Willie Smith III was executed today in Alabama for the brutal and capricious murder of a woman he had kidnapped from an ATM. The usual critics of the death penalty have not been silent in their opposition to Smith’s execution.
In honor of the upcoming celebration of the Eve of All Saints, I offer these eery poems by Walter De La Mare.
In turning the conventional on its head, Gilbert was able to see into the paradoxes that lay just beneath the surface of Victorian morality.
This week my wife is expected to give birth to our child. How can I not recall the moment in my beloved Pasternak’s Spektorsky, when the poet says….
Former U.S. Secretary of State, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colin Powell has died, according to reports in the media, from “Covid complications.” Since General Powell had received all the government coerced shots, skeptics may be wondering how this could have happened! The mainstream media legacy of Colin Powell does not entirely match up with the historical record.
This essay on the ethics of W.S. Gilbert has been revised and considerably expanded.
As there is little hope that the gentle reader can recall a post of mine from four years ago, I will quote its closing paragraph. That week I had just returned from London from the funeral of a close friend where I came across an old acquaintance – novelist Sebastian Faulks, author of The Girl at the Lion d’Or and other light masterpieces – and this led me to reminisce about our last meeting many years earlier, at a Chinese restaurant of my choosing.
