G-7 Photo
This instagram photo posted by Prime Minister of Germany Angela Merkel is striking for the story that it tells. Note Prime Minister Abe of Japan’s stoic expression showing dismay. Stay tuned…………………..
Memorial Day
We attended a Memorial Day ceremony in Beach Park. I did my best to enjoy it. It always seems tragically sad to remember those who died prematurely in unnecessary wars. I consider the Vietnam War and all of those since, including those underway,–unnecessary. To disregard the evidence of your own senses, and to believe…
Ken And Barbie Open A New Embassy
Often cause and effect is not obvious. The direction of the process, and the meaning of the ultimate result may be concealed by a tortuous chain of ambiguous links. Where, how did the cancer begin? Such news comes “out of the blue.” the last thing one expects to hear. The lethal condition was not…
Resumption
I’ve not posted in several days. The writing routine has been interrupted by a remodeling project at my preferred spot for contemplation, my examination of soul for proper words. I think that good work requires being at home in a context. The renovation of the Starbucks is nearly complete and I should return to…
μῆνῐς
Rage! Menis! How much history, as though a blind fate, –is a story of rage and the aftermath. April 2, 1865 the Confederacy was essentially finished. After four years of war, the Union army entered Richmond while the city burned. A way of life based upon slavery, the blind determination to unjustly use human…
Rage
The rage of Achilles—sing it now, goddess, sing it through me the deadly rage that caused the Achaeans such grief and hurled down to Hades the souls of so many fighters, leaving their naked flesh to be eaten by dogs and carrion birds, as the will of Zeus was accomplished. Begin at the time…
The War Begins
The primary is over here in Illinois. The gubernatorial primary ended with the incumbent Governor Rauner victorious over Jeanne Ives. Ives, a West Point Graduate, a female-warrior, brought a warm, steely, fundamentalist authenticity to the camera. I liked her at a emotional level while being terrified of her intentions. Rauner on the other hand…
To Reconcile The Contradictions
Received an email from a friend yesterday informing me of his enthusiasm for Antonio Damasio’s book, The Strange Order of Things. The work is about the importance of story telling. To say that story telling is important is to greatly underestimate the matter. I do not think it is possible to understand how our…
American War
I am reading a book by Omar El Akkad. He is a journalist. He was born in Cairo Egypt and grew up in Doha, Qatar. He has filed dispatches from the NATO led war in Afghanistan, the military trials at Guantanamo Bay, the Arab Spring revolution in Egypt and the Black Lives Matter movement…
Where There’s A Whip
In the Lord of the Rings story by JRR Tolkien, the cartoon version has a scene of orc infantry being marched to war. While supervised by an officer wielding a whip they sing, “Don’t want to go to war today,–but where there’s a whip there is a way.” The scene came to mind as…
