’s hard to believe, but it looks as if anti-abortion protesters now have the same First Amendment rights as those enjoyed for decades by so-called abortion rights “activists.”

There’s a new sheriff in town, the Justice Department’s hief of civil rights enforcement, Harmeet Dhillon, who holds the quaint notion of equal protection under the law. Dhillon has ordered the considerable number of lawyers in that department not to look the other way when pro-abortionists beat up or worse, peaceful protesters in front of abortion mills.

A welcome consequence is the enormous number of left-wing attorneys who refuse to do their jobs and are accepting buyouts from Justice; money well spent in your Tatler’s opinion.

h/t For What it’s Worth.

A couple of years ago, Bishop Paprocki of the Diocese of Illinois said to Raymond Arroyo of EWTN, and reported by the National Catholic Register, regarding Latin Mass goers, “I would say the people in those communities, I find them to be very sincere . . . and they love the Lord, they love the Church, they love the Eucharist.”

With Peter’s Chair currently vacant and a new pope coming our way soon, those words .ay have renewed significance, as the matter of the Traditional Latin Mass and its status within the Holy Catholic Church is likely once again to come to the fore.

Not to speak ill of the dead (a useful preface to the words of one wishing to speak ill of the dead), our late pope truly had it in for worshipers who preferred the Tridentine (Latin) Mass to the modern Novus Ordo Mass. Under Francis’s reign, the treatment of them was particularly shabby. Your Tatler knows from whence he speaks, belonging as he does to a Latin Mass group which has been bouncing around church after church in the Diocese of Santa Fe, unable to find a home, and looked upon with askance by our archbishop. 

While the pope’s predecessor, Benedict XVI, loosened the strictures concerning the celebration of TLM, Francis reversed them and added even more.

***

Changing the subject somewhat, this TLM enthusiast, unlike many of his colleagues, is somewhat the pragmatist, believing if there is to be a mass celebrated in English, it ought to be beautiful English, but using as its base the Traditional Latin Mass, not Novus Ordo, which strips away the beauty, majesty, and mystery of what happens in the sanctuary. It has long been a Tatler fantasy translators of the Mass into English would use as their source the old Anglican Book of Common Prayer, largely written by the Catholic-turned-heretic Thomas Cranmer, who nonetheless possessed a consumate command of the English. Read, for example, the excerpt below from the Prayer Book of the Invocation (taken from your former Episcopalian Tatler’s BCP).

Nowhere in Novus Ordo will one find anything remotely as elegant but clearly written as Cranmer’s work. Give the devil his due and steal it back from that heretical ex-Catholic genius. Do the considerable alterations necessary so it conforms to Catholic teachings and make it ours.

Continue reading “Restoring beauty to the Mass, in Latin and English”

Read the whole thing.

Shostakovich: The Cello Concertos, Yo-Yo Ma, Andres Nelsons, Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Generally, your Tatler is partial to the music of Shostakovich, but his two cello concertos, heard by him for the first time in this recording, left him cold. Although well played and engineered, aside from a few pretty measures here and there, these two works are truly dull, downright boring.

Reading the entertaining liner notes for this release provides a possible explanation for the uninspired compositions. It seems that Shostakovich intended both works for his good friend Mstisilav Rostropovich and that the legendary cellist was with him a good deal of the time he was composing them. According to Maxim Shostakovich, the composer’s son, those sessions were frequently “lubricated with vodka.” This occasional musician can attest that alcohol does not always bring forth the highest artistry in a person, often quite the opposite. Your Tatler believes that may have been the case with these works.

Shostakovich: Cello Concertos, Yo-Yo Ma, Andres Nelson’s, Boston Symphony Orchestra

Generally, this reviewer is partial to the music of Shostakovich. The composer’s two cello concertos, however, heard by for the first time by me, in this well-recorded, well-played release, left me cold. Aside from a few pretty measures here and there, this is some of the dullest music ever heard by your Tatler.

The entertaining liner notes give a possible explanation why these pieces fail to move. The composer’s son Maxim relates his father wrote both concertos for his friend, the legendary Mstisilav Rostropovich, who was at hand during during most of composing of the works, and that when the two chums were together their conversations were “often lubricated by vodka.” Alcohol does not always bring out the best in one’s artistry, at least not in the case of this occasional  musician’s experience.

A couple of years ago, Bishop Paprocki of the Diocese of Illinois said to Raymond Arroyo of EWTN, and reported by the National Catholic Register, regarding Latin Mass goers, “I would say the people in those communities, I find them to be very sincere . . . and they love the Lord, they love the Church, they love the Eucharist.”

With Peter’s Chair currently vacant and a new pope coming our way soon, those words .ay have renewed significance, as the matter of the Traditional Latin Mass and its status within the Holy Catholic Church is likely once again to come to the fore.

Not to speak ill of the dead (a useful preface to the words of one wishing to speak ill of the dead), our late pope truly had it in for worshipers who preferred the Tridentine (Latin) Mass to the modern Novus Ordo Mass. Under Francis’s reign, the treatment of them was particularly shabby. Your Tatler knows from whence he speaks, belonging as he does to a Latin Mass group which has been bouncing around church after church in the Diocese of Santa Fe, unable to find a home, and looked upon with askance by our archbishop. 

While the pope’s predecessor, Benedict XVI, loosened the strictures concerning the celebration of TLM, Francis reversed them and added even more.

***

Changing the subject somewhat, this TLM enthusiast, unlike many of his colleagues, is somewhat the pragmatist, believing if there is to be a mass celebrated in English, it ought to be beautiful English, but using as its base the Traditional Latin Mass, not Novus Ordo, which strips away the beauty, majesty, and mystery of what happens in the sanctuary. It has long been a Tatler fantasy translators of the Mass into English would use as their source the old Anglican Book of Common Prayer, largely written by the Catholic-turned-heretic Thomas Cranmer, who nonetheless possessed a consumate command of the English. Read, for example, the excerpt below from the Prayer Book of the Invocation (taken from your former Episcopalian Tatler’s BCP).

Nowhere in Novus Ordo will one find anything remotely as elegant but clearly written as Cranmer’s work. Give the devil his due and steal it back from that heretical ex-Catholic genius. Do the considerable alterations necessary so it conforms to Catholic teachings and make it ours.