But, Seriously

By lex, on July 4th, 2010

A quantum of time for a timeless document, and the dream that must not fail:

A Republic, If You Can Keep It

By lex, on July 4th, 2010

Dashed out of the crushing burden of debt early this morning, for to whack the wee white ba’ into submission, like. Only for the terroristic tendencies that are in it. Found myself partnered with Hans,  a gentleman of a certain age 28 years a citizen of this country come hither from Switzerland. The Churman part. Him being a community banker, and your humble being hisself, we found ourselves commiserating not merely upon the sly ocean break on the greens of the Torrey Pines Golf Course, but also the general state of the union and so on. No one being able to get small business loans on account of the inability of the market to evaluate risk, and the evident propensity of our political class to ignore it altogether.

On Politics, American Style

By lex, on November 28th, 2003

Fear and loathing in the blogosphere

Once, at a nice Irish pub (I know many) in Alexandria, Virginia, I was having a soothing pint of Guinness (for strength!) while the ladies of the household were Christmas shopping. A young lady walks in to the rather crowded, very republican (in the Irish sense) place, plops down next to me and smiles to me nicely. Which doesn’t happen all that much, having passed that age where things like that usually happen (and having missed them having happened at all, the first time through). She strikes up a conversation, and it’s quickly apparent to me that 1) she is an employee of a rather sensitive government agency (at the clerical level, I gathered) and 2) this wasn’t the first bar she had frequented that winter afternoon. Sort of explained why she was being so nice to a gent at least 15 years older than her: she had her beer goggles on! Still, company is always pleasant on a cold day, and who was I to judge another’s use of that ol’ demon rum? Been there, done that, myself.

Happy Fadder’s Day!

By lex, on June 15th, 2008

Your correspondent has spent the last four weeks “off” in between careers, which time he has spent placing polishing touches on the World’s Longest Master’s Thesis – the higher I climb, the taller the hill – fixing the domestic irrigation system, flaunting the manifest will of Nature’s God by trying to grow grass in the coastal desert, hitting the gym from time to time in a vain effort to slow down the hands of time – they will not be stopped, far less turned back – flying the occasional airplane, penning the random bit of desultory (albeit deathless, no doubt) bloggery and generally being incautiously underfoot of the high, stern ladies of the demesne.

You don’t have to believe to understand

By lex, on December 25th, 2006

 

People of all faiths and those of none can take heart from the lesson that one man – a man born into humble circumstances far from the center of the world – can change the world.

There’s something in here for all of us, I think – the reminder at least, that’s it’s not only about the presents:

Happy Thanksgiving

 

By lex, on November 25th, 2009

Happy harvest to those who till the soil, and for the rest of us an opportunity to give thanks for our many blessings.

Here are a few of mine:

Hard to read

By lex, on September 11th, 2007

Long, and heartrending. Difficult.

But necessary:

At fifteen seconds after 9:41 A.M., on September 11, 2001, a photographer named Richard Drew took a picture of a man falling through the sky — falling through time as well as through space. The picture went all around the world, and then disappeared, as if we willed it away. One of the most famous photographs in human history became an unmarked grave, and the man buried inside its frame — the Falling Man — became the Unknown Soldier in a war whose end we have not yet seen. Richard Drew’s photograph is all we know of him, and yet all we know of him becomes a measure of what we know of ourselves. The picture is his cenotaph, and like the monuments dedicated to the memory of unknown soliders everywhere, it asks that we look at it, and make one simple acknowledgment.

That we have known who the Falling Man is all along.

There are no pictures. But you should nevertheless bear witness, you owe it to yourself.

After all, the Falling Man is you.

Back To The Index 

Happy Birthday, America!

By lex, on July 4th, 2009

Hard times 233 years ago today. By the time the Declaration of Independence was signed, the colonies that would become the United States of America had been at war with the center of the metropolitan empire for over a year, reeling from defeat to retreat in the field, and managing only the not inconsequential feat of avoiding detailed destruction. Perhaps if the Brits had ever gotten around to scribbling down their own constitution in one spot, an awful lot of confusion about the rights of Parliament to levy taxes upon the crown’s overseas possessions could have been avoided. Perhaps not.

Father’s Day

By lex, on June 19th, 2006

Weather perfect of course, and the only thing to be lamented was the all-too-frequent reminders from th’ingrateful children that school was out, summer was here and what had I planned for Monday?

This Day

By lex, on June 6th, 2011

Sixty-seven years ago.

From Ronald Reagan’s “Boys of Point du Hoc” speech: