Almost a lifetime ago now, it seems, I hosted a St. David’s Day meal at my home. It was a quiet Sunday afternoon, and the member of our company preparing the main dishes was Welsh herself, so we not only ate well but authentically.
What manly China has largely succeeded at, however, is not so much the quelling of the plague as pulling the wool over Western eyes with regard to the quelling of the plague. Last week China claimed that 3,333 people had died of the virus.
It was the social and moral dimension of the pestilence that most attracted the analytical mind of Thucydides. Some perished through want of attention, while others, falling into despair, gave up the fight.
Wilhelm Roentgen, Leonard Nimoy, Gorky, Cy Young, Vincent Van Gogh, Eric Clapton, Mehmed II the Conqueror, Herb Alpert, Edward Fitzgerald
Once upon a time there were Lennon and McCartney, and before them Rodgers and Hart, Gilbert and Sullivan, Rimsky and Korsakov (old joke), and now the inspired song-writing team of Fleming and Scott offer this their first recording…..
The title of the present series of posts, as I’m confident the gentle reader realizes, refers to a popular chess opening whereby Black, who by the rules of the game is a move behind, essentially cedes to White control of the center, using its energies to build up a rival alternative until the timing may be right for a Sicilian Vespers. The Sicilian’s motto, “lie low,” is writ large upon this strategy, and the knack of invisible resistance to domination by central government – whether Arab, Norman, or a myriad others leading up to the present day – is dormant...
On the economics of the coronavirus panic, scholars and editorialists commonly have compared it to the Great Depression, World War II, the Great Recession of a decade ago or some other event, but…the best comparison is what is ironically called “The Great Depression of 1946,” because there was no Great Depression, or even a small recession.
