Rex Scott

Rex Scott

7 Responses

  1. Dom says:

    I could not dig: I dared not rob:
    Therefore I lied to please the mob.
    Now all my lies are proved untrue
    And I must face the men I slew.
    What tale shall serve me here among
    Mine angry and defrauded young?

  2. Michael Strenk says:

    Back in action and right over the target! Great podcast.

  3. Michael Strenk says:

    Source Dom?

  4. Dom says:

    Mr. Strenk,
    A Dead Statesman from Kipling’s Epitaphs of the War.

  5. Michael Strenk says:

    Thanks Dom. Time to start reading and re-reading Kipling again. Great quote and very appropriate. There’s nothing new under the sun.

  6. Dom says:

    Mr. Strenk,
    Very refreshing. Similar, but in a different context, to a hired fist choking down a gorilla.

  7. Dom says:

    Dr. Fleming once said something like those who die needlessly, while doing their duty, hopefully did not live in vain (or at least that was my understanding at the time. I’m going off memory.).
    This approach is more comforting and keeping with the dignity of the person and should be simple and obvious, but it wasn’t to me. Judging by how often I have heard “died in vain”, I suspect it is not obvious to many. Does that indicate something wrong with society – that we obsess over the death rather than the life? Maybe it is just a natural human tendency to do so.
    Either way we are judged by our lives, so maybe our deaths don’t matter much to begin with. Not in a temporal sense, at least, but with the possible exception of condemned criminals. Even laying down one’s life for a friend is a final act of life.

    Then there is the practical side: cries of “They shall not have lived in vain!” wouldn’t inspire anyone to throw more lives at a thing.