Poems of the Week
Spanish is the lovin’ tongue,
Soft as music, light as spray.
‘Twas a girl I learnt it from,
Livin’ down Sonora way.
Category: Access
Herodotus Book I, concluded
Herodotus devoted much of the first book to the Persians, their conquest of Lydia, and their subjugation of the Greek cities on the coast of Asia Minor and the offshore islands. He spends a great deal of time on the Ionian Revolt, provoked by Persian expansion, because it is both the predecessor and a major cause of the first Persian War with the mainland Greek cities. The early Greeks, who were not unified either in dialect or ethnicity, were divided into distinct ethnic and dialect groups: The Ionians, who were predominant in Asia Minor, the Aegean islands, the great island...
Wednesday’s Child: Wheat from the Chaff
In summertime one eschews politics. The blazing sun doesn’t tolerate reflection; one is already plenty hot under the collar; and the wiles of politicians are as nothing when at last you plunge into the emerald sea. Still, out of the corner of your eye you note things from that other, autumnal world, promising yourself to think about them at greater length once the days get shorter.
‘Give Us Back the Death Penalty, Josef Vissarionovich!’
“Government is not reason, it is not eloquence – it is force.” – George Washington (attributed) “All grandeur, all power, all subordination to authority rests on the executioner: he is the horror and the bond of human association. Remove this incomprehensible agent from the world and at that very moment order gives way to chaos, thrones topple and society disappears.” – de Maistre “Who – Whom?” – Lenin My title refers to the chapter of that name in Solzhenitsyn’s “In the First Circle,” now “free” with Amazon Kindle Unlimited. Under the all-compassionate Josef Stalin, the Soviet Union abolished the death...
Wednesday’s Child: More of Tuscany
The hotter it gets, the harder it is to write anything here. I am now back in Palermo, and it’s quite astonishing what a difference just a few graduations on Fahrenheit’s scale can make. In Pietrasanta, where as the gentle reader may remember I have just spent nearly two weeks, one can effortlessly ratiocinate – in the shade, if not in the sun.
How To Spot Climate Change/Global Warming Fake News
The phrase “climate change” itself is fake; it means nothing. The climate always changes. It took over from “global warming” a little over a decade ago when it was clear there was no, or close to no, global warming.
Take Five: Smoke Gets In Your Eyes
Anyone can quit smoking, but it takes a man to face cancer.” An old saying from the 1960’s.
Poems of the Week: Lunacy
Sad things, as are the reaches of a stream
Flowing beneath a golden moon alone.
Wednesday’s Child: Letter from Tuscany
If ever I had the temptation to shirk my duty as the gentle reader’s clarion and dulcimer, if ever I wanted to declare myself on holiday and beg off for just a single week, if ever nature triumphed over nurture to make a child’s chore of the fast approaching Wednesday, it is now. I am in Tuscany, where the other day it actually rained – that last word describing an atmospheric condition when condensed moisture falls from the sky in drops, see also snow. In July in Palermo, where it last snowed in 1956, leaving an air conditioned house to...
Herodotus Book I, Continued: Democracy and Tyranny
By Herodotus’ time, tyranny had developed a bad name, and he his descriptions of their behavior constitutes a pragmatic manual to set beside Machiavelli’s The Prince. Tyrants champion the poor and the weak particularly women and foreigners; they are lustful and prone to adultery and eccentricity—Periander was accused of having relations with his dead wife. They maintain power by disarming the citizenry and oppressing anyone who is distinguished for birth, talent, virtue, or wealth. I know, it sounds exactly like the Democratic Party today.
