Lunedi Lunacy

With what is currently happening in Canadian politics - and for that matter world politics in general - there is very little to laugh about.  However given the series of sleazy, badly Photo Shopped and flagrantly misleading attack ads recently released by our Great Leader's party against the new leader of an opposition party its good to see one that has at least some truth in it.

April 22 - 1993: Version 1.0 of the Mosaic web browser is released.

Intentions

Today I had every intention of posting a Lunedi Lunacy however given the headline that greeted me this morning on the CBC I thought I'd let it wait for another day.

My father was an ardent supporter of the CCF party during its early days and until the day he died.  He did not see it morph into the NDP party which abandoned many of its socialist leanings to become a left-leaning Centralist party but I think he would have understood the change of times and ideas.  His admiration for J. S. Woodsworth,  Tommy Douglas, Stanley Knowles and the early leaders and thinkers in the party was often expressed in our household.   And I know he would have considered that Jack Layton, who died today after a valiant struggle with prostate cancer, carried on that legacy of leadership and commitment to the good of his country that was the foundation stone of the party.

Jack Layton - 18 July 1950 - 22 August 2011
A man devoted to Canada and now at rest.

"My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world."

 From his final letter to Canadians.

Though I abandoned my membership in the NDP as they became more and more centrist my personal admiration for Mr Layton was  profound.  In a day and age when I have become cynical about almost every politician, regardless of party or platform,  he was the one man I felt was honest and true to his principles.  He was the one politician that I believe thought of the good of my country first.  It is a tragedy that he was not able to fulfill his role as leader of the Official Opposition as I truly believe he would have defended the many things my father and his generation fought to bring into being in this country.

With the rest of my fellow Canadians I say goodbye to him and thank him for a life of service and commitment - we have not seen his kind often in the past few years nor, sadly I fear, will we again.

22 agosto/ August - Maria Regina

Governmental Allegories

Between 1338 and 1340 at the request of the leaders of the Republic of Siena the great Sienese artist Ambrogio Lorenzetti painted frescoes in the Sala dei Nove (Salon of the Nine) of the Palazzo Pubblico. The "Nine" was the oligarchical assembly of guild and monetary interests that governed the republic under the leadership of the Podestà or chief-magistrate.  Though the Palazzo chapel was adorned with frescoes of a religious nature the other rooms were unique in that the "Nine" commissioned frescoes of a secular nature - reflecting the commune of Siena - its successes and its aspirations.

The Sala dei Nove or Sala della Pace holds the most famous of these works: Allegoria ed Effetti del Buono e Cattivo Governo (The Allegory and Effects of  Good and Bad Government).   Given what is happening today in Canada it was with a certain sense of irony that I found myself taking in these great pieces of Medieval works of art over the weekend.  Today is Election Day in Canada, a fact that has been understandable overshadowed by larger events in the world; today Canadians go to the polls for the third time in five years.  And for the past few weeks they have been listening to politicians mouth promises, threats and policies of government - perhaps good perhaps bad.

Voter turnout in the past two elections has shown a marked disinterest in the process of election in Canada - in fact sadly there is more interest shown in the United States elections than our own and events of the past few years have shown that as a people we are largely ignorant of our own process.  Perhaps it would be fitting for a modern artist to take a cue from Lorenzetti and give us a work of art showing the effects of good and bad government on our country.

The Allegory of Good Government - a left click will enlarge the photo.

In the central fresco Lorenzetti portrays the Allegory of Good Government: Justice in government dominates both as an allegorical and a civic figure.  On the right the allegorical Justice - unusually for the period shown as a woman -  is guided by Wisdom and meats out punishment and rewards.  At her feet sits Virtue passing on to recognizable Sianese citizens of the period (1338-40)  the attributes of her calling.  And these good worthies look towards a Judge who has surrounded himself with Peace, Faith, Charity, Prudence, Temperance and Fortitude.  Though secular in nature the figures have an almost ecclesiastical appearance and in other contexts could be mistaken for Mary, Queen of Heaven and Christ as Judge at the Final Judgment reminding us that the link between the government and the church was a symbiotic one in many ways.

The Effects of Good Government in the City - again a left click will enlarge the picture.

On the right hand wall the Effects of Good Government are pictured. First its effects in the city itself. It is a cityscape that is definitely Siena with the Duomo in the background. It is a well ordered place with buildings tastefully adorned with mullioned windows, ornamented gables, terraces alive with plants and paved streets. The citizens pursue their crafts and trades - cobblers, stone masons and teachers; the arts are not forgotten as a group dances to the sounds of instruments. And farmers come into the city to share the produce of their labours within the stout and well-fortified walls. It is the Utopia that only the wisdom and justice of good government could bring.

The Effects of Good Government in the Countryside - again that left click will do the trick.

And the effects of good government are seen to spread beyond the city walls into the countryside.  Lorenzetti was more concerned with showing the prosperity and security of the country than in accuracy so plowing, sowing, harvesting and reaping are all pictured simultaneously.  The landscape is orderly and fertile and people are pursuing their activities in an atmosphere of peace and well being.  Farmers take their produce into town - hogs, wheat, eggs as local burghers make their way into the countryside.  On the edge of the carriageway there is a beggar, an indication of the social stratification that still existed under the "Government of the Nine":  Good Government did not mean that social inequalities were levelled but that each layer of society would have its place and live and work in peace and safety. 

The Effects of Bad Government - left click once again.

Sadly the fresco on the left wall, the dire warning to the Effects of Bad Government,  has been significantly damaged and much of the painter's intent can only be guessed at.  Bad Government is pictured as Tyranny - a squinty-eyed monster with fangs, horns, demonic hair and clawed feet with a black goat grovelling before him. Hovering over this monster are Greed, Pride and Vanity in direct contrast to the Virtues of Good Government.  Arranged on either side of this tyrannical ruler  we see other Vices - Cruelty, Betrayal, Fraud, Falsehood, Anger, Discord and War - the antithesis of everything the other frescoes assure us are the marks of Good Government. Much of the Effects of Bad Government has disappeared but there is no doubt that the citizens are suffering with Justice now a bound and humiliated figure. Corpses lie in the streets and violence erupts in a city that has decayed and declined from its once glorious state.

These 700 year old frescoes can simply be thought of as political propaganda of their age - an effort by the "Nine" to assure the Sienese that what they were being offered by their governors was the way to prosperity and a good life; a bit like the campaign promises that have been peppered on the Canadian voters from all sides in the past few weeks.

Or it could be seen as a timeless warning to politicians everywhere - or perhaps given what I've seen in the past few years in Canada a timely message to my country's elected parliament?  Sadly it would appear that it is a lesson too many politicians, regardless of party or ideology,  have yet to learn.  Perhaps they should have been forced to look at and come to terms with Lorenzetti's powerful statement of what we expect, but so seldom, get from our elected parliament. 

02 maggio - Sant'Atanasio di Alessandria

Va', pensiero*

As part of the annual Belcanto Festival at the Parco della Musica there was a noon hour concert today featuring the Chorus of Ste Cecilia and Banda Musicale dell'Arma dei Carabinieri (The Band of the Carabinieri)in arrangements of operatic music.

The programme ended with Verdi's great chorus of homesick longing: Va, pensiero. I was able to capture it in not very good sound or picture on my trusty Canon.

Fly, thought, on wings of gold;
go settle upon the slopes and the hills,
where, soft and mild, the sweet airs
of our native land smell fragrant!

It was a great moment in a fine concert and as with any performance of what is Italy's unofficial national anthem the audience was moved. It was doubly moving in that the performance was dedicated to the memory of the six Italian soldiers killed this week in Afghanistan.

The performance had begun with a minute of silence and a playing of the Last Post. It made me think of the two soldiers we lost this past week; a total now of 132 have died in the "peace keeping" mission our government sent them on. Sadly that same government cannot even put one flag in our capital at half-mast when the bodies are brought home. I am deeply ashamed of our politicians to whom these men and women are merely pawns and whose deaths can be dismissed with a few mouthed platitudes.

20 settembre - Sant'Andrea Kim Taegon e i Santi martiri corean

Now Here's A How-De-Do

I'm not a very political person - oh I whine and whinge at the dinner table about politics and politicians in Canada but it never goes much beyond that. I certainly don't write about them often but the past week in Canadian politics has been something else. I've watched as the Three Stooges attempt to unseat Valdemort*. And I've watched as my fellow Canadians and the press show a great deal of ignorance over how our parliamentary system works.

Now I'm no Stanley Knowles - only another Canadian and then probably of a certain generation will understand that reference but a click on the name should explain it - but I do remember somethings from basic social studies in high school.

First: We do not elect a Prime Minister. We elect a member of parliament who represents a party. If that party gets the most votes and has the confidence of the House of Commons then the leader of that party becomes Prime Minister. No where on your ballot, if you bothered to vote, did it give you a choice for Prime Minister.

Second: It is not undemocratic for opposition parties to band together, unseat a sitting minority and form a coalition government. Canadian Parliamentary Law demands the the governing party have the confidence of the House of Commons. If they do not have that confidence they can be replaced by a coalition that does - the fact that coalitions are rarely successful is immaterial, its still allowed.

Third: We do not have to vote on it - we already did several weeks ago. That's why we elected and pay, quite handsomely I might add, Members of Parliament, to make those decisions on our behalf. If we voted on it that would be a referendum and we know what images that word conjures up.

Fourth: To the Canadian Press (CP) - the Governor-General is not the Acting-Head of State - the Governor-General is the Head of State! We are a constitutional monarchy and the Head of Government (Prime Minster) is not the same thing as the Head of State. Them being one and the same is one of the concepts of the American system.

Fourth: That's another thing, stop confusing our system with the American system - they are not the same thing. Ours follows the British model so the same rules don't apply. And no you can't vote for Obama that election is over and you're not American.

Finally: A quick Google of "Canada Parliamentary Systems" gave all sorts of results including a fairly detailed one at Wikipedia and another at Maple Leaf Web. It makes interesting reading and I highly recommend it to all the commenters out there who are interested in voicing their opinion - preferably before they put finger to keyboard.

And fianl finally: Do I have an opinion? Let's just say I don't trust Larry, Curly, Moe or Valdemort.

Social Studies lecture over, nothing further to see here. Move along please.

*That would be Stephan Dion, Jack Layton, Gilles Duceppe against Stephen Harper.

Thanks to Graeme Mackay for the use of his editoral cartoon from the Hamilton Spectator - more can be found at www.mackaycartoons.net.

04 dicembere - San Giovanni Damasceno