Wednesday morning, I heard from my wife, daughter, and a friend, that the mad king shortly will be ensconced in the White House by the “will of the people.” Did we imagine that democracy was an American birthright, inviolate, a gift of the gods. What a sad illusion that was. We are awake now,…
Election day. I am glad to see, to feel the falling rain. The New York Times reports this morning that all but two states are in a condition of drought. According to the poet, Dionysus Olympian god of reverie and wine, while intoxicated with a single candle, illuminates the horizon. I think that we…
November 5 is election day. No matter the election outcome, I anticipate celebrating our granddaughter’s 5th birthday upon that day. Last evening afforded little rest. I woke with troubling dreams at odd times before daybreak Then I felt disoriented. Sometimes in waking life, I feel at a decision point, and my sense of things…
So you desire the happiness of others, perhaps that of your own child… What are you going to do? We should notgive the individual,in so far as he desires his own happiness,any preceptsor recommendationsas to the road leading to happiness; for individual happinessarises from particular lawsthat are unknownto anybody, and such a man/womanwill only…
I joined a group of adults for an evening of theological discussion. The topic assigned to us had to do with the relationship between our sense of Christian faith and the struggle for power which will crescendo on November 5th. Christianity is inherited from late antiquity. I suppose you are acquainted with the stories….
The Trump rally of Sunday at Madison Square Garden has been in the news. The rally was billed as an occasion for the closing arguments of the Trump campaign. The “argument” developed as a hate fest, a racist orgy castigating Puerto Rico and immigrant citizens from Puerto Rico who certainly vote in elections. Trump himself,…
We watched a 2023 film entitled Poor Things. This is a fantasy, steampunk Frankenstein takeoff, that picks apart default moral assumptions of cultured society. Bella Baxter is brought back to life. Bella, waking with the brain of a newborn, learns to physically function as an adult female. The twist of this tale is Bella’s…
A widespread feature of Christianity is hardly ever spoken of. Entire cultural groups are yet to recover from this malignant, distorted, misshapen evaluation of human sexuality. Perhaps you’ve the wrestled with a haunting of shame, the guilt-goblin that obstructs, persists, impeding a natural expression of your mammalian self? Hauntings are concealed, never spoken of…
How many conversations have I overheard on the “golden rule”? You know the maxim which recommends that I demonstrate toward my fellowman/woman the same deference which I am wont to demonstrate toward myself. The consensus: everyone approves the rule of harmony, this prescription for universal peace-love-and-understanding. Simply keep the Golden Rule in mind, and…
Could Halloween as a matter of fact be a religious festival? I mean that taking stock of the otherworldly, that sense of life when touched by ghostly, supernatural presence, – a frank admission of fright, of something inscrutable about what life and death means… Nietzsche writes a speculative account of someone who experiences a…
