Sometimes the kids do need to get off the grass, but after a certain age you cannot ask them to do so without being “that guy.” Similarly, complaints about bad reasoning are never popular. If not done very gently, a person risks being annoying and making the masses angry. Using the term “masses” about the masses can trigger a bad reaction. There is a double problem: cranks must be ignored and we are tempted to cry “crank” or “curmudgeon” when we... Read more
Sometimes life makes becoming an adult hard. Everything conspires to keep a boy from becoming a man and then everyone sniffs at him for not growing up. The solution is not to browbeat the lad, but to find him a Mentor who can send him out on a journey. Or so suggests Homer at the start of his Odyssey which pictures a young person somewhere in his twenties who needs help reaching maturity. Homer does not sneer, criticize, or send a... Read more
1 In the second year of the administration of Jerry II of Lynchburg came the Leader of Babylon unto Lynchburg, and besieged it. 2 And the Lord gave Jerry II president of Lynchburg into his hand, with part of heritage of the American church: which the Leader carried into the land of Babylon to the house of his god; and Donald brought the heritage into the treasure house of his god. 3 And Donald spake unto Michael the master of his eunuchs, that... Read more
The sixteen and seventeenth century in the West took a splendid opportunity left them by thinkers such as Shakespeare and Roger Bacon and squandered much. The Enlightenment did great good, but also made assumptions such as scientism and chronological snobbery. The snobbery was the most harmful as the thinkers themselves asserted they were “enlightened” compared to a “dark age” that came before them. This cut them off from valuable intellectual resources from the past. Francis Bacon was particularly guilty of... Read more
The late John McCain had a father and grandfather who both became admirals in the Navy. Did he live in the shadow of such success or in the light of it? Reporters differed in how they framed the McCain heritage because how you see the relationship between a father and his son, especially if the father is very successful, depends on many assumptions. Who can be sure? McCain, a long time senator and Republican presidential nominee, was very successful. Family... Read more
We can inherit height, eye color, and some propensities from our ancestors, but we might overlook some other good things that come from our fathers and mothers. If we connect properly to our family roots, and we should as far as we can, then we can benefit from the good those gone before us have done. We might inherit friends or at least find people with the history to become our friends. These connections can stretch back many generations. I... Read more
1616 came and Shakespeare and Cervantes died, but Bacon kept writing his way to a New Atlantis. Sadly, people with power ended up taking the New Atlantis more seriously in the short term than they did Shakespeare or Cervantes. Just like the old Atlantis, the new Atlantis would end up drowning in her pride and swamping much that had been good with it. A healthy dose of Shakespearean wit or Cervantes’ deft mockery might have left what was good in... Read more
If Donald Trump is not voted out of office, a distinct possibility due to his past vices, he is in decent position to win a second term. How is this possible? Before you reach the prose, my analysis, hear the poetry, lame as it must be given an outsider is writing it. Millions of people, not stupid people or bigots, believe there is a mostly white, mostly rich, mostly credentialed group that locks them out and uses the votes of... Read more
Rest in Peace Senator John McCain. My thoughts on his book here: I have come to praise John McCain, not to condemn him. May God grant him many years.* Yet his book, The Restless Wave, is sad, mostly because the “good times, just causes, great fights” seem ancient history already. The valedictory is bitter while intending to be optimistic: scores settled with forced cheer. McCain helped win a Cold War and salvaged a misguided hot one. He says he had a... Read more
“Times are bad. Times are so bad that to stop this particular evil, we will have to do things we wish we did not have to do. We do not like it, but we cannot unilaterally disarm in the face of this particular enemy.” Just this once, because the enemy is so bad, we must do evil and hope good will come. I have now lived long enough to have heard this about several different foes. The best cases for... Read more
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