The recent death of Whitney Houston elicited the handwringing and lamentations that are the hallmark of American journalism. Poor Amy, poor Whitney, poor Michael, poor Notorious—they were so young, and they had so much to live for. What a tragedy! The word tragedy is no longer applied to the death of worthy people who made...
This week I am going to put up several poems by Lionel Johnson. Johnson was a fine, not to say exquisite craftsman, a friend of Yeats and the “Decadents.” He is mainly known today as a religious poet, but he has a gift for evoking a scene. Johnson’s best known poem is: By the...
“I only know what I read in the papers.” Will Rogers was a master ironist, and when he made and repeated this assertion, he seemed to be saying several things. As a friend of the powerful and famous, he was frequently asked serious political questions, which this modest reply deflected. But also, by implication,...
So far we have considered mostly lyric forms, particularly the sonnet, but verse is used for many purposes–narrative, didactic, and satiric. Perhaps in this political season we should consider social and political satire, both in the broadest and in its stricter sense. Even used in the broadest sense, satire is not comic parody or...
Let us now have a look at the so-called Italian or Petrarchan sonnet. It was popularized by the great Aretine poet Petrarch, and early examples of the sonnet are often overt imitations of the master. The problem for the English poet is that Italian is a language in which rhyme comes so easily as...
Let us do some sonnets this week. We can start with what are called English sonnets, as opposed to Petrarchan. It is a simple form: three quatrains of 10-syllable “iambic” lines, alternately rhyming, and a final rhymed couplet. This is Shakespeare’s Sonnet 98, not one of the most famous, but an old favorite of mine:...
Movements are always based on lies, and the lies begin with the titles and slogans that are chosen to advance “the cause.” Here in the United States, so-called liberals are really nonrevolutionary Marxists, while the people who call themselves conservatives are, at one extreme, libertarian capitalists who reject any principle or experience that cannot be...
This is the last poem I shall post this week, again by Landor. The form is seductively sweet but rhyming triplets are not easy. The fourth line, of course, is only five syllables and ends with a weak or feminine ending. The rhyming of two consecutive each fourth lines has the effect of tying...
A commenter on my Daily Mail Blog asked me a few questions about “modern” verse, specifically what I thought of Gerard Manley Hopkins and T.S. Eliot. A political blog with a shelf-life of three days is no place to discuss “the permanent things” (to borrow a famous phrase from Eliot himself), and I have...
Mitt Romney now admits he “misspoke” in saying he was not concerned about the very poor. Ron Paul, one of Romney’s few defenders, says that if we could look into Romney’s heart we would not find that he cares nothing for poor people. This is among the more disturbing signs of Dr. Paul’s weirdness...
Tactics is merely The mechanical movement of bodies . . . After nearly nine years, about 4,500 Americans killed and 30,000 wounded and no one seems to know how many trillions of dollars it will cost in the end, the United States is finally doing what we should have done almost immediately, once we made...
The Republican Party’s search for a presidential candidate is a bit like a musical revue. As the star (Mitt Romney) goes up and down the chorus line, one after another dancer emerges from obscurity into the spotlight, dazzles the audience for a few moments, before sinking back into the anonymous mass. Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann,...
Day Six December 23, 2011. Thousands of Sunni Muslims in Samarra, Ramadi, Baiji, and Qaim have taken to the streets. Many of them carry signs and banners protesting the Shi’ah-dominated government of Nouri al-Maliki and expressing support for threatened Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi. Day Five December 22, 2011. Dozens of people were killed as bombs...
After returning from my Balkan adventures, I can now return to the serious business of using Plato to teach reasoning. Let us turn to the Apology. You probably all know that the Greek apologia means something like justification or defense argument rather than apology. It is Plato’s reconstruction (or imaginative recreation) of the speech Socrates made in...
I shall not cease from mental fight Nor shall my sword sleep in my mind Till we have built Jerusalem In England’s green and pleasant land. William Blake was quite mad, even madder than most Swedenborgians—and that is saying a good deal—but Christians less insane than Blake have dreamed of building a new Jerusalem where...
It has been a while since I posted a Booklog entry. It is not for lack of reading, on my part, but most of my reading has been either rather technical–Sicilian history, Pre-Socratic philosophy, the history of marriage–or too light to merit discussion. In preparing for our own Sicilian Expedition, though, I reread Plato’s...
Winston Churchill’s backhanded praise of democracy as “the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried” is usually cited as the last word on the subject. It is a good way of closing off a dangerous topic of discussion, and it works quite well with that vast majority of people...
When Herman Cain made his irrelevant 9-9-9 tax plan a focal point of the current political debate, Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich were quick to shout out their ‘Me too!’ Perry’s 20% flat tax, pulled out of the magic hat by a deft right hand, would produce a very serious revenue short fall, but...
I know it is none of my business. If the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth wish to change the rules of succession to the crown, I have no right to an opinion, not only because as an American I have about as much interest in royal antics as I do in soap operas…. Read...
Eight years ago when George Bush and his advisers decided to invade Iraq, the only moral or legal justification they could dream up was Saddam Hussein’s alleged possession of “weapons of mass destruction.” At the time, I derided this claim, in print and on radio and television…. Read more and comment on The Daily...
My latest on the Daily Mail takes up the rise and what I hope will be the fall of Herman Cain. I also have an even newer piece on Obama’s First 1000 Days. Please do not respond here, since what is really needed is a show of interest at the Daily Mail. I would rather be doing these pieces...
My wife does not like horror films. I used to think it was because she does not wish to be frightened, but we all, even prim Victorian ladies, enjoy a good scare from time to time, especially when we know we are safe. Girl Scouts around the campfire tell stories about the murdered little girl...
Siracusa: Sunday, 25 September 2011 We’ve been in Siracusa since Friday evening. My wife, Christopher Check, and I, accompanied by our young friend and board member Mark Atkins, are checking out the site of our next Winter School, and there is so much to do: so many ancient ruins to check out, so many medieval...
Kudos to the Morning Edition staff! I have been an NPR listener almost from the beginning, and while I am constantly impressed by the errors and distortions that pepper your reporting on literature and history, I must confess that even I was bowled over by Robert Krulwich’s conversation with Stephen Greenblatt on the subject of the...
Monday, September 19 The big noise is, again, President Obama’s job’s plan that will require a tax on the rich, the so-called “Buffet Plan.” Now, I’d be ticked pink if all the Warren Buffets of America could be taxed out of their dirty business. What has Mr. Buffet ever manufactured, what has he ever...
Friday, September 16 The Paul and I are on the radio at 3 (CDT), but I’m not sure what we do next Friday when I will have just finished cena in Siracusa. Anyone catch Pat Robertson’s words of wisdoms on why it is OK to divorce a spouse with Alzheimer’s because they are more...
1:00 PM CDT, Tuesday, September 11, 2001 In the aftermath of the greatest loss of American life in a single attack since Pearl Harbor—and probably ever—our first thoughts must be for the victims of an attack that was neither cowardly nor senseless (as it is already being called), but a well-coordinated demonstration of American...
Idling: A Public and Entirely Self-Serving Diary 1 September 4,2011. A few words by way of justification for wasting time, mine as much as yours, on talking about nothing. I have always been by inclination an idle man, the sort who is too lazy to balance his checkbook or do his taxes until the...
“Priminent [sic] National Education Reformer Making a Home in Nashville,” announced the headline on Google News. Just in the nick of time, you might think, but when you read the story on Missouri News Horizon’s website, you will find that the great reformer, one Michelle Rhee, is serving up the usual empty portions of educationese...
“La plupart de jeunes gens croient etre naturels, lorsqu’ils ne sont que mal polis et grossiers.” La Rochefoucauld’s caustic observation on the false simplicity of young people who mistake crudeness for nature tells us that the cult of the primitive antedates both Rousseau and the Romantic writers who wrought so much mischief. Society...
The most interesting Ron Paul Story these days is the Ron Paul Story. What? It’s like this. I well understand why so many disgruntled and disgusted Republicans are turning in despair to a man who probably cannot get the nomination, much less win in a general election. Paul’s supporters have come, however dimly, to...
In the new millennium, the Americans acting badly are spoiled children who have never learned what it would mean to grow up. 100 years ago, this type was already developing, and Booth Tarkington describes some of these characters in his fiction—the Penrod stories, Little Orvie, and, most effectively, the character of Georgie Minafer in...
Bernard Mandeville was a Dutch physician (b. 1670 in Rotterdam), who moved to England, apparently to learn the language. In 1704 he published a poem of doggerel couplets, The Grumbling Hive, which he included in his 1714 book, The Fable of the Bees, Or, Private Vices, Public Benefits. It is one of those rare books whose title...
The city-state is the seedbed of civilization, but the concept seems alien to the American tradition. Nonetheless, our cities did once possess, at least before the Revolution, many of the same rights enjoyed by English and European burgs. In the Anglo-American world, the liberties of cities were defined by the charters they received either from...
I am going to use the word “liberal” in a very broad sense to refer to the modern movement in ethics and politics that begins in the Renaissance, develops in the Enlightenment, and culminates in the classical liberalism of the 19th century. Socialism–and the other isms that have plagued European man for the past...
I have started work on a piece analyzing the rights and wrongs of the classical liberal tradition. To do it properly, I am going to review a number of major works in that tradition, specifically, Mandeville, Condorcet, Smith, Godwin, JS Mill, Fitzjames Stephen, and Hayek. I do not intend to spend a great deal...
Dear Friends: I am sorry to inform you that my long time friend and Rockford Institute board member Peter Stanlis has died from a combination of lymphoma and an untreatable lung disease. Peter and his wife Joan had known for several months that the end was imminent. Gail and I managed to visit him...
Visitors to Charleston sometimes take note of the Latin inscriptions on historical plaques: Collegium Carolopolitanum, Diocesis Carolopolitana, and, most commonly, Carolopolis, the Latin version of Charleston’s name, which sounds like one of those Greek cities created by Alexander the Great and his successors somewhere in the hinterlands of Bithynia or Afghanistan. Charleston has always been...
The restoration of a McDonalds in Alabama is a signficant step in the progress of civilization, writes a prominent Misesian, who was struck with awe by the beauty of it all: “I snapped a dozen images of their newly restored interior, which is absolutely beautiful.” Absolutely, let us remember, means ultimately and without exception. McDonalds...
I listened to a bit of President Obama’s speech. Why am I disgusted? After all, I have said from the first day of our war against Afghanistan that it was a futile operation that might kill a lot of Afghans and a few Americans but that it would would accomplish nothing. Whenever I have...
Maurice Barrès is hardly a name in the United States, even to American conservatives who could learn a great deal from his fiction and essays. A collaborator of Charles Maurras, Barrès had a deeper understanding of blood-and-soil conservatism than most Americans can grasp, and his celebration (in this book) of Metz under Yankee—I mean...
Lebron James really knows how to motivate a team. Unfortunately, it was not the Dallas Mavericks. Mr. James says “the Greater Man upstairs know when it’s my time.” Is he referring to the Almighty or to Shaquille O’Neal, who is three inches taller and once lived three floors above him? (I made that up.)...
Vitaly Borker thought he had found a new way of making money on the internet. On his website DecorMyEyes.com, Borker marketed cheap knock-off sunglasses as the real thing and added insult to injury by providing the worst possible customer service. As he anticipated, the tidal wave of negative comments boosted his site to Google’s...
I arrived a few minutes late for the meeting with the hippie roofer. Two many DUIs had cost him his driver’s license, and I had to take him to the home-improvement store. “Been to church?” he asked. Dressed in a suit at 10:30 on Sunday morning, I was forced to admit the fact. “I’ve read...
Tocqueville has offered many insights into the origins and legacy of the French Revolution. In conclusion, perhaps, we should consider three of his main points. I He rejects the interpretation that the FR was the culmination of a conspiracy to destroy Christianity and/or the Catholic Church; II He sees the FR as a...
Tocqueville has offered many insights into the origins and legacy of the French Revolution. In conclusion, perhaps, we should consider three of his main points. I He rejects the interpretation that the FR was the culmination of a conspiracy to destroy Christianity and/or the Catholic Church; II He sees the FR ...
Self-made millionaires set the tone for this class, and any scholar or man of letters who has had to raise money among men of wealth and influence will see himself in Eliot’s Prufrock. These poor fools have to listen, hour after hour, to Dives’ tales of victories on the golf course and of his...
The Rugged Individualist “Who is John Galt?” I don’t know, and I couldn’t care less, but lots of disgruntled young people waste time on the internet asking this question, as pointless as it is pretentious. John Galt was, of course, the fictional protagonist of Ayn Rand’s mammoth novel, Atlas Shrugged, in which he leads a work-stoppage...
Piecing the story together as best I can–I’ll insert hyperlinks tomorrow–it now appears that a Navy Seal Death Squad was sent in with orders to kill Bin Laden unless they found him entirely naked. Unarmed, he was taken into custody and executed. The rationale, apparently, was that he might be wearing a suicide...