Bird-Brained Poems
The west was getting out of gold,
The breath of air had died of cold,
When shoeing home across the white,
I thought I saw a bird alight.
Category: Free Content
Ajax: The Suicide
The Chorus, who have been obtuse throughout the play, have misunderstood Ajax’s parting words as a change of heart instead of a rueful admission that he misjudged the world he has lived in. The drama becomes more intense, when a messenger comes in to report on Teucer’s hostile reception in the Greek camp, and on the instructions he had received from Calchas the prophet NOT to let Ajax out of his hut.
What Are the Classics? Conclusion
For several decades I have plagued teachers and school principals with a few basic questions, without finding anyone of them who could give a reasonable answer. Until these questions are seriously addressed, there can be no significant improvement in education. It is not as if they are trick questions. They are the kind of queries that would be made of any human activity that absorbs to much time, energy, and resources.
2020: The Best Year of Our Lives
Perhaps it is only now, towards the end of 2020, that some of us are beginning to see this year as the best one in recent memory, perhaps in our entire lives. But that’s only possible if you’ve really been reflecting on what is truly going on this year and you’ve taken the time to diligently compare perception with reality.
What Are the Classics and Why Should We Read Them”
We live in a culture gone mad on theory: theories of sex and family, theories of government, and, inevitably, theories of education. A debate has raged for centuries over “the future of education.” Early American liberals like Noah Webster insisted that a democratic society needed a suitable educational system, divorced from the classical tradition that encouraged aristocracy and elitism.
Down With Polling!
“Pollsters always lie, as we know, but apart from that, polling should be a major felony because it is based on the degrading fallacy that it is important to know what people want and that political–therefore social and moral–questions can be treated as a popularity contest.”
Ajax 430-595 End of First Episode
In this passage, dialogue between Ajax and Tecmessa, Ajax and the Chorus, Ajax and Eurysaces, the embittered hero sticks to his decision to kill himself, despite the appeals of his “wife”—she may as well be—son, and followers, all of whom depend on him. It is a bit like the Book of Job, except these are Greeks, for whom friendship—which includes kinship—is a primary moral quality.
The Strange Career of Donald Trump
It is reported that Donald Trump, while his supporters were having the “million man march” in Washington, rode in his armoured car to play golf. What would a man and a real leader have done? He would have gone out among the people who were making an effort and putting something on the line for him. And he would have made his sissy son-in-law go with him and meet some real Americans. And he would have made sure, with military police or whatever could be used, that his supporters were not beaten up by the thugs of antifa and BLM.
What Now?
It seems likely that, one way or another, Biden and his handlers will invade and occupy the Executive Mansion in January. That will only be symbolic since they already possess most of the Executive branch of government. Conservative commentators, always wishful thinkers, are now telling us that it won’t be too bad—after all, Biden is weak and the Republicans have the Senate.
Thud, Mud & MacIntyre–a geriatric adventure, by Frank DeRienzo
Two weeks ago on Saturday near my residence in coastal Georgia, I spent an uneventful early morning sitting uncomfortably in a deer stand in a fruitless endeavor to be a murderer. Undaunted, I switched to fishing and launched into the intercoastal tidal river in my kayak at low ebb to try a fishing spot where the rapid outgoing tidal flow temporarily exposes an intermittent island near a bridge.
