THE TAOS TATLER.

Always present, but so far avoiding us.

Some good reporting, in a feature from a New Mexico website, describes the devastation to centuries-old customs in the tiny mountainous villages dotting this region, the result of the terrible fires nearby.

Some excerpts:

The little town of Mora, nestled in a green river valley between forested mountains, is usually a serene place. But with the area hit hard by the Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak fire, the high school has become a distribution center where local volunteers give out donated food, water and animal feed.

. . .

In this rural area, New Mexico’s largest-ever fire has destroyed homes and crops. Power and water are still mostly out. Although the area was in an evacuation zone, anecdotally people say maybe a quarter of about 4,500 residents of the county stayed to feed livestock and fight spot fires on their property.

. . .

As well as making a living from forestry and agriculture, they take pride in traditions like maintaining the Spanish-style ditches called acequias for irrigation. State Representative Roger Montoya says even the Spanish spoken here is influenced by old dialects and indigenous languages.

“It was a beautiful mixture that is very unique worldwide,” he said. “And it’s emblematic of the kind of isolation that these communities have maintained in a certain way even today. They are insular, they are quite happy. They are rich culturally and historically.”

Much more here and well worth reading: the author is Alice Fordham, a transplanted Brit reporting for the website of KUNM.

So far, here in Taos, we have been spared  the fires’ devastation, in fact our little town has become a temporary home for refugees. One of the reasons may be, while Taos is nestled in the most mountainous region of New Mexico, the town itself lies on a plane, popularly described as “high desert,” but likely more accurately, “alpine.” There are a few trees to provide fuel for the raging fires in the mountains nearby. Additionally, prevailing winds this time of year blow from the southwest or northwest, thus keeping the conflagration away from us.

Still, Taoseños all are on the alert. Over the last few weeks your Tatler’s phone has let out several ear-shattering  shrieks, followed by the announcing of mandatory evacuations for towns nearby. Deo volente there will not be one for us.

Just Say No, Your Honor.

Comes word New York City’s new mayor Eric Adams is already hankering for a better job. The New York Post reports an “insider” tells them: “Eric has told me repeatedly that he thinks that he has a platform to run for national office, for president in 2024. He has said that repeatedly.”

Mayor Adams might want to crack the history books. Four, count ’em, four of his predecessors, in reverse order, de Blasio, Bloomberg, Giuliani and Lindsay had a go at the presidency and the campaigns of every one of them were dismal failures. Americans apparently don’t want New York mayors in the White House.

Adams, from this great distance at least, has achieved zero significant accomplishments, and while accomplishing nothing hardly precludes a presidential run, e.g., de Blasio, Hilary Clinton and Joe Biden, it is your Tatler’s belief the majority of our populace these days is wary buying another political pig in a poke.

Stick to running the City, Your Honor. There are myriad problems enough to keep you plenty occupied the next four years.

Delightful music, off the beaten track.

Your Tatler, who claims fair knowledge of the classical repertoire, confesses he had never heard these charming pieces, nor any others by their estimable composer, until today. While Emile Jaques-Dalcroze has a decent biographical entry in Wikipedia (which is usually reliable so long as the subject cannot possibly support a left-wing interpretation), but it covers only one aspect of Dalcroze: his pioneering efforts in eurhythmics, which later influenced composer Carl Orff, of Carmina Burana fame.* There is no mention of the fairly large body of music he composed.

This recording, just released, is a worthy addition to the relatively meager discography of Jaques-Dalcroze and consists solely of music for the ‘cello and piano. There is no need to go into detailed description of the music, just listen and be charmed. If there were Les belles-lettres of music, these little pieces would certainly qualify. An example can be heard here.

Jaques-Dalcroze: Music for Violincello & Piano
Pi-Chin Chien, ‘Cello
Bernhard Parz, Piano
TYXart (C) 2022

*Your Tatler’s esteem for Carl Orff lessened considerably upon learning he accepted a commission from the mayor of Frankfurt to compose new incidental music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream; this after the incomparable version by Mendelssohn, as close to perfection to be found in music, was banned by the Nazis because he was a Jew.

After 35 years.

Well, isn’t this a fine how-do-you-do for liberal Catholic-Episcopalian wannabees? Doddering Nancy Pelosi, after 35 years enthusiastically supporting the killing of babies in the womb, in direct violation of Catholic teachings (CCC 2270-75), has finally been banned by Archbishop Cordileone of San Francisco from receiving at mass. The howls of the wounded will soon be heard.

Some are noting His Grace’s finally taking action may have had something to do with the premature release of the Supreme Court decision, which, possibly, throws out Roe v. Wade. Apparently not. In an interview with America Magazine(!), the Archbishop says the Supreme Court decision jettisoning Roe (maybe) in no way influenced his decision to take action against Pelosi, that he has tried for years to discuss the matter with her, but has apparently been rebuffed every time. Only after noting her views on Roe becoming ever more more extreme lately did he finally decide to do something about it.

Though long overdue, Pelosi’s excommunication is still wonderful news. Of course, it will have little effect on leftist extremists, even those who consider themselves Catholic, but it will certainly give a lift to those beneficent souls who for years have been campaigning, often at risk to their personal safety, against this horrendous sin. Even Catholics merely ambivalent about abortion may be inclined to re-examine the matter.

Perhaps most significant, Archbishop Cordileone’s bold action might persuade the all-too-many wishy-washy members of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, who chatter aplenty about the evils of abortion, but do little else (Archbishop Wester of the Diocese of Santa Fe comes to mind). Who knows? They might even start growing spines of their own and excommunicate prominent abortion proponents in their own dioceses, thus sending the clear message to the laity there is no gray area when it comes to the subject, that even just voicing support for it is a grave sin, separating the soul from Christ.

UPDATE: Well glory be, it seems other bishops are indeed following suit.

Bishop Robert Vasa of the Diocese of Santa Rosa [where the Pelosis have a summer house] told The Pillar May 20 he has instructed priests to observe the decision of Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone when Pelosi attends Mass at the parish nearby her Napa Valley vacation home and vineyard. 

“I have visited with the pastor at [Pelosi’s parish] and informed him that if the Archbishop prohibited someone from receiving Holy Communion then that restriction followed the person and that the pastor was not free to ignore it,” Vasa said in a statement provided to The Pillar by the Santa Rosa diocese.

Now, other bishops are speaking out, saying the decision is correct because it was Pelosi’s decision to extricate herself from communion with the Catholic Church by virtue of her aggressive pro-abortion agenda.

Bishop Donald Hying of Wisconsin . . . backs the decision to deny Nancy Pelosi communion, saying “Pelosi has persistently taken public positions in support of legal abortion, contrary to her professed Catholic faith, choosing to separate herself from full communion with the Catholic Church.”

Other bishops are also joining in. Let us pray it doesn’t stop with Pelosi, but that other prominent Catholics, especially those in politics, including the present occupant of White House, are at last brought to account for supporting abortion. It is long overdue.

*UPDATE 2: Professor William Tighe points out (see comment below) Pelosi has not actually been excommunicated, rather found, in the often arcane language of canon law, to be “obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin” (canon 915). Quite so, your Tatler stands corrected. Pelosi still however has been ordered by the archbishop not to receive because of this finding and we may presume if she defies that order, she will indeed be excommunicated.

Far more on this matter may be found here.

From the New York Post:

He’s really gonna do it.

Former Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Friday that he is running for Congress in a new district straddling Manhattan and Brooklyn.

“I’m declaring my candidacy for Congress in the 10th congressional district in New York,” the failed 2020 Democratic presidential candidate told MSNBC Friday morning.

This really had your correspondent in stitches.

“Polls show people are hurting, they need help, they need help fast, they need leaders that can actually get them help now,” de Blasio added. “I know how to do it from years of serving the people of this city.”

Since the only people that vote in elections now in New York City are hardcore left-wingers, His Idiocy might just stand a chance of winning (the 10th Congressional District of New York is entirely within city limits). For your Tatler though, de Blasio’s election to a second term as mayor was the final straw and it drove him out of the City. He was hardly the first to ditch Gotham and certainly not the last.

Last one out, please turn off the lights.

The Ukrainians show the Russians how.

From the Daily Telegraph.

Russia is reportedly refusing to take bodies of its soldiers killed in fighting in Ukraine, with corpses piling up in refrigerated train cars outside the Ukrainian capital.

Col Volodymyr Lyamzin, Ukraine’s chief civil-military liaison officer, said several hundred bodies have been collected from the battlefield in the Kyiv and Chernihiv region and brought to a railyard outside the Ukrainian capital. 

They are being kept on a train until the Russian government agrees to take them.

“Ukrainian authorities are dealing with this issue because Russia refuses to take them,” he told Al Jazeera.

“Each body testifies to war crimes. If they keep refusing to take the bodies, Ukraine will bury them.”

Civilized nations treat war dead, even foes, with respect. Most western nations do so, including Ukraine. Russia does not. Russia is not civilized.

Just which country do these people work for?

National Institutes of Health acting director Lawrence Tabak confirmed to lawmakers Wednesday that US health officials concealed early genomic sequences of COVID-19 at the request of Chinese scientists — but insisted the data remains on file.

Tabak told a House Appropriations subcommittee that the NIH “eliminated from public view” the data from the pandemic epicenter in Wuhan, China, before adding that researchers can still access it via an archaic “tape drive.”

Read it all. It only gets worse.

Historians over the years have debated the exact meaning of the phrase “high crimes and misdemeanors, as found in our Constitution concerning causes for impeachment. If this description of it by the American Enterprise Institute is correct, it’s safe to say that there are many officials in the Biden Administration guilty of them.

High crimes and misdemeanors are not limited to actual crimes but extend to an abuse or violation of the public trust in carrying out those duties.

Nothing will happen to these traitors during the present Administration of course, but Deo volente, perhaps in the next. These people should be in jail or better yet, exiled for life to the country of their real employers.