Mortimer Lunges

As any of you with a tele-vision are already advised, the stock market fell 87% this afternoon after suffering a triple-figure decline at one point in the trading session. Culpability for the carnage is being assigned to China and its present proclivity for manufacturing South Sea islands rather than mountains of plastic toy dinosaurs. Less…

Charge of the Light Brigade

Among other works, Alfred Tennyson is famous for his account of the Charge of the Light Brigade during one engagement of the Crimean War. This being a gloriously macabre example of man’s discipline and fortitude before near-certain death. I think our times would offer Lord Tennyson a similarly vivid palette. After all, what was the…

Hormesis on a Pale Horse

Some of you will be familiar with the term hormesis. It represents the concept that toxins or stressors in sub-fatal dosages facilitate a healing response that results in vitality superior to the level observed before the negative stimulation. For instance, the stress and discomfort of vigorous exercise is thought to strengthen the body as surely…

A Catastrophe

Whenever I see words like ‘catastrophic’ in context of modern politics I almost unfurl a smile. For terms such as that are only deployed at the prospect of an encroaching irritant in an otherwise placid program. The catastrophe occasioned today being that which would occur in a bizzaro world of border enforcement. It’s right there…

The Civil Rights Struggle of Our Time

It would be highly felicitous if utilities could be surreptitiously loaded on all devices to convert media euphemisms to clarity. “Civil Rights” is one term I’d particularly enjoy seeing forthrightly displayed. For CR is simple American short-hand for the alchemy that turns white liberties into black prerogatives. It’s not your right to decide with whom…

A Life for the Young

One thing that’s always struck me is the consistency of good and evil in war. How righteousness accrues to victors as assuredly as malevolence does the vanquished. We are quite fortunate indeed that the good guys always win. Who can imagine what might be happening to the West if otherwise. Though the statistical improbability of…

The Infidelity of Change

You should be open to change. Experience new things with different people. Have you ever noticed lines such as these are what a man feeds someone else’s wife or girlfriend and never his own? Why is that? I believe I know. It is because “change” is a quality neutral concept. One that men view with…

When You Wish Upon a Star

Optimism. For many it is the junk food of the soul. And where not in ready supply, men will reliably be engaged in attempts to cultivate it. I am certain the belief that it will never get that bad is one of the most painfully lamented in human experience. Tonight I’m going to discuss a…

The Debate

5:15: Rick Perry congratulates himself for securing the Texas border. Reminder to self: the Texas border is secure. 5:17Graham: The muslims are coming here if we don’t kill them there…or something. What if we just don’t let them in? Announces perpetual war policy across the middle east. 5:20: Pataki calls for banning Internet access to…

Facing the Backlash

You almost need to be a character conceived by Lewis Carroll to navigate contemporary discourse unperturbed. Because any man who bitterly clings to the sense of his endowment is destined for chafing. Contrived outrage, pompous sophistry, and sententious hypocrisy: and that’s just conservatives. I sometimes think perhaps persistent, languid mastication of a few philosopher’s stones…