Pete Seeger and St. Thomas Aquinas, Together Again

It’s a busy kind of day. Not for me, you understand, but just in general.

I woke up this morning and opened my breviary and discovered that today is St. Thomas Aquinas’ feast day. This is embarassing, because he’s my patron, and I knew his day was coming up and I forgot about it. (At least I noticed in time to make it to mass this morning.) Fortunately, Leah Libresco has a post up that covers the Aquinas waterfront, and Brandon Watson has a neat post on St. Thomas’ views on government, which are remarkably timely.

And then, Pete Seeger passed away. I have a fraught relationship with Mr. Seeger. He was a skilled musician, a great singer, and apparently a kind man in person. His albums with the Weavers are must listening for the folk revival era, and his live album with Arlo Guthrie, “Precious Friend”, is simply outstanding. And for most of his life he was a Communist, a follower of a venomous ideology that has accounted for far more casualties than Hitler ever dreamed of. My parents had albums by the Limelighters and Harry Belafonte and other folkies while I was growing up, but the Weavers were conspicuously absent. As a political and social philosopher, Pete Seeger was a pretty good singer. May he rest in peace.

Here’s Mr. Seeger singing “Precious Friend” with Arlo Guthrie and the entire audience at Wolf Trap Farm.