It is not only in their themes that these poems are revelatory. Bottum’s practice of poetry hovers always close to music and song. In English, our paradigmatic line is the iambic pentameter. The five-stress line is flexible enough to be musical when needed, but it can also accommodate the plainest speech and the most ornate and golden rhetoric. Bottum’s poems are usually one metrical foot shorter, in some sort of loose or tight tetrameter or trimeter. Tetrameter is the language of ballad and song, of music almost to the exclusion of rhetoric.
Wednesday, March 22, 2023
More appreciation …
… The Neo-Latinate Imagination of Joseph Bottum | Acton Institute: (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Tracking the decline …
… Media bias and campus chaos - by Tom Knighton.
The truth of the matter is that the media has given up any pretense of being unbiased, yet one can’t help but wonder if this is a reflection of the chaos we tend to see on American college campuses or the cause of it.
Dumb as posts …
… On the generational narcissism of sensitivity readers.
The most striking aspect of the whole ordeal, and indeed even of the existence of a company such as Inclusive Minds, is the abounding narcissism inherent in this new breed of cultural censor. What level of self-regard must one possess to feel qualified to rewrite classic novels? Would these same “sensitivity readers'' also consider themselves qualified to retouch the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in order to render it less patriarchal? And if not, what then makes them feel qualified to rewrite entire sections of The BFG?
Live and let live …
… NHL players are courageously leading the charge against gender propaganda and indoctrination | Washington Examiner.
No one should have any problem with what Reimer said, but they sure will. The Left wants to force everyone to surrender to their way of thinking. The people who claim to be the most accepting and understanding are also the most intolerant of anyone who disagrees.
A very insightful piece …
… The King of Love My Shepherd Is: Some thoughts that are gay and also happy | Eve Tushnet. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
For me, being gay has never been particularly solitary or sorrowful; and so, to the extent that my gay experience prepared me for conversion, it was conversion not as rescue but as deepening. The virtues I discovered in gay communities helped me understand love, and recognize Love when He came to me; the beauty I experienced in women prepared me for the absolute Beauty. It seems to me that “gay” and “straight” are both odd modern conglomerates which include a mix of temptations to sin and possibilities for love. “Side B” is a big umbrella, and there are many people under it whose spirituality centers on Jesus as the light in our solitude, the companion in our sorrow. I have needed that Jesus myself, especially in my sobriety. But I have found that “side B” people are open to the possibility that Jesus may also be found in shared joy.
Appreciation …
… Signs and Wonders, by Will Stephenson. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The old ways are always being contrasted with present-day American banality, with the encroachment of chintzy commercial culture even into the hinterlands. This flattening, atomizing force is what seemingly accounts for Portis’s preoccupation with Gnomon-esque guilds and other such flimsy attempts at restoring enchantment and community to a culture that has lost all meaningful trace of either.
Talk about worrisome …
… Child mortality is rising at the fastest rate in 50 years | The Hill.
“These increases, the largest in decades, followed a period of great progress in reducing pediatric mortality rates,” the authors wrote. They assigned blame to “manmade pathogens,” particularly guns and drugs.
What the hell is going on in our society?
Something to think on …
We do not at present educate people to think but, rather, to have opinions, and that is something altogether different.
— Louis L’Amour, born on this datein 1908
Tuesday, March 21, 2023
I fear so …
… Abortion advocates today sound a lot like the eugenicists of the past.
Since I happen to be an illegitimate child, I’m sure glad my Mom went ahead and had me anyway. The so-called fetus is genetically unique — an individual person, essentially unlike either parent Killing one is murder and no amount of sophistry can demonstrate otherwise.
Where we find ourselves these days …
… The Sweater.
On Jan. 17, Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Ivan Provorov declined to wear a pride jersey in warmups, citing his Christian (Russian Orthodox) beliefs. So he sat in the locker room, banished, while his teammates took their pre-game skate.
… within days, No. 9 Provorov game replica sweaters were selling out on the NHL Shop and at Fanatics, indicating that despite the hatred that was heaped on him – shameful hockey media hack E.J. Hradek suggested that Provorov return to Europe and “maybe get involved” in Russia’s war in Ukraine, while sports writer Cyd Zeigler huffed that “Proporov chose to embrace prejudice” – not just a few appreciated his position.
For what it’s worth, my friend Katherine Miller and I shared power of attorney for a gay couple. So don’t call us homophobic.
Our despicable political class
… Mark Levin SHREDS ‘A Soros Prosecutor’ Alvin Bragg Over Possible Trump Indictment.
“How much you want to bet these news operations covering it, like MSNBC, NBC, and the rest, have entered into non-disclosure agreements?” Levin asked. “Now we call it ‘hush money’”?
Something to think on …
Those wearing Tolerance for a label call other views intolerable.
— Phyllis McGinley, born on this date in 1905
This is not a joke …
… though it’s bound to draw a lot of laughs: University of Helsinki gives Greta Thunberg a Doctorate of Theology.
Much in what he says …
… Down With College | Power Line.
The Journal doesn’t discuss this factor, but it seems obvious that one reason for the anti-college trend is the wokism that has infected virtually all colleges and universities. Higher education is now, in most cases, a hostile environment for young men, and it is rapidly becoming a hostile environment for normal people, generally. So why should most kids–the ones who aren’t going to be doctors, engineers, and a handful of other occupations–shell out a lot of money for a poor education?
Monday, March 20, 2023
Really courageous …
… Paul Davis On Crime: A Look Back At Hemingway At War:.
In a letter Lanham wrote to his wife, he described Hemingway: “He is probably the bravest man I have ever known, with an unquenchable lust for battle and adventure.” So much for Hemingway being a coward. Lanham also confirms that Hemingway did indeed fight alongside his troops while under heavy attack.
This is surely worrisome …
… Library : Pornography and Priestly Vocations | Catholic Culture.
Pornography addiction is spreading throughout North America at a terrifying rate, leaving in its wake truncated careers, disintegrated marriages, and ruined lives. It knows not the barriers of age, race, religion or sex. And the situation is not going to get better soon because high cash returns continue to line the porn king's pockets and fuel the spread of the smut.
The Church, as an institution, does seem in a bad way these days.
Something to think on …
I don't imagine you will dispute the fact that at present the stupid people are in an absolutely overwhelming majority all the world over.
— Henrik Ibsen, born this date in 1828
Sunday, March 19, 2023
In case you wondered …
… Can Consciousness be Explained? - by William F. Vallicella.
This is too rightly argued to lend itself to quotations. You have to read the whole thing. Bill is doing the world a favor with these pieces.
Examine the evidence …
… Can We Trust the Gospels? | The Russell Kirk Center. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
We have … more sources for Jesus than we do for either Socrates or Alexander the Great. Not only are there four biographical accounts of Jesus (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John), all likely written within 30-60 years of Jesus’ life, but there are letters written by Paul that are even earlier, as well as citations by non-biblical sources such as Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, Seutonius, and the emperor Trajan (among others). By contrast, the earliest biography we have for Alexander the Great is over four hundred years after he lived.
See also: CHINESE EVIDENCE OF JESUS’ BIRTH, DEATH AND RESURRECTION (from the time of Christ).
Something to think on …
Home is where the books are.
— Richard Francis Burton, born on this date in 1821
In case you wondered …
… How to define “wokeness” (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… woke ideas positively encourage paranoid habits of mind which are analogous to those exhibited by people suffering from depression, anxiety, and other psychological disorders. Looking at the world through woke lenses leads one to see oppression and injustice even where they do not exist, to feel strongly aggrieved at this imagined oppression and injustice, and then to treat the narrative of grievance that results as if it were confirming evidence of the reality of the imagined oppression and injustice.
Saturday, March 18, 2023
I get this …
… Oregon’s Rural-Urban Divide Sparks Talk of Secession.
Redrawing the map would require much more than fresh cartography. Logistical challenges grow more thorny with each new question: Would people in eastern Oregon be ready to embrace a sales tax? How would Idaho, which bans legal marijuana, manage eastern Oregon’s thriving weed industry? How would the states transition eastern Oregon’s state employees, with some benefits already earned, to a new retirement system with different rules and compensation?
Here in Pennsylvania, the problem is getting Philly — and maybe parts of adjacent counties — to secede.
I love it …
… St. Patrick Glad He Brought Christianity To The Anglo-Saxons So Their Descendants Could Get Plastered And Punch Each Other | Babylon Bee.
My favorite St. patrick’s Day is the one when my beloved first wife and I went to Irish club in Mount Airy. We’re sitting at the bar. There is a great band playing great Irish songs Just before they finish they ask if anyone has a final. I immediately say, ‘How about ‘God Save the Queen’? The place goes silent. My wife leans over and says, “Why the hell would you say that?” Unperturbed, I said to the others at the bar, “I thought we were Irish, and had a sense of humor.’ Whereupon we all laughed, and one guy said, “ You’re a wise ass, right?’ Isaid, ‘I fear so.’ We all left as friends.
Yeah, like Joe really knows about this …
… Yes, it's real: Joe Biden's Department of Energy just moved to ban nearly all gas stoves.
I just posted a rather blunt comment. Like Joe really has a clue. I have a gas. They cook better than electric stoves. Of course, Joe probably never cooked anything in his life, having soentbmost of same sucking on the public teat.
Hmm …
… Netflix's Money Shot: The Pornhub Story neglects pornography's real victims | Washington Examiner.
Porn has never done much for me. I’ve always preferred real live sex. But I remember going with a friend of mine — a clinical psychologist — to see Deep Throat, which was the first pirn flick to make regular theaters. Well, after half an hour I got the idea and turned to Dave to ask if he had seen enough. He was sound asleep.I also used to sometimes go to hooker bars with a friend (a physician no less, but a great person and a great doctor). I got along with the girls and they loved talking to me — precisely because I made it made I wasn’t a potential customer.Maybe I’m weird. Maybe it’s because I have three daughters. But I just never turned on to the idea of sex as a commodity. And by the way, I may be 81, but women still like me.One other thing: Lots of the guys behind porn are creeps.
Good for them …
… Iowa suspends new DEI policies in higher ed, launches probe into current ones | The College Fix.
Remember Stein’s Law: “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop."
Something to think on …
Every single human soul has more meaning and value than the whole of history.
— Nikolai Berdyaev, born on this date in 1874
It’s true here, too …
… Flashing Orange Globes. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I caution people crossing at Ninth and Washington (a couple of blocks from where I live) not to rely on the lights and crosswalk. A couple of months ago an African-American couple were nearly run over by a guy speeding thriugh a red light. The.bikers can be dangerous too.
Someone who knows …
… Campus Reform | ASSOC. PROF. Buynevich: I grew up in the Soviet Union. Even those universities valued merit more than some American schools do today.
My message to those individuals who hung the flyer and everyone else who agrees with its message is clear: Before you advocate for socialism here, try experiencing it somewhere else. You will not find the utopia you are searching for.
Friday, March 17, 2023
I fear ‘tis so …
… Pope Francis’ Decade of Division.
In the secular press the narrative of Francis as a great reformer was established early on, and as contrary evidence has emerged, the response has often been a decorous silence. It’s been mostly left to his conservative critics to compile the lists of clerics accused of abuse who have been given favorable treatment by this pontiff; or to harp on the failures of financial reform and the absence of any obvious renewal in the pews; or to point out that a pontificate that once promised to make the church less self-referential, less inward-focused, has instead produced a decade of bitter internal arguments and widening theological divisions — while Catholicism’s official verbiage is received with conspicuous indifference by the wider world.
Something to think on …
In old age, you realise that while you're divided from your youth by decades, you can close your eyes and summon it at will. As a writer it puts one at a distinct advantage.
— Penelope Lively, born on this date in 1933
Thursday, March 16, 2023
More winners …
… Incredible Winners of the British Wildlife Photography Awards. (Hat tip, Rus Dowde,)
That’s for sure …
… Enough Is Enough - The Catholic Thing:.
… the overwhelming majority of abusers in the clergy abuse scandal were homosexual men. Thus the hypocrisy of the Post in its March 9 report – a news organization that reveled in trashing the Catholic Church for its patterns of clergy sexual abuse – is thick enough to rival the Antarctic ice pack. Illicit homosexual behavior in the priesthood has no claim to “privacy”. . .or moral integrity.
Lest anyone accuse me of being homophobic, they should know that a friend I shared power of attorney for a gay couple, both of whom would have agreed with this article.
Appreciation …
… Remembering poet Henri Coulette, a forgotten voice of Los Angeles. (Har tip, Dave Lull.)
There’s … a haunting, haunted quality to Coulette’s story, an early success who went silent too soon. “Henri’s death troubles me: the collapse of what began as a bright career as a poet, and his complete isolation at the end,” wrote his onetime friend and Writers’ Workshop colleague Robert Dana in the New York Times after Coulette’s death; Dana, who alludes to Coulette’s issues with drinking and depression, makes a point of including that he’d been found “in a chair; alone.”
The new McCarthyism …
… Cancel culture will rule higher ed until there's diversity in thought.
Of course, these alleged students probably don’t know who the hell McCarthy was. My advice is to not waste your money sending your kids to any of these shit-hole schools. Sad. I had so many great teachers in college.
Something to think on …
The ways of Providence cannot be reasoned out by the finite mind ... I cannot fathom them, yet seeking to know them is the most satisfying thing in all the world.
— Selma Lagerlöf, who died on this date in 1940
Wednesday, March 15, 2023
Cause for doubt …
… Evolution’s Tall Tale — The Giraffe Neck.
In the giraffe’s case, a bit of reasoning goes a long way. Blind evolution doesn’t look ahead and coordinate a group of changes for some future advantage. It’s blind and must proceed by one small useful step at a time. No evolutionist, for instance, believes that a small number of mega-mutations turned a land mammal into a whale.
See also Giving Up Darwin.
It’s come to this …
… Overschooled and Undereducated - Crisis Magazine.
I am … taken aback by people who know no more about meteorology than I do, and less about the mathematics of functions with more than two or three variables, and a lot less about history and geography, but who are so certain of some meteorological prediction, they are ready to call you a knave, an idiot, or a perfect madman if you decline to agree.
Q&A …
(Hat tip, Dave Lull.)… Ikiru had a profound impact on me. I grew up as a teenager and a student thinking about that film, it’s message. It meant a lot to me at that age, when you’re trying to figure out what’s the meaning of life. How do you lead a meaningful life? Especially if it doesn’t seem realistic as it didn’t at that point in my existence, that I’d have anything other than a fairly straightforward humble middle class life, working in some office somewhere.
Something to think on …
God forbid that any book should be banned. The practice is as indefensible as infanticide.
— Rebecca West, who died on this date in 1983
Tuesday, March 14, 2023
Hmm …
… PARTY'S OVER I’m an ex-NYPD detective – students should not travel to Mexico for spring break, it’s not worth endangering your life.
Maybe we should finish what President Polk started: conquer Mexico.
Another scam probably …
… We Were Censored for Reporting on Natural Immunity. What's Next?
I have not been vaxxed. But I have been tested mucho times. My wife has been in and out of hospitals, rehabs, and assisted living facilities. To visit her I had to be tested. Always negative. I’ve also never had the flu. I have a good immune system, and I’m sure in hell not taking a vaccine that took less than two years to be approved.
Good for him …
… Pope Francis just blindsided Joe Biden with a shocking announcement | The Federalist Wire.
“Gender ideology, today, is one of the most dangerous ideological colonizations,” Francis said in the interview published on the evening of March 10.
So to speak …
… Language Victim - The American Spectator | USA News and Politics. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I’m no spring chicken. When I took Spanish in junior-high school, back in the Nixon era, learning new words was as easy as binging on potato chips. In later years, other languages came harder. And these days it seems nearly impossible.
Taking a stand …
… Inheritance and Appropriation - by William F. Vallicella.
Against the 'woke' erasure of our heritage
Something to think on …
Once there were two brothers. One ran away to sea; the other was elected vice president of the United States. And nothing was heard of either of them again.
— Thomas R. Marshall, born on this date in 1854
Monday, March 13, 2023
FYI …
… Becca Rothfeld joins The Washington Post as a nonfiction book critic - The Washington Post.
At least the Post still has a book section,
Thanks, kid …
… Greta Thunberg deletes 2018 tweet saying world will end in 2023 after world does not end | The Post Millennial | thepostmillennial.com.
Maybe she should read the satellite data.
Days at sea …
… Paul Davis On Crime: A Sea Story: A Look Back At American Sailors Hunting Sharks In Loch Fyne.
… looking back after all these years, I achieved what I had set out to do, which was to have some interesting travel experiences and a bit of adventure.
Listening closely …
… Cohen’s Hallelujah. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Cohen’s attempt to sanctify carnal desire rings hollow—unsurprisingly, given that he never married and refused to dedicate himself to one woman. He may have felt “love for workers in song,” but he also had a pathological fear of commitment.
Something to think on …
For poetry there exists neither large countries nor small. Its domain is in the heart of all men
— Giorgos Seferupis, born on this date in 1900
In case you wondered …
… Do You Really Want to Teach at a University?
The explosion of higher education in the 1960s, together with the Vietnam war and other factors led to a glut of students which led to a need for more professors. So the good news is that guys like me got to be professors, but the bad news was that we had to teach people not worth teaching for the most part
Sunday, March 12, 2023
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