Consumables and the Swedish Summer by Randall Auxier I don’t think you would want to be here in February. They say in Minnesota that if you don’t endure the winters, you don’t deserve the summers. How typical of the stoics who occupy these climes in the States. But I’m nonesuch. If these brave endurers of…
Dawn of the Draculae by Randall Auxier Among the five worst movie-going experiences of my life I would list Dawn of the Dead. It was the first R-rated movie I saw on my own (and I sneaked in with my friend Anthony, because he was legal at 17, but I was still 16). I had…
O gentlemen, the time of life is short; To spend that shortness basely were too long, If life did ride upon a dial’s point, Still ending at the arrival of an hour. Shakespeare: Henry IV Jacques Barzun, the great humanist and winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2003, told us more than 50…
As much as I hate to admit it, there are some who would disagree with my take on the sad state of affairs in the world of American education. Indeed, there are a great many people — some of whom write books and many others who teach in that world — who insist that things…
I have always been skeptical about the claims of the technophiles regarding the educational value of computers and other electronic devices. It seems to me that these devices are terrific for gathering information but unless people could assimilate, coordinate, evaluate and assort the information, separating the relevant from the irrelevant, they might prove useless. But…
Martyrs by Randall Auxier Have you ever been in a room with someone important? There’s an energy some of these people exude that is pretty hard to describe. I was once in a room with Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Al Gore. They all had the energy, but to my surprise, Clinton’s energy overpowered…
The Fisted Glove by Randall Auxier Stephen Stills once wrote “There’s a rose in the fisted glove, and the eagle flies with the dove.” I have never been able to get these images out of my head. I just see the fisted glove with the rose, and the eagle protecting the dove. It’s about power…
As the wealthy accrue more and more power, the middle class disappears, and the number of poor and homeless increases there are those that still cling to the myth that we live in a capitalistic economy that rewards those with grit and determination. The poor are poor because they lack gumption: they are so by…
Tactic, Strategy, Philosophy by Randall Auxier Nonviolence. This is a sculpture by Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd. The original is outside the UN in New York. What is the “non” in nonviolence? Just refraining from hitting somebody? Some people say that is what ahimsa, means, the idea used by Gandhi that gets translated as “nonviolence.” It’s…
Urd, or The Enigma Project by Randall Auxier You might not think you know this sentence, but you do: “Oy esd yjr nrdy pg yo,rd. oy esd yjr eptdy pg yo,rd/” I spent a couple of weeks in Poland this past summer, and for all the world, the language, lovely as it is, sounded…