All Purls. No Swine.
And I’m just saying, you know, if I were Osama bin Laden–he’s a very smart guy, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about him–and I nearly got him once. I nearly got him. And I could have killed him, but I would have to destroy a little town called Kandahar in Afghanistan and kill… Continue reading September 10, 2001
I think back on my early childhood sometimes, and regard it as something of a miracle that I survived to adolescence, let alone adulthood. No child car seats. No seat belts. In fact, my fondest childhood "car" memory is of sitting on the front bench seat next to my Daddy, at about the age of… Continue reading Cautionary Tales, Both Imaginary and Real
Dateline, The English Midlands, January 2002: Even as I write this last chapter, a thirty-five year old mother of five has been put under sentence of death by stoning in Sokoto, because two years after she was divorced by her husband, she gave birth to a baby daughter. Had she sought to remarry, she would… Continue reading The House of Delusion
I am a part of all that I have met; Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’ Gleams that untravell’d world whose margin fades For ever and forever when I move. How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!–Tennyson, Ulysses I don’t often think of… Continue reading “I am a part of all that I have met”
We have an audio quote today, which occurs at the start of this short clip from White Shadows in the South Seas, MGM's first movie with a pre-recorded soundtrack, and the one in which Leo, the MGM Lion, roared for the first time. Here he is on July 31, 1928, speaking for himself: https://youtu.be/6pIfgwAlv0c There… Continue reading Quote of the Day: Leo the Lion
When a friend calls to me from the road And slows his horse to a meaning walk, I don’t stand still and look around On all the hills I haven’t hoed, And shout from where I am, What is it? No, not as there is a time to talk. I thrust my hoe in the… Continue reading A Time To Talk
Yeah. No. (As he, himself, might say.) From Wiktionary: Verb: embrace the suck: 1)--military, slang--To consciously accept or appreciate something that is extremely unpleasant but unavoidable. For your sake, dear man, I'm trying. And I'm halfway there. I won't, won't, won't, embrace it. But it does bloody suck. Pretty sure that's the best I can… Continue reading Military Quote of the Day: Embrace the Suck
Those of you who can legitimize the quote mentioned in the title (which is supposed to come from Plato’s Meno), please have at it. I can’t authenticate it. However, the spirit of “bequeathment” is entirely appropriate for what I’m about to say, so I’m going with it. “Pity. Pity he never had any children.” And… Continue reading Bequeathing a Spirit of Reverence
Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness,… Continue reading Book Recommendation: Corelli’s Mandolin
A few months ago, on the occasion of 2021's Easter Sunday, I wrote a Ricochet post called "First Easter," in which I reflected on the fact that, following the death of a loved one, there's an inevitable year, 365 days, of "firsts." It begins thus: I learned, many years ago, that when a loved one… Continue reading The Last “First”