I abhor the shootings of two Americans in Minneapolis. But in this article I want to report on a root cause of the tragedies: the militarization of all police forces in America, from the DHS/ICE at the federal level, to state police, to your local county sheriffs and city police.
The gentle reader may recall the famous moment in the film comedy The Gods Must Be Crazy when a Coca-Cola bottle falls from an airplane and lands in a bushman camp in the Kalahari.
This is a slightly revised version of an essay (published about 9 years ago) inspired by a re-reading of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. I had earlier exchanged letters with the author and published his brief introduction to a re-edition of his masterpiece.
When the revolution broke out again in 1848, Pius IX had been Pope for only two years. He had spent those two years well, reforming the government of the papal states especially the criminal justice system, rooting out corruption, imposing stricter discipline on the clergy.
Suppressing the pangs of guilty conscience like a recidivist pickpocket – Conscience? What a load of hooey! – I’m taking my four-year-old to Burger King.
Ancient Greek has four moods/modes. Like Latin, Italian, French, and Modern Greek, it has indicative for statements and questions of fact, imperative for commands, subjunctive to express uncertainty or probability, and Optative
Harold Lloyd, the last member of the trio of early cinema’s silent clowns, is simultaneously highly recognized and completely forgotten.
This is a revised version of a talk given to a group of high school history teachers in Louisiana in 2007.: Pius IX, an almost forgotten “great man”
