Revisting Gold Beach

Note: I have decided to revisit a "photo-essay" I posted on my Facebook page last year, following a visit to Arromanches-les-Bains in Normandy, the the D-Day landing site known as Gold Beach. What I wrote then was not terribly measured and I don't know if this will be any more so, but it is June 6, 2010, and the day should be marked somehow.

I am a medieval historian, and so loath to comment on topics outside my ken, like World War II. The only other occasion when I have done so was in an earlier blog post, which was not about the war as much as war and its effects and the things you learn in unexpected places. Still, if one has lived the last twenty years as an attentive citizen, one can hardly not be aware of the great interest that has been shown for the event. These thoughts stemmed from a 2009 visit to Arromanches-les-Bains, a site I first visited in 1989 just after graduating from high school. Code-named Gold Beach on D-Day, it was an invasion site taken primarily by British Forces, who were tasked with creating an artificial harbor (which a friend tells me is called a Mulberry harbor). Until Antwerp was liberated, the Mulberry harbor at Arromanches was a primary resupply point for Allied forces in Normandy. The above photo is of a segment of that harbor, still resting on the beach. Segments of the harbor remain in the Channel and are visible on satellite photos.

The most disturbing part of the growth of interest in World War II was the peddling of a triumphalist narrative. It is, indeed, a story that has been crammed down our throats at least since the 1998 publication of Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation and driven home by movies like Saving Private Ryan. Such efforts, which would seem to run counter to the noted reticence veterans of the war consistently show to lionize their efforts, offer us a straightforward good-versus-evil struggle and the triumph of democracy over totalitarianism. This can generally be accomplished only by minimizing the involvement of Stalin's Soviet Union and Chinese Communists under Mao, whose efforts were integral to the Allied victory. How then, in this narrative, can we explain this, for if Stalin and Mao were not totalitarians--though, to be fair, Mao would have to wait a few years--then who is?

The truth seems to be that by constructing a narrative in this fashion, we allow ourselves to duck our measure of responsibility for a war that claimed more than 70 and perhaps as many as 100 million lives. We can claim to have been drawn in by the December 7 attack on Pearl Harbor, but we had always been involved, if only through policies such as Lend-Lease or documents like the so-called "Atlantic Charter." We had sold Japan much of the steel its war machine needed in much the same way that the United Kingdom sold its desert camouflage to Saddam Hussein's Iraq in the years preceding the first Gulf War.

In the end, World War Two was the result of the bad faith of governments throughout the world. That the Allies won is, of course, a good thing for humanity. But that the war had to be fought at this scale, that the threat of German fascism was not strangled in its crib, is evidence of how colossally all the parties fucked up--there is no other way to put it--in the years before the war. We went to war because we had screwed up too badly not to go to war. And, as always, old men far from the battlefield sent young men to die for their mistakes. And, again as always, these young men responded with bravery and with cowardice, with conviction and with doubt, willingly or not. Their sacrifice should be remembered, and it is not my goal to denigrate that, but to point out that they were, at least in part, cleaning up their own mess, as is always the case. One reminder is the refuse of this war, still leaking oily residue over 65 years later. The battlefield is beautiful, and the locals fish for clams in these pools, but the detritus of war still pollutes the beach.

Yet, the uncritical narratives dominate, precisely because they fail to challenge us. And through the efforts of hagiographers like Brokaw, Steven Spielberg, Stephen Ambrose and others, everything is framed by the war. The god-men they describe and portray make the rest of us seem like homunculi by comparison. Their message is disheartening. Never can we rise to such a level of excellence, so we must be content to adore. Was their accomplishment marvelous? Yes. But it was only equal to the size of the mistakes their leaders made. And, of course, it is not the veterans who write and film these masturbatory exercises in hero-worship. For the most part, content with having done their jobs, they attempted to return to the lives they left behind.

Part of what the hagiographers have done stems from a noble source. The World War Two generation was notably silent about their achievement and no one should argue that memory must be preserved. However, we must take the good with the bad. Remnants like these will clutter the beaches long after the last veteran has died.

It is important, however, to resist the simplistic narrative of the war that media and markets attempt to foist on us. Forgetting the complexity of the war, ignoring our own culpability, makes it difficult to avoid the next war. Nothing so big is ever so simple as some would have us think. Monuments like the monstrosity on the National Mall force us into this mold, and it is no coincidence that the chief movers of this projects were the same people selling us the triumphalist story. So the monument becomes more a paean to their own excesses than to the veterans. It belies, in its way, the message they have tried to sell us.

In Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, perhaps the most profound meditation on war ever filmed, the master Shimada Kambei tells the callow swordsman Kikuchiyo that in war only the peasants win. At the end of the film, Kikuchiyo abandons the way of the sword and returns to his peasant roots. Like Cincinnatus, whose example so stirred the Revolutionary generation, this is what the veterans of the war did. Once the artificial harbor and the bridges connecting it to the land had served their purpose, it was abandoned. The people and their need to work and eat remain, their survival a fitting monument. They will outlast anything built by the hand of man.

Nothing beside remains, round the decay
Of that colossal wreck. Boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
-Percy Bysshe Shelley

Review: "Greetings from Afghanistan, Send More Ammo: Dispatches from Taliban Country" by Benjamin Tupper

There were several points in Benjamin Tupper's astounding book, "Greetings from Afghanistan" where I had to set the thing down for a few moments and regain my composure before I could continue, sometimes more than once in the same essay. Based on Tupper's postings on "The Sandbox," Doonesbury's milblog, and on pieces presented on NPR and other media outlets, the book is a collection of well-observed and -drawn sketches from the year he spent as an ETT operating on an ANA FOB in Afghanistan. No, I will not explain those terms; if you are going to read this book you had best learn what these acronyms mean and get used to seeing them.

Tupper brings a keen eye and a mordant wit to his descriptions of the everyday triumphs and tragedies of combat operations in Afghanistan, bringing home to the reader how ordinary even sheer terror can become. He is obviously, and justly, proud of his work at the "Tip of the Counterinsurgency Spear." He is also obviously, and justly, frustrated at how little understanding there seems to be that the best methods of pacifying the country do not involve the application of hard power, that the distribution of used clothing and stuffed animals (an activity which earned him the nickname "Captain Carebear") can be more effective than a well-placed artillery barrage in suppressing the Taliban. His praise, and occasional criticism, of Afghans he knew and worked with, does a great deal to help the reader realize that, like us, these people want to live free and peaceful lives.

Where Tupper's work really shines, and where it most touched me, is in the descriptions of his comrades-in-arms. You can walk away feeling that you actually met people such as Ski, Vandy, Deg and a handful of others who have stood up on our behalf. We see how alive they were in the field and, for those who made it home, how troubled re-entry into society can be for people who have been kept on edge for so long, and for whom coming back to civilian life removed much of the sense in their lives. It provides an apt illustration of the long-noted conundrum of how to turn the warrior off when so much time and energy has been spent turning him on, and of the effect this has not only on the warrior but on those around him.

I would like to say more, so much more, but I find it difficult once again to maintain composure. Let me simply say that you will know much that you did not before for reading this, and you will know things that the news cannot tell you. It is, as Ken Sterns says on the jacket blurb, "Raw, direct and powerful... vitally important." Afghanistan remains the forgotten war we are currently engaged in, despite a renewed focus on operations there. In a way, success there is far more important than success in Iraq. "Greetings from Afghanistan" brings this lesson home trenchantly, profanely, humorously and sadly. It left me shaken, but also optimistic that men (and women; their absence was perhaps the most noticeable, but this may be excused for reasons which, I think, become obvious) such as Tupper serve on our behalf and bring reports to us.

This is not a dispassionate review, and I realize that. This book does not allow it.

Casual Destruction

Nature had prepared the bird to escape any number of ground- and air-based predators, but against two tons of metal hurtling toward it at 55 miles per hour evolution had apparently given it little answer. I saw it try to take wing, wondering why it waited so long, just as it disappeared from view. In the time it took me to kill the bird, from the instant I realized he (she?) was going to react too late, to glimpsing feathers drifting down to the pavement in my rear-view mirror, I was able to utter three words.

"God. Damn. Bird."

Angry words, but spoken with sadness. Because it really wasn't the bird's fault that it died. She had the right instinct; she merely waited too long. One might argue that through such (un)natural selections, the gene pool for the species is improved. One might be right. But I did not run over an entire species of bird. A species is an imaginary notion anyway; it is abstracted from the totality of its individuals. And an individual is what I killed.

I can never know what the inner world of a bird is like or, indeed, whether it has one. I have enough trouble conceiving of my own. It's hard enough to understand what it is like for me to be alive here and now. Life itself has arisen from the chance interactions of chemical processes. It is complicated, and requires the input of energy, and for all that it is still difficult to comprehend.

Killing is so much easier, stopping the processes is all that is required. On. Off. Like a switch. That my flipping this particular switch was an accident, that what was a bird and is now a carcass that will help other animals live, does not change my culpability.

If I had any decency I would cry. If I believed in God I would pray. If I had the courage of my convictions I would give up meat, at least for the day. But the best I am apparently able to do is register my regret, realizing that it will not last as long, perhaps, as it should. And I'm sorry.

2010 Congressional District Survey

Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee needs MY help! Immediately! He sent me a survey and a form letter saying so. This is because I am apparently "one of our Party's most dedicated and trusted activists [whose] views and opinions on this survey will be used to represent thousands of Republicans in [my] congressional district." Not only can I provide valuable guidance for the party I can also...wait for it...provide MONEY! Hot damn! Money for "the critical campaign support they need--including polling data, research materials, strategic planning, advertising, volunteer training, lap dances and even direct cash assistance." OK, one of those I made up; you decide which. And $500, $250, $100, $50, or even just $25 seems a small price to pay to stop the Socialist Armageddon Mr. Steele seems certain is looming just over the horizon. The Democrat (sic) Party must be stopped. Did I mention I could give $500, $250, $100, $50, or even just $25? Because he did. Three times, in case I forget!

Anyhoo, I just thought I'd share the survey questions with you all:

1. Do you support the Obama Administration's efforts to eliminate further testing and deployment of an intercontinental missile defense system?
2. Should Republicans fight congressional Democrats' efforts to grant full unconditional amnesty to illegal immigrants?
3. Do you agree with Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi's efforts to impost massive tax hikes on the American people?
4. Do you believe that the federal government should maintain a permanent ownership stake in large auto companies?
5. Do you support giving captured foreign terrorists full judicial privileges and rights that are granted to U.S. citizens?
6. Do you support expanded exploration and drilling for fossil fuels off of U.S. coasts and on federal land?
   
7. Do you support the Democrats' efforts to create a massive new federal government bureaucracy that would be run by unionized government employees and would have complete control of your healthcare costs and choices?
8. Should Republicans in Congress make expansion of veterans' benefits a priority?
9. Do you support maintaining anti-terrorism laws that give law enforcement and intelligence agencies the far-reaching powers to track detain and prosecute terrorists and their accomplices?
10. Should the U.S. government normalize relations with Cuba?
11. Do you believe Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress have the best interests of you, your family and your community in mind?
12. Do you believe that American business and industry will be able to compete in the world economy if the Obama Administration bends to pressure from radical environmentalists and implements draconian regulations on emissions, energy consumption and transportation beyond what is required in other countries?
13. Do you support Barack Obama's plan to get Medicare to fund a new bloated entitlement program?
14. Do you agree that President Obama and the Democrats in Congress seem more concerned about passing their liberal pet-programs than creating jobs and getting the economy going?
15. Do you believe that the nation's Founding Fathers intended for the federal government to micro-manage state and local functions such as healthcare, child care and unemployment assistance
16. Do you feel that total Democrat (sic) control of both chambers of Congress and the Presidency will make our nation more safe prosperous and free?
17. Are you ready to actively support Republican candidates in your area and across the country who are fighting to stop the liberal Obama agenda and reinstitute conservative Republican policies and principles such as personal responsibility, lower taxes, cutting government waste and keeping our defense strong?

• Yes! I want to join the RNC's effort to win control of the U.S. House and Senate in the fast-approaching 2010 mid-term elections, safeguard our values and principles, and get America moving towards a strong, prosperous and secure future. I am enclosing my most generous contribution of: $500, $250, $100, $50, $25, $____ Other
  
• I cannot pledge my support this year, but I would like to include a contribution of $11 to help the RNC fund this survey and its tabulation.
  

The Host Desecration Project Finale: The Introduction

Note: This is a draft introduction for the Host desecration piece I've been working on. It is to appear in a source reader on pilgrimage, which is why it is mentioned in the final paragraph.

The twelfth and thirteenth centuries were a time of increasing anxiety concerning the presence of Jews in Christian Europe. Beginning with the massacres attending the summons to the First Crusade in 1099, Jews in Europe found themselves more and more alienated from their Christian neighbors and more the target of polemical attack from Church authorities. In around 1150, the monk Thomas of Monmouth, seeking increased pilgrim traffic to the local shrine of William of Norwich, wrote an account of the Child-saint's life that introduced the fantasy of Jewish ritual murder into the arsenal of anti-Judaic invective.

When, in 1215, it was decreed at the Fourth Lateran Council that underneath the bread and wine of the Eucharist were the actual, historical body and blood of Christ, a new source of anxiety appeared, this one concerning the proximity of Jews and the Eucharist. These concerns would find full expression in accounts of host desecration, the capture and torment of the consecrated bread by Jews, like the one presented here. Though composed of tropes that began circulating in the mid-thirteenth century, this incident, which took place in 1290 in Paris, is generally considered to be the first fully-articulated account of Host desecration. Like the accusations of ritual murder that preceded it, this was also an anti-Judaic fantasy, an expression of Christian angst about the Eucharist.

All of the elements are here: the doubting Jewish merchant, the Christian woman ensnared by debt, the family of the Jew, the tortured host that bleeds, the execution of the Jew and the conversion of his family to Christianity as he burns. This account adds the twist that the knife used and some of the blood become venerated as relics which the people can come to see with their own eyes. Thus the perfidy of Jews led to an opportunity for pilgrimage, and a possibility for the same redemption achieved by the unnamed merchant's wife and children.

The Host Desecration Project 4: The Rest of the Story

He who considers this will, astonished, praise divine mercy, and the other things of the Lord (he was allowed to return from death and not immediately to die) and speak as it were of the resurrection. Indeed, that sacrosanct Host, after being stabbed, pierced, scourged, burnt by the flames, torn, lanced and thrown into a cauldron of boiling water, unblemished and whole, lay with honor in the Church of Saint John in Gravia, covered by a small piece of the Lord's clothing, and to the greater glory of the Lord, adorned with a small piece of the Cross. The faithful can look at with their own eyes the aforementioned breadknife and the blood that miraculously flowed forth from the wound and the container of ashes in which it arrived, in the church of the Brothers of Blessed Mary of Charity, in the same neighborhood.

These deeds came from the house to the notice of the people thus. When, at the hour of the High Mass, the signal was given by the bell in the Crusader church, that the gathering people might adore the sacrosanct body of Christ, the son of the Jew, going outside, asked those passing by where they were running. They declared that they were going to the venerable mystery of the sacrosant body of Christ. The boy told the Christians that they would seek their god in that church in vain, and how his father had beaten it, scourged it, afflicted it with injury and treated it with evil. A certain woman, hearing this and eager to find out, charged into the house of the Jew, full of horror, armed with the sign of the Cross saw again the martyrdom of the flesh of the Lord. Immediately the sacrosanct host, consecrated and unharmed, ensiled itself in a wooden container used for carrying ashes, which the woman reached for to carry. She bestowed it for safekeeping on the priesthood of Saint John in Gravia, and they concealed it with great reverence under the interior. That woman, moreover, although she attempted to leave the church, could not as though she were bound in chains, until she told the priests how she got the Host she had bestowed, witnessed by many who had now gathered and made reports.

The woman related the deed and the things she saw. Whereupon the priest undertook to tell the bishop of Paris. The whole of the city rushed to the spectacle; the Jew was joined with his wife and children in chains. Brought to the presence of the bishop and men distinguished in ecclesiastical dignity, the Jew confessed to the crime; he was warned that he should repent, for it is written, I desire not the death of the wicked, but it is better to turn from this way, and live, he hoped for pardon when he prayed a long time ago before they crucified him. The woman and children were converted to the Christian faith, although the obstinate Jew had been condemned to be cremated by fire, and was led to the place of punishment. When the executioner wanted to place him on the fire he exclaimed, "Woe is me, who was so unexpectedly caught, I was not able to take arms!" Asked what were these aforementioned arms, the Jew responded, "I have a book in my home, which, were I to have it with me, God would make it so that you could not immolate me."

At the command of the prior the book was brought by the ushers, bound to the Jew, and placed under the flame both were reduced to ashes as easily as it was difficult for the Jew to be converted from his infidelity. Then with the crowd of people standing around, the Bishop of Paris reviewed the place where the miracle occurred, as was told. He marked with holy anointing of chrism the wife of the Jew, his son and his daughter, who were cleansed by baptism. Many other Jews, too, so moved by the evident miracle, converted to the faith, securing the sacrament of baptism.

Moreover, in that spot where so great a crime was savagely perpetrated, Raynerius Flamingus, a citizen of Paris, undertook the building of a chapel where the miracle was expressed, at his own expense in the year 1294. Then, with Guido of Joinville managing, he bestowed it upon the brothers of Blessed Mary of Charity of the diocese of Catalina. Also Philip, king of the Franks, called the Fair, enlarged the home near the aforementioned chapel in the Year of our Lord 1299. Indeed the aforementioned brothers of the order established a commemoration of so great a miracle to be celebrated solemnly each year on Whitsunday.

The Host Desecration Project 3: The Saga Begins

Part One of the Host Desecration Project is here; Part Two is here...
On the Miracle of the Host!!
Many Disgraces Inflicted by a Jew of Paris!!!

12 April 1290, Paris
 
The benefits that God conferred on his people, the Jews were vast, but those divine bounty showed, and daily shows, us Christians are immeasurable. It was not enough for him to change the children of wrath by nature into children of God by the sacrament of baptism. He also endures with us unto the completion of the world, sustaining us through the eating of his own flesh and the drinking of his own blood. When we receive in our members his body and blood we become Christ-bearers, joined to him, just as our limbs, fitted, join to the head itself.
 
Yet our venomous, odious cousins, taught of the necessity of the Eucharist to the life of the soul by the Lord, turned away from it. Thus the children of the poisonous Jews remain doubtful of it. See for yourself how, in the year of our Lord 1290, on 11 April, Easter day, the most celebrated of all by Parisians up and down the city, a certain down-on-her-luck common woman had pawned her clothes to a Jew for the pledge of 30 Parisian solidi. She reclaimed them, that she might appear in the sacred precincts.

The Jew promised to return them for free, if she would bring to him the thing she claimed was her God. The greedy woman promised to do so. And, when she was ready, she received the most holy body of Christ at the Church of Saint Merry. She took it, hidden in her mouth, to the Jew, from whom she received her clothes free of charge.
 
"I will know," said the cruel merchant, "whether what the insane Christians blather on about this kind of thing is true." So he grabbed a bread knife and, placing the most holy body of Christ on a chest, pierced it with dire blows, whence he perceived sacred blood to flow copiously! This deed was witnessed by his wife and children.
 
His wife, upon seeing this stupendous miracle, stood astonished. The Jew, frightened as well, but feeling no remorse, again seized the Host and attacked it with hammer and nails, causing the sweet-smelling blood to flow as before. His wife admonished him, to little avail, that he might desist from his endeavor. He then threw the most holy Host into a large fire, from which it emerged whole, flying throughout the house.

Trying once more in vain to rip it to shreds with a knife, he attacked the Host, which always remained whole, with all his strength, finally hanging it from a lancet near the washroom. And, the Host abundantly flowing with blood as before, the Jew threw it into a cauldron of boiling water. The water, elevated by the power of the Host's glory, became blood. It showed itself to the Jew in the form of the body of the crucified Lord, at whose appearance while his wife and children wept contritely, he went mad and fled from the room.

to be continued...

On Rights- Part One: On the Origin of Rights

There are, perhaps, no more dangerous words in the English language than these:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it."

They are dangerous not in and of themselves--no words are--but for the responses they inspire. At their very best, they inspire us to shatter the shackles of tyranny, to assert our "rights" as autonomous human beings to govern ourselves and live as we choose. At their very worst, and often after throwing off the shackles of tyrants, they inspire us to a different kind of tyranny, that of the atomistic individual, to take our status as autonomous human beings as license for the unrestrained exercise of will. Both the triumph and the tragedy of this stem from the assertion that these rights derive from a Creator or, as Jefferson puts it elsewhere in the Declaration of Independence, "Nature and Nature's God."

The tension is never more evident, the line between triumph and tragedy never more blurred, than in discussions (debates? hissy-fits?) about the meaning of our Constitution and, especially, of the Bill of Rights. Take, for example, the protection of speech. The first Amendment states: "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech." Congress, as the legislative power, can be read to stand for the entire government. Government, of course, is "We the People," the repository of sovereignty. If we are to take seriously that freedom of speech, as a right, is an endowment from "Nature and Nature's God," then government cannot restrict any speech.

It is a triumph when the speech government cannot prevent is criticism of itself; it is a tragedy when it cannot prevent speech acts that lead to harm, such as child pornography. So we (most of us) have accepted certain limitations--I may not photograph children for prurient purposes, may not shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater. We accept these restrictions because accepting them is better than the alternative, but it is inescapable that in this acceptance we have begun to alienate our supposedly unalienable rights. Is it possible that these rights are not so self-evident as we have been led to believe?

Addressing this question requires us to step away for a moment from the language in which rights are expressed. If we accept that rights derive from a creator, we arrive at an impasse. Necessity requires us to accept them uncritically and to write off our failure to properly perceive and exercise our rights to the fallibility of human free will. The fact that we cannot be permitted full exercise of our "God-given" right to free speech is because fallen men exercise these rights in ways that are unconscionably harmful.

The truth is that we seldom think of the exceptions because most of us will never run up against the limitations they impose. We are then able to blithely ignore the contradiction inherent in the voluntary alienation of rights that, by the accepted definition, can not only not be taken away by government, but can also not be given away by us. This is a clumsy way of putting it, but a necessary one, since the expression of rights is largely a negative one. When we do think of the exceptions, and become alarmed, it is generally because someone in power is trying to force us to do something we don't want to do--this ability is, of course, the very definition of power. For speech restrictions, it could be attempts to place legal penalty on certain speech acts. However, we may also become alarmed at any legislation that is viewed as an infringement on the rights of an autonomous individual.

Yet, and this is where we must step back, taking the language of the Constitution seriously, "We the People" are sovereign; "We the People" are the government. We are also the guarantors of our rights and, we might argue, "We the People" are the source of those rights, if not originally, then at least inasmuch as "Nature and Nature's God" are nowhere to be found enforcing them. How else to explain the absence of divinity in the Constitution? How else to explain the evident discomfort of certain of the framers concerning the very inclusion of a Bill of Rights? The tacit admission of their inclusion is that the "God-given" rights might be infringed is an open admission that they can be infringed and that they are somewhat less than divine.

Does such an admission diminish the importance of these rights? No. It increases their importance. For if we are to accept that these rights do not derive from a creator, then we must accept responsibility for the exercise and, yes, limitation of these rights when appropriate. Limitations not only for others, whose exercise of rights we might disagree with, but for ourselves. And we must do this based on justice and with an eye toward the greater good. Which is more important, personal liberty or the greater good? I don't know. Embracing personal liberty at the expense of the greater good is either a praiseworthy embrace of principle or a shameful embrace of selfishness depending on circumstances. Embracing the greater good exposes us to danger of the elevation of society over the individual, and we know what tragedies can obtain from that. Is it not equally tragic to condemn society to the tyranny of the individual?

The Boy in the Bubble

It was a slow day
And the sun was beating
On the soldiers by the side of the road.
There was a bright light
A shattering of shopwindows
The bomb in the baby carriage
Was wired to the radio.

For a song that starts with what seems to be a terrorist attack, Paul Simon's "Boy in the Bubble" is surprisingly upbeat. It's mostly the accordion, but also the up-tempo beat that kicks in. The way Simon sings it, especially at the end of each verse where he implores the listener "Don't cry baby, don't cry" is reassuring. He's getting by and so can we. By the time he gets to the third verse, the evocation of the terror of "the days of miracle and wonder" gives way to the hope of magic and healing in the explosively alliterative exhortation to "think of the boy in the bubble and the baby with the baboon heart."

Peter Gabriel's rendition of the song on his new album Scratch My Back goes in the opposite direction. The rhythm is the same, but Gabriel's version is decidedly down-tempo. His gravelly voice eschews the highs he is capable of, a counterpoint to Simon. The accompaniment is on piano and strings, so the typical trappings of pop are nowhere to be found. As a result, the melancholy that was perhaps latent waiting to be expressed is brought to the fore, the miracle and wonder called into question.

All of which is to say that the cover should be counted among the best of covers. Most of the time a cover is the same song with a different voice, as though the artist is afraid to explore the possibilities inherent in the tune. Perhaps this is the case and perhaps it is wise to be afraid. But for those who aren't there is the potential to make the old seem new. Only the best of covers can make you hear the old song in a new way; this is one of those.

The Host Desecration Project 2: Thinking about the Latin

The hardest skill to develop in the course of becoming some sort of medieval scholar has been a facility with Latin. Before embarking on this journey in 2007, the last time I had studied Latin in any systematic way was in 1988, when I took a semester of it in eleventh grade. At various times since, I had undertaken a small study of the language and had managed to learn a bit about how it works. But this kind of knowledge and actually working with the language are two different things.

One could go on and on about Latin grammar and morphology- and for someone used to English, it is a bear- but for me the hardest thing about Latin is its lack of word order. There are few rules that dictate where a word, say the subject, needs to appear in the sentence. Meaning is determined by the morphology of the word, which means any word can be pretty much anywhere. Inflection is everything.

And while we're on the topic of sentences, there is also the problem that for most of the time Latin was in any kind of common use there were no sentences per se. Punctuation didn't come into vogue until the 13th or 14th century, and before the seventh or eighth there were commonly no spaces in written texts. Which means that Latin "sentences," as we understand sentences, are the creation of later editors.

Fortunately, I am working from an edited text which can be found here and here. As you can see, some kind editor has inserted punctuation, in an attempt to make it readable to "modern" readers. Of course, some of the sentences the editor has created are extremely long, again owing to the exigencies of Latin grammar.

Usually when I approach something like this, I am not necessarily interested in a full translation. I just want to know what's going on in the text and I may need to translate a portion of it at some point for quotes, in which case I need to be as faithful to the text as possible. For this project, though, I need to get across what the author of the text was trying to get across, which requires, I think, something different.

Since no one has really shown me how to do this, I have tried to work out my own approach for this project. The first thing I do is try to sort out the grammar explicitly on the page. I do this by rearranging the original Latin into something resembling modern English syntax. This does not work 100 percent, since there are often implied subjects and prepositions tied into the noun forms. Don't even get me started on participles. Still, I find that if I bracket in these implied pieces and make little notes as I go along, it works out well. I'll show more of this process in later posts, but here is an example using the first sentence.

As rendered by the editor:

"Magna quidem fuerunt beneficia quae populo suo Deus olim contulit, sed immensa sunt quae nobis Christianis divina largitas exhibuit, et in dies exhibet."

Leaving aside the meaning for the moment, I have found it convenient to break this into two sentences, rendered as follows:

"Beneficia quae Deus contulit populo suo olim fuerunt magna quidem. Sed quae divina largitas exhibuit, et in dies exhibet, nobis Christianis sunt immensa."

While this still renders an odd-sounding sentence in English, it becomes easier for me to deal with using my patchwork of Latin skills, leading to this:

"The benefits which God conferred on his people a long time ago were impressive. But those which divine largess showed, and in these days shows, to us Christians are immeasurable."

Once I'm at this point, I need to clarify what's happening here. Since this is an account of Host desecration, it seems obvious that "suo populo" refers to the Jews. I haven't decided how to handle that in the final translation as "his people" seems important theologically- it shows the then prevalent notion that the Christians superseded the Jews as the objects of God's affection. I'll probably put in a footnote.

Next: The Host Desecration Project 3: De Miraculo Hostiae: The Saga Begins