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TRANSLATING DAVID BROOKS
David Brooks is a scholar in his mid fifties who writes a twice-weekly column for The New York Times. Brooks is also a frequent guest on television shows. It is clear that Brooks has a background of being a teacher, a lecturer and a scholar. A year or 18 months ago, Mr. Brooks was an…
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IN LAVISH PRAISE OF SCALLIONS
There are dilettantes who dine on snails, caviar and champagne who will contend that eating a scallion is beneath their stature in life. They will contend that it is nothing other than a peasant food. Your old essayist holds a contrary view. In his estimation, the enjoyment of any meal except breakfast is increased by…
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MENTAL DWARFISM AT A TIME OF GREAT NATIONAL CRISIS
As I dictate this essay on February 11, 2009, there is a grave national crisis surrounding the American people. From my view, it is a crisis of the same proportions as World War II and the great Hoover depression of 1929. There are a good number of brains at work on the crisis for which…
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GI SPEAK
This humble and modest little essay has to do with language. Specifically it has to do with the language spoken by enlisted men, always called GIs, in the American Army in the era of World War II. This is the language spoken among enlisted men, and it has very little to do with the lofty…
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“BECAUSE THAT’S WHERE THE MONEY ISN’T”
Mr. William Sutton was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1901. There were five children in the Sutton family. As soon as Mr. Sutton completed the eighth grade, he quit school and that was the last of his academic career. We find that the records show that William Sutton departed this vale of tears in…
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A LITTLE BIT OF THISA AND A LITTLE BIT OF THATA
About the only advantage in being raised during the Herbert Hoover Depression of 1929 was that the radio carried intelligent music. The lyrics had a story line and there were harmony and melody to the music. There were dozens of bands that toured the country at a time when almost every major hotel offered a…
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IN MEMORIAM ROSEMARY ROCHE DADY 1928 – 2008
Robert Browning, the English poet, once wrote these lines: Grow old along with me The best is yet to be, The last of life for which the first was made. Poets are dreamers. They are not pragmatists. The last of life for aged people involves loss of hearing, reduced visual acuity, arthritis, and…
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THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM
American government at the federal level is capable of great generosity as witnessed by the Marshall Plan, with which we rebuilt Europe after World War II. At the state level the governments are capable of idiotic lunacy. Witness the drives against all forms of homosexuality. Witness the promotion of tobacco planting. And finally observe that…