According to the famed military strategist, Carl von Clausewitz, two conditions must be met if victory in war is to be achieved: First, “The fighting forces must be destroyed”. That is, “they must be put in such a condition that they can no longer carry on the fight”. And second, “The country must be occupied, …
On the rare occasion that I seek the advice of a medical professional, I’m careful not to offend the good doctor by asking if his adherence to the ethical standards of his profession remains, after all these years, unwavering. That supposedly “sacred” Hippocratic oath to which he pledged himself way back in med school–does he …
“Violence, which plays a most conspicuous part in war, is a thing which belongs to wild beasts; wherefore we should take most diligent pains to temper it with humanity, lest by too much imitation of the beasts we forget how to be human”. Hugo Grotius Lest we forget how to be human, we should, for …
“If I am occasionally a little overdressed, I make up for it by being always immensely over-educated.” Oscar Wilde John Fetterman, the junior senator from Pennsylvania, has taken Wilde’s bon mot and flipped it on its head; not even by accident has the hulking Reading-native ever been overdressed, and by no metric has his intellectual …
There are, for better or worse, two things with which Key West is synonymous: one is “Fantasy Fest”, the annual ten-day bacchanal at the end of October to which thousands of topless revelers flock. The other is Ernest Hemingway. With the exception of the striped concrete buoy that marks the island’s “Southernmost Point” , no …
Reflections on Ernest Hemingway, An American Icon Read More »
Summer 2020 An initial installment of my “Lives of the Philosophers”, composed in Plutarchian fashion during the summer of 2020. This series (on which I hope to expand) will comprise essays on the philosophers whom I find most interesting, and, more importantly, whom I can understand. It is my modest goal to compile a few …
On Friedrich Nietzsche: Lives of the Philosophers Read More »
The image of a portly Sam Smith traipsing about on heels and gyrating on stage at last week’s Grammy Awards isn’t one that I’ll soon forget. In truth, I fear that I may never forget it so long as I live. A week removed from the performance and it remains an image by which, no …
Sam Smith and Satan: The Meaning Behind the Devil-Worship Read More »
Inisherin is an island off the coast of an island, which is itself an island detached from a slightly larger island, which is, if you’ll bear with me just a moment longer, patient friend and reader, a third island separated from the land-locked continent of Europe. This, I assure you, is more than a mere …
The Banshees of Inisherin: One of the Year’s Best Films Read More »
When I was in the seventh grade, at the unripe age of twelve, I had an English teacher by the name of Mr. Bodnar. He was a quiet, unassuming fellow of middle age and small stature, of receding hairline and protuberant eyes, in whose genial presence all the children of Bunker Hill Middle School felt …
Babylon (and on…and on…and ON…for THREE whole hours!), like the ungodly city after which it’s named, was a confused mess of biblical proportions. The plot was senseless, the filth gratuitous, the writing sloppy, the budget bloated, the talent wasted, and the running time unmercifully long. *** There are certain sights, sounds, and substances to which …