Category: June 2008

  • “SOMETIMES I FEEL LIKE A MOTHERLESS CHILD”

    Well, boys, the news on every front is pretty grim these days. My $50,000 Hummer is covered by a tarpaulin because it tends to gulp great gobs of gasoline. When I took my 350 horsepower SUV to the dealer to trade it in on a smaller car, he laughed at me and told me to…

  • AFFAIRS OF LOVE

    Those of you who have persevered in reading these essays will know that from time to time the titles involve curve balls, changes of pace, and, occasionally, a foofoo ball. This essay will not be called “Love Affairs” , but rather “Affairs of Love” for reasons that will become clear as the sections develop. If…

  • DUTY: A SECULAR SERMON

    I suspect that most Americans would contend that all sermons must be sectarian or religious in nature. To offer an essay with the title holding that it is a secular sermon might strike those church-goers as an oxymoron. To those of us who treasure secular thoughts, sermons come as easily as to those who hold…

  • FLIVVER

    Henry Ford, the auto magnate, was also a peace activist. Prior to the hostilities that marked the First World War, Mr. Ford chartered a ship on which he loaded several important American personages to go to the capitals of Europe to ask them to avoid the coming war. To the American press, this was known…

  • TURNING THE VIRGINITY ODOMETER BACK TO ZERO

    This essay is going to attempt to perform an impossible literary marriage in that it involves the virginity of Muslim women and an apt poem by A. E. Housman, an English poet who could foresee miracles of the future. Whether this marriage will last is a reasonable subject for discussion, but I believe that it…