In a recent post, George F, Will and Truth, I took issue with the estimable Mr. Will over the objective existence of “Truth”, which Mr. Will averred did exist and had in fact been largely unearthed by John Locke and enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, thanks to the efforts of John Madison, while I took…
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George F. Will and “Truth”
Time flies when your country is burning down, doesn’t it? The week after Donald Trump’s many fans took him seriously rather than literally—“March peaceably, folks! But stay strong! And save your country from the greatest crime in history! Only you can do it! And don’t take no for an answer!”—Mr. George F. Will, intent on…
The Literary Offenses of William Faulkner
(Author’s note: Easily the greatest piece of literary criticism in American letters is Mark Twain’s “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses”, though I believe Mark might have titled it more euphoniously. My piece takes a much more somber hue than Mark’s, exploring, to be blunt, Faulkner’s frequent failure to free himself emotionally from the limitations of his…
Winston Churchill, Total Homo
Yeah, you read that right. Winston Spencer Leonard Churchill, worshipped by neocons as a monumental, more than human demi-god, had an eye for the lads. Or so says Michael Bloch in his diverting 2015 opus, Closet Queens Some 20th Century British Politicians. Although there’s no good evidence that Sir Winston ever went to bed with…
The Republicans: WTF Happened to this Party?
We’re in such a mess these days, one can either bemoan that mess, or wonder how we got here. I feel a little helpless to be just bemoaning, and, as the situation changes from day to day, one is compelled to constantly update one’s bemoans, which in retrospect can begin to sound both repetitive and…
T. S. Eliot, frequently irritating, yet not always wrong
If you read my recent ear-boxing of literary super star T. S. Eliot, “T. S. Eliot a Prissy Sh*t, studies show”, you know I’m not a big fan of the pride of St. Louis, making rather raucous fun of his abysmal mistreatment of his long-time (until he got tired of her) soulmate, Emily Hale, and…
When William Gladstone died, did something else die too?
Somewhere or other I remarked that my “hobbies” include reading books about dinosaurs and British prime ministers. Well, I do, and recently I read my third biography of one of the greatest, William Gladstone, a Victorian figure second only to Victoria herself, born in 1809 and entering Parliament at age 22, where he would serve…
Yo, “Conservatives”! You had a 30-year preview of Donald Trump! It was called “The Rush Limbaugh Show”!
I have been following, with a curious compulsion, the comings and goings of anti-Trump conservatives, who frequently hold forth at newly formed sites like The Bulwark and The Dispatch. The recent announcement of Rush Limbaugh that he was suffering from lung cancer brought forth an affectionate reminiscence from James Swift, one of the leaders of…
Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time In Hollywood: not entirely the all-out misogynistic gore-fest I had been expecting!
When Quentin Tarantino was a young man, he had dreams, as young men do. These are among the things that Quentin Tarantino dreamed: That he would kick Bruce Lee’s ass; That he would save Sharon Tate’s ass; That he would have a pitbull that would bite people on the ass (also the nuts); That he…
O My Democratic Party, Where the F*ck Art Thou?
Well, good question. If Happy Days aren’t here again, and they aren’t, life is better, definitely. To have the House of Representatives back in Democratic hands after eight long years is definitely a pleasure if not a treasure. As one representative put it “Being in the majority is a thousand times better.” Furthermore, the party’s…