Atlanta, GA March 22, 2020 Randolph Bourne observed that war is the health of the state. So are war analogies. Particularly those with obscure enemies and no clear definition of victory. The War on Poverty. The War on Drugs. The War on Terror. All undefined, all un-winnable, all unending. And all profitable…at least to a […]
Atlanta, GA March 8, 2020 I learned a couple days ago that I have been quarantined. Or perhaps Columbus has been quarantined. Whichever side of the door is locked, I was told not travel there this week. Apparently a bug flapped its wings across the Pacific and over the Himalayas, causing tornadoes in hospitals, airports, […]
Tampa, FL* December 25, 2019 We’ve reflected before on Chesterton’s observation that there are two ways of getting home. One is to stay there. The other is to wander the world till we return to our original place. In some sense, we have done both. We left home three and a half decades ago. And […]
Atlanta, GA October 14, 2019 Most know me as one who reads obscure history, watches classic movies, subsists on red wine, and writes pretentious emails. A guy who likes his political theory, his philosophic speculations, and his economic treatises like he likes his popular music and his Catholic liturgy: published before 1970. Then again, who […]
Atlanta, GA August 10, 2019 I cannot live without books. – Thomas Jefferson School is back. Last week David started his first year of high school, Alexander his last. The air, if not the calendar, carries a slight semblance of the season associated with a return to campus. Among the more amazing events in a […]
Glenn, MIJuly 22, 2019 Banners wave along the Champs-Élysées as the Grande Armée marches toward L’Arc du Triomphe. Confetti falls on Broadway as parades proceed down the Canyon of Heroes. Soldiers are joyous in Times Square, downing Champagne and kissing the first girls they can find. Fifty years ago last weekend, man took a small step…and mankind […]
Glenn, MIJuly 21, 2019 When sorrows come They come not as single spiesBut as battalions– Hamlet When it rains, it pours -Same idea, with less pomposity Slave-driven triremes carried the material goods and mental heritage of Greece and Rome through the shoals and storms of the Mediterranean and, over the tide of time, to us. Columbus […]
Atlanta, GAJuly 14, 2019 We’ve all heard the story of the lady who receives a beautiful red rose and places it on her cluttered kitchen table. The flower is lovely, but its charms are overwhelmed by the mess around it. She clears the debris, giving the rose room to shine…but exposing the dull veneer of […]
Dahlonega, GAJuly 6, 2018 We are at Cavender Creek Winery celebrating the beautiful, intimate vineyard wedding of a couple close friends. A series of storms threatened, but did not disrupt, the outdoor ceremony…leaving only a cool breeze and chirping birds to accompany the strains of vows and veils surrounding and adorning the protagonists and their […]
Atlanta, GAMay 5, 2018 My resistance to unexpected turn-of-events often resembles a newly paved road: initially firm and unyielding but, under exposure and pressure, soon starts to crack…and ultimately caves like limestone in Lakeland. This morning’s plea caught me completely off-guard, as if I had come across an open bar in a Mecca mosque. Today […]