BLM Podcasts: Thinking of the Letter B.
If Black lives matter in particular, then who counts and why?
Category: FF
An Unreconstructed Summer Symposium
It was the Summer of 2008 when I first made my way up to Rockford, Illinois. It was a slow, languorous summer drive, with plenty of preparatory reading to do, some often crammed in during the final segment of the voyage. In many ways, this year was no different. In other ways, the long tentacles of Covid-19 (and its handlers) couldn’t help but be felt by the attendees. But perhaps the miracle is that we were able to meet at all, while most of the world huddled inside or behind masks, frightened by the government, media, and the new bands...
What I Learned From My First Flight Since Lockdown
I arrived back in Paris the day before lockdown in March of this year. I had cut short a business/ski trip in Bulgaria under advice from friends, though by Monday night, as I arrived back into Paris with all the shops in the airport already closed, it looked like wisdom.
The Old Normal is Alive and Well in Paris
I’ve spent my entire life in countries with unrestricted freedom of movement. Not only did those countries let me go where I wanted, whenever I wanted, as long as I wasn’t breaking laws, the countries were indifferent to my location on a given day at a given time.
Cracks in the Quarantine
Two weekends ago the weather was particularly lovely and, while I was out for a Sunday stroll in my neighborhood, what I had already been sensing over the previous weeks became crystal clear: Many Parisians were not abiding by the draconian rules of quarantine that had been laid down in March,
The New Religion: Shut Up and Do What You’re Told
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.
Quarantined in the City of Light
While Paris started the year in the midst of a transportation strike that the strikers by and large lost in the end, there was only a brief respite for the hospitality industry as the specter of the global panic pandemic landed in Europe and then worked its way west.
Panic Pandemic
Governments cannot save us from being ill. Governments cannot save us from dying. What they could do is engage people in helping rather than locking them down in their homes.
Stop (talking about) Brexit
I’m often told that people “didn’t know what they voted for,” or were “stupid,” or are, “as everyone knows, racist.” Fascinatingly, as far as I know, stupid people, racist people, and even people who are lied to get equal votes in a democracy.
Cicero and Shakespeare Sets Now Available
While I still hope to pen some reflections on this past summer’s Shakespeare Symposium, today’s post is purely practical in nature: announcing the sale of the complete set of those talks which many of you had the pleasure of hearing in person this year, but also the Cicero set of 2018. Charter Members have access to all of these recordings (Cicero here and Shakespeare here) as part of their membership, but everyone else has to pay, though the prices we are offering are quite reasonable! Each Cicero lecture is available for $6 each, or you can get all 11 for...
