All Purls. No Swine.
Longfellow called it "Retribution" Though the mills of God grind slowly, Yet they grind exceeding small; Though with patience he stands waiting, With exactness grinds he all. I've seen this play out more times than can could possibly be accounted for by chance. As someone else--Thomas Fuller, maybe--said: As virtue is its own reward, so… Continue reading On Karma
Railroad rivalries played a significant role in nineteenth-century US history. No rivalry was as intense or bitter as the one between the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, and the Denver and Rio Grande railroads. At times it erupted into actual gunfire. From the River to the Sea: The Untold Story of the Railroad War That… Continue reading Book Review By Seawriter: From The River To The Sea–A Tale of a Real Shooting Railroad War
Into each life, some rain must fall. But not into ours. Our lives are where the garbage is delivered. — Jenny Today (June 10) is Jenny's birthday. And so I repost this, in her honor, and that of the occasion. Ever have one of those days, weeks, months, years, decades, when it seems as though… Continue reading Family Matters: On Life’s Vicissitudes
Ever have one of those days? When you feel besieged on all sides? When you wish you could just pull up the drawbridge and lower the portcullis? I do. Telemarketers trying to sell me an extended warranty on an ancient car that never belonged to me, but which I took to get new tires and… Continue reading A Musical Interlude: N[entirely]SFW
Telegraph breaking news: Queen becomes latest victim of cancel culture as portrait is removed from Oxford college. The Queen has become the latest victim of cancel culture after students at an Oxford College voted to remove her portrait. The Queen’s likeness hung in the middle common room (MCR) of Magdalen College, which has a long association with members of… Continue reading There’s A Reason It’s Pronounced “Maudlin”
Rear Admiral Terrence Murphy is the son of a famous admiral who died winning a critical battle in a decades-long war between the Terran Federation and the Terran League. Recently, Terrence Murphy won his own battle. That minor success does not erase his reputation as a clothes horse and a fop, but it is enough… Continue reading Book Review by Seawriter: An Unconventional Admiral in a Critical Assignment–Governor, by Weber & Fox
This post is two years old--from June 6, 2019, but the sentiments, and the gratitude, to all those who served in the Allied armed forces, and to all those who endured the "miserable slog" on the home front--never grow old. Thank you. (Auntie Pat will be 98 years old next month; may she live forever.)… Continue reading Auntie Pat Weighs In On the 75th Anniversary of Operation Overlord–Two Years On
Here's Dame Vera Lynn performing aboard the QE2, in the English Channel, commemorating the 40th anniversary of Operation Overlord. What a different time. What a different world. The Forces Sweetheart made it well into the twenty-first century, dying at the age of 103, on June 18, 2020. But here she is, herself at the age… Continue reading D-Day Plus Seventy-Seven
The title of today's post, Kap He Chom Khrueang Khao Wan, means, in English, "A Procession Poem Admiring Sweet and Savory Dishes," and refers to a poem written by Siam's (now known as Thailand) Prince Itsarasunthon--later King Rama II--in 1800. The opening stanza, translated by Heather Arndt Anderson, goes like this: Massaman, a curry made… Continue reading Kap He Chom Khrueang Khao Wan–กาพย์เห่ชมเครื่องคาวหวาน
During the decades humans first reached outer space, they were also reaching for the ocean’s uttermost depths. They even managed to reach those depths before placing a man in orbit. Opening the Great Depths: The Bathyscaph Trieste and Pioneers of Undersea Exploration, by Norman Polmar and Lee J. Mathers tells that story. It is a… Continue reading Book Review By Seawriter: To the Uttermost Depths and Back