Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

The current Supreme Court is a dangerous, rogue court.

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Motown is Joe-Town!

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Oppose, oppose, oppose. Do not congratulate. This is not business as usual.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

The fight for our country is always worth it. ~Kamala Harris

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

He really is that stupid.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

This fight is for everything.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

American History and Black History can not be separated.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Saturday Morning Open Thread: Rebuilding the Cathedral of Notre Dame

Saturday Morning Open Thread: Rebuilding the Cathedral of Notre Dame

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The whole of Western society has enjoyed this transformation–more or less–over the past 50 years, thanks to anti-pollution efforts & the marginalization of cigarette smoking. But we are apparently blind to all the ways our lives are better than they've ever been before

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— Chatham Harrison is tending his garden (@chathamharrison.bsky.social) December 5, 2024 at 6:06 PM

Notre Dame's reopening will begin with an archbishop's knock on the doors. Here's what comes next

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— Associated Press ?? (@asssociatedpress.bsky.social) December 6, 2024 at 12:23 AM

The reopening this weekend of Notre Dame is a succession of ceremonies to breathe life back into the iconic cathedral and celebrate the recovery from its devastating fire in 2019.

Forecasts of stormy winds forced a late change in plans Friday, moving all of Saturday’s events indoors. Still, the weekend’s high points are expected to be the ritualized reopening of the cathedral’s massive doors, the reawakening of its thunderous organ and the celebration of the first Mass. For both France and the Catholic Church, the televised and tightly scripted ceremonies will be an opportunity to display can-do resilience and global influence…

During part one of Notre Dame’s rebirth on Saturday evening [2pm EST], Archbishop Laurent Ulrich will lead more than 1,500 guests through a reopening service. Part two, on Sunday, is an inaugural Mass, with special rites to consecrate the main altar.

On Saturday, Ulrich will first reopen Notre Dame’s great doors — by tapping them with his crosier, or bishop’s staff.

The staff was created for the occasion by designer Sylvain Dubuisson. The wood — bearing visible black traces from the blaze — came from pieces of the cathedral roof that collapsed in the inferno, Dubuisson told The Associated Press.

In response to the archbishop’s door-knocks, the cathedral will erupt into song, its choirs once again filling the cavernous spaces.

That back-and-forth will happen three times and the doors will then open…

The voice of Notre Dame’s great organ hasn’t been heard in public since the blaze coated the nearly 8,000 pipes with toxic dust released when the lead roofing burned.

After the door-opening rites, Ulrich will reawaken the giant instrument. He’ll address it directly with a series of eight incantations, starting with “Awaken, organ, sacred instrument: Sing the praise of God.”

That prompt will launch a conversation with the organ, with four organists (Olivier Latry, Vincent Dubois, Thibault Fajoles and Thierry Escaich) taking turns to play its responses.

They’ll be perched high above the congregation, seated at the newly renovated giant console that controls the instrument — through five keyboards of 56 notes each, foot pedals for 30 notes, and 115 stops…

The organ has a vast palette of sounds to play with. The deepest of its 7,952 pipes are as large as a human torso, producing a low rumbling sound. The smallest are no larger than a pen.

The painstaking re-tuning of the organ — after it was dismantled, cleaned and put back together — took around six months, with tuners working at night so they could tweak the notes in silence…

At the reopening, billionaire donors from France and beyond will rub shoulders with other guests far less fortunate.

They’ll include “the poorest among Parisians, all those who are helped by charitable associations and who will be several hundred inside the cathedral,” Rev. Olivier Ribadeau Dumas, Notre Dame’s rector, told AP…

Notre Dame in full bling mode this evening….

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— Nazish Munch (@nazishmunch.bsky.social) December 5, 2024 at 1:31 PM

Inside the restored Notre Dame cathedral – in pictures www.theguardian.com/world/galler…

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— Greg Jenner (@gregjenner.bsky.social) December 6, 2024 at 8:42 AM

Notre Dame review – glorious resurrection is as close to time travel as it gets

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— The Guardian (@theguardian.com) December 6, 2024 at 8:19 AM

… The herculean project has seen 2,000 oak trees gathered from forests across France, hewn into beams with axes and pegged into great trusses by hand using medieval tools. It has witnessed over a thousand cubic metres of limestone being hauled into place, chiselled into leaping arches and gurning gargoyles, as well as 4,000 square metres of lead, rolled, crimped and moulded into ornamental roofing. It has also been the stage for a celebrity wallet-waving spectacle, seeing French luxury goods billionaires racing to outdo each other in the size of their donations – reaching almost €900m (£749m) just two days after the fire, endowing the cathedral with a substantial maintenance kitty for years to come.

The astonishing and lavishly funded endeavour has been a lifeline for endangered craftsmanship, single-handedly reviving a host of specialist building industries across France and beyond. The project mobilised a 2,000-strong army of master masons, carpenters, roofers, glassworkers, organ restorers and painting conservators, many using centuries-old techniques. This elaborate medieval cosplay has returned the majestic pile to just the way it was before the 2019 fire – only cleaner, brighter and more colourful than ever.

“Even more beautiful than before,” is how Macron describes it, “in the renewed radiance of the blond stones and the colour of the chapels.” It’s a surreal sight. The seamless surfaces of creamy stonework have been bleached of their centuries of sooty patina, now looking as if they have been carved from a single slab of butter. The painted side chapels glow with the blazing Technicolor and gilding of a Las Vegas casino. The result might feel too Disneyish for those who prefer their cathedrals aged and timeworn, but the effect is as close to time-travel as it comes, as if the medieval guilds had just left the building.

As crowds gather outside to gawp up at the freshly carved tracery and gleaming leadwork, however, they might not be aware that the most radical part of the entire project is actually right beneath their feet. The biggest impact on Paris will not be found in the rebuilt forêt of oak hidden away in the attic, or the ornamental rooftop cresting, but in how the fire has provided a catalyst to rethink the surrounding area as a model for climate-friendly public space on an increasingly scorching planet…

With an eye on Paris’s wider urban greening efforts, which have been a chief hallmark of socialist mayor Anne Hidalgo’s tenure, the project will also act as a laboratory for future landscaping work elsewhere in the city. While the main plaza will see an existing avenue of horse chestnut trees extended along the street, encouraging people to take a full circuit around the cathedral, a former car parking area to the east will become an experimental arboretum of different species.

“We imagine it as a living climatic laboratory,” says Smets, “to see how well different trees perform over time.” After the city’s plane trees suffered from beetle infestations, and others have been stricken by drought, the pressure is on to determine which varieties will thrive in the rapidly changing climate. “This is such an important, symbolic site,” he adds. “But it is also an opportunity to reimagine public space as a way to create a better outdoor microclimate – looking to the past to inform the city of the future.”

Reader Interactions

118Comments

  2. 2.

    Jeffg166

    The Catholic Church is pretty good at putting on a show. They’ve had a couple millennia of practice.

    It does look good all cleaned up. The lighting is very well done.

    For the purist it will be dirty and dingy again in a century or two.

  4. 4.

    satby

    Looks stunning. Imagine being a medieval peasant and seeing the glorious new cathedral as it looked then and now.

    This quote below though, repeated for truth.

    But we are apparently blind to all the ways our lives are better than they’ve ever been before

  6. 6.

    TBone

    I like that the word palette is used.  I got into trouble here once with it because of palate and the difference (I used it as a sort of unknown slang).  My IRL (adopted by stepdad) last name is a French word.

  11. 11.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Since this is an open thread, here is another example of techbro grifters, techno-authoritarians & militarists converging:

    Soon, the tech behind ChatGPT may help drone operators decide which enemies to kill
    OpenAI and Palmer Luckey’s weapons company sign agreement to explore lethal drone defense for military use.
    BENJ EDWARDS – DEC 6, 2024 1:50 AM| 136

    It seems both the US DOD & the mil tech start ups saw how the IDF has been using its Lavender AI program for targeting in Gaza, & was inspired to go further.

    Palmer Luckey runs Anduril, a Silicon Valley military tech startup looking to suck the teat of defense spending in the age of Great Power Competition. Anduril is backed by Peter Thiel & the latter’s Palantir. Palmer Luckey is also Matt Gaetz’s brother-in-law.

  12. 12.

    geg6

    We watched the 60 Minutes piece on this last week.  Just spectacular and amazing.  The people who did this work are heroes.  My niece, who was in Paris a few months ago, is bummed that she didn’t plan her trip to coincide with the reopening so she could see it.

  14. 14.

    narya

    The reinvigoration of nearly-lost craft is one of the things that is most awesome about this, not to mention the intentionality of so much of it (like the effort to find trees that can thrive). Amazing.

  22. 22.

    narya

    OMG, I’m on my phone so can’t link, but find Olivia Troye’s lawyer’s letter to Kash. I laughed out loud at page2.

  27. 27.

    David_C

    What an opportunity for a restoration to turn into a transformation that in many ways is historically accurate. The Cathedral was also key for the transformation of chant to polyphony, so it’s good to see music represented.

  28. 28.

    NotMax

    @Anne Laurie

    One of the digs at Herculaneum revealed a room where painters were working on new frescos.

    Tools, pigments, remains of paints all found. No sign of the painters; presumably they fled sometime after Vesuvius belched the second ka-blam. First day blew destruction primarily over Pompeii; pyroclastic flow afterwards was not so discriminatory, burying Herculaneum as deep as 40 feet.

  33. 33.

    mali muso

    I’m so looking forward to visiting the new cathedral next time I visit Paris.  It was one of the first landmarks I visited on my first time in France and on each subsequent trip, I always enjoyed spending a quiet moment slowly pacing around the dark interior, looking up at the rose windows, or soaking in the amazing sound of the organ if I happened to make it there during Mass.  It’s surreal to see how bright it looks now!

  34. 34.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Interesting data showing just how incestuous global elite has become, & thus out of touch w/ the rest of the masses (click through the link for the tables & charts, emphasis mine):

    Paul Novosad
    @paulnovosad

    Fascinating paper on where 6000 global elites went to college. Billionaires, CEOs, heads of state, central bankers, etc. In a word: Harvard. Fully 10% of global elites went to Harvard. Elite US schools are over-represented (23% IvyPlus), but nobody comes close to Harvard.

    The paper is Ricardo Salas-Diaz and Kevin Young. They collected elite biographies across a few important international domains. Corporate elites: CEO and board IO: World Bank, IMF, Basel Committee, etc National Elites: Head of state & central banker 3rd sector: think tanks

    Among U.S. nationals, it’s even more stark. Harvard represents 16% of elites — literally off the chart.

    Here is graph for non-U.S. nationals. Harvard continues to stand out, Oxford and Cambridge are now also above the pack, but not close to Harvard.

    My friends from Yale have long claimed it’s about getting into Harvard or Yale, and it doesn’t matter much between them. Maybe Princeton too. Friends, the data points for Yale are not even high enough to get labeled. If there is a #2, it is Stanford.

    Now by sector, elite colleges are more concentrated for corporate and NGO positions than for billionaires and international orgs. But for country leadership (central bankers and heads of state), the distribution is much more mixed, and Oxford edges out Harvard. (Yale still DNF)

    This surprised me a bit — I expected the corporate world to be a bit better at finding ace people from less elite backgrounds than Int’l Orgs. But maybe networking matters more in business than anywhere.

    The flatter distribution of national leaders is b/c most elites still get educated in their own countries. The U.S. is 2nd place for nationals of every non-U.S. country, with some notable outliers — 34% of elite Brazilians went to U.S. colleges, 36% of elite Indians.

    The paper is “Where did the global elite go to school,” by Ricardo Salas-Diaz and Kevin Young. 9/N https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/glob.12509

    To me, this is a pretty clear sign that global leadership is very unmeritocratic. To a first order, going to an elite college is a function of choices made by kids’ parents, not the kids themselves. Talented parents may have more talented kids, but there’s no way the talent distribution is this skewed given mean reversion across generations. And education is probably better at elite schools, but it is not 5 times better at Harvard than it is at Yale or MIT. And the same for talent. It’s much more likely that this is about networks. You rub shoulders with the children of billionaires and corporate titans, they open doors for you for your whole career. This also speaks to the misallocation of talent. There are a lot of brilliant kids who didn’t have the parental background to make it to a fancy institution — we want to build pathways for these kids into elite positions. Finally, it’s no surprise that elites are increasingly out of touch with ordinary people — a lot of them haven’t had much contact with them since age 17 or earlier.

    Some supporting evidence: Seth Zimmerman’s paper finds that elite schools in Chile get people into elite jobs — but only for boys from private schools! Zero effects of elite education on men who went to public schools and on women! 11/N https://aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20171019

    Don’t miss Ricardo’s JMP on the changing backgrounds of Colombia’s central bankers https://ricardosalasdiaz.com/jmp

    Last, this is why descriptive work is underrated. No preposterous IV, no incomprehensible structural model, just a new fact about the world. If the descriptive work is done well — and it is not easy — the fact permanently enters everyone’s headspace and must be contended with.

  37. 37.

    MagdaInBlack

    @Anne Laurie: Somewhere in the depths of youtube I stumbled across how they determined the colors of the sphinx that’s referenced here. At the bottom of the article you posted is another article about that too. I think its fun that they were what we would call garish colors. I like bold, bright “Dr. Seuss” colors so I kinda like the original colors.

  39. 39.

    moonbat

    @Anne Laurie: I teach a lecture on that very subject! Saturated colors were the norm in the ancient Mediterranean world. The Western European attempt to ‘whiten’ classical civilization led some curators at places like the British Museum to actively scrub off all traces of the original paint from the sculptures they hold.

  41. 41.

    Betty

    @narya: That makes me so happy. It has been sad to see the value placed on craftsmanship disappear. I also was impressed at the diversity of the crafts people. DEI in operation.

  45. 45.

    Zelma

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    I think we’d all be surprised if we went into any medieval church, even the local ones.  The walls were very often painted and there were lots of visual and sensory experiences.  Very colorful.  We have the Calvinists to thank for the stark nature of most American churches.

  48. 48.

    Zelma

    @YY_Sima Qian:

    Does the study distinguish between undergraduate and graduate degrees?  I wonder how many of the Harvard educated elites went to the business school?

  49. 49.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Anne Laurie:

    A great example of that is Trajan’s Column:

    https://carpediemtours.com/blog/trajans-column-rome-military-tomb/

    There’s a guy who, totally on his own, does these amazing 3-D and recoloring projects of all things Roman.  The first 12 Caesars for example:

    https://www.relivehistoryin3d.com/2021/01/19/history-in-3d-creates-a-series-of-accurate-reconstructions-of-first-12-roman-caesars/

    @moonbat:

    I’d love to attend that lecture.  Oh, and best graffiti ever was in a men’s room in the British Museum:

    “The British Museum…of Thieves” or

    ‘Looting’ is just a crass term for “Expanding the Collection”

  50. 50.

    moonbat

    @NotMax: Exactly. As an art historian it I think it’s important to note how a lot of our artistic tastes have been influenced by a deliberate misreading of the past.

  51. 51.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Zelma:

    I think we’d all be surprised if we went into any medieval church, even the local ones. The walls were very often painted and there were lots of visual and sensory experiences. Very colorful.

    There’s a church in Rome, just your neighborhood, nothing-special-from-the-outside church (that I can never remember where it is but can always find it when I’m there).

    The inside is nothing but the most gruesome, vividly colorful murals of various saints being boiled, flayed, stabbed, crucified, etc.  I’ve been in eleventy million small churches all over Italy and it remains the most over-the-top display I’ve seen.

    I’m guessing Notre Dame might be a bit jarring at first given the fact we’ve all grown up seeing dingy insides of churches that date back that far.  Probably not unlike seeing the Sistine Chapel ceiling for the first time after the restoration work.  Gobsmackingly incredible.

  54. 54.

    prostratedragon

    @NotMax:  Have to check this out when I get back to the box with the real ‘phones. A cellphone doesn’t even hint at what these instruments do.

  55. 55.

    Geminid

    @YY_Sima Qian: Speaking of global elites, from Middle East Eye reporter Ragip Soylu an hour ago:

    NEW: Turkey, Russia and Iran summit in Doha to discuss Syria crisis is underway.

    This is not exactly a summit, since it’s the Foreign Ministers who are meeting. A picture shows Turkiye’s Hakan Fidan, Russia’s Sergei Lavrov and Iran’s Minister Arangchi evenly spaced around a large round table with a small stand in front of them holding their nations’ flags.

    The body language is telling. Lavrov has his forearms on the table, while Arangchi looks a little hunched.

    Fidan is sitting upright, shoulders back, with a stone-faced expression. He’s contended in Syria with Russia and Iran for over 12 years now, first as Turkiye’s intelligence chief and now as Foreign Minister. One of those countries finally had the upper hand, and it’s not Russia or Iran.

    Subsequent reports quote Lavrov’s and Arangchi’s prepared statements. They both called for Syrian President Assad to negotiate with Syria’s “legitimate opposition.”

    In this case however, the elites are behind the curve. Assad’s troops are unwilling to die for him, and the opposition knows Assad cannot stay. The war is being decided on the ground in Syria, not around a conference table in Qatar.

  57. 57.

    Fair Economist

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: The coloration is as faithful to the original as they could do. The original didn’t have the blazing LED lights, although I think the original designers would have used them if they could.

  58. 58.

    Quinerly

    Good Morning from a sweet AirBnB in Hereford, AZ. A snuggly JoJo is very happy and glad to not be trapped in the car. Great bed, fantastic hosts, basic accommodations at an excellent price. Roosters, chickens, goats, and a couple of new friends for JoJo las Orejas.

    But then anything would be better than the strange accommodations with the very bloody religious art in the trailer park in Wilcox, AZ with the defrocked priest last February. Should have looked more carefully at those online pictures and less at the cheapo price. Lessons learned.

    Anybody got any breakfast suggestions in Sierra Vista, Elgin, and Sonoita, AZ? I don’t want to fight the weekend crowds at my favorite of Old Bisbee Breakfast Club in Bisbee. Plus, today I am exploring this uncharted area for me….Arizona Wine Country. There looks to be a winery owned by 2 sisters who are Deadheads and actually mention on their website being inspired by The City Museum in St. Louis. How cool is that? IYKYK.

    Paging piratedan…….Sneaking up on his neck of the woods in 10 days……

  61. 61.

    Fair Economist

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage:

    Probably not unlike seeing the Sistine Chapel ceiling for the first time after the restoration work. Gobsmackingly incredible.

    Well, but they *did* screw up the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo did a lot of shading with charcoal washes *after* painting the fresco colors, and they stripped it all off. Like in this one where they took off the eyes. You can see some shading disappeared as well, although that’s not so noticeable without comparison.

    There are literally hundreds of years of notes from previous restorers saying “we can’t clean everything because we’d take off Michelangelo’s overpainting”. But they did anyway.

  62. 62.

    Eunicecycle

    @geg6: I was there in June so was only able to see the outside, which was still under a lot of scaffolding. It just means your niece and I have to go back!

  64. 64.

    Steve LaBonne

    We were fortunate to see it before the fire (in 2018). I would love to see what it looks like now, but we’re unlikely to go back. I will say that if you find yourself on the Île de la Cité do not miss the Sainte-Chapelle.

  65. 65.

    kalakal

    @Anne Laurie: I always liked the story of when Heinrich Schliemann ( of Troy fame) built his huge mansion in Athens he put a lot of classical statuary along the pediments and in the ground. There was outrage at this shocking display of nudity and naughty bits. So he them dressed up in the most ridiculously garish outfits he could find. General opinion then swayed to the idea that maybe a bit of classical rudeness wasn’t so bad after all

  66. 66.

    Fair Economist

    @Anne Laurie:

    You know those chaste white Classical sculptures from ancient Greece and Rome?

    A lot of them were originally painted in polychrome (multiple very bright colors) which now looks quite garish, even tacky, to our very sophisticated modern eyes!

    And the British Museum scrubbed off the remnants on the many, many statues they took, so we can no longer do a faithful reconstruction of their original colors.

    I’ve seen a few replicas with best attempts at coloration and I like them. Maybe a bit garish, but they look “right”. Once you’ve seen them the bleached white sculptures look wrong.

  67. 67.

    Nukular Biskits

    Good mornin’, y’all!

    This is a stunning achievement, both in terms of beauty and in restoration/rebuilding.

    Still … I wonder how many other more practical things could have been done with the time, money and resources.  Sorry if that seems a bit humbug.

  68. 68.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Geminid: Assad’s collapse has been quite stunning. It seems the regime did not take advantage of the few years of relative calm to strengthen its own position, capability & governance capacity.

    Any regime w/ ambition of ruling over most of Syria has to confront the reality of its multi-ethnic/cultural/confessional nature, or they will quickly face splintering & bloody internecine warfare in multiple directions. Of course, knowing that & adequately walking the walk are different matters.

    Both Russian & Iranian forces appear to be evacuating from Syria, & losing Syria means Iran losing the land corridor to Hezbollah. That would be a fatal blow to the “Axis of Resistance” that Suleimani had painstakingly built, as deterrence & leverage over Israel, before his assassination at the hands of the Trump Administration. Then again, many members of “Axis of Resistance” only had limited local appeal, & relied upon brutality & lack of via alternatives to stay in power, so the structure rested on wobbly foundations.

    I see a couple of ways things can deteriorate from here. Iran could see the collapse of its deterrence structure & decide to go for nukes to achieve regime security (a la the Kim Dynasty in NK). Israel could decide this moment of maximum Iranian weakness is the optimal moment for strikes against Iranian nuclear development & oil export infrastructure (but such strikes can only delay Iranian efforts, not stop them), &/or reopen the war in Southern Lebanon against Hezbollah to “finish the job”.

    I doubt the Israeli natsec establish will see the sudden improvement  in its external environment (& a dramatic reversal from the months after 10/7/23) as an opportunity to reassess its policies toward the region & toward the Palestinians. Israeli strategic culture doesn’t seem to extent much beyond “deterrence” (euphemism for absolute dominance in actuality) as the strategy in & of itself, in perpetuity, & now it is overlaid by the worst ethno-/religio-nationalists & racial supremacist government in Israel’s history.

    I think Israel remains in a strategic cul-de-sac. Continued oppression & domination of Palestinians, continued colonization & ethnic cleansing in the WB & Gaza, continued disregard for IHL & LOAC when waging war, continued disregard for national sovereignty of its neighbors, will simply regenerate radicalized forces of resistance to take the place of Hamas & Hezbollah.

  69. 69.

    Rusty

    I’ve been lucky to visit a number of times in my life.  With a future travel budget that will be limited,  and my getting older, we want to visit other less popular places in Europe.  Looking at the pictures though, I now want to go back in Paris to see the restored cathedral.   It is stunning in photos, it would be transcendent in person.

  70. 70.

    sab

    @moonbat: I remember learning in college that the slow stately approach to French Ancien Regime music was 19th century BS.

    A choreographer (whose name I have unfortunately forgotten) worked on reviving the dances and discovered that if the music was played as slowly as we have been doing, the dancers would be hanging in air for many seconds, which was physically impossible.

    If she speeded up the music to something spritely then dancing the traditional steps was quite possible. And then the music became fun not solemn.

  71. 71.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Zelma: The paper requires purchase, & the abstract does not say. I suspect undergraduate, though, since the network effect is tends to be stronger for undergraduate study than grad school, even MBA.

  73. 73.

    Nukular Biskits

    @sab:

    Hardly.

    But with so much suffering, need and want in the world, I think the question has merit.

    And I say that full well acknowledging that soaring works of architecture like Notre Dame arguably invoke a sense of spirituality, something higher, and can bring forth our better angels.

    Think of like this (a poor analogy, probably):  Building a multibillion dollar football coliseum (using a mix of taxpayer and private funds) in a poor neighborhood.

  74. 74.

    suzanne

    @Nukular Biskits:

    Still … I wonder how many other more practical things could have been done with the time, money and resources.  Sorry if that seems a bit humbug.

    There was a real humbug response, around here and other places, right when the fire happened. A black community church here in the U.S. had also been damaged by fire that week, and there was a lot of commentary in the vein of “it’s racist to care more about Notre Dame than a black church”.

    We, of course, can care about both things, and there are enough resources to preserve and repair both things.

  75. 75.

    Elizabelle

    @Nukular Biskits:  Drop it.  Seriously.  Read the room.

    This is not a fancy stadium.  It is a cultural center and national and civic pride for centuries.

    And it is spectacular to have a chance to see it somewhat as when it was new, a millenium ago.

    Can you imagine all the people who will now visit Paris to see it?  That will do a lot more for the local economy than handing out alms or dealing with the intractable homeless.

    Just shut it.

  76. 76.

    Elizabelle

    I think also of the many [German] cathedrals and churches that were destroyed by WW2 bombing; seeing the photos of rubble in the aftermath, and they have now been reconstructed.

  77. 77.

    cmorenc

    @NotMax:

    Between the smell of smoke and the smell of the assembled congregants, incense wasn’t just for show, also too.

    We tend to overlook that most people did not have nearly so much opportunity to bathe nearly so often or thoroughly until the last 100 or so years.  And so, it was a necessity for people to become inured to other people’s sweaty body odor to a degree that would be offensive to our sensititviies today, and understandable why mitigation with incense, perfumes and other strong, more pleasant odors was such a thing back then.

  78. 78.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Elizabelle:

    I think also of the many [German] cathedrals and churches that were destroyed by WW2 bombing; seeing the photos of rubble in the aftermath, and they have now been reconstructed.

    Dresden is the obvious example of this, work slowed over decades because it was East Germany but after reunification, there was no doubt about funding and resources.

    Saw it right when they were finishing up in 2005, incredible.  At that time, Dresden was still somewhat sleepy for a big city, it was a great vibe all around.  Vonnegut’s schlacthouse area was still mostly intact as well.

  79. 79.

    cmorenc

    I was priviliged to visit Notre Dame in 1977, when they would still allow you to access the balconies high above the streets without the protective wire grating that was in place when I next visited it in 1999, presumably because of risk of some folks throwing objects or even themselves by suicidally inclined people.

  80. 80.

    Nukular Biskits

    @Elizabelle:

    I started, deleted and restarted my reply probably five times, allowing myself to cool  off after what I consider was an uncalled for bit of rudeness on your part. I have to say this is the first time I’ve ever encountered such hostility here.

    I’ll not “shut it” and you and I can simply agree to disagree and move on.

  83. 83.

    oldgold

    The Cathedral of Notre Dame was almost burned in late August of 1944. As the Allies were approaching Paris, Hitler ordered  the German Military Governor of Paris, General Dietrich von Choltitz, to burn the City and turn it into a “field of ruins.”

    Fortunately, the General, who otherwise was not a hero, disobeyed Hitler’s order.

    On August 25 as Paris was being liberated by the Allies (and Ernest Hemingway), Hitler is said to have repeatedly screamed at his Chief of Staff “Is Paris Burning?”

  85. 85.

    narya

    @Nukular Biskits: The differences between Notre Dame and the football stadium are relevant here. It’s not just that Notre Dame is available to everyday people in a way that the football stadium is not; it’s that the reconstruction project enabled us to see what has not been seen for many years, and the project enabled/encouraged people to learn ways of building, restoration, and crafting that were dwindling and maybe just got a shot in the arm. I understand your point about resources, but I will also argue that those crafts in service to beauty are also living resources that must be nourished or they will die.

  86. 86.

    Geminid

    @YY_Sima Qian: Reporting in Middle East Eye last weekend was that the rebel offensive out of Idlib that commenced the Thursday before was intended to be limited. Assad’s artillery was pounding Idlib’s suburbs and HTS and its allies wanted to push the lines back. But when they kicked open the door, the whole house fell in.

    Now the U.S. trained “Free Syrian Army” based on the Jordanian border has jumped in and are credited with taking Palmyra, which was Queen Zenobia’s capital back in the day.

    This Free Syrian Army is not to be confused with the other Free Syrian Army in the north. That one is controllled by Turkiye’s intelligence agency M.I.T. But the southern FSA seems to be a CIA operation and CIA Director William Burns and M.I.T. chief Ibrahim Kalin talk a lot, so there could be some coordination between the two.

  87. 87.

    Nukular Biskits

    @narya: @sab:

    Real quick (about to brave the elements to finish putting up yard decorations) so none of this may make any sense:

    Cultural value Notre Dame: Yes!

    Cultural value of a sportsball stadium: Agree but there are probably a lot of sportsfans who’ll disagree with that (Yankee stadium).

    Preservation and passing down of craftsmanship: Yes!

    Real question here is picking and choosing what cultural icons are to be prseserved; i.e., what may worth preserving to some may not be to others.  Lest someone here think otherwise, that shouldn’t be taken as an assertion on my part that Notre Dame should not have been rebuilt … I think it should have.

  88. 88.

    Elizabelle

    @narya:  Thank you.  Think of the stonecarvers, carpenters, masons, and all the affiliated trades.

    Made me think of those who used to make buttons and trim and high end finishes for couturiers, and how that art/industry is dying out.

    One of my neighbors in the 1980s was a stonecarver working on Washington National Cathedral.  (Completed in 1990; took 83 years to build.)

  91. 91.

    Almost Retired

    Just read that Notre Dame ordinarily has 39 gargoyles.  Of course, for a while today there are 40.

  92. 92.

    Geminid

    @Elizabelle: The earthquake we had in 2011(?) required some masonry repairs on the National Cathedral, and they had to call in skilled stone carvers. It was not that strong a quake, but I read that the rock formation underlying Louisa County extends to D.C. The Washigton monument was also damaged.

    At the time, I was working in a basement in Charlottesville, 25 miles from the quake’s epicenter. I was near the railroad tracks and figured the jolt I felt was a train bumping into something. Then the radio station I was listening to lit up with reports about an earthquake. That was big news for a couple days.

    A couple I knew were living near Louisa, and they told me about their experience. They were watching TV when all of a sudden their little dog jumped up on the couch and started barking out the window. A couple seconds later their house started to shake.

  93. 93.

    Kayla Rudbek

    @Elizabelle:

     

    @Nukular Biskits:

    it’s always a balance between “feed the poor and homeless” and “sponsor the arts”, although many artists are poor and would prefer to be paid for their work instead of being on the dole. It’s a better use of money than just having it sit in some rich man’s bank account

  94. 94.

    Geminid

    @PaulWartenberg: The larger US/Turkiye problem is in the northeast, where the U.S. has supported the Kurdish YPG militia as part of our efforts against ISIS. The Turks have long complained that the YPG is just a rebranded branch of the PKK with which they have fought a 40 year long war, which the YPG in fact is.

    Fortunately the Turkish military has not come into direct conflict with the ~800 soldier Army mission we maintain there. The effectiveness of our “deconfliction” Iin NE Syria is likely due to our two militaries’ long experience working together as NATO partners, with some luck thrown in.

  95. 95.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @narya: Speaking of trees, I saw a documentary about the restoration while it was in process that talked about how the oak beams came from special forests that were planted centuries ago in order to grow the necessary replacements, even though planters didn’t know exactly when they’d be needed. Some of the trees were even trained to grow in specific curved shapes to create parts without needing joints. Impressive foresight.

  99. 99.

    Elizabelle

    @Geminid:  I was living in California during that Virginia earthquake.

    When I returned to NoVA a few years later, I opened the medicine chest in my mother’s house “kids’ bathroom” and some items almost fell out.

    Had not known about the damage to National Cathedral.  Interesting.

  100. 100.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @YY_Sima Qian:

    Shorter Eloy: “Well, if AI can be used to deny everyone’s healthcare claims so they end up dying a slow, miserable death, why not use it to just take people out in a nanosecond? Seems more humane, really,and we won’t have to pay so many Federal Employees or Military bodies to do it so hey, America wins! MAGA-DOGE!!!”

  101. 101.

    Fair Economist

    @PaulWartenberg: That’s a good idea, but the biggest faction right now is the Al-Qaida adjacent Idlib group, and while they have gotten support from the Turks, they don’t answer to them. The Turkish group, the Syrian National Army, is just in the very north and not a particularly big player. It mostly exists just to attack the Kurds.

    Further complicating things is that Damascus is falling as we post* to an apparently spontaneous rebellion in the south and that will be yet another power group. Or, more likely, groups.

    *Demonstrations in Damascus, a statue down in the Damascus suburbs, regime troops abandoning posts *in Damascus*, etc. Driven by rebels who came from apparently nowhere to take most of the country south of Damascus in ONE DAY.

    House falling in, indeed.

  102. 102.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @YY_Sima Qian:

    To me, this is a pretty clear sign that global leadership is very unmeritocratic. To a first order, going to an elite college is a function of choices made by kids’ parents, not the kids themselves. Talented parents may have more talented kids, but there’s no way the talent distribution is this skewed given mean reversion across generations.

    I don’t remember the exact numbers, but Harvard also has a large number of legacy admissions, and a study showed that the majority of those wouldn’t have been admitted on their own merits.

  103. 103.

    Elizabelle

    Yesterday, Leto put up two interesting articles from Smithsonian magazine.

    How to Rebuild Notre-Dame Using 12th-Century Tools
    In Washington, D.C., an innovative team of designers demonstrated how medieval techniques could be used to repair the Parisian landmark

    Plans to Modernize Notre-Dame’s Stained-Glass Windows Move Ahead Despite Heritage Experts’ Rejection
    The French Ministry of Culture has selected eight finalists to design replacement windows for the celebrated cathedral—and not everyone is happy

  106. 106.

    Geminid

    @Fair Economist: The Free Syrian Army in the north is primarily interested in attacking the PKK and its YPG affiliate. A lot of people say that’s the same as attacking “the Kurds,” but this is not neccesarily so.

    We’ll see what happens in Manbij, a city of 100,000 northeast of Aleppo. The FSA is moving on Manbij, which is controlled by the YPG. The YPG will either stand and fight or more likely, withdraw east of the Euphrates. Then the FSA will be in control of a largely Kurdish population.

  108. 108.

    NotMax

    @Elizabelle

    Coca-Cola probably would have provided more modern windows gratis.

    “Look in the corner of that one. Judas is clearly drinking Pepsi!”
    //

  110. 110.

    RevRick

    @Nukular Biskits: What is the value of art? What is the value of beauty?
    It took 182 years to build, which meant generations lived and died from the laying of the cornerstone in 1163 until its completion in 1345. Masons and woodworkers and glaziers spent their lives laboring on it and most never saw the final product. It’s a grand edifice seeking to express a grand faith in a material way.
    Of course there are plenty of mundane and life-giving things that could have been done with all those euros, but the Christmas tree in my living room is, in proportion, even more frivolous an expenditure. But it brings beauty to my home.

    And…and it provided employment to its designers, its assemblers, its shippers. So imagine how all those who labored on Notre Dame’s reconstruction must feel.

  111. 111.

    RevRick

    @cmorenc: Sweaty bodies were the least of the issues. People were buried underneath the very feet of the worshippers. Most cathedrals had slate floors with a little notch in one end for a hook to lift up the slab. When bodies had thoroughly decayed, the bones were disinterred and moved into an ossuary/charnel house, and a new body was interred in its place. The only exception was for burials under the altar which was reserved for high clerics or wealthy patrons. The people of the Middle Ages took quite literally the affirmation in the creed about Communion with the saints.

  112. 112.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @RevRick: Sweaty bodies wouldn’t be as a bad as mist modern people would think.  People did bathe in the Middle Ages.  Not as often as we do, but not anywhere near as seldom as popular culture would suggest.

  115. 115.

    Tehanu

    In June 1969 I was a member of the UCLA A Cappella Choir under Roger Wagner, and we did a month-long European tour, 14 concerts in 7 countries.  On one of our days off we went sight-seeing as a group to Notre Dame de Paris which was jammed full of tourists, including us of course.  We were standing in one of the side chapels, and we were all so moved and thrilled by the place that, very very softly, we sang a brief medieval Ave Maria that was part of our show.  I’ll never forget it.

  116. 116.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Sister Golden Bear: Not just Harvard. I think all Ivies reserve something like a 3rd of admission slots for legacies. The competition for legacy slots is still intense, but nothing like that for the “meritocratic” slots. Unless, of course, if you have a big donor for a parent, then it’s a shoo in.

  117. 117.

    JustRuss

    Wowz.  I visited Notre Dame 40 years ago, and yes, it was very gloomy per the “before” pictures.  Was in Paris a few weeks ago, just missed the chance to see the reopening.  Oh well, next time.

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