My darling Auntie Pat died at the age of 99, in December of 2022. Prior to that time, she'd been the focus of several posts I've written, both here and on Ricochet. This particular one came about on the 75th anniversary of D-Day, on June 6, 2019, a time in which Donald Trump was the… Continue reading D-Day +81: Spent With Auntie Pat, of Blessed Memory
The Virtues of Unpredictability
I don't know about you, but I've always thought that, when it comes to opinions and the immensity of options associated with them, "predictability" quickly becomes a buzzkill. That person who can be counted upon to exhibit signs of TDS, and to return the matter under discussion to "Trump," no matter the post, the topic,… Continue reading The Virtues of Unpredictability
Double Vision
I cannot distinguish a letter even of large print; but am happy in the invention of double spectacles, which serving for distant objects as well as near ones, make my eyes as useful to me as ever they were: If all the other defects and infirmities were as easily and cheaply remedied, it would be… Continue reading Double Vision
A Walk Down Memory Lane: And the “Empathy” Myth
Axios has obtained and released lengthy excerpts from the audio recordings of Joe Biden’s October 2023 testimony before Special Counsel Robert Hur. Here’s just one: https://youtu.be/ugM76taxz2E And there, you have it. A focused, direct, 20-second's worth of question followed by over four minutes of painful, incoherent, and irrelevant rambling. Eventually, as Biden winds down to his… Continue reading A Walk Down Memory Lane: And the “Empathy” Myth
V-E Day +80
Much has changed since I first posted about this on Ricochet, on May 8, 2017. Auntie Pat is no longer with us, having passed on at the age of 99 in December, 2022. Queen Elizabeth is gone too, and the country awaits “The King’s Speech” at 9 o’clock this evening, the same time at which… Continue reading V-E Day +80
The Fall of Saigon
It took place 50 years ago today. I was twenty years old, and in college. I don't pretend to an exhaustive understanding of the history, but I remember it as the end of the Vietnam War, and as what has become, in the popular understanding, the largely undeserved disgrace of the United States. I knew… Continue reading The Fall of Saigon
A Missed Opportunity: W.H. Auden and the Lyrics of Man of La Mancha
409 years ago this month, we observe the anniversary of the death of Miguel de Cervantes, on April 22, 1616. Cervantes' greatest creation, Don Quixote, a lower-class (dare I say deplorable?) fellow who was driven to fantasies of heroism due to his mid-life immersion in, and obsession with, works of knightly valor, remains the most… Continue reading A Missed Opportunity: W.H. Auden and the Lyrics of Man of La Mancha
Easter 2025: On Silk Purses, Sow’s Ears, and Horse’s Asses
Mostly a reposting, from last year. Time marches on, but the message (if you're sane) doesn't change: My maternal Great Granny was a fearsome old bat. She was born in 1869, just four short years after the US Civil War ended and Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. She died a few months before Neil Armstrong walked… Continue reading Easter 2025: On Silk Purses, Sow’s Ears, and Horse’s Asses
Wisdom from My Granny, 2025
Happy 127th birthday, darling Granny. (Some lightly-edited content from a few years ago, together with some more recent and raw reflections): I had my last conversation with Granny (my mother’s mother) not too long before she died. She was in her late-eighties at the time, almost bedridden from the terrible arthritis that had plagued her… Continue reading Wisdom from My Granny, 2025
It’s National “Hug A Rat Catcher Day!”
Well, no, actually, it isn't. But the following post, which was first published quite a few years ago on Ricochet, seems germane again, given the situation in the city of my birth, which would be Birmingham, (historically--at least in part) Warwickshire, The United Kingdom. Lord. There hasn't been a "bin" (garbage) collection in Britain's second… Continue reading It’s National “Hug A Rat Catcher Day!”