Enjoying the sunshine and the weak dollar in the company of my wife's family in Arizona, I have found it difficult to put the rest of the world's travails in perspective. Sure, I've diligently waded through the New York Times (BTW, the new narrower format seems to confirm the widespread simile that compares the newspaper business with a wasting-away patient), trying to brief myself on the death of Benazir Bhutto and the depressing unravelling of Kenya's fragile democracy. But unless it's on TV, it's hard to grasp the size of events--and here, in the United States, it's all Iowa, all the time.

Although the Iowa caucus--which seems about as straightforward a process as the election of a Venetian Doge--exists primarily to give the leading candidates on the Democrat and Republican sides a bloody nose rather than to anoint the final winners, the cable news channels are desperately hyping the event to a marginally interested public. For example, CNN, hoping to appeal to an audience beyond political nerds, have packaged the event as the "Ballot Bowl" (which brings to mind the line from William Gass's novel, The Tunnel: "I suspect that the first dictator of this country will be called Coach.")

On the subject of affable but slightly sinister candidates (at least in the eyes of Euroweenies such as yours truly), Mike Huckabee's pitch for the Republican nomination is tickling the media's erogenous zones. Consciously positioning himself as an ah-shucks-who-does-Charles-Darwin-think-he-is? Everyman, former pastor Huckabee holds social conservative positions that make the present incumbent of the White House seem like Richard Dawkins. But as the U.S. faces a possible recession in 2008, Huckabee's populism has struck a chord. However, it's hard to discern what Huckabee has to offer beyond raging against Washington "elites" and Wall Street fat cats. At a recent event, Huckabee addressed an audience against a backdrop emblazoned with his current campaign slogan, the rather despairing "Enough is Enough." One wonders whether Huckabee will upgrade his motto for the next poll, the New Hampshire primary. Perhaps he could tap into America's current mood of free-floating anxiety by borrowing Howard Beale's rallying call: "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!"

Taking advantage of an extended Christmas/New Year's vacation, I've been working my way through Tim Blanning's "magisterial" (i.e. very long) The Pursuit of Glory, which covers developments in Europe in the century-and-a-half between the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 and the final defeat of Napoleon in 1815.

Blanning's approach might be described as dialectical, with each "progressive" intellectual and social trend discussed counterbalanced, and sometimes even eclipsed, by forces that can be categorized as conservative or traditional. For example, the 18th century is synonymous with the "Age of Enlightenment," as thinkers and writers principally from France, the German states, and Scotland sought to challenge the theocentic understanding of the world that had hitherto predominated. The impetus to compartmentalize religious and secular affairs was often tinged with a strong dose of anti-clericalism: although Voltaire disingenuously explained that the target of his battle-cry "Écrasez l'infâme!" (Wipe out the infamous!) was superstition not the clergy, few believed him.

Yet Blanning argues that the period could, with equal justification, be labelled as "the age of religion" or "the Christian Century." New, fervent religious movements such as Methodism and Jansenism emerged; the vast swathe of the peasantry remained wedded to traditional forms of worship; and "By around the middle of the [18th] century there were at least 15,000 monasteries for men and 10,000 for women, housing a total population in excess of a quarter of a million."

Similarly, the rise of the scientific method coexisted with persistent beliefs in witchcraft, alchemy, and miracles. (The shelf space devoted to "New Age" philosophy in major bookshops suggests that irrationality is still far from a spent force.) Famously, Isaac Newton's devotion to unravelling the prophecies embedded in the Book of Revelations puts Dan Brown's fabrications in the shade.

Sugaring the analytical pill, Blanning litters his text with quotes, odd facts (e.g., in France pornography was still published in Latin as late as 1650), and anecdotes that bring home to the reader that even this era—which laid the foundations for what it means to be "modern"—remains a "foreign country."

For this post, what once passed for court entertainment in the mid-18th century will have to suffice as evidence:

"...'fox-tossing' (Fuchsprellen), in which a fox was tossed in a net or blanket held by hunt servants or gentlemen or ladies of the court until it expired. This usually took place in the courtyard of the prince's palace, with the assembled courtiers looking on from the palace windows. The Saxons seem to have been particularly fond of this form of entertainment: in the course of 1747 Augustus III, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, had 414 foxes, 281 hares, 39 badgers and a wild cat tossed to death. It could also be found at the imperial court at Vienna, where in 1672 the Swedish envoy found it odd that the Emperor Leopold I should join the court dwarves and small boys in delivering the coup de grâce to the tossed foxes by clubbing them to death."

For a mid-week post, I was girding myself to produce an elevating squib on Alex Ross's much-lauded history of 20th-century music, The Rest is Noise. However, having reached only page 90 so far, even I am reluctant to offer a nugget-sized synopsis of Ross's argument. For more, stay tuned--unless you're a follower of the Second Viennese School (now that's pure comedy gold).

On a lighter note, figuratively if not literally, the cover of this week's RTE Guide reminded me of the rich cultural patrimony I had been missing during my U.S. absence. The national broadcaster's latest allelomimetic foray into reality TV is dubbed "Operation Transformation," which looks like a rehash of "The Biggest Loser," except with cheaper production values. Nevertheless, in one respect, RTE has broken new ground in the "weeping-fatties" reality subgenre. Judging from the well-padded figure Gerry Ryan cuts on the magazine's cover, this must be the first such show in which the host is in as dire need of a physical transformation as the contestants.

Given the near-daily reports about crises in the Irish health service, the country's position on this chart seems surprising.

Then again, the murder rate in Baghdad has also declined impressively in recent months, but I still wouldn't be in a rush to visit.

"Entrepreneurship Takes Off in Ireland" is the title of an upbeat New York Times' article on the go-get-'em business moxie that is supposedly rampant in the "new" Ireland.

The piece kicks off with a bold--some begrudging inhabitants of the "old" Ireland might prefer the word "ridiculous"--assertion:

"Ireland is now alive with enthusiasm for entrepreneurs, who seemingly rank just below rock stars in popularity."

That's why Denis O'Brien "left" the country, you know. It wasn't to avoid paying a huge wodge of tax or to flee the hellhounds of the tribunal. It was to escape those damn paparazzi and teenagers who used to hang about all day outside his mansion.

RTE's website coverage of today's turmoil in the world's financial markets kicks off with the following, interest-deflating headline: "US economy already in recession - consultant."

Alas, the subheading "Oh no it isn't! - another consultant" is nowhere to be seen.

On a tangential note, Louis XVI famously wrote "rien" ("nothing") as a journal entry for July 14, 1789. Somebody who could ignore the fall of Bastille is obviously a model for the former CEO of Merrill Lynch, Stanley O'Neal. As Michael Lewis entertainingly relates in Bloomberg.com:

"In the six weeks between Aug. 12 and Sept. 30, as Merrill Lynch's losses mounted, its CEO didn't merely manage to play 20 rounds of golf, on four different courses. He played them beautifully, with a consistency that defied the pain he must have been feeling. Indeed, a glance at the scores explains why the Merrill Lynch board agreed to pay him $48 million in 2006: The man has ice water in his veins. From the end of July to early October, when the firm Stan O'Neal ran was losing money at a rate of more than $100 million a day, his handicap wavered only slightly -- in fact dropped, to 9.1 from 10.2."

Like Louis, Stan was eventually deposed. Unlike Louis, he walked away from his position with a $161.2 million "compensation" package.

As plunging stock markets expose the fallacies of the widely flogged "decoupling theory" (Google returns almost 65,000 hits for the query "decoupling + United States + economy"), it seems hard to disagree with the arguments of President George W. Bush (as channeled by The Onion):

While speaking to a group of White House reporters, President Bush fended off questions about the weak state of the dollar, the expected long-term deficit caused by Social Security and Medicare payments, and a faltering housing market by assuring reporters that the U.S. economy's ability to have such a widespread negative impact on the world only further proves it is "easily the best."

"Our recent credit crisis alone has been enough to depress share prices in Japan, Rome, China, and Brazil," a smirking Bush said during a press conference Thursday.

No, not Heath Ledger. Rather "Doug Krantz, 27, a New York University student and Iraq war veteran," who turned up outside the actor's Manhattan home upon hearing of his death.

His reason?

"I have a sick fascination with morbid stuff."

Apparently, the Irish Times's house seer John Waters believes the Intertube and bloggers are contributing factors in the Decline of West. Perhaps that explains why www.johnwaters.ie (featuring a fetching pic of Mr Waters in full-bearded "Iron John" mode) will forever be "coming soon".

But pace Waters's opinion of the emptiness of bloggers' "discourse," can I argue that the very "bittiness" of the medium can, sometimes, be its saving grace? For example, if a blogger wishes to tip his hat to some work of art that took his fancy, a simple link to a site or an embedded YouTube vid is sometimes sufficient to spread the word. Extended meditations can be reserved for when the blogger feels something unique (or least unique in her eyes) is bubbling up in the ole brain-pan.

In contrast, "professional" journalists are obliged to produce a simulacrum of engaged criticism even when the subject at hand might not quite reach the lofty benchmarks set by the writer's inflated prose. Take, for example, the work of Heath Ledger. It's a sad case: the shockingly young death of a talented person who appeared in one superlative picture. Most bloggers who noted the death offered a YouTube clip or a few words in praise for certain performances. And perhaps that's all that can really be said at this point. The very fact that the man died so young (28)--and will not now have the chance to build a major body of work--means that lengthy eulogies coming from anyone other than those who knew him well sound as jarring as an Oscar speech at a graveside.

Take, for example, Joe Queenan's gushing paean that appeared in today's Guardian. Queenan is usually a reliably entertaining hack, with a finely tuned bullshit detector. But tasked with producing a 1700-word obit piece, Queenan swamps Ledger's reputation with comments that seem plain wrong at best, and distasteful at worst:

Viz:

"[M]iddle-aged people do not instinctively resent young actors in the way they resent young musicians or young athletes. It is a natural human instinct to want gifted young people to succeed, because talent should be rewarded. But there is even more of a desire to see the young and the gifted succeed if they are charismatic and fabulous-looking, which movie stars usually are and athletes and musicians often are not." Er, really?

"When an actor dies young, it is almost as if one's own child had passed away." I bloody well think not.

"When an actor dies young, there is more cultural fallout than when a musician checks out early." Kurt Cobain, anyone?

Referring to not winning an Academy Award for Best Actor: "Ledger will now be remembered as the victim of an epic miscarriage of justice." Stick that in your pipe, Gitmo detainees!

So would a simple link to a YouTube clip, perhaps posted by a wet-eyed teenager, not have made the same point a bit less embarrassingly?

When untrained amateurs try to do it, we call it "pulling a face." But when executed by professionals, it's simply...acting, dear boy.

Or a fragmentary synopsis of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West derived from some of the English and Spanish words I had to look up:

bistre; chine; tang; jornada; jacal; pritchel; frizzen; bungstarter; vadose; vernier sight; lobo; sotol; tapadero; felloe; duledge; monocline; kerf; rebozo; almagre; carreta; escopeta; legbail; pauldron; ocotillo; squail; weskit; sutler; garrafa; quena; bedight; Anareta; campesino; malabarista; azotea; pyrolatrous; ossature; cresset; querent; parfleche; madstone; buskin; apishamore; tlaco; surbate; quirt; mare imbrium; lanneret; cantle; aguardiente; clackdish; ambuscado; cuartel; calculus; huarache; vidette; duff; malpais; mochila; acequias; kiva; stob; spancel; hogan.