Poetry: sunsprung bright Julys
Despite the title of this post it’s August now, not July. And a lovely August it is. The other day I was walking along the street in a beach town in New England on a sunny day. It’s the sort … Continue reading →
Category Archives: Literature and writing
A poet of the right
[NOTE: An exchange I had with commenter “Cornflour” on the Robert Conquest thread (here and here) reminded me of a previous post from about two years ago, one that I think it appropriate and interesting to revisit with some added … Continue reading →
Ta-Nehisi Coates and the reductionist theory of everything bad that ever happened to black people
First, a disclaimer: I have not read T-Nehisi Coates’ new book entitled Between the World and Me. I’ve only read summaries or reviews of it, although I’m familiar with his thought from reading many of his articles for The Atlantic … Continue reading →
Some interesting facts about Walt Whitman
I’m not a Whitman fan (no, that’s not one of the interesting facts), although I like some of his poems. But looking at his Wiki entry I noticed the following items, which somehow seemed worth mentioning: When Whitman was 6 … Continue reading →
Marriage Newspeak
Aleister at Legal Insurrection reports on a campaign to eliminate the words “husband” and “wife” from federal statutes: More than two dozen Democrats have proposed legislation that would eliminate the words “husband” and “wife” from federal law. Those “gendered terms” … Continue reading →
Why did Orwell remain a socialist?
[NOTE: Recently I came across an old post of mine on Orwell and decided to repeat it in edited form, because I think it’s still interesting and timely. So here it is.] Commenter “Nick” wrote this about Orwell and Animal … Continue reading →
The Grand Inquisitor redux
Several times before I’ve posted excerpts from Dostoevsky’s “The Grand Inquisitor,” part of the book The Brothers Karamazov. Unfortunately, the passages seem to always bear repeating, now more than ever. So here it is again, a slightly longer quote. The … Continue reading →
The Humpty Dumpty Court: more from Scalia in King v. Burwell
A dissent has no power except the power of its words and its logic—that is, it has no legal power. So Scalia’s dissent in King v. Burwell (joined by Alito and Thomas) is satisfying only in the rhetorical and intellectual … Continue reading →
More from Victor Klemperer
Here are some more quotes from Victor Klemperer’s journal I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years 1933-1941: March 20, 1938: The last few weeks have been the most wretched of our life so far. The immense act … Continue reading →
The most popular poem…
…in the English-speaking world—and perhaps the world as a whole—has quite a backstory: Frye, who was living in Baltimore at the time, wrote the poem in 1932. She had never written any poetry, but the plight of a young German … Continue reading →
Bearing witness to the Reich
I have continued to read Victor Klemperer’s two-volume diary I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years (I’ve written about the book before, here and here). Klemperer was in an unusual position in Germany. Although born a Jew, … Continue reading →
Ants are a curious race
Yesterday I had an ant infestation, mostly those large ones that can move very fast, although there were a couple of teeny tiny ones as well. They came out of nowhere—I couldn’t see where they were entering—and seemed evenly distributed … Continue reading →