Atlanta, GA April 25, 2020 The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. – H.L. Mencken “Are you insane?” Uh oh… “What?”, I winced, looking up from my book. “Did you really […]
Atlanta, GA April 12, 2020 Back in the Mesozoic Era…about six weeks ago…we entered Lent, and have since wandered in a hell of a wilderness. Satan seemed everywhere, but even he could offer little to tempt God’s children…or to compete with government largesse Bread? That’s fine. But what we really needed was toilet paper, fake […]
Atlanta, GAMarch 32, 2020 March is supposed to come in like a lion and out like a lamb. In some sense, this one assuredly did. Roadways, sidewalks, and subways are certainly quieter than they were four weeks ago. And most of us feel as if we’d been sheared. I almost can’t remember what people were […]
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 12, 2020 The first thing people usually do at times like this is panic. So at least they’re doing it in the right order. Not that precautionary measures aren’t warranted. Yesterday my company prohibited travel till the first of May, and compelled working from home till the beginning of April. My commute […]
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 […]
Benton, TN August 17, 2019 Men may rise on stepping stones of their dead selves, to higher things. – Tennyson David and I are with his Boy Scout troop for a snorkeling trip in the Conasauga River. Tonight we will camp back inside the Georgia line, near the town of Calhoun. The weather and scenery […]
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 […]
Atlanta, GAApril 21, 2019 Have you ever braced yourself for a Michael Jackson biopic on Nickelodeon, a George Carlin routine at a convent, or a Sarah Palin press conference anywhere…ready to cringe, wince, and contort so much that your face resembles Keith Richards after a hangover? The subject of this note may very well have […]
Atlanta, GANovember 11, 2018 In the small villages of France hardly a family was spared. Monuments in the centers of most every town record the names of “Nos Heros…Mort Pour La France”… During repeated visits to Paris, Provence, and the valleys of the Rhône and the Loire during the first few years of this century, […]