Time sure does pass. Unbelievably, this is my three hundred and sixty-fifth flight of fancy in this space, which means that were the gentle reader to peruse a single archived post per diem, it would fix him up with reading matter for a whole year.
The greatest of the philosophes, the Marquis de Sade, took the Enlightenment to the ultimate conclusion. God did not exist; religion and morality were invented to repress mankind; therefore, rape, torture, and multi-sexual orgies were all part of a program for liberating the human spirit from the shackles of Christianity.
I have been a Russophile since covering the Balkans in the mid-90’s as a journalist and news photographer. I appreciated the Russian volunteers who fought and died for Bosnian Serb sovereignty and UNPROFOR in Bosnia and East Slavonia.
I’m starting a new holiday: August 29: First Lightning Day. That was when the Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb, ending America’s nuclear monopoly.
I fear I may be becoming a kind of Mumsnet figure, jettisoning a past of decadence and dissolution, shelving a present of geopolitical awareness and acumen, and at last becoming more or less competent to answer young mothers’ anxious questions about which talcum powder is best value for money.
What are you doing, I would ask my father towards the end of his life, telephoning him in New York from a succession of tramontane regions that were, to him, as inconsequential as they were exotic. Invariably he would give the same answer: “I am lying in bed waiting for world fame.” World fame never did fall to his share, yet this does not mean that his methodology was flawed.
We are exploring the possibility of doing a few small events to launch Dr. Fleming’s latest book, The Reign of Love. One of the events would certainly be in Rockford. If you would like to assist in planning an event in your locale, please contact us at your earliest convenience.
These hills are sandy. Trees are dwarfed here. Crows
Caw dismally in skies of an arid brilliance,
Complain in dusty pine-trees. Yellow daybreak
Lights on the long brown slopes a frost-like dew,
