Thursday, September 21, 2023
As Whitman said ….
… “ Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)” —
Democrat Gubernatorial Candidate Slams Private Planes and Then Flies in One
This is really worrisome …
… The Attacks Just Keep Coming.
Just ask the J6 protesters who peacefully walked through the Capitol. The feds are still hunting them down and arresting them. And ask the Catholic father who was arrested in a heavily armed FBI raid on his home for the crime of trying to save unborn lives. And ask the father who demanded to know why no action was taken at the school where his daughter was raped why he was treated like a terrorist.
Methinks the FBI may have outlived its usefulness. By the way, guys, I have journalist credentials. Bear that in mind (presuming you have such).
A dissenting voice …
… Radical Wolfe: An Underwhelming Account of the Revolutionary Journalist. (At tip, Dave Lull.)
Something to think on …
If there is no God, nothing matters. If there is a God, nothing else matters.
— H. G. Wells, born on this date in 1866
And the winner is …
… Astronomy Photographer of the Year: Huge plasma arc wins - BBC News. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden,)
Wednesday, September 20, 2023
I’ll be joining …
… so should you:St. Therese Novena - Pray More Novenas - Novena Prayers & Catholic Devotion.
I’m very attached to the Little Flowerr. Her authobiigraphy, The Story of a Soul is a masterwork.
Something to think on …
An hour's conversation on literature between two ardent minds with a common devotion to a neglected poet is a miraculous road to intimacy.
— Charles Williams, born on this date in 1886
Tuesday, September 19, 2023
No lie there …
… It's normal for parents to object to graphic sex in kids' books.
Via Nellie Bowles on The Free Press, who adds: "If you can't read the sexy kids' book in Congress without grossing people out and having them tell you to please stop, Dad, maybe children shouldn’t read it."
Begging to differ …
… Finally incoherent? | Helen Vendler on Dickinson’s Poem 243. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I kept asking myself: Pier? Granite? Bell? Face of Steel? A nail or drill? Where might all these things be found? On a 19th century locomotive passing through Concord! That’s where. (And Concord was a railroad town.)
Hmm …
… Squires: CNN thinks black conservatives who don’t support abortion and ‘Pride’ are race traitors.
Planned Parenthood may now be an abortion factory, but that is not what its founder Margaret Sanger intended. Here is what she had to say on the matter:
When you ask me the question "How can I bring myself around; I am pregnant two months," you are asking for abortion. Please understand that Birth Control, as I understand it, is never abortion. I do not approve of abortion, nor can I give the address of anyone who will perform this operation... The object of this movement is to help women avoid abortion and the dangers attending it.You can read more here.
Something to think on …
My yesterdays walk with me. They keep step, they are gray faces that peer over my shoulder
— William Golding, born on this date in 1911
Monday, September 18, 2023
Ouch …
… I’ve Been Thinking by Daniel C Dennett review: a masterclass in vanity. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… perhaps the most wince-inducing moment was his meeting with “a charming and beautiful young philosopher” in Prague. “I later learned that Roger Scruton . . . was extremely irritated by the fact that on his next visit to Prague, all she could talk about was Dan Dennett! A small ignoble pleasure for me.”
Something to think on …
Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.
— Samuel Johnson, born on this date in 1709
Sunday, September 17, 2023
Just so you know …
… Consensus Doesn't Equal Science | Newsmax.com.
“Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled … “Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science, consensus is irrelevant. … The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.”
Q&A …
… Paris Review - The Art of Theater No. 14.
In 1968, during the Black Power movement, when black Americans were, as one sociologist put it, “seeking ways to alter their relationship to the society and the shared expectations of themselves as a community of people.” As a twenty-three-year-old poet concerned about the world and struggling to find a place in it, I felt it a duty and an honor to participate in that search. With my good friend Rob Penny, I founded the Black Horizons Theater in Pittsburgh with the idea of using the theater to politicize the community or, as we said in those days, to raise the consciousness of the people.
Something to think on …
The need for mystery is greater than the need for an answer.
— Ken Kesey, born on this date in 1935
Saturday, September 16, 2023
Something to think on …
Language is by its very nature a communal thing; that is, it expresses never the exact thing but a compromise - that which is common to you, me, and everybody.
— T. E. Hulme, born on this date in 1884
Read and listen …
… Discussing the New Tom Wolfe Documentary: 10 Blocks podacst | City Journal. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Friday, September 15, 2023
These people really are crazy …
… Expert sparks fury after claiming that references to darkness in Macbeth are attempts to reinforce ideas of white supremacy | Daily Mail Online
Why woukd that have been on Shakespesre’s mind?
Something to think on …
Defining and analyzing humor is a pastime of humorless people.
— Robert Benchley, born on this date in 1889
The creative imagination …
… In the Personal Library of Vladimir Nabokov Are Clues to the Esoteric Obsessions of the Supreme Esthete. | Observer. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… perhaps the single most thrilling object in the collection, one of the single most thrilling graven images I’ve encountered, the one book in the collection that most seemed to speak from beyond the grave and the graven realms, was a unique Nabokov book, one he created himself by hand, one never before seen by the world, and one that I believe discloses an important secret about his esoteric passion.
Thursday, September 14, 2023
A true master …
… Review of Radical Wolfe | City Journal.
Wolfe was politically deft. He championed conservative notions of patriotism and morality, but avoided partisan politics, which he considered a boring backwater. (His editor at the Washington Post was amazed that, unlike the other reporters, he had no ambition to cover the White House and Capitol Hill.) In footage from “Firing Line,” when William F. Buckley Jr. asked him to describe his political views, Wolfe quoted Balzac’s description of the politics in his novels: “I belong to the party of the opposition.
I had the privilege of meeting him once — at the White House. Laura Bush had invited him and me to an event D. C. schoolkids. Classy guy.
Sad and true …
… Whatever Happened to Culture? - Joseph Epstein, Commentary Magazine. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Today, party politics is of all-consuming interest. A new class has emerged, the punditocracy, members of which, also known as public intellectuals, who are without any notable culture of their own, are defined chiefly by their politics, and sport their political opinions on endless panels on cable television.
I must say, though, that when I stood in front of Jackson Pollock’s Blue Poles, I was very impressed. But I’m from an earlier generation. And I once managed an art gallery.
Something to think on …
Ours is the age of substitutes: Instead of language we have jargon; instead of principles, slogans; and instead of genuine ideas, bright suggestions.
— Eric Bentley, born on this date in 1916
Wednesday, September 13, 2023
Something to think on …
The more we elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate.
— J. B. Priestley, born on this date in 1894
Tuesday, September 12, 2023
Good news …
… Earth’s atmosphere can clean itself, breakthrough study finds.
“OH is a key player in the story of atmospheric chemistry. It initiates the reactions that break down airborne pollutants and helps to remove noxious chemicals such as sulfur dioxide and nitric oxide, which are poisonous gases, from the atmosphere.”
Something to think on …
After all is said and done, a hell lot of a lot more is said than done.
— H. L. Mencken, born on this date in 1880
Monday, September 11, 2023
Fyodor Dostoevsky
I know it borders on blasphemous, but I'll say it anyway: Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground is an inconsistent, unbalanced work. I know, I know: it's celebrated, and acclaimed, and serves as a starting point of sorts for existentialism. But for me, the novella didn't hold together. At least part of this might be attributed to its structure: the first third of the book, which proceeds as a monologue, introduces a set of philosophies. These, in turn, are explored in the remainder of the novella, which functions as a more traditional work of fiction: with character, dialogue, and narrative arc. I will say that while the first portion of the novella frustrated me, the second section delivered a blow: a number of the concepts explored here are evocative not only of existentialism, but also of the fractured modernism which emerged around the First World War. Ideas of suffering, spite, and intellectualism dominate the final portion of Notes, and they read as an existentialist tract might: without action we are nothing and cannot generate meaning; and yet, with infinite freedom comes an inability to act. There are a number of powerful aphorisms from the latter stages of the book, and they will remain with me. But all told, I am not sure that this experiment hangs together entirely: without the first portion -- focused, rather heavy handedly on philosophy -- the novella still might have succeeded, and it would have done so without the scripted quality introduced during the first section. All of that said, it would be hard to beat a line like this: "You took your cowardice for prudence, and thus found consolation in self-deception."
Finding words for The Word …
… A Work of Biblical Proportions. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… Barton declares his summary position early: "While there can be translations that are simply wrong, there cannot be one that is uniquely right." Rather, The Word is a thorough mapping (to use the author’s cartographic image) of the translators’ terrain. And that complex landscape is, to simplify, defined by two promontories.
Something to think on …
Those that go searching for love only make manifest their own lovelessness, and the loveless never find love, only the loving find love, and they never have to seek for it.
— D. H. Lawrence, born on this date in 1885
Words and the Word …
… Reading as a Spiritual Practice | The Russell Kirk Center. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
What is so bad about spending all this time on computer screens? More interestingly, do people read less because they spend time on a computer? After all, right this moment, you are looking at a screen and reading a review of a book about reading. Wilson’s book is available on Kindle and those lectures I encouraged for viewing are on a screen. Yet, Wilson empathically says, “[W]e have to be aggressive in turning off the screens… After you remove the time wasted on technology, you may find more time available for reading. You can bring a book with you wherever you go.”
Books these days tend to have small type. I am an old man with cataracts that have yet to ripen. So I use my Kindle a lot.
Sunday, September 10, 2023
Appalling …
… MSNBC columnist demands Trump 'must die in prison' to protect democracy | Fox News..
Who the hell designated this asshole as judge and jury. He needs to be fired and henceforth shunned.
Do no harm …
… The trans kids madness needs to stop. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.
Gotta hand it to these doctors: “gender-affirming care” is genius branding. Usefully, “gender” has become a nonsense word. What could possibly be wrong with “affirming?” Why, the adjective exudes niceness, solace and esteem. And no physician or parent could oppose “care.” Yet the euphemism translates to “sex-denying medical experimentation.”
Something to think on …
Religion is the everlasting dialogue between humanity and God. Art is its soliloquy.
— Franz Werfel, born on this date in 1890
Saturday, September 09, 2023
Wokeness at its most ludicrous …
… Actor Dylan Postl Slams 'Snow White' Remake for Replacing Dwarfs | Newsmax.com:
“The 'magical creatures' are a mixture of races and genders, and we all applaud that," he added. "But they're sacrificing the careers of short people to achieve diversity. And that does not sit right with me. The studio doesn't seem to be aware that dwarfs are also born in all races and genders."
Something to think on …
The more we live by our intellect, the less we understand the meaning of life.
— Leo Tolstoy, born on this date in 1828
Friday, September 08, 2023
I quite understand
… Why I’d Rather Consume Good Writing Than Porn.
Many years ago, when Deep Throat was the first porn movie to make it to regular theaters, a friend of mine and I went to see it. Dave was a clinical psychologist. I was a freelance writer.
It didn’t take long to figure out that it going to be be all blow jobs for the next couple of hours.
I turned to Dave to ask him if he wanted to see any more. He was sound asleep. We left and had a drink.
The scene in Zorba the Greek when the beautiful Irene Pappas drops her gown in front of Alan Bates is wondrously erotic.
Indeed …
… Caldara: Lessons learned from school's Gadsden flag debacle - Complete Colorado - Page Two.
Why are so many ignoramuses involved in education these days?
Another load of crap …
… California prof: Heterosexuality is ‘tragic’.
A lot of women seem to like me. And I sure in hell like women.
Faith and doubt …
… Joseph Epstein: Opinion | Pious Agnosticism as a Form of Judaism. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
After all the worst has been said against religion, one can’t deny the comfort it has brought. I had a neighbor, a woman 10 or so years older than I, unmarried, a former schoolteacher, a serious Catholic, who told me she wasn’t in the least afraid of death. She wished to avoid a painful or sloppy end, but death itself held no fears for her, for she had a good sense of where she was going. As she told me this, I can recall feeling a stab of what I can only call faith envy.
Something to think on …
God is the shortest distance from zero to infinity
— Alfred Jarry,, born on this date in 1873
Thursday, September 07, 2023
Very important …
… I Left Out the Full Truth to Get My Climate Change Paper Published | The Free Press.
You might be wondering at this point if I’m disowning my own paper. I’m not. On the contrary, I think it advances our understanding of climate change’s role in day-to-day wildfire behavior. It’s just that the process of customizing the research for an eminent journal caused it to be less useful than it could have been.
Something to think on …
An old earthen pipe like myself is dry and thirsty and so a most voracious drinker of life at its source; I'm no more to be split by the vital stream than if I were stone or steel.
— Elinor Wylie, born on this date in 1885
Wednesday, September 06, 2023
God bless Karlyn …
… Meet the Avowed Marxist Who Decides What Books Go in Your School Library.
The disguise — including “Kelty,” an alias — was necessary because Borysenko had been “preemptively banned” from the conference after gatecrashing the Socialist Reproductive Justice conference earlier this year.She might just be our real-world Sherlock Holmes — what an impressive young lady.
if I still had kids in school I would make it plain to the people in charge that I want a say in what want my kids to read. An I have credentials. They may not.
Something to think on …
You cannot imagine at all how much you interest God; He is interested in you as if there were no one else on earth.
— Julien Green, born on this date in 1900
Poetic realist …
… (12) The Poetry of Ernest Hilbert - by Micah Mattix - Prufrock. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
One of the things I appreciate about Hilbert is the understated realism of his work. He tries to capture—without theatrics or moralizing—what it feels like to live in the contemporary world. In fact, realism is a kind of ethic for him. His work is, in many ways, about facing the suffering and cruelty of life with honesty and courage.
Sure looks and sounds that way …
… Something’s Wrong in Rome.
The Pope, of course, is only the Vicar of Christ. A stand-in. Jesus remains its head. And there have been plenty of lousy Popes.
Tuesday, September 05, 2023
As well she ought …
… Mother Sues School District Over Secret Gender Transition That Led to Her Daughter Being Trafficked.
These clowns have to be made to bigtime. That’s the only way they’ll ever wise up.
Tracking the decline …
… Review of "The Fourth Turning Is Here" by Neil Howe | City Journal.
Howe’s prediction rests on a model that at its core is timeless and simple. In fact, it can be summed up by a four-line Internet meme: “hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, weak men create hard times.” Howe’s version manages to fill most of 500 pages with further nuance, however
I fear so …
… The new age of agitprop - spiked.
The results for consumers have been disastrous. In the new media world, all news coverage is geared towards upholding pre-established narratives. Actual reporting has become exceedingly rare.
Something to think on …
Writing a novel is like building a wall brick by brick; only amateurs believe in inspiration.
— Frank Yerby, born on this date in 1916
Watch and listen …
… Author Richard Rodriguez on the burden of intellectual development. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Monday, September 04, 2023
Peculiar …
… What Really Happens When Americans Stop Going to Church.
I am a cradle Catholic and I still practice the faith. We have been together since birth — though. I suspended observance during my self-indulgent years. I am a sinner.
Something to think on …
Whenever my environment had failed to support or nourish me, I had clutched at books.
— Richard Wright, born on this date in 1908
Sunday, September 03, 2023
Well, let’s see …
… Could Any Other Jazz Trumpeter Match Up with Louis Armstrong in the 1930s?. (Hat tip, Dave Lul.)
In case you wondered …
… Whatever Happened to Light Verse? (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
In his introduction to a collection of McGinley’s verse, W.H. Auden places her in the company of Jane Austen, Colette, and Virginia Woolf. Versifiers like McGinley were often held in high esteem by sophisticates like Auden and also managed to entertain millions of readers who had probably never been exposed to the works of Woolf, Colette, Austen, or even Auden himself. Auden was in fact an excellent writer of light verse. He became an American citizen at the age of 39, so much of his verse can be categorized as American, at least technically.
Saturday, September 02, 2023
Then he’s breaking the law …7
… Snek in the grass: KY gov may not follow law if McConnell retires
Maybe he can’t read. Wouldn’t surprise me.
Something to think on …
All good and true book-lovers practice the pleasing and improving avocation of reading in bed ... No book can be appreciated until it has been slept with and dreamed over.
— Eugene Field, born on this date in 1850
Friday, September 01, 2023
A poem …
… written by my daughter, Jennifer Knox.
Summer Lightning
What were you doing when the lightning came,
When the world fairly glistened with fireflies?
And then there was thunder, like God at the door.
Your heart did not stop, though maybe it tried.
And what were you doing when the lightning came?
Thoughts of my true-love, a flash of his eyes.
And then came the thunder to snuff us like ants,
Come to your senses, this lady-bug flies!
And what were you doing when the lightning came,
To shatter the glass of the jewel-cleaved sky?
A heartbeat, a heartbeat, then thunder came.
My children lay sleeping, and never a cry.
By light of lightning my lover I see
A pause, then thunder; he's crying for me
This is wonderful …
… My Summer With Leo Tolstoy. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… At some point I understood I hadn’t made a commitment of time but entered a world. It is about life—parties and gossip and thwarted elopements in the night, religious faith and class differences and society, men and women and personal dreams and private shames. It is about military strategy, politics and the nature of court life, a world that exists whether the court is that of Czar Alexander in 1812, or the White House or a governor’s office today. And of course it is about the Napoleonic wars, and Russia’s triumph after Napoleon’s invasion.
Something to think on …
The single fact of existing is already a true happiness.
— Blise Cendrars, born on this date in 1887
Thursday, August 31, 2023
City life …
… Gritty Photos of Life on New York's Subway in the 1970s and 1980s. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Have a look …
… Beats connection: Allen Ginsberg’s inner circle – in pictures. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
For those who believe and those who don’t …
… Mystical precision | The New Criterion. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Espaillat’s precision with regard to language exists to show language’s limits. This is the revelation she offers for religious readers: spiritual truth is not, at the end of the day, reducible to language.
But Espaillat has a revelation for agnostic readers as well.
Something to think on …
We shall walk together on this path of life, for all things are part of the universe and are connected with each other to form one whole unity,
— Maria Montessori, born on this date in 1870
Wednesday, August 30, 2023
Poem …
Discernment
Amid the darkness place the sun,
That veteran god, from deepest night
Evoking brightest day. Make plain
Imagination’s gestures are
But acts of faith, and loss of faith
An absence of imagination.
Merely perceiving misperceives:
We must invite what our eye bears —
Sunflower, catbird, passing cloud —
Into the tabernacle of the heart,
There where the lamp of vision flares.
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