‘Springtime of Renewal in Serbia, but What of Dixie?’

 

The European Christian country of Serbia may be considered something of a sister of Dixie’s.  Both peoples have followed similar paths:  After attaining a solid Christian identity and unity, both faced an horrible cataclysm:  The Serbs were conquered by the Muslim Turks in the 14^th century and remained their vassals until the 19^th century; the South was subjugated to the Yankees in the 19^th century and remain under their yoke to this day.  Some of the figures of both countries are also strikingly similar, such as Prince Lazar the Great-Martyr of Serbia and General Stonewall Jackson of Virginia – about all of which we have written in more detail elsewhere.

Given this special kinship between the two peoples, we see something hopeful developing.  There is a renewed appreciation and embrace of the past being kindled in the souls of the Serbs.  They are pouring into Kosovo, the primordial cultural/spiritual heartland of Serbia, despite the fact that Kosovo is under threat from various foes.

There is a profound yearning to be rejoined to their roots.  A student at the University of Belgrade described this yearning in his own words:

‘As soon as you turn west towards Kosovo from the highway connecting Belgrade and Thessaloniki, you begin to realize that you are entering another reality, a completely different dimension. You arrive in Visoki Dečani and you feel that you time-travelled several centuries back—time runs differently there. Or take Prizren—sure, it has practically no Serbs living there anymore, but you have this gut feeling that the town is still ours, it is Orthodox, it is Serbian! You cannot describe this feeling with words—I think you can only experience it once you are in Kosovo and Metohija. On the one hand, I feel ashamed, but on the other hand, it is also surprising and brings joy. It is only when I’m here that I realize I am a Serb and an Orthodox Christian. I go back to my people and I begin to understand what the Church, its priesthood, and monasticism mean to me. The genuine, heartfelt hospitality, the embraces, the joyful gratitude that we still remember, the stories about life of the recent past and what is going on there now… I am convinced that every Serb, if he thinks of himself as such, simply must visit Dečani, the Patriarchate of Pec, and Gračanica—at least once! And experience has shown that if you have ever visited Kosovo and Metohija once, you will always long to return to our holy places’ (Maria Vasic, ‘How Pilgrims Bring Back Hope: Notes from Kosovo and Metohija,’ orthochristian.com).

Hospitality?  Embraces?  Again, quite Southern.

There is anecdotal evidence that Dixie is seeing some resurgence of interest in her old ways:  increased attendance at (misnamed) Civil War reenactments, for instance.  But our people still seem too beguiled by the flashy materialism of Yankee America and the pseudo-sacred Philadelphia charter of 1787 to reclaim in full our patrimony.  We have become, to say it differently, too enamored with comfort.  Richard Weaver and some of the other Southern Agrarians (see, e. g., ‘The Life and Death of Cousin Lucius’ by John Donald Wade in I’ll Take My Stand) tried to remind us that the poverty of our forefathers was a shield protecting us from spiritual and cultural enervation.  We have failed to listen.  For the Serbs in Kosovo, however, suffering and struggle remain everyday realities, and it is enlivening them as it once did us:

 . . .

The rest is at https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/springtime-of-renewal-in-serbia-but-what-of-dixie/.

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!

‘More Solar and Wind Power Brings Increased Risk of Blackouts’

 

On Monday, 28 April [2025], Spain and Portugal suffered a crippling blackout.  What was the cause?

A maniacal, bare-chested Vladimir Putin, swimming underwater with a knife between his teeth, cutting ocean floor power cables?  No, it was not.

The psychotic pair of Donald Trump and J. D. Vance tossing anti-NATO hand grenades onto the power grid from a prototype F-47?  No, it was not.

Who is the culprit, then?

It is in fact the green energy promoting, climate saving crusaders of Spain.  Their replacement of electricity generation from hydrocarbon and nuclear plants with solar and wind generation has made the electricity grid unstable:

‘The inability of Spain’s electricity grid to manage an unusually high supply of solar power was a key factor in Monday’s catastrophic blackout, former regulators and experts have said.

‘About 55 per cent of Spain’s supply was from solar sources when 15GW of electricity generation disconnected from the grid within just five seconds on Monday afternoon, triggering a wide-ranging shutdown of power systems in Spain and Portugal.

‘Several European experts said that Spain appeared to lack enough firm power — readily available, reliable energy supply from sources such as fossil fuels or nuclear that can be reduced or raised — to kick in when the grid’s frequency dropped sharply at 12.33pm on Monday. Frequency, the rate at which electrical current alternates, must be kept stable for the grid to function.

‘ . . . André Merlin, the founder and former chief executive of France’s grid operator RTE, told the Financial Times: “Two-thirds of [Spain’s electricity] production was made up of non-controllable resources. These non-controllable resources . . . don’t contribute to the stability of the internal electrical system.”

‘ . . . Grid operators must constantly balance supply and demand of electricity to keep the frequency of the grid stable, and avoid damaging equipment or outages. This stability is easier to achieve with turbines powered by fossil fuels, hydroelectric or nuclear energy than with renewable technologies such as solar. Spain’s grid frequency dropped sharply below the optimal 50Hz rate at 12.33pm on Monday.

‘The reliance on solar energy at the time of the outage has led to criticisms of Red Eléctrica. Normally about a fifth of the country’s supply comes from solar power.

‘Sanz, a former adviser on the energy transition to the Spanish government, said that there was “poor management” of the grid, by not having enough nuclear, hydroelectric or fossil fuel energy scheduled to balance the system. Of the scheduled 26GW of electricity supply on Monday, just 5GW came from non-intermittent sources.

‘The Brussels-based adviser pointed to Red Eléctrica’s own 2024 annual report, which said that disconnections caused by “high renewable penetration” without enough “necessary technical capabilities for an adequate response to disturbances” was a risk to the system’ (Alice Hancock, Ian Johnston, Financial Times, ‘Spain and Portugal blackout blamed on solar power dependency,’ archive.is).

Like all fervent ideologues, however, the Spanish greens are loathe to admit that their faith is false:

‘Spanish grid operator Red Eléctrica has said that it still does not know the exact cause of the outage. Chief executive Beatriz Corredor denied that renewables “made the system more vulnerable” in an interview with El País on Wednesday.

‘ . . . But she [Corredor] launched a stern defence of Spain’s renewable systems and pointed to unreliability of other energy sources, including nuclear. “[Renewables] are not insecure technologies. The proof is that the system operates with renewables every day . . . It’s not true that higher penetration of renewables has made the system more vulnerable” (Ibid.).

With such a stark warning staring us squarely in the face, surely Louisiana and her neighbors in Dixie would refuse to build massive solar and wind farms to generate electricity for homes, churches, businesses, etc., . . . right?

Wrong.

Morehouse Parish in Louisiana is running headlong into that ditch:

 . . .

The rest is at https://thehayride.com/2025/05/garlington-more-solar-and-wind-power-brings-increased-risk-of-blackouts/.

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!

‘New Voyages of Saint Brendan the Navigator’

 

As a fervent preacher of the Gospel of Christ,

You in your little oxhide ship sailed to many lands,

Near and far, known and unknown, seen and hidden,

Adorning them with the beauty of God’s Grace

And receiving for yourself blessèd visions

And other delights – a foretaste of Paradise.

 

Passing to the next life, you entered

That Primordial Garden of the world

At the behest of God.  He has granted you now

A wider sea to sail, the whole expanse of the heavens,

In a dazzling hollow half-sphere pearl trimmed with gossamer gold

And carried through the air by four radiant angels –

 

High above the ancient peaks of the mountains

And the twisting crowns of the eldest trees,

Through the clouds of many hues, rose, bronze, and milky white,

Through the fields of brightly shining stars

 . . .

The rest is at https://www.newenglishreview.org/articles/new-voyages-of-saint-brendan-the-navigator/.

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!

‘There Is No Demos without a Crowned Monos’

 

Mick Hume, chief editor of The European Conservative, has been very much exercised recently over the restoration of the unique identity of Europe’s nations, as opposed to their absorption into a bland, borderless, tradition-hating European superstate.  That is to his credit, but it is unhelpful that he links this project with an ideological faith in democracy:

‘Amid all the confusion and uncertainty about Donald Trump, trade tariffs, and the prospects for peace in Ukraine, one thing should be clear: the “End of History” dreamworld of the globalist elites is itself coming to an end. Their fantasy of a peaceful, prosperous borderless world order run by bureaucrats and bankers has been brutally exposed. 

‘Instead we live, as I wrote here last month, in “a new world of nation states.” Democratic nations now have to wake up and defend the interests of their people in turbulent times’ (‘Nationalism Should No Longer Be a Dirty Word,’ europeanconservative.com).

He is not wrong when he says, ‘The anti-nationalism and anti-populism of the EU elites is all about their fear and loathing of the demos.’

But the hatred of the liberal/globalist oligarchs for the people and their age-old, ‘regressive’ customs and traditions, and their efforts to obliterate the latter, are not overcome simply by implementing democratic government, something he implies when he states,

‘A revived attachment to the nation can offer a safe home for the masses cut adrift from their roots by the politics of the globalist elites. More than that, national consciousness and the defence of national sovereignty give people the chance to take democratic control of their destiny.

‘The nation-state, let us always remember, is the only model on which democracy has been proven to work; any talk of “Europe-wide democracy” or “global democracy” is merely a cover for rule by the unrepresentative bureaucracies of the United Nations, World Health Organisation or European Commission.’

For, echoing St Gregory the Theologian (+4^th century), government by a multiplicity of people, whether the many (democracy) or by the few (aristocracy), necessarily creates disharmony, which ‘is the first step to dissolution’ (Oration XXIX, II).

There are ways to manage this disharmony, to make it less damaging to the nation.  One of Dixie’s best statesmen, John C. Calhoun, recommended the concurrent majority, allowing each of the distinct interest groups in a country to have both representation and veto power within the government, as a means to protect minorities from encroachments by the majority and to encourage unanimity in decision-making, so that the common good can be served:

‘Calhoun’s political concepts are still relevant. By creating a foundation for theories such as concurrent majority or nullification, Calhoun points to solutions. On the issue of the fundamental role of the veto, Calhoun seemed to be principled. As historian Charles M. Wiltse says: The concurrent majority is the negative of each interest on all the others – call it veto, check, nullification, or what you will – that makes possible resistance to the abuse of power. Without an effective negative, and this is the only effective one, there can be no constitution at all’ (Karol Mazur, ‘Calhoun’s Lesson for Europe,’ abbevilleinstitute.org).

We certainly agree with that.  But we also urge caution.  For this is the danger of our time, is it not? – to believe that some act of government, some constitutional change or some law, or some scientific advancement – something external to man – will solve our most pressing problems, whether Mr Hume’s democracy, Calhoun’s concurrent majority, and so forth and so along.

It is not so.  National healing, reform, etc., have much more to do with man’s internal life than with his external conditions.  The latter do matter, but not to the degree that we are led to believe they do.  The spiritual, the theological, must therefore be addressed as well.

We made a small step in that direction with St Gregory’s Oration.  We will now continue in that vein.  St Gregory follows the quotation given above by stating the Orthodox Church’s preference for monarchy (he is speaking about relations within the Godhead, but they are just as applicable to mankind, for we are made in the image and likeness of God).  Rule by a single will promotes unity; it keeps discord from bringing the nation to ruin.  There will always be a multitude of cities, corporations, families, etc., in any given country, but the king helps harmonize those many voices.

Furthermore, monarchy is one of the keys to the continued existence of the demos/ethnos.  The king is an icon of the people, the living image of all their traditions and all their history.  If he disappears, their identity is struck a terrible blow.  An example:

 . . .

The rest is at https://www.geopolitika.ru/en/article/there-no-demos-without-crowned-monos.

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!