J.R.R. Tolkien had it in mind to write a sequel to The Lord of the Rings, and wrote a few pages of a first chapter but soon gave it up.
Letter 256 (1964): In a letter to Christopher Bretherton, Tolkien explained that the story focused on the "most regrettable feature" of human nature: a "quick satiety with good". Read more about Satiety with the Good
It's hard to fathom the injustice I see reported in the papers daily in regard to the rule of law in the United States. Snatching a foreign leader from his capitol while killing several of his countrypeople extends the disregard of the rule of law from our city streets to the streets of Venezuela. It seems as if the country we thought we built on the rock of a written constitution was actually a sand castle too easily washed away by the tides of crime. Read more about The Sandcastle
Jamelle Bouie’s brilliant column in the New York Times last week proposed that the United States has been a series, so far, of four Republics:
Read more about The Fifth Republic
Soon after the inauguration, I happened to note on social media that I was stunned by the actions of the First Felon – the FF as I call him – particularly in the callousness he showed by attempting to shut down USAID.
Why are you stunned, responders asked. You knew he was a snake before he took the oath. Read more about Stunned
We have been creeping ever so slowly toward what may possibly be the election of our lifetime – just like it was last time, and even the time before, but those are the halcyon days of yesteryear compared to the fierce urgency of now. Today we are convinced – yes, I am convinced - that we are in a fight for our lives, if our lives mean living them in the country to which we have become accustomed – not in the sense of hot and cold running water and trash collection, but those are important too. I mean in the sense of being or becoming the good guys. Read more about Amdir and Estel
The Former Guy, as I like to call him, may not have heard of Project 2025, but you can bet your buttons that Project 2025 has heard of him. In fact, I have come to believe that most of the support for TFG by conservative elites is in service to Project 2025. That The Former Guy is, likely without his direct knowledge, merely the Frontman. He is being used, much like a lubricated latex glove on the hand of a proctologist, to insert a middle finger into the bowels of government. Read more about The Front Man
I was a young woman in the 50’s and 60’s. I remember when there were no contraceptives. When abortion was something you got in a back alley and never talked about. When nobody outside of New York or San Francisco had openly gay friends. I didn’t even know if I had secretly gay friends. I didn’t have black friends, either. I was chided in offices if I talked to the ‘help.” And the only black people I encountered in daily life *were* “the help.” Read more about Uncanny Valley
It’s like we can’t help ourselves. Wanted to say “they” instead of “we,” but I can’t let myself off the hook that easily. I’ve cheered for “our” side as much as anyone, whether it was King Harold or Ike. Right now I’m cheering for Ukraine. I’m not cheering for Israel, but neither can I bring myself to cheer for Hamas. Somewhere in there I wish all well, but if wishes were horses, etc., etc. Read more about War Makes the World Go Round
From The Guardian, October 2021: “This year has provided bitter evidence that even current levels of warming are disastrous, with astounding floods in Germany and China, Hades-like fires from Canada to California to Greece and rain, rather than snow, falling for the first time at the summit of a rapidly melting Greenland…A “heat dome” that pulverized previous temperature records in the US’s Pacific northwest and Canada's west coast in June, [killed[ Read more about Existential Dread
The big question presented by the incidence of violence perpetrated by humanity upon itself is: What is the proper response?
This morning, we woke up to another incident of individual violence against neighboring humans. Eighteen people are dead in Lewiston, Maine, because a man with a weapon of war took it into places of camaraderie and commenced slaughter.
Lewiston is not an isolated incident in the United States. Other individuals here and there are even now killing someone else for one reason or another. We will have to let Lewiston stand in for them all. Read more about Violence