A Christmas story as told to Chad Rayson. Mr. Rayson sketched this story out some some six or seven years ago, but, when the first draft aroused no interest in the few readers he showed it to, he shelved it and forgot all about it until his memory was triggered by the mention of Sam McGee.
I received from Robert Peters this Christmas gift: a newly discovered Christmas poem by J.R.R. Tolkien, which I am sharing with our readers.
How many remember this nonsensical masterpiece by Walt Kelley?
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
Wisdom comes from knowledge which comes from painfully acquired information about reality—facts. Since, as you say, you have little knowledge of the current political scene and even less of history, your concerns do not really involve rational thought but are a reflection of depression, and unfortunately, this is a mental condition that leads the sufferer to be happy to see, as the French say, “tout en noir”, all in black.
The End-of-the Worlders are going from handwringing over a possibly stolen election–please don’t tell me you know it is stolen in fact because you don’t know anything of the kind–to declaring the death of the American republic. It’s the worst sort of ditto-head approach to politics. It begins by saying, “Say, this is about the best damn country that has ever existed” and go on in the vein of Babbit’s speech to the Zenith Booster Club.
The end of the Ajax is a rhetorical battle over the corpse of Ajax, and, though it is a war of words, it is no less serious than the Homeric conflicts over the battle and armour of a fallen hero. The basic antagonists are three: Teucer, the two Atridae (who make much the same argument, though Agamemnon is more reasonable, perhaps because he is dealing with Odysseus), and Odysseus. Rather than summarize the scene, I’d like to leave it up to the readers to give their response to the following questions: First, what is the nub of each set of...
Thanksgiving and Christmas are the one time of the year we are supposed to get together with our extended family. These days, family dinners have become a gesture of defiance.
But when ye shall hear of wars and commotions, be not terrified: for these things must first come to pass; but the end is not by and by. Then said he unto them, Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven. But before all these, they shall lay their hands on you, and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues, and into prisons, being brought before kings and rulers for my name’s sake. Luke 21 ...
Karl Keating, the wise founder of Catholic Answers, has put up a post saying it is time for Trump supporters to wise up, take their medicine, and acknowledge Biden as “my President.” His argument, as one would expect from such a man, makes good sense. Of course the Democrats cheated, just as the Republicans cheated. Both sides always cheat, and they have rigged the system to be a strictly two-party system in which the two gangs of scoundrels will take turns grabbing the boodle. I am not happy with the outcome, but if the Democrats are better at playing the...
