Category: Free Content

The other night I had a long and tortuous Corona-inspired dream. I had finally managed to get out of Illinois and the good old USA. I was in Paris at some kind of event or function I had helped organize, but it was in a strange part of Paris that looked more like Chicago or Minneapolis. It was one of those boring “procedural” dreams where you find yourself in the wrong room and cannot seem to locate the correct floor, and when you do, your number is nowhere to be found. Miraculously, I got everything straightened out, and it was...

Ella Fitzgerald, Marcus Aurelius, Draza Mihajlovic, Prokofiev, Willie Nelson, John Crowe Ransom

What is perhaps most significant about Daniel Webster is that – like every other remotely interesting figure – he lies beyond the pale of acceptable discourse. 

I wanted to ask Mr. Chiaroscuro about some of the tricks he had used to propel faceless nonentities into the Senate and up to the White House.

Jeremy Chiaroscuro is one of the most important men in American politics.  Not that he is a politician.  Jeremy wants to be a puppet master and not one of the puppets whose only qualification is an insipid face and a case of hairspray.  Like his one-time rival Carl Rogue, he was a protégé of the legendary Grant Blackpool, who until his premature death pioneered the science of hardball politicking.

One of the advantages of any “crisis,” (real or manufactured, grave or embellished) is that we get to observe how it is handled by various people and institutions. As Covid Craziness continues to engulf our society while our fearless leaders attack it one press conference at a time, Christians should examine how the Church is responding.

Although we moderns look at questions of inheritance largely in economic terms, Jews, Greeks, and Romans were also interested in the continuity of the bloodline and in the carrying out of ritual obligations, particularly to the dead testator and his ancestors. 

Let us turn to the more lighthearted side of life. While democracy groans and totalitarianism gloats, there is plenty of comedy out there to enjoy.