A very welcome feast. Today is the feast day of St. Brigid, which also marks the end of my beer fast through Dry January. I may have to resc...

So for the last week I've been thinking that a lot of these moves we've seen have been about trying to push a court fight on the imp...

Cyrus has already crossed the Euphrates, wisely not leaving that for later as it grows quite wide further south. He puts the river on his ar...

The first four chapters of Book I of the  Anabasis detail the development of Cyrus' determination to wage war against his brother Artax...

A friend of mine just forwarded me a copy of that email sent to Federal employees. It's stunning reading. I'll give you one bit of i...

Today is the Lunar New Year . You can read about the zodiac system here . My wife and I were in China for the start of the Year of the Snake...

I've been fighting the flu for a few days. For some reason, the experience made me realize a key difference between Arthurian and most o...

My young nephew, not quite 40, died suddenly this week. It was a shock and yet not completely unexpected, given the complicated state of hi...

You've got to set priorities in this kind of work. Is it really worth it? It's not. I did it for a while in Savannah going on thirty...

James linked  a piece by Sippican Cottage on happy songs. (Thanks to Tex, I knew of them from the Borderline Sociopathic Blog for Boys). He...

I gather from our fantasy movies that are roughly Medieval in setting that people think the Medievals were inclined to nothing but roasted m...

In NC, our new President suggests shuttering FEMA and just sending money to the states as necessary.  That's only a very slight change ...

Today the NYT ethicist asks the question , "What's the rule about looking at women in public?" Glancing at someone in a public...

I was reminded of the haunting close to 1984 when reading this piece from the NYT about a woman who rejected the Presidential pardon she w...

My Gutenberg project this week has been a biography of George M. MacDonald by his son Greville MacDonald. I've never been able to read ...

My mother bought us a quality meat grinder for Christmas that I’m finally getting to use tonight. It’s a real upgrade. If you are thinking ...

 There are a few images that come to mind. "Angel Eyes" "Mortal Kombat" Perhaps some of you have clever thoughts, though...

There's been a lot of talk about the dancing with 'a military sword' at the Inaugural ball. Since some of the regulars here are ...

Noticing this story about “Ph.D.-Level” AI, I have to assume that the phrase is similar to “Milspec.” I mean that it sounds more impressive...

Gee, this might be shocking except that just earlier today… But now it really isn’t, is it?