A friend introduced me to The Wind In The Willows by Kenneth Grahame, published in 1908. It is a children’s story of the adventures of Mole, Rat, Toad and Badger. After reading the short book I learned the story had been a favorite of my youngest daughter. Kenneth Grahame, a banker, served as the…
Today is Monday. Preparations for the impeachment trial of former president Trump are underway. I heard on NPR someone interviewed about what the president knew about the plans of the mob who overran the Capitol on January 6th. Does a mob have plans as such? There is abundant evidence that the former president feels…
More than I want to know, more than I ought to know about the riot, the attempted overthrow of an election… There is a surplus of video taken of the January 6th assault on the Capitol. According to the New York Times: It’s hard to think of another crime that the perpetrators documented so…
I dreamed last night. Surely the mental vision happened early morning just before waking. Dreams are in the “coming to consciousness” phase of sleep. I found myself in a ruined city, at least it was partially wrecked, decrepit. Some few neighborhoods and thoroughfares were maintained and in use, — the rest, skyscrapers included were…
What we need. Those words capture in retrospect my sense of the exchange of ideas experienced a few hours ago when the philosophy discussion group held a virtual meeting to consider (M)existentialism. The launch pad for this discussion was Carlos Alberto Sanchez’ essay about Emilio Uranga’s philosophical work. The texture of the discussion was…
I In my beginning is my end. In succession Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended, Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass. Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires, Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth Which…
The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the…
Yesterday was a sublime fall day. In the morning I worked to gather the leaves that remained on our lawn. The mulched leaves were used to form a berm across a boundary section between our yard and the public park. In the months intervening till spring perhaps these leaves will turn to humus. I…
Continuing To Live By Philip Larkin Continuing to live — that is, repeat A habit formed to get necessaries — Is nearly always losing, or going without. It varies. This loss of interest, hair, and enterprise — Ah, if the game were poker, yes, You might discard them, draw a full house! But it’s…
THE DRY SALVAGES* (No. 3 of ‘Four Quartets’) by T.S. Eliot I I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river Is a strong brown god—sullen, untamed and intractable, Patient to some degree, at first recognised as a frontier; Useful, untrustworthy, as a conveyor of commerce; Then only a problem…
