… lays out the case: Jewish students, come here to the South — where you’ll be safe.
Wednesday, April 24, 2024
Interesting …
I don’t usually opine on this subject, but I have some personal info that I think is pertinent. As a love child — i.e., illegitimate — I was surely a candidate for abortion, though I doubt the thought ever crossed my mother’s mind. Trust the science, we are told. Well, the basic science is that the fetus is a genetically unique living being. If the pregnancy is a threat to the mother’s life, that may prove an exception — though the mother may be willing to take the risk. But in the case of rape, both mother and child are victims. They could bond on that. I do not think the mother’s convenience should be decisive. After all, there are ways of having sex that can prevent pregnancy. OK, I’m a man. So how much does my opinion count? But I think the matter is deserving of more careful pondering. We are talking about taking a life. Who knows what that kid might achieve?
Something to think on …
Three hours a day will produce as much as a man ought to write.
— Anthony Trollope, born on this date in 1815
Tuesday, April 23, 2024
Another racist
… Liberal mayor makes discriminatory comments that have people concerned ,
Maybe he should check out Martin Luther King: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
Excuse me, your Honor …
So this clown can decide what parts of the Constitution are admissible in her courtroom. Remove her.
A tradition we can do without …
… It Always Starts With the Jews.
These so-called students are obviously ignoramuses, and that’s the kindest thing one can say.
Something to think on …
Like all great rationalists you believed in things that were twice as incredible as theology.
— Halldor Laxness, born on this date in 1902
Word master …
… Dostoevsky’s idiom. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… Dostoevsky owes much of his verbal virtuosity to intuition rather than deliberate strategy. In every case, his word choice, however bizarre it first appears, makes the most accurate and mean ingful response to the momentary situation created by the plot or a character’s im mediate experience.
Monday, April 22, 2024
Something to think on …
I am content; that is a blessing greater than riches; and he to whom that is given need ask no more.
— Henry Fielding, born on this date in 1707
Cause for concern …
… The Moral Rot at the Heart of Our Elite Institutions,
One scientist explained a while back (I forget who) that it took him years to make the connection between the fact that every time he read about something he knew in the media, it was wrong, and the fact that this was true of almost everything he read.
Sunday, April 21, 2024
Something to think on …
God never made an ugly landscape. All that sun shines on is beautiful, so long as it is wild.
— John Muir, born on this date in 1838
Saturday, April 20, 2024
This is distressing
Translation services under assault by The Machine. Sadly, this is going to get worse before it gets better
Hmm …
… Antarctica Is Colder, Icier Today Than At Any Time In 5,000 Years - Climate Change Dispatch.
Here is a review I wrote some years ago that seems pertinent: Cold spell near? Geologist digs deeper on climate change.
Just so you know …
… (18) Social Utility and the Value of Pure Inquiry.
Social utility is a value. But truth is a value that trumps it. The pursuit of truth is an end in itself. Paradoxically, the pursuit of truth as an end in itself may be the best way to attain truth that is useful to us.
Friday, April 19, 2024
If you're in London...
...A new exhibit explores The Troubles in Northern Ireland through portraiture
Seasonal nostalgia …
… The story of Vince Maney - The Spectator World. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I’m old enough to have seen the A’s play at Shibe Park.
Thursday, April 18, 2024
Yet another poem …
… this one by me.
Elegy
In Memory of Zelda
The aging princess presides
Over the ruin of the late king’s palace.
The dowager queen cannot help
But notice the walls give way,
The dust gather. The aging princess
Toasts her aging consort and complains.
Hounds bay among debris, the moon
Opaquely shines through soiled panes.
The dowager queen listens and wanly smiles.
“A driving rain may streak,” she thinks,
“But never cleanse the windows,
Whether of house or soul. All
Gives way, nothing being done.
Time was, the princess danced
Beneath a moon effulgent, not opaque,
And children gamboled on the lawn.
The children now are fled
To regions where auroras dance instead.
How it will end seems clearer
Than the windowpanes, though when
Remains obscure, as always.” The aging princess
Takes her aging consort by the hand
And leads him in a halting sarabande.
The royal cats cry out, extend their claws.
The dowager queen listens and wanly smiles.
In case you wondered …
…(18) On Relevance in Philosophy Education.
In the Jesuit college I attended, logic and metaphysics were required course. I also studied the history of philosophy and existential phenomenology.
One of my favorite poets …
… Poem of the week: Sea Rose by HD | Poetry | The Guardian. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden,.)
Honoring a centenary …
… The talented Evan S. Connell - The Spectator World. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
His claim to immortality is Mrs. Bridge, which astonishes in its build-up of quiet power. Like many books that are ostensibly about nothing at all, it is, of course, about everything.
Wednesday, April 17, 2024
Something to think on …
Every person who has ever lived has lived an unbroken succession of unique occasions.
— Thornton Wilder, born on this date in 1897
Tuesday, April 16, 2024
Something to think on …
Politics is a thing that only the unsophisticated can really go for.
— Kingsle Amis, born on this date in 1922
Latter-day nonsense …
… Another day, another pronoun | The New Criterion. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I have better things to do than ponder pronouns.
Monday, April 15, 2024
Something to think on …
If you have work to do, don't wait to feel like it; set to work and you will feel like it.
— Henry James, born on this day in 1843
Our greatest essayist …
… Lucky Joe. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Epstein has been called a conservative, but that is only because the shallowness prevailing among the well-educated is usually leftist. What he really is is an exposer of bullshit in all its smelly varieties.
Sunday, April 14, 2024
Truth and faith …
… Errol Morris on Documentary Filmmaking and Christopher Hitchens - Air Mail.
Truth is a quest. An endless procession through a labyrinth of evidence to a deeper understanding of what really is out there in the world. And yet, truth itself is something that we can’t know for certain—except, perhaps, under controlled or limited circumstances.
Another word …
… Fettle | Word Genius.
Many will recall the final stanza of Gerard Manley Hopkins’s “Felix Randall” —
How far from then forethought of, all thy more boisterous years,
When thou at the random grim forge, powerful amidst peers,
Didst fettle for the great grey drayhorse his bright and battering sandal!
Still,deserving some room at the top …
… Desire and Ambition. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
In a literary sense, Room at the Top is a landmark work of Northern realism. “Certainly no one until John Braine had described the exact kind of urges operating within the post-war specimen,” wrote [Kenneth] Allsop.
His influence only increases …
… Lessons From the Life of Evelyn Waugh - The American Spectator | USA News and Politics. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Although he was born nearly 121 years ago and died nearly 60 years ago, Waugh’s life is one filled with lessons for Catholics today.
More to him than you may have though …
… W.S. Gilbert | Alexander Larman | The Critic Magazine. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Something to think on …
Sooner or later, man has always had to decide whether he worships his own power or the power of God.
— Arnold J. Toynbee, born on this date in 1889
Saturday, April 13, 2024
A poem …
You are the sun in the corner of my picture
In a dream I am putting together
A puzzle. I think it is Eden
But I'm not sure- green here, a flower there.
And where would Eden be without trees?
You're the sun in the corner of my picture;
A look here, a contour there, and hints that
You're a lover who cannot be possessed.
But you are in my Eden and I am glad.
Assembling a puzzle of Eden leaves me
Halfway between architect and shaman.
There may be few ways to get it right.
“Unlucky”, I say to deflect attention.
It's best to have a good reason to talk to God
I'm always a fuck up but I get that right.
Jennifer Knox
Something to think on …
We are the breakers of our own heart.
— Eudora Welty, born on this date in 1909
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