A final evening of the DNC event at the United Center featured Kamala Harris’ acceptance speech of her parties nomination as candidate for the presidency. I was transfixed by the superb choice of words, the artistry of the rhetoric, while feeling a bit of discomfort. Upon reflection this morning I understand that the speech…
Again I viewed night three of the televised speeches from the Democratic National Convention. As anticipated the parade of celebrities was preliminary to the headliner, Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota. Walz’ nomination acceptance speech was a praise anthem to middle-class America. Does anyone know what “this” is anymore? Middle class is no longer cleanly…
I do not keep secret that I am a recovering evangelical. My evangelical roots will always be residual in my personality, my style and manner of life. The past, however it might have been, continues to reverberate through us. (Just a note of gratitude, – without a past you and I would not be…
I was inclined not to watch. I assumed the first evening of televised speeches from the Democratic National Convention were likely to be similar to the first half of most NFL football games. Each team gets a feel for the game plan, taking the measure of the opponent, a tepid warmup of sorts. Some…
The National Convention of the Democratic Party begins today in downtown Chicago. As one would expect the event is conceived to produce maximally persuasive visuals for television, for electronic distribution. The convention as a whole, including various groups coming to Chicago to exercise the opportunity for free expression in the “public square” – will…
Saturday morning is overcast. A storm moved through last night. We needed the rain. I feel gratitude for timely rain, because circumstances could be otherwise. I’ll not dwell upon that! Here is a poem that speaks to many things. The female poetess describes a birth, which is a primal and spiritual matter, a dying…
This J. D. Vance clip has been at the forefront of media coverage of the election campaign. In a 2021 interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson, then-Senate-candidate Vance complained that the U.S. was being run by Democrats, corporate oligarchs and “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives…
“something unteachable, a granite of spiritual fate” Those written words make me shudder. Do I detect an odor of a timeworn notion of destiny? I mean to say that even with the privilege of education, or perhaps of financial resources, of means – there’s a certain core that is untouchable by any circumstance, a…
Who doesn’t prefer approval, being well received, thought of with affection by one’s fellows. Nietzsche was no different than you or I. That variety of genteel, decorous social embrace, idealized in storytelling of the Victorian era is what we’d all wish, because then each of us has his/her place in the tribe without fissure…
People should rethink their ideas about cruelty and open up their eyes; they should finally learn impatience, so that big, fat, presumptuous mistakes like this will stop wandering virtuously and audaciously about. We’d like to believe we Americans are of all people the most humane. We want what is best, which we fervently believe…
