THE TAOS TATLER.

First, Palestrina: Missa Papae Marcelli, to remind us who ultimately made our independence possible.

Then it’s William Billings, America’s first composer, whose choral works celebrated our battles against the Red Coats. Then onto Charles Ives, Amy Beach, Scott Joplin, John Philip Sousa, Louis Moreau Gottschalk, George Gershwin and lots of other American greats.

* * *

Chester,
by William Billings.

Let tyrants shake their iron rod,
And Slav’ry clank her galling chains,
We fear them not, we trust in God,
New England’s God forever reigns.
Howe and Burgoyne and Clinton too,
With Prescot and Cornwallis join’d,
Together plot our Overthrow,
In one Infernal league combin’d.
When God inspir’d us for the fight,
Their ranks were broke, their lines were forc’d,
Their ships were Shatter’d in our sight,
Or swiftly driven from our Coast.
The Foe comes on with haughty Stride;
Our troops advance with martial noise,
Their Vet’rans flee before our Youth,
And Gen’rals yield to beardless Boys.
What grateful Off’ring shall we bring?
What shall we render to the Lord?
Loud Halleluiahs let us Sing,
And praise his name on ev’ry Chord.

Happy 4th! May we be worthy of many more.

Paris is burning and social-justice warriors are on the case.

From Breibart:

The huge extent of damage and vandalism caused in nearly a week of nightly riots in France has been dramatically underlined with a summary of recorded burnings so far, with the toll running to thousands of vehicles and buildings.

Naturally, it’s the poor who suffer the most by these actions, such as wide-scale burning of grocery stores and destruction of mass transit vehicles, preventing them from getting to their capitalist exploiters. In time though they will recognize the well-funded individuals and social organizations behind these spontaneous uprisings are doing it for their own good (ambiguity intentional). Eventually they will be grateful–if they live that long.

From the National Catholic Register:

Cities around the world have staged LGBTQ parades, promoting an agenda that revolves around not only sexual depravity but also child genital mutilation.

But instead of being classed as a vulnerable group warranting protection from such evil insanity, children worldwide have been welcomed to such events while in their daily lives they are exposed to the depravity, even in schools where they face indoctrination

Only a few years ago this would have been considered child abuse and its practicers and proponents arrested. Now, among many, it’s a cause for celebration. Sadly also, only a few years ago, the Catholic Church would have been in the forefront condemning these monsters. Not any more.

Meanwhile, Catholic Church leaders, with very few notable exceptions, were silent about Pride Month throughout the month of June, and in some cases actively participated in what’s become akin to an annual “liturgical” celebration in the secular world.

. . .

Adding to the complicity of some Church leaders were Belgium’s bishops, who publicly approved same-sex blessings and said the Pope was behind them. The Vatican responded with silence, while the working document for the upcoming Synod on Synodality spoke uncritically of welcoming LGBTQ persons. Newswires conveyed the impression that the Vatican was calling for the “radical inclusion” of LGBTQ people.

With Holy Church looking the other way and worse, does this news come as any surprise?

From the Catholic News Agency.

The Catholic Church in Germany is facing an unprecedented crisis, with more than half a million baptized Catholics leaving the Church in 2022, according to figures released by the German Bishops’ Conference on June 28.

This marks the highest number of departures ever recorded, with 522,821 people choosing to leave the Church, according to CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language partner news agency.

This is the case, to a greater or lesser extent, with most Catholic Churches in the West. Her liberal leadership, with their obsessive embracing of every left-wing cause du jour, no matter how contrary to Church teachings, are destroying our Church by driving parishioners out, thus depriving them of the sacramental graces necessary for salvation. Is this what they really want?

Depending on my mood, my answer to the above is: “No, they are only seriously misguided and must be brought back to righteousness,” or: “Yes, they are agents of Satan and must be removed from the Church, the sooner the better.” More and more, lately, I’ve been favoring the latter response.

h/t William Tighe.

My, what a class act the president of Ukraine is. Volodymyr Zelensky wears a sweat shirt to an audience with the King of England. No wonder the Biden boys are so enamored of this thug–and his money, of course.

https://youtube.com/shorts/nmEQHUCTJ4A?feature=share3

h/t Fr Rutler.

From Fortune Magazine:

Bud Light boycotters decimating sales over Dylan Mulvaney promotion should think about employees, Anheuser-Busch CEO Brendan Whitworth says.

An exemplar of our modern culture pretends to sample a brew the little people drink.

Brendan Whitworth [CEO of Anheuser Busch, the manufacturer of Bud Light beer-product], ex-marine, makes a heartfelt appeal to protect his staff working at a company that is “one degree of separation away from the American flag.”

. . . Whitworth wants Bud Light boycotters to blame him for the fateful Dylan Mulvaney promotion and not punish the 65,000 people whose livelihoods depend on Anheuser-Busch.

Aw, isn’t that generous of Mr Whitworth, shouldering blame for the colossal error he made approving the hire of someone the antithesis of the typical drinker of his wretched beer-product: a privileged Harvard MBA who certainly never drank, nor likely even heard of the stuff?

. . . the former U.S. Marine and CIA spy turned CEO of America’s largest beer brewer said the buck stopped with him when it came to the disastrous promotion with transgender influencer [sic] Mulvaney

So how will Mr Whitworth’s sorrow over his dumb mistake manifest itself? Asking 65,000 workers, who will lose their jobs if the Bud Light swillers he drove away don’t come back, to blame him for the debacle may appear principled, but shouldn’t that admission of culpability be accompanied by something more substantial?

Your Tatler is hardly a theologian (nor an MBA), but did read the Catechism cover to cover when studying to become a Catholic, and it seems to him when someone does something dumb, that could cost 65,000 workers to lose their jobs, simply accepting blame and doing nothing else is insufficient. Mr Whitworth resigning his position, however, does seem sufficient. Will he do it?

There is no indication of it thus far.  Were he to do so, A-B’s CEO would have to surrender his $12 million per annum salary and maybe his $7 million apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side as well. Perhaps that’s asking too much for him. As it is though, Mr Whitworth seems to believe accepting blame for a misguided act is sufficient unto the day; insisting “I’m to blame” (he’s never even said “I’m sorry”) will do the job. That shows an astronomically high degree of unwarranted self regard and it doesn’t seem probable Bud Light drinkers, none of whom likely pull in $12 million a year, will buy it. Mr Whitford’s posturing gesture for A-B leaderships’s failures will, in the end, prove as empty as the calories in Bud Light.

UPDATE: It isn’t working.

From Fox News.

A glass bottling company impacted by Bud Light’s botched promotion with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney will close down two of its locations, laying off more than 600 employees as the beer brand continues to grapple with staggering financial losses and declining sales.

I’ve been waiting for this for years, a revival of the long-obsolete instrument called the arpeggione. A sort of hybrid guitar and ‘cello, Schubert wrote some his most beautiful music for it, which has long been played on the ‘cello instead.

Now, at last, we can hear Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata as he intended it to be heard and in this writer’s opinion, it sounds better than on the ‘cello. It’s a much softer and gentler sound that may take some getting used to, but I love it and judging by the comments, so do many others. As one commenter put it: “Why is everyone surprised Schubert knew what he was doing?”

UPDATE: I just noticed this “revival,” for which I’ve been waiting so long, took place a full decade ago. Ah well, it’s new to me and possibly, I hope, to some of my readers. It doesn’t lessen the pleasure.

UPDATE 2. Those wishing to hear movements 2 and 3, played by the same forces, go here.

Way back in the ’90s, believe it or not, this arch-conservative subscribed to the New Republic magazine. Though solidly liberal, it was a thoughtful journal with some excellent and entertaining writers, including Charles Krauthammer, Mickey Kaus, Morton Kondracke, and a host of others. It was, to paraphrase the late Ed Koch, the last good liberal mayor of New York, liberalism with sanity.

Eventually, I let my subscription to the New Republic lapse and the magazine passed out of my thoughts–until today, when I was rudely re-introduced to it, as well reminded how illiberal modern liberalism has become, all sanity having drained away from it.

Wow. Apparently, the poor fellow trapped at the bottom of the sea in a submersible had it coming because of his support of the wrong political party. The old New Republic I knew would have excoriated the writer and publisher of such populist bilge. The new New Republic has embraced it, becoming the National Enquirer of the hard left.

Should the Dems retain power in the ’24 elections, we may safely assume freedom of dissent will quickly become a relic of the past.

h/t For What it’s Worth.

Seen on Twitter, courtesy The Twitchy.

In time, even that oblique manner of referring to a white person by his geographical heritage will become unacceptable. Those of us burdened with the wrong hue will then be referenced, sotto voce as if uttering an obscenity, “lesser biological units.”

From the New York Post.

Step number one would be to have a nice chat with the deacons and acolytes, which ought to solve the mystery of this “miracle” in no time. Also, the inane patois of the pastor would warrant a serious discussion with him as well.

“God has duplicated himself in the ciborium,” said the Rev. Joseph Crowley, who oversees the congregation, referring to the type of container used to hold the hosts. “It’s really, really cool when God does these things, and it’s really, really cool when we realize what he’s done.”

Dude, awesome!