Robert E. Lee, who in so many ways epitomized the highest ideas of Christian civility, summed up the common feeling in his famous statement that, “Duty is the most sublime word in our language,” adding the injunction: “Do your duty in all things. You cannot do more, you should never wish to do less.”
By way of prologue it is important to understand the relation and the difference Civilization and culture, for both are used to describe the complex of ideas and actions that define the life of a particular people in a particular place at a certain time
This poem by Alec Wilder was read at the composer’s funeral. Wilder is best known for several popular songs, especially “I’ll Be Around” (recorded by his friend Frank Sinatra) and “While We are Young,” but he also wrote chamber music pieces generally condemned as “unoriginal.”
As I came up into the town
Wherein my father’s house abide,
I met a man in tattered gown,
In ragged garment blowing wide,
This begins a series on the morality of revenge, drawn from the current text of Properties of Blood, Vol. II: The Reign of Hate. If you have not purchased Volume I: The Reign of Love, you have only yourself to blame.
When passed by a horse and buggy, ubiquitous in the streets of Palermo, I scarcely know how to respond to Vasily’s wordless query. Is the answer “horse”? Or “carriage?” Or “anachronism”? Or “tourist attraction”? By the same token, what am I to say about an open “door” to the balcony, which is a “window” when it is closed? And is a cup of tea primarily “cup” or primarily “tea”?
I hope everyone is as excited as I am about the upcoming election. In Pennsylvania voters have an opportunity to push aside a brain-dead Democratic Party candidate for Senate and elect a Muslim who shills for quack medicines.
Dr. Francis passed away in 2005 at the early age of 57. But he left a treasury of commentary on the American regime of the 20th century that rang true for many at the time and since. Few commentaries on our current condition have been more acute and profound.
We are three Scorpios in this nuclear – a passing nod to the suddenly fashionable dirty bomb – family, all three of us about to celebrate our birthdays this week. Scorpios, avers Cosmopolitan magazine, “like extremes, challenges, danger and darkness.
If we were to take on Diogenes as our role model, as we attempt to shine our light in the nooks and crannies of American journalism, whom could we name? To make the game more amusing, we should, in addition to picking out the eccentrics, also have to name a famous contemporary who typified the regime lackeys that are the true heirs of Pulitzer and Hearst.
