“If Seneca’s plays survived the sack of Rome, the burning of libraries, the leaky roofs of monasteries, the appetites of beetle larvae, and the erosions of rot and mildew, they have not had a conspicuously easier time among modern critics,” he continues. “His tragedies have been dismissed both for too closely resembling Greek models and for too freely departing from them. As the classicist Frederick Ahl has noted, ‘no field of literary study rivals that of Latin poetry in so systematically belittling the quality of its works and authors.’ , “No Roman genre has suffered more consistent disparagement than tragedy.”
Monday, July 10, 2023
In case you wondered …
… Is Seneca staging a comeback? Maybe…
These goofy days .
… The war on men continues on campus | The College Fix:
Just remember Stein’s Law — What can’t go on won’t.
Good …
… Attorney for Covington Catholic Teen Joins Lawsuit Against SPLC.
Maybe enough lawsuits will spell the end of the SPLC.
Something to think on …
The creation of the world did not occur at the beginning of time, it occurs every day.
— Marcel Proust, born on this date in 1871
Sunday, July 09, 2023
A lot of history in not so many words …
… Heart-attack pushers Ben & Jerry's hippie 'Indian land' hypocrisy.
The great Warren Philips, who pretty much made the Wall Street Journal what it still largely remains — a dispassionate recorder of things these days — was pretty vehement about confusing reporting with opinion. It certainly makes for better reading. Keeping reporting and opinion separate and distinct serves both. The good reporter can write a really worthwhile opinion piece about what he has reported on, even if he comes to it a point of view. But he will make that clear. He is openly defending his angle of reporting. And that is immensely valuable.
Our current political class …
… City of South Fulton Mayor Khalid Kamau arrested on burglary charge.
Something has to be done about our professional politicians.
Today’s gutless media …
… (11) Journalists Abandoned Julian Assange and Slit Their Own Throats.
I’m not sure if it’s because they don’t grasp the problem or if they just don’ t want to lose access to the high and the mighty. Actually, if they did journalism the way it done when I was doing it, they’d learn that the high and the mighty want access to them. I fear they are content to be propagandists.
Defund the bastards …
…. How PBS Wrecked Independence Day: An ‘Ideological Tool’ of Right-Wing Extremists.
Why should all of us have to pay for their bullshit? Make it pay for view. Interesting to see the consequences of that.
Indeed …
… Mysteries Require Odes, Not Emails | The Russell Kirk Center. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
In the Bible “verse is the idiom for the revelation of mystery,” for mere prose or plain statements cannot suffice to express the ineffable. The announcement of the incarnation, the ultimate mystery of faith, “requires an ode, not an email.” “To stir faith in things unseen, poetry evokes a deeper response than do abstract ideas…. We are grateful for an explanation, but we crave inspiration, communion, rapture, epiphany.”
Something to think on …
No one has ever proved that a human being, through his descent from a certain group of people, must of necessity have certain mental characteristics.
— Franz Boas, born on this date in 1858
Saturday, July 08, 2023
Well worth seeing …
F
Felix is a friend of mine, a graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and one of the most imaginative painters around.
Hmm …
… Young LGBT Catholics need to know they belong in the church. I’m creating a curriculum to tell them that.
I think it should be obvious by now that some people are naturally attracted to persons who are the same sex as they are. I don’t see why that should exclude them from practicing the faith. Of course, they would have to practice it just as we straight people must — with fidelity. So I think blessing a gay marriage should be done. But the gay couple must be faithful to each other. Will they sometimes fail? Well, straight people are also sometimes unfaithful. That’s why the confessional is there. We are all sinners and must from time to time beg Our Lord’s forgiveness. The important thing is to live our faith.
Martin Amis
The passing of Martin Amis inspired me to read his celebrated novel Money -- and let me say at the start: it did not disappoint. This is one confident, consistent, jocular book: it moves with real speed, and its characters inhabit three dimensions. Amis had such a recognizable voice: his style was his own, and his language, his writing, proceeded with an unyielding pace. And more: Amis did not shy away: he wrote that he'd developed a "high style for low things," and he never apologized for this. Money is full of lurid behavior, of alcoholism and pornography. Taken together, these things emerge as a universe of fun, but also of regret, of sorrow, and of pain. Money is the story of pretended wealth laid bare: it is about the fascination with money, and its magnetic quality. Yes, there are parts of Money which offend modern sentiments. But does that make it less of a novel, less of an achievement? Certainly not. Money is a full-throttle adventure through the excesses of New York and London at the start of the 1980s. This is Bellow made modern: it is a novel that has as much to say about the wealthy as about the poor. It is a book about dignity and confidence, and the role that money plays in both. I was gripped by this novel and count it as my favorite of the Amis novels.
Something to think on …
By the sense of mystery I understand the experience of certain places and times when one's whole nature seems to be in touch with a presence, a genius loci, a potency.
— Richard Aldington, born on this date in 1893
Tracking the decline …
… Pope Francis Enthusiastically Greets Andres Serrano of “P*** Christ” Infamy.
Seems that if you want to find authenticate Catholicism these days, the place to go is Africa. Too bad Cardinal Arinze wasn’t elected instead of Francis.
This should come as no surprise …
… Lockdowns: the Self-Inflicted Disaster | City Journal.
Bjørnskov and a German colleague, Stefan Voigt, have found that fewer people die from natural disasters in countries with laws that restrict the power of national leaders during an emergency. If leaders are unconstrained—if they can suspend people’s personal and economic liberties—then the disruptions hinder people’s voluntary efforts to deal with the disaster. After a hurricane, for instance, local officials and citizens will normally aid their stricken neighbors, but they’re less inclined to act if the national government takes charge by suspending property rights to commandeer boats, vehicles, and other local resources. “Civil society is more likely to help if the authorities are not allowed to run roughshod over private citizens,” Bjørnskov says. “It is also much more likely that the authorities will misuse their emergency powers for their own uses, diverting resources toward purposes that have nothing to do with the emergency. They increase spending and regulation, and it takes longer for the country to get back to normal.”
Hardly surprising that government hacks woukd screw things up if given more power.
Just so you know …
… A Welcome Gaffe: White House Lets Some Climate Truth Slip Out”
A report reveals that global temperature changes barely affects economic growth.
Friday, July 07, 2023
Much in what he says …
… Voluntary Segregation - by William F. Vallicella.
Reading this, I was reminded of my late friend and colleague, Len Boasberg. Len was a classic liberal Democrat from my mother’s generation (we blessed ourselves when Franklin Roosevelt’s name was mentioned). I’m a libertarian conservative (I guess). But Len and I had these wonderful conversations. Often, one of us would say to the other, “We’ve got to stop these conversations. I’m starting to agree with you.”
It’s called dialogue.
No surprises here …
… A “Progressive” Analysis of Higher Education’s Problems.
How does Bunch make his case? Not through anything resembling a cost/benefit analysis that includes the impact on incentives of his proposal and its unintended consequences. Rather, he proceeds through a number of anecdotes that show nice people hurting as a result of our not having turned higher education into an entitlement, as well as bad people doing the things that have brought about their misery.
If you read one Will Bunch column you needn’t read another. He’s a Johnny Onethought. If her ever had an original idea, he’d go to an urgent care center.
Something to think on …
Never assume that people in positions of responsibility are behaving responsibly.
— David McCullough, born on this date in 1933
The fullness born of emptiness …
… My Christ - Image Journal. (Hat tip, Dave Lull)
Incarnation? Resurrection? Why these leaps? Why not let the world be world, for Christ’s sake, luck be luck? Because “the force that through the green fuse drives the flower drives my green age” (Dylan Thomas). Because “there are things we live among, and to know them / is to know ourselves” (George Oppen). Because the connection between us and the world is both absolute and absolutely contingent. We know in our bones that this is so, and sacred, and we know in our bones that we can never know that this is so, and that lack is also sacred. My Christ is both the means and the meaning of matter.
Thursday, July 06, 2023
Maybe we need to do something about these people …
… Guess What Teachers Union Groomers Are Assigning as Summer Reading.
I think the problem is that, while they’ve been schooled, they’re not really educated.
Quite a guy …
…(11) The mass murder suspect who's all things to all people. (Hat tip, Felix Giordano.)
One of my all-time favorites …
… Remembering H.D. - JSTOR Daily.. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
When I was a kid, i used to stop by Holmesburg Library a lot. One day I picked up copy of H.D.’s poems. This poem of hers was for me an epiphany.
Wow …
… Incredible view of the Milky Way and more — June’s best science images. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Wednesday, July 05, 2023
Let us pray for her …
… EXCLUSIVE: Harassment, Death Threats Against Web Designer Surge Since Supreme Court Decision Upholding Freedom of Speech.
Of course, the people threatening her are pussies. If they ran into someone I know very well, prepared to beat the living crap out of them, they’d be a little more polite. Of course, that guy started life in North Philly and is street smart and street tough.
Just so you know …
… Freedom, Climate, and the Illusion of Urgency.
Instead of succumbing to fear-mongering narratives, we should empower ourselves with knowledge and engage in fact-based discussions about the climate. More than ever, it is critical that we make balanced and informed decisions about the environment, guided by scientific evidence rather than politicized narratives.
God knows, there are enough politicized narratives around these days, helped along by our dumb-assed media.
Oh, when wil they ever learn …
… ‘Depraved Desperation’: Bud Light’s Latest Promotion Gets Ripped on YouTube..
Where the hell do they find these marketing people people?
I couldn’t agree more …
… By All Means, Eliminate Legacy And Donor Admissions Preferences Because They Are Corrupting, Regardless of Racial Impact.
I got into college because of my high school grades and GRE scores. No big deal, actually, in those medieval times.
Something to think on …
Some people take no mental exercise apart from jumping to conclusions.
— Harold Acton, born on this date in 1994
Perfect timing …
… Court Hands Down A MASSIVE Victory for Freedom on the Fourth of July.
Doughty … pointed out that it was not the government’s role at all to silence opposition voices; rather, he reminds us that “the principal function of free speech under the United States’ system of government is to invite dispute; it may indeed best serve its high purpose when it induces a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger.” This is as far from the Biden regime’s conception of the function of free speech as Los Angeles is from Pluto’s moons, and that’s precisely why this ruling is so urgently needed, and so welcome
Tuesday, July 04, 2023
Good for them …
… Brooklyn Jewish Leaders Use Bolt Cutters to Reopen Park Closed by City | National Review.
Plenty of people by now must have noticed the increase in anti-Semitism and anti-Catholicism. Nice, though, that the phony-Catholic congresspersons have made their views public.
Food for thought …
… If you’re anti-gun, can you really celebrate Independence Day?
Without gun rights, the American Revolutionary War would have been absurdly short-lived.
Our town …
… Elfreth’s Alley might not be the nation’s oldest residential street, but it’s sure fun to live there.
Funny. I’ve known the street since I was a little kid. My grandmother knew it and so did my Mom. They took me there. My grandmother knew it from childhood.
Is that so?
… San Fransisco reparations rep: straight white men are 'serial killers'.
She ougt tipo check out the homicide statistics.
Just so you know …
… The Geometry of Liberty: The Declaration of Independence Is a Logical Argument Based on Jefferson's Axioms.
Too bad so many people, including law professors, don’t get it.
They look pretty clichéd to me…
… AI Photos Of Men And Women In Every US State. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Something to think on …
Every individual has a place to fill in the world and is important in some respect whether he chooses to be so or not.
— Nathaniel Hawthorne, born on this date in 1804
Monday, July 03, 2023
This seems worrisome …
… (11) The judge who just endorsed PA's 'Culture of Corruption'.
In January, R. Christopher Barden, an internationally known lawyer and psychologist, wrote a 136-page expert report that concluded that because of Pennsylvania’s pervasive “culture of corruption,” Sandusky might well be the “victim of one of the most improper, corrupt, falsely investigated and improperly, negligently tried cases in U.S. history.”
You have been warned …
(11) DIE - by William F. Vallicella - Philosophy in Progress.
… progress is change for the better. Lowering standards is a change for the worse.
Temperal vs. eternal …
… D.E.I. Curricula versus Catholic Education - The Catholic Thing.
For a liberal arts education to be effective, its overarching goal has to be transcendent rather than temporal. “Ending racism” or “promoting diversity” are temporal goals that reduce liberal arts education to vocational training, as in the teaching of a trade such as accounting or plumbing. Of course, trades have their place for individuals so inclined. But as ends in themselves, temporal goals for education close students off to the “big picture” that the liberal arts exist to convey.
Something to think on …
Atheism is a crutch for those who cannot bear the reality of God.
— Tom Stoppard, born on tis date in 1937
Sunday, July 02, 2023
In case you wondered …
… (11) Galen Strawson on Zombies - by William F. Vallicella.
It may be that if we knew more about the nature of matter, then we would understand how matter could think, feel, be conscious. I do not rule out that epistemic possibility. Given our current understanding, however, no one has any idea how matter could be conscious.
Some recent college graduates I’ve met have some zombiesque qualities.
Something to think on …
I love Evensong. There's something sad and essentially English about it.
— Barbara Pym, born on this date in 1913
In memoriam ~
… A Word on Statistics BY WISŁAWA SZYMBORSKA. (Hat tip, rus Bowden)
Wislawa Szymborska was born a century ago today.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)