All Purls. No Swine.
I’m grateful to the Ricochet member who–in a comment on a main feed thread about something else–drew my attention to this Public Service Announcement by a bunch of soi-disant celebrities,** just eight years ago. Thank you: https://youtu.be/e1zjNntlXPo I’m still not exactly sure what they’re advocating for. Oh, wait. Yes, I am sure. They're advocating for the… Continue reading The Purpose of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact
My subject is War and the pity of War. The poetry is in the pity"--Wilfred Owen Wilfred Edward Salter Owen, beloved son, accomplished poet, and soldier of The Great War, was born on March 18, 1893 in Oswestry, a Welsh border town, in the county of Shropshire. Readers of Ellis Peters's Brother Cadfael chronicles, or… Continue reading “He is all blood, dirt, and sucked sugar-stick”–Revisiting William Butler Yeats vs Wilfred Owen
Somehow (I’m still not quite sure how), a long-ago conversation with a friend turned to the topic of Oscar Wilde. You know, the guy who said “I can resist anything except temptation,” and “A man’s face is his autobiography. A woman’s face is her work of fiction.” That Oscar Wilde. But the quote that my friend… Continue reading Oscar Wilde on What Suffering Teaches Us
A few years ago, I wrote a post with this same title, recounting an experience from a few years before that. What follows is a shorter version of the original, and my conclusion--which hasn't changed; perhaps it's getting more emphatic with time--that we should be careful when sharing our "talent, time and treasure" with those… Continue reading Here Be Dragons . . . The Perils of Volunteering in Cyberspace
OK, let's acknowledge first of all that I might be--as the lawyers say--making an "admission against interest"--but I'd like to recognize the fact that Francis Scott Key, the author of the lyrics to the Star-Spangled Banner, was born 245 years ago today, on August 1, 1779. (Check the math, please; it's never my strongest point.)… Continue reading Happy Birthday, Francis Scott Key!
A post today on Ricochet references one of my favorite authors, and one of his comments on Hell. The author is C.S. Lewis, and the quote (from The Screwtape Letters) is We must picture Hell as a state where everyone is perpetually concerned about his own dignity and advancement, where everyone has a grievance, and… Continue reading “The Doors of Hell Are Locked On the Inside“
Today, I claim executive privilege and repost with considerable emendations, one from the past. It's a personal anniversary, my sixth--in wedding anniversary terms that would be "iron"-- and I'm in a bit of a reflective mood: I don't think any of my sentiments have changed in the intervening years. I haven't been to any "far… Continue reading Far Away Places–2024
https://youtu.be/HlHMQEegpFs That's the verse he always began with. Not the one which includes the startling facts that "We didn't want to cover the story because we were scared that it might have proven Donald Trump and his repugnant MAGA supporters correct." No. On this website, it will always be the story that celebrates "heroes." Here's… Continue reading Happy Birthday, USA!
The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference; for at a minimum, to love or hate someone is to have intense emotions toward them.--Elie Wiesel He would know. Elie Wiesel was a Holocaust victim who survived imprisonment in Auschwitz and Buchenwald before the latter camp was liberated by the the US Army in April,… Continue reading Quote of the Day: Elie Wiesel on Love, Hate, and Indifference
A few years ago, I wrote a post on "The Great American Novel." What follows, on this, just the eighty-eighth anniversary of the publication of Margaret Mitchell's Gone With The Wind (what a very young country is this United States), is a lightly edited version of that post, and a few remarks on why we… Continue reading From Gone With the Wind to China Beach, The “N-Word” in Popular Culture