I am at a crossroads in my life. I want to dedicate the precious time I have in a day to further pursue my personal studies and develop myself more fully.
I don't want you checking in every day or week only to find that you've wasted your time.
Time wasting is a sin I can no longer ignore or excuse away in my own life.
I've become mentally lazy over the last couple of years and haven't read as much as I've wanted to. I've bought too many books that have gone unread. My vocabulary has taken a hit from the lack of reading.
I finally bought a Bible five years ago and I'm still on page one. It just looks pretty on the shelf. There's also copies of the Divine Comedy and the Upanishads that I've been meaning to get to but my mind is always preoccupied with other nonsense.
I also don't remember the last film I've watched from beginning to end in one sitting, even though I've collected so many 4K discs. I think it was Barry Lyndon or 1917. I can get through a Leafs game, and some football matches on rare occasions but that's the limit of my attention span these days. I have to change that. Getting away from my phone will help, as tough as that sounds.
This blog has been a worthwhile distraction for me but it's also a drain on my energy. When I took a break from 2016 - 2021 I missed it. I like the educational aspect of it. I hope it's been a useful resource for you.
I've tried branching away from geopolitical events, wars, conspiracies, regime changes, and things of that nature. I've posted on subjects I've taken an interest in, from the Shakespeare Authorship question to the origins of modern cartography, the pioneers of the printing press, the study of Beowulf, and the fall of the Romanovs.
It's fruitful to be extra curious about some things, especially history. Understanding the origins of wars has been a fascination of mine since I was young, specifically WWI, because that war transformed everything. But too much curiosity isn't good.
Spontaneous research has its place in growing one's knowledge of the world. Every time I step inside a library or bookstore I tell myself to blindly buy or borrow a book. Where the mental universe takes me that day or week depends on the book in my hand.
But I also need to start living more and stop trying to understand everything. I feel like time has me by the neck. These past five years have moved very quickly. And I've accomplished basically nothing. I need to get things in order, and that means changing my priorities. Posting on this blog is coming off my to-do list.
I might reconsider in the future but I won't guarantee anything.
So whoever you are, wherever you are, thank you for visiting.
Marsilius of Padua (1270 – c. 1342) was an Italian scholar, trained in medicine, who practiced a variety of professions. He was also an important 14th-century political figure. His political treatise Defensor pacis (The Defender of Peace), an attempt to refute papal claims to a "plenitude of power" in affairs of both church and state, is seen by some scholars as the most revolutionary political treatise written in the later Middle Ages. It is one of the first examples of a trenchant critique of caesaropapism in Western Europe. Marsilius is sometimes seen as a forerunner of the Protestant reformation, because many of his beliefs were later adopted by Calvin and Luther.
. . .Some authorities consider Defensor pacis one of the most important political and religious works of fourteenth-century Europe. In the Defensor minor, Marsilius completed and elaborated on different points in the doctrine laid down in the Defensor pacis. He dealt here with problems concerning ecclesiastical jurisdiction, penance, indulgences, crusades and pilgrimages, vows, excommunication, the general church council, marriage and divorce, and unity with the Greek Orthodox Church. In this work he even more clearly articulates imperial supremacy over the Church.
The tract Defensor pacis (The Defender of Peace) laid the foundations of modern doctrines of popular sovereignty. It was written by Marsilius of Padua (Italian: Marsilio da Padova), an Italian medieval scholar. It appeared in 1324 and provoked a storm of controversy that lasted through the century. The context of the work lies in the political struggle between Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor and Pope John XXII. The treatise is vehemently anticlerical. Marsilius' work was censured by Pope Benedict XII and Pope Clement VI.
Defensor pacis extends the tradition of Dante's De Monarchia separating the secular State from religious authority. It affirmed the sovereignty of the people and civil law and sought to greatly limit the power of the Papacy, which he viewed as the "cause of the trouble which prevails among men" and which he characterized as a "fictitious" power. He proposed the seizure of church property by civil authority and the elimination of tithes. In his view, the Papacy would retain only an honorary pre-eminence without any authority to interpret the scriptures or define dogma.
. . .The pope, no longer possessing any more power than other bishops (though Marsilius recognizes that the supremacy of the See of Rome goes back to the earliest times of Christianity), is to content himself with a pre-eminence mainly of an honorary kind, without claiming to interpret the Holy Scriptures, define dogmas or distribute benefices; moreover, he is to be elected by the Christian people, or by the delegates of the people, i.e. the princes, or by the council, and these are also to have the power to punish, suspend or depose him. The theory was purely democratic, but was all ready to be transformed, by means of a series of fictions and implications, into an imperialist doctrine; and in like manner it contained a visionary plan of reformation which ended, not in the separation of the church from the state, but in the subjection of the church to the state.
In 1535, Thomas Cromwell paid William Marshall to translate Defensor into English in order to give intellectual support towards the implementation of Royal Supremacy.
The statement of Pope Clement, that Marsiglio derived his heresies from Ockam, is still further weakened if we consider the attitude of the scholars of that time and of later days with respect to the works of the two. It was to Marsiglio, rather than to Ockam, that the enemies of the popes and the friends of reform looked for support. This has been denied by several writers of our own day, who think that it was the fate of Marsiglio to be absolutely forgotten. According to Poole,'-and Lechler, Tschakert and Kneer' are of the same opinion,----"Ockam may justly be claimed as a precursor of the German reformers of the sixteenth century, but Marsiglio exercised no direct influence on the movement of thought." Riezler regards them both as nearly equal in prominence as precursors of the Reformation. Silbernagl, on the other hand, distinctly denies that Ockam is a precursor of the Reformation in the same sense as is Marsiglio, who, in his Defensor Pacis, " takes the same grounds as Luther." Which of these opinions is right we shall discover by studying the histories of the works of Marsiglio and Ockam, subsequent to their publication.
If we could believe Villani, John XXII. condemned Marsiglio in a bull dated July 13, 1324. From a letter of the bishop of Passaui, of September 6, 1326, we know that John had already condemned Marsiglio as a heretic.
. . .The name and work of Marsiglio remained ever fresh in the minds of the people during the Reformation. The Protestants, in their letter "super recusatione Concilii Tridentini" in 1562, referred to him as one among those who had written about the early abuses of the Church. Charles IX., in a letter to Pius IV., also makes reference to him.
In 1592 Francis Gomar, the Calvinist and anti-Arminian, brought out a new edition of the Defensor Pacis, praising its author and recommending it to Henry IV., of France, as especially useful for showing the liberty and power of his kingdom against the popes.' In 1599 a new edition was published, but, excepting the addition of "Testimonia auctorum de Marsilio Patavino," it seems to be a reprint of the edition of Gomar.
In 1612 Daniel Patterson, of Danzig, published another edition of the Defensor, calling it a work very useful and necessary for politicians and all students of letters, and prefacing it with a history of the struggles between the popes and the emperors, and the share of Marsiglio therein. In 1613 Patterson had the same reprinted, not, however, under the title of the Defensor Pacis, but under that of Legislator Rounanus de Jutrisdictione et Potestate, tarn seculari, quam ecclesiastica, as a general treatise on the priestly, military, agricultural and other orders of the state. From these two editions by Patterson we see that the Defensor had ceased to be a mere weapon against the papacy, and had been taken up as a work on the state. Goldast, the great editor, in almost the same spirit incorporated it into his collection of texts on the ecclesiastical and imperial powers in 1614.
. . .From the two historical narratives thus presented, though necessarily incomplete, we may derive some estimate of the influence of the works of Ockam and of Marsiglio on their contemporaries and the men who came after them. We have seen that the popes and their supporters were in far greater fear of Marsiglio than of Ockam. It was Marsiglio whom they turned to refute. It was he who, as a certain cardinal thought, was the stumbling-block in the way of peace between the Emperor Louis and the popes. Ockam was also feared, but in far less degree. His theories attracted far less attention from the popes and their literary supporters. The errors of which he was accused were shared by a large number of men. They are never referred to as the errors of Ockam alone, but are always spoken of as those of " Cesena, Ockam, Bonagratia, Thalheim and others." Even as such they do not seem to have been strikingly original; one of them, at least, is exactly the same as an error of Marsiglio, which had been condemned before these men came into prominence.
Of Marsiglio's strong influence on the Emperor Louis there is no doubt. It was he who formed the chief support of Louis's expedition to Rome, and it was only after the failure of that expedition that the more moderate counsels of Ockam and others prevailed. Not less strong than his influence on his contemporaries was Marsiglio's influence on the men who followed him. This is evidenced by the inquisitions held on his book, and by the several translations, numerous editions and frequent use of it.' Of Ockam's works we have found no translations, fewer editions and fewer cases of borrowing. If, then, Ockam was and has been better known than Marsiglio it has been because of his philosophical rather than his political works. In this respect he may be compared with Dante, whose De lVlonarchtia became well known more because it was written by the great poet than from any great value it had as a work on political theory.
Both the works of Ockam and those of Marsiglio failed to do that which Wiclif's works did-they failed to reach the masses. It is exceedingly doubtful whether the democratic movements under Van Artevelde, Rienzi and Etienne Marcel had any such connection with the theories of Ockam and Marsiglio as had the Peasant's Revolt with those of Wiclif. It is just as doubtful whether the anti-clerical movement in the German cities in the second half of the fourteenth century had any inspiration from controversial writers like Marsiglio and Ockam, who wrote in the first half. It was in the learned world that the influence of these two men was felt. It was here that Ockam's philosophical doctrines took hold, and it was here that Marsiglio's " system of the ecclesiastical power and its relations to the temporal . . . . served as a starting point for all subsequent treatises on the ecclesiastical hierarchy."
Marsiglio may have borrowed his theories of the state from Aristotle, but his theories of the relations between Church and state are original with himself. He did not borrow them from Ockam; the evidence against this is too strong and the only statement for it too weak. It is Marsiglio's originality and the history of his famous work which have served in our own day to make him an international celebrity possessing an interest not only "for the Germans, the Italians and the French," as Riezler says, but also for the English.
Video Title: The secularist theorists of the Empire: Marsilius of Padua and William of Ockham. Source: Schwerpunkt. Date Published: December 11, 2021.
Ceasefire or no ceasefire, the march on Kyiv goes on as Russia reclaims militarily what it lost through three decades of political mistakes, and Washington-led cultural engineering.
North American cities could see new geographic relationships superseding current political boundaries. There's already serious talks of the province of Alberta separating from Canada in light of the liberal party retaining power. Trump’s 51st State comment was a rude insult, but who knows, Alberta may throw up its hand and join the union. It will go ahead with secession plans if it feels its economic growth depends on it. Bad management in Ottawa can only be tolerated for so long.
Pakistan, as an artificial country and a remnant of colonial times, is inherently fragile and bound to eventually disintegrate. It is held together via despotism, Chinese and Western loans, and nuclear blackmail. India will get its nose bloodied, but in any prolonged war between the two sides Pakistan will come out much poorer and weaker.
The Urban U.S. could look very different in the year 2100, in part because thousands of cities might be rendered virtual ghost towns. According to findings published in Nature Cities, the populations of some 15,000 cities around the country could dwindle to mere fractions of what they are now. The losses are projected to affect cities everywhere in the U.S. except Hawaii and Washington, D.C.
“The way we’re planning now is all based on growth, but close to half the cities in the U.S. are depopulating,” says senior author Sybil Derrible, an urban engineer at the University of Illinois Chicago. “The takeaway is that we need to shift away from growth-based planning, which is going to require an enormous cultural shift in the planning and engineerinng of cities.”
Derrible and his colleagues were originally commissioned by the Illinois Department of Transportation to conduct an analysis of how Illinois’s cities are projected to change over time and what the transportation challenges will be for places that are depopulating. As they got deeper into the research, though, they realized that such predictions would be useful to know for cities across the entire U.S.—and not just for major ones, such as New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles. “Most studies have focused on big cities, but that doesn’t give us an estimation of the scale of the problem,” says lead study author Uttara Sutradhar, a doctoral candidate in civil engineering at the University of Illinois Chicago.
With just 6% of the world’s population, North America (Canada, Mexico and United States) commands outsized global attention due to its economic clout. Over the past 40 years, cities in North America have charted a dual trajectory: the global success of ‘superstar cities’ alongside the stark decline of once-thriving industrial cities. Shaped by financial crises, globalisation, industrial offshoring, suburbanisation, the COVID-19 pandemic and shifting geopolitics, North America’s urban landscape tells a story of resilience, reinvention and disruption.
. . .North American cities have diversified their economies and shifted focus to knowledge-based industries, technology, finance and healthcare.
What we begin to see now is a the emergence of new set of cities and regions through reindustrialisation while the high-growth model of tech cities is being challenged by land constraints, unaffordability, and inequality.
While New York remains a financial powerhouse, the city has also successfully grown its innovation economy. It is a leading destination for AI talent and companies, with AI companies expanding their footprint in the city tenfold in ten years. Following strategic public and private investment, it also boasts new edges in life sciences and the green economy.
San Francisco and the broader Bay area have become synonymous with the tech industry, while Los Angeles has continued to dominate entertainment, arts and fashion. However, congestion, housing unaffordability and higher taxes are casting a shadow on the long-term success of these cities, leading to a major outflow of people since the COVID-19 pandemic. San Francisco has also been impacted by the post-pandemic shift to more hybrid work patterns. Recent data suggests it could take up to two decades for the city’s office market to recover to pre-pandemic levels.
I am speaking as promised to the students of Fordham, and professors, and other Catholic universities.
When I was a young man in America, one heard a good deal of talk about the union of the churches. It was very nice and humanitarian on the surface. And one heard less of a more bizarre proposition, namely, that of Anglo-Israel, all dressed up with the Stone of Scone on which Scotch's King's were recrowned, now it is in Westminster Abbey, and about the prophet Isaiah, and the rest of the stage set, "hast given us the gates of thine enemies" and so on. Well, comin' to Europe I thought nothin' about either of these movements or drags for the next 30 years and very probably you didn't either, those of you who are old enough to have heard of the phantasies of the year 1900. But that is not the end of the story. A few weeks ago in London there was a powwow between the Archbishop of Canterbury and a Catholic Archbishop, or Cardinal, and a high Rabbi. And if I were a Catholic, I should want to know more about what that meeting was up to. I should want, quite seriously, to see that conventicle in historic perspective. That perspective is very clearly outlined, or indicated in a book called La Sibille, by Zielinski, a Polish writer who seems to me to be imbued with sincere piety. But who sees Judaism in direct contrast, spiritual, theological contrast, with the Christian faith.
Many other writers have written on the gift of earlier Mediterranean philosophers to the developments of the Church dogma. Zielinski calls this the MATERIAL influence of Hellenism on Christianity. But he takes what is, to me at least, a new angle of analysis. He speaks of the psychologic preparation for Christianity that was there in the Greek and Roman religions, both the religion of Delphi, that is of the cult of Apollo and in that of Ceres Demeter, Mater Dolorosa, and in less degree in some of the more cults.
Few of us know that the Mithraic religion identified their saviour with Love. As in the gospels we read: God is love, so in Mithraic worship, or in at least one praise of Mithra, we find the same words: is Love; Mithra is love.
Zielinski offers a fairly complete list of prototypes, of the essentially Catholic beliefs, I say essentially Catholic because they are quite patently NON- Jewish, and ANTI-Jewish, and they are specifically the features of Catholicism which Protestantism has wiped out.
I think you should consider these things. The Jews do not honor the Virgin, they do not honor the Mother of God in any form. Neither do the Protestants. Mother Mary gets a look in at Christmas, that is, on the anniversary of our Lord's birth, on about the same footing as the Sheperds and Magi, just as the Catholic Church notices the Semitic period once a year in the prayer for the perfidious Jews on the anniversary of the crucifixion.
And Zielinski's term for Protestantism is "REJEWdiazed religion." But I am not so much intent on the theology as on the immediate ecclesiastical polity of the enemies of faith. He points out, I think uncontradictably, that the people who got converted to Christianity in the early centuries were, as Zielinski points out, the pagans, and the people who most pertinaciously opposed the new religion of Christianity were the Jews. Various attempts at syncretism preceded the Conversion of Constantine, and the formulation of the Catholic or general church and emperors of other empires had felt the need of a single religion for all their people. The Tarquins were converted to Apollo, there was a fusion of Delphi with the Persians, Ptolemy First wanted a single cult for his subjects, and Seleukos held out against Ptolemy and Lysimacus. In short, there is nothing essentially new in an emperor's wanting a synthetic and inclusive religion for political ends.
And remains of these syncretisms persist in great beauty in Christian ritual, and in the Catholic disposition. Isis, Demter Mary, the fans in the Easter Mass at Siena. The Greek church held out against Rome in calling itself orthodox and not the General Church. The Greeks by that time were not a people ruling an empire. Given the Roman empire there was a political need of a general or universal religion for the whole empire, which claimed more or less to be the circle of lands, the whole world.
As to the seriousness of the Anglican church, Brooks Adams sums that up fairly completely when he remarks with perfect accuracy, the relation of Christ's blood and body to the bread of the sacrament was changed five times in the course of a life time, by royal decree or act of Parliament.
The Brits are a theatrical and not a religious people. And the last meeting in London was not wholly religious in nature. The Anglican church is a national church. The Church of Rome was an imperial church at the outset. A Protestant sect is by definition cut off from universality. But today we are faced by a new INTERNATIONAL empire, a new tyranny, that hates and bleeds the whole world. I refer to the empire of international usury, that knows no faith and no frontiers. It is called international finance, and the Jew and the Archbishop in London are at work for that tyranny trying to draft a universal religion in defense of the infamy of the usurers. It is DEMOCRATIC in principles and I think the Catholic representative is ill- advised to put his head into the noose. As a democratic and usurious combine, the Catholic is in a minority of ONE against TWO. He will always be outvoted, and I can not see that this conduces to Catholic welfare. A universal church of the usurers would be very poor substitute for religion.
Pope Francis denounced usury and financial exploitation in an address to an Italian organization dedicated to its elimination.
Pope Francis denounced usury and financial exploitation in an address to an Italian organization dedicated to its elimination.
"Usury humiliates and kills,” the Pope said. “Usury is a grave sin. It kills life, stomps on human dignity, promotes corruption, and sets up obstacles to the common good.”
He said this type of financial exploitation – which involves lending money at unreasonably high rates of interest – is an ancient evil that must be prevented through education.
Planning, discussing, and waging war from inside the Vatican. Nothing is sacred for these motherfuckers. Putin is wasting his time negotiating with these devils. Invade Kiev, throw out the monsters, and be done with this cruel war.
Video Title: Why Does Zelensky Reject the US Peace Plan? Source: Vladimir Brovkin. Date Published: April 27, 2025. Description:
In this edittion of the Issues of Contemporary politics with Dr. Brovkin I examine the latest moves and countermoves between the US, Ukraine, Russia and the so called Coalition of the Willing. The key question is why Zelesnky seems to be rejecting all US proposals even though he may wind up losing much more?
