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Joan of Arc became the most famous French fry. With the exception of Antonin Scalia, we longer regard witchcraft as a capital crime or even a tangible offense. In the 15th century, however, witchcraft seemed a plausible explanation for Joan’s triumph over the English at the siege of Orleans in 1429. Dressed in men’s clothing and leading an army, she certainly was an outlandish figure–why not a diabolical one. (At the time, no one in the British military thought of blaming the liberal media–which would have consisted of some dozen scribes at Oxford.) When Joan was captured by French collaborators and then sold to the English, she was put on trial for witchcraft.

But witchcraft was the Church’s jurisdiction. It had the responsibility for trying Joan of Arc. Ironically, by the standards of her time, Joan was not the victim of injustice. On the contrary, her trial was impeccably fair. She was not even tortured. (After all, she was never accused of being Jewish.) If you don’t believe me and your Latin is very good, feel free to read her trial transcripts. Yes, the Church took notes. Did you think that the phonetic similarity of “cleric” and “clerical” was just a coincidence? As the obligatory literates of the Middle Ages, the clerics had to keep baptismal records, read and file Papal bulls, and–in the case of heretics–fill out burning permits.

The Church was not even eager to incinerate the girl. In fact, it intended to save her life from the English whom she had humiliated. Any educated, impartial person would see that the young woman was just a lunatic; and that in itself was not a crime. On the other hand, she was very strange and the specific nature of her insanity required some form of incarceration. Joan claimed to talk to saints. That was not a theological impossibility, but the Church preferred to moderate the conversation. (G.B. Shaw postulated that Joan was a premature Protestant.) Furthermore, Britain constituted a powerful parishioner, and the Church needed to offer the English some revenge. Why not put Joan in prison for the rest of her life; there, she would no longer be a public disturbance and she could talk to the saints as much as she wanted.

Her legal counselors explained to Joan her predicament. If she insisted on her innocence, she would be executed. However, if she confessed to witchcraft, her life would be spared. The counselors unfortunately failed to explain that her spared life would be spent in prison. So Joan confessed to witchcraft but was surprised by a life sentence. Then Joan recanted her confession, and the Church recanted any interest in saving her life. She was turned over to the English and their limited culinary skills.

In fairness, the English really did believe that Joan was a witch. Some 150 years later, an awkward, heavy-handed but not completely talentless young playwright would depict Joan conjuring demons in the execrable play “Henry VI, part I.” With ten years’ practice, the playwright would make his Scottish witches much more memorable.

And the Church did apologize in 1920 by making Joan a saint.

Now we know. The Bush Administration is watching Turner Classic Movies, and not just the Ronald Reagan anthology. Notice the coordinated response to Scott McClellan’s tattletale. “Why, this isn’t the Scott we know…These aren’t his words.” That was just the first act.

The second act: “Scott always seemed to hear noises. He thought that he saw strange lights in the attic. You know that he would steal things but never realized what he had done. And did you know that he sometimes would speak with a Swedish accent?”

The third act: “I’m afraid that Scott should be committed or euthanized. You know that he was never actually the Press Secretary. Oh, yes, the simple-minded soul claimed to be, but he really was only our pet idiot in the mailroom. If he put on airs, we never thought that he would do any harm—or that anyone would believe the drooling dolt.”

Of course, if you remember the movie “Gaslight“, you know that Ingrid Bergman is not really insane, although her Swedish accent is inexplicable in an English family. However, her vicious husband Charles Boyer wants to steal her fortune (of which she is not even aware; he knows her net worth better than she does). The scheming Boyer creates public incidents and scenes that call into question her sanity; of course, everyone believes him rather than her. Well, almost everyone—Joseph Cotton will save her.

Scott McClellan will not be that lucky, however. Joseph Cotton, along with most of the cast of the 1944 movie, is no longer making personal appearances. Angela Lansbury is still around, but it might be too much to ask her to break into the White House, free Scott McClellan and fight to the death with Karl Rove. Worse, McClellan’s situation is just the opposite of Ingrid Bergman’s. Most people actually believe him–but no one wants to rescue him. We all remember what a snippy little putz he was.

So, we’ll let him be committed. Then Scott McClellan can feel like he is living another Turner Classic Movie: Olivia DeHavilland in “The Snake Pit.”

In his just published memoirs, ‘Not as Dumb as I Seem’, former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan admits that he was parroting the administration’s lies. “Yes, Iraq really didn’t bomb Pearl Harbor or cause the cancellation of ‘Hee Haw.’ But I thought everyone knew that. How gullible could the media be? Was I supposed to say, ‘Today, the President wants you to believe these whoppers?’ I had to say whatever they told me. Lynn Cheney threatened to hurt me.”

But the White House and Faux News were ready with their denials. “Who?” Dana Perino responded with convincing vacuity. Impartial political analyst Karl Rove said, “The book is an obvious forgery and the real Scott McClellan has been murdered and replaced by a terrorist clone who was grown in a secret Al Qaida lab at some Ivy League school–except Dartmouth, of course.”

Impartial political analyst Anne Coulter said, “If McClellan knew someone was lying, he owed it to the American people to personally kill the liar, and show the severed head to the media. It’s what I would have done. And it’s what I intend to do to McClellan.”

Added impartial political analyst Rove, “Why didn’t he alert the public when he was the Press Secretary? By not exposing me, the Vice President and the President as gleeful liars, McClellan is directly responsible for the war in Iraq, and the waste of a trillion dollars and the needless deaths of 4000 Americans. How can a man that guilty live with himself?”

SHARON STONE BLAMES BAD KARMA FOR CHINA EARTHQUAKE

Sharon Stone left Chinese journalists stunned at the Cannes Film Festival in France last week when she suggested the country’s recent earthquake was “karma.” The outspoken actress was talking to a Chinese media outlet on Thursday when she linked the recent disaster, which left more than 67,000 people dead, to China’s recent treatment of Tibetans.

Noted seismologist and historian Sharon Stone now explains the following disasters:

“The eruption of Mt. Vesuvius was the bad karmady resulting from throwing Christians to the lions. It was mean to the Christians and even worse for the lions having to digest them.”

“The Lisbon earthquake of 1755 was nature’s reaction to slavery in Brazil. Those slaves started doing the Samba, and Lisbon joined in.”

“In 1883, the explosion of Krakatoa in the Dutch East Indies and the extinction of the last quagga in the Amsterdam Zoo can’t be a coincidence.”

“The San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 was the karmic outrage that Leo Tolstoy had once again been passed over for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Can you believe that Giosue Carducci was that year’s winner? Nature obviously couldn’t.”

When asked why there were no earthquakes in Berlin or exploding Bavarian Alps during the 1930s, Ms. Stone guessed that Nature doesn’t like Jews, either.

Dear Comcast Customer:
ACTION REQUIRED: Comcast has determined that your computer(s) have been used to send unsolicited email (”spam”)

That message from Comcast certainly came as a surprise. Perhaps my idea of satire is Comcast’s idea of spam. Now that I am being monitored as a miscreant, I’d better forgo my next get-rich-quick scheme:

INCREASE THE SIZE OF YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF BYZANTINE HISTORY BY UP TO SIX INCHES!

I spent the better part of yesterday morning attempting to persuade Comcast that I was more pedantic than criminal. I doubt any of you has been spared the agonies of customer service.
(You Catholic readers can count it as time off in Purgatory.) You start by performing a Rachmaninoff concerto on your phone key pad.

English-press one. Home phone–starting with area code. Year of statehood–first three digits. Internet Service press four. Internet service in English–press 8. Email problem–press three, zero, and star. Tech support–press six, star, and ampersand. Instructions for ampersand–press first four Fibonacci numbers. Tutorial on Fibonacci–press last four digits on your Visa. Repeat options–press r-e-p-e-a-t-o-p-t-i-o-n-s on your keypad.

The Comcast system has acoustic sensitivity and when it finally hears you weeping, it will transfer you to a human. Your relief will be short-lived because your tech support will immediately put you on hold and you will then be subjected to Muzak. While listening to an accordion rendition of Rhinestone Cowboy or some other musical monstrosity, keep in mind that the particular selection was not random or haphazard. That music has a diabolical intent. If you cannot be induced into hanging up, at least the fourteen looping of Rhinestone Cowboy will leave your mind a passive pulp ready to accept any indignity or incompetence from Comcast. I was ready to confess to any crime including the assassination of William McKinley.

However Muzak can also be diabolically sublime. I once had a complaint with Charles Schwab, and–standard operating procedure–its customer service immediately put me on hold. Instead of a tinny cacophony, however, the Muzak was Mozart. Those clever fiends at Schwab were telling me, “Here is the work of a genius, the musical apotheosis of the Enlightenment, who died at 35–and you want to quibble about money.” Schwab had made a $1800 mistake but now I was the one ashamed.

But how was my problem with Comcast finally resolved? I really do not know. Are you reading this?

Today is the 205th birthday of the unfortunate Edward Bulwer-Lytton. It is fashionable to ridicule him
as the worst writer in the history of English. In fact, he was quite popular in his day. Judging from the frequent remakes of his novel “The Last Days of Pompeii” , he might have been a best-selling writer today.

One of his passages is cited as an exemplar of horrible writing. Here it is:

“It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents–except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.”

I don’t think that it is terrible at all. Yes, it is florid and overwrought: in other words, typically Victorian.

The greatest of the Victorian writers Charles Dickens would have been just as lavish with adjectives. And his opening scene would have included a colorful lamplighter who would reappear throughout the story, at the most incredible times, with remarkable revelations for the hero. “Many the year ago, before I become a magistrate, I was a lamplighter. One day, while making me rounds, I discovered a foundling. How wert I to know it was me long-lost sister’s child? Which makes you my nephew and ‘eir.”

I really don’t understand why Bulwer-Lytton has become the object of such ridicule. Perhaps he should have given Mt. Vesuvius an endearing cockney accent.

THEN–2005

In a special session of the Senate’s Energy and Self-Righteous Committee, the suddenly alert Senators grilled the titans of the Oil Industry over their appalling (or mouthwatering–depending on your party) profits.

Sen. Ted Stevens (R., Pleistocene): I am sure that we all want to thank our delightful guests for the honor of their company.

Lee Raymond (Extort Mogul): And it is an equal pleasure to contribute to your campaign.

James Mulva (ConPhilch): Really, Teddy, whenever you need a billion for a bridge in Alaska, just ask us.

Sen. Stevens: Seeing how important–and wonderful–you are, we can forego anything so demeaning as swearing to tell the truth. Anything you say is Gospel with me. In further deference to you, the senators will be limited to two minutes of questions. And they cannot use any word with the letter “E.”

Is that okay?

Various senators: Yes.

Sen. Stevens: Ooh. Yes has an “E”. You all lost your turn.

Sen. Diane Feinstein (D., Cal–and three marriages to prove it): I didn’t okay it, you old coot.

Sen. Byron Dorgan (D.–N. Dakota, believe it or not) I didn’t, too.

Stevens: I will start. Plastic is from oil, right. It is hard to pry off child-proof caps off of my drugs.

Extort Mogul: Why don’t we just send over a beautiful nurse to help you?

Feinstein: What will you say to our angry public about this scandalous cost of gas?

Stevens: Hold on, that was a lot of words. Did you say a you-know-what?

Feinstein: No, I didn’t.

Stevens: What about that word starting with “scan”?

Feinstein: Scandalous? That is an “a”!

Stevens: I will adjourn this hearing while we investigate this matter. We thank again our charming guests from the oil industry, but ask them to be possible witnesses in Senator Feinstein’s perjury trial.

ConocoPhilch: Thank you, Ted. But I think that she is right about the spelling of scandalous.

Stevens: The committee will determine that; and with me here, you’ll never have to spell scandal.

NOW: 2008

Pleading executive privilege or a really important golf game, the chairmen of the leading oil companies were absent from today’s hearings of the Senate Energy and Racketeering Committee. Representing the oil industry were Mitzy Puddell, vice president of pro-active communications for Extort-Mogul, “Bobo” Hoffmeister, the 16-year-old grandson of the Chairman of Shill, and Jorge Castillo, a custodian at ConocoPhilch. Of the three, Mr. Castillo seemed the most coherent even if it wasn’t in English.

Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy began the questioning: How do you justify the exorbitant profits of your industry?

Ms. Puddell: Isn’t the Free Market wonderful? Who’d have thought that there was so much money in it! But if God chooses to make our industry rich, who are we to deny His Divine wisdom?

Bobo: Gramps does not use steroids. Here is a cup of his urine to prove it.

Castillo: They don’t count the money in front of me. Occasionally, I get leftover food from corporate meetings. And they are serving roast beef and sushi more often.

Senator Arlen Spector: Let’s talk about the future and how your industry is investing these shall-we-say-impressive profits?

Puddell: We, at Extort-Mogul, are doing our patriotic best for the balance of trade. You won’t see us at Wal-Mart buying anything from China. Well, I do have those Ming vases but I bought those at Southeby’s but I think that’s probably Jewish despite the name.

Bobo: Gramps is spending some 25 million at Stanford on some building–a gym or a lab–…en-entitlement or something…

Castillo: Endowment.

Bobo: Yeah. Thanks. Gramps says that it’s the only way to get me into the school.

Castillo: I am receiving better quality dust rags. Old Brooks Brothers shirts–some of them are still worth wearing. See!

Sen. Spector: I was referring to alternate energy.

Bobo: Gramps is opposed to cocaine.

Puddell: We are working on nuclear-powered oil drills.

Castillo: I am your alternate energy.

Senator Diane Feinstein: According to the Petroleum Institute, your industry recommends placing an oil rig every 8 square feet in the United States. Do you think that might have an adverse effect on the environment?

Puddell: Not if we color-coordinate the oil rigs. White rigs in Alaska, earth tones in the Southwest, something pine-green in New England.

Bobo: And the ones at Stanford could be in the school colors!

Castillo: I am already biodegradable, but I am in no hurry.

Sen. Leahy: Where are the other Republican senators?

Sen. Specter: Executive privilege or a really important golf game.

Today is the 195th birthday of that unsurpassed meister of Teutonic flatulence: Richard Wagner. A traditional way to celebrate would be to mistake London, Rotterdam and Warsaw for candles and then light them.

You could also listen to one of his operas but do you have 36 hours to spare? Let’s compare two hours of Giuseppi Verdi with three hours of Dick Wagner. In “Rigoletto” a malevolent hunchbacked jester plots to avenges his debauched daughter’s honor by killing her seducer–who happens to be jester’s patron–but the infatuated daughter sacrifices her own life to protect her lover. In “Lohengrin” or “Parsifal” or “Siegfried” (Does it make a difference?), a virginal knight describes the plot of a previous opera by Wagner. Of course, very little happened in that opera, but Wagner was the pioneer of product placement.

Eventually, usually by the third act, the virginal knight will actually do something. (In the case of “Tristan and Isolde”, the knight loses his adjective.) Of course, the sex in Wagner is just as stupefying as everything else. The composer, with his standard subtlety, emphasizes that love and death are synonymous. Tristan’s hit single (all two hours of it) is “Liebestod”–which means LoveDeath. How would you like to rate that on Aryan Bandstand?

In real life, however, the pace of Wagner’s life was fast and loose. The High Priest of Holy German Art actually was a deadbeat and a lecher. He constantly “borrowed” money with never an intention to repay. Indeed, he often denounced his benefactors; Meyerbeer and Mendelssohn must have really appreciated the Anti-Semitic remarks. Wagner also “borrowed” other men’s wives, telling the husbands that they were making a sacrifice to his genius.

Wagner’s music may be excruciating, but his life would have made an entertaining operetta.

On this day in 987, King Louis V–known as the Do-Nothing–did not live up to his name. In fact, he did not live, and so finally accomplished something. So ended his one year rule, his twenty-year life and his 236-year dynasty. He, the last of the Carolingian kings of France, was beset by foreign invasion (the Holy Roman Emperor, his first cousin) and rebellions by the nobles (second and third cousins). Louis really did not get along with anyone with his family; his mother poisoned him.

So, that leaves you with this question: Which French King did inspire the song “Louie, Louie.” Well. let’s consider all the Royal Lou’s of France and which one would be an oversexed stoner.

Louis XVIII could have used a mistress. He disliked his Italian wife but his chief outlets were self-pity and food.

Louis XVII was merely a child when he died. The French Revolutionary guardians did take meticulous care of the young boy–but definitely not for his benefit.

Louis XVI suffered from sexual dysfunction–and Viagra wouldn’t have helped. It was some sort of physical blockage. The only solution was surgery. Despite the quality of 18th century surgery, Louis survived the procedure and was even cured. He finally was able to consummate his marriage. However, that was also the limit of his libido.

Louis XIV was short, unattractive but apparently irresistible. (Royalty frequently is; who dares refuse.) There is a famous story of the Queen, and three of her ladies-in-waiting riding in a coach; they were all pregnant by Louis (although not from the same coach ride). So Louis was certainly was over-sexed but he still found the time to rule rather well. And he never would have referred to Versailles as a pad or crib.

Louis XIII had a very active sex life, but not with women. What is the male equivalent of a mistress? (Historians can only speculate as to the identity of Louis XIV’s father.) Louis Treize was the Baroque equivalent of a stoner. Fortunately for him and France, Cardinal Richelieu made a brilliant dealer.

Louis XII had three wives, so he wouldn’t have had time for mistresses.

Louis XI was too cheap to have mistresses.

Louis X died young; he was likely poisoned by a sister-in-law who managed her husband’s career. (Yes, he got to be king.)

Louis IX was Saint Louis, so mistresses are out of the question.

Louis VIII was married to a Spanish gorgon; he wouldn’t have dared.

Louis VII had the disposition of a monk. His first wife–Eleanor of Aquitaine–cheated on him.

Louis VI was known as Louis the Fat. Guess his vice.

Louis V, alias the Do-Nothing, you’ve already met.

Louis IV, alias Louis the Alien (he was raised in England), was so powerless that he couldn’t afford a mistress.

Louis III died at 19, so he didn’t even have a nickname.

Louis II, the Stammer, lived to be 33 but his health was as bad as his pronunciation. Even if he had been in better shape, late 9th century France was not a conducive time for hedonism. It was barely conducive for subsistence.

Louis I was called the Pious. That nickname would deter most aspiring mistresses.

So, who does that leave….Louis XV was handsome, charming and conscientiously incompetent. Usually the inept are unaware of their debilities, but Louis knew precisely how hapless he was and he didn’t care! He let his mistresses run and ruin France. (Madame de Pompadour was a complete disaster–or a brilliant secret agent for the British). If Handel or Haydn had composed “Louie, Louie”, the song definitely would have been about le Quinze.

Audition Call: We need 300 “reenactors” for the 1783th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea. Yes, the Council opened on this day in 325. Any prospective reenactors should be in excellent health. The Council was literally a La Cross tournament, with the bishops wielding their crosiers as sticks. The Emperor Constantine was both host and referee.

It would be charming to include a descendant of Constantine in the celebrations. Unfortunately, there aren’t any. Constantine did have a large family, but they preoccupied themselves with killing each other off. The Emperor had six children, two grandchildren and no great-grandchildren. That is internecine efficiency. It is the same story for the Emperor’s nephews and nieces, just shorter, with Constantine killing a few himself.

Fortunately, there should be no lack of descendants of the attending bishops. In 325, many bishops and most priests were married. There were a few curmudgeons who advocated celibacy, but they were a distinct minority. The presiding bishop of the Council, Patriarch Alexander of Alexandria, actually encouraged priests to be married. If the Council never issued an official endorsement of married clergy, that was only because it was too obvious to be necessary.

The Church had more important–serious–issues to resolve. By A.D. 325, Christianity was out of the catacombs and in the establishment, the favorite theology of the Emperor Constantine. Unfortunately, religious tolerance gave Christians the freedom to persecute each other. It was not the spiritual monolith that Constantine had expected. The exasperated emperor summoned the bishops to Nicaea, ordering the fractious theologians to agree to a binding definition of the Holy Trinity.

Since the Trinity was now the doctrine of the Church, the Greek intellectuals could fight over the nature of the Trinity. That would be good for about five centuries of debates, denunciations and schisms.

And what is a religion without relics. Here is one of mine:

http://finermanworks.com/your_rda_of_irony/2006/10/27/lets-get-metaphysical/