Author Archives: jimmie

Erewhon or the Crime of Illness

Posted on February 10, 2021 by jimmie

Samuel Butler published his novel Erewhon in 1872. The title is the (almost) reverse spelling of ‘Nowhere’ and it applies to a country the author discovered. He probably had in mind the Southern island of New Zealand where he minded sheep for a while. The protagonist, Higgs, tending sheep in a prairie, looks at a Read More

Posted in Amusing Shakespeare, Elegant Shakespearean Quotes | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Erewhon or the Crime of Illness

Washington’s Bastille

Posted on January 20, 2021 by jimmie

Trump’s supporters, having found the vanity of conjecture and inefficacy of expectations, resolved to prove their own existence, if not by violence, at least by physical presence. They came forth into the crowded capital with an almost juvenile ambition that their numbers would be counted, their voice heard and their presence noticed.

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Washington’s Bastille

The Power of Confusion

Posted on January 4, 2021 by jimmie

It now seems certain that we have a Joe Bidet for president. For if a rose by any other name would smell as sweet (1), a Biden, metaphorically speaking, by any other name still smells like a poorly maintained sanitary device, however many euphemisms the imagination may body forth out of the forms of things Read More

Posted in Amusing Shakespeare, Best Shakespeare Quotes, Elegant Shakespearean Quotes | Tagged , , | Comments Off on The Power of Confusion

The Google Archipelago

Posted on November 23, 2020 by jimmie

During the cold war the West called dissenters those Russians in the USSR who voiced their complaints against the system. A definition – ‘dissenter’ – which, processed through the lexical grinding machine of the CIA and associates, was actually stripped of its original meaning to become a weapon of trivial instrumental imperialist propaganda. Said it Read More

Posted in Amusing Shakespeare, Elegant Shakespearean Quotes | Tagged , , | Comments Off on The Google Archipelago

Biden’s Data in the Cloud

Posted on November 3, 2020 by jimmie

If flattery is the infantry of negotiations, then mendacity is the air force of politics. There are exceptions, but as a practical rule truth tellers are not deemed worthy of the public trust. To the question, “who does the deeming?” the reader will have already answered euphemistically, “the mainstream media,” better known as “media from Read More

Posted in Elegant Shakespearean Quotes | Comments Off on Biden’s Data in the Cloud

A Stroke of Genius

Posted on October 10, 2020 by jimmie

It takes strength, endurance, resignation and stomach to like Donald Trump. Not for what he actually is. Under the pen of Alexandre Dumas, for example, Trump may even appear as a not-dislikable Yankee D’Artagnan of sorts. Maybe with less finesse than the original musketeer, whose contained yet French swaggering captivated millions of readers, when reading Read More

Posted in Amusing Shakespeare | Comments Off on A Stroke of Genius

The Sheep of the Apocalypse

Posted on September 27, 2020 by jimmie

There is a history in all men’s lives (1), and in the history of their lives men often meet with mysteries, meaning events inexplicable via the resources of common sense and logic. Some mysteries are terrestrial, some metaphysic. Setting metaphysics aside, I’ll deal with the terrestrial. I refer here to the turbulent events of the Read More

Posted in Amusing Shakespeare, Best Shakespeare Quotes, Philosophical, Psychological & Historical Considerations | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on The Sheep of the Apocalypse

Covid, Medicine and Charlatanry

Posted on August 31, 2020 by jimmie

Associating medicine with charlatanry smacks of ignorance and arrogance, two semantic relatives often found together. Perish the thought! But there is currently an exuberance of acknowledgment of a dubious medical pandemic, coupled with gross discrepancies in related statistics and fierce debates among disagreeing experts. Furthermore the media, at its domestic and international large, rarely misses Read More

Posted in Best Shakespeare Quotes, Education, Historical Quotes, Philosophical, Psychological & Historical Considerations, Shakespeare in Politics | Comments Off on Covid, Medicine and Charlatanry

The Bad Ending of a Good Idea

Posted on July 16, 2020 by jimmie

Sometimes ideas born out of an apparently sensible necessity evolve into something diabolically inevitable. On the other hand, the history of the formation of ideas is, or could be, what frees the mind from a blind search for explanations. For the alternative is to (dis)-content ourselves with effects without knowing their causes, other than attributing Read More

Posted in Amusing Shakespeare | Comments Off on The Bad Ending of a Good Idea

Race, Economy and Viruses

Posted on July 5, 2020 by jimmie

Whatever busies the mind without corrupting it has at least this use, that it rescues the day from idleness, and he that is never idle will not often be vicious. The previous unnecessary remark is intended as a pre-emptive application for absolution from the reader whose views expressed hereafter may not mirror his. We live Read More

Posted in Best Shakespeare Quotes | Comments Off on Race, Economy and Viruses