Posts in Arts & culture
What we should remember

In my latest National Post column I say Remembrance Day is not a pacifist occasion, even on the 100th anniversary of the end of the Great War. (On which, and on the meaning and impact of World War I generally, see again The Great War Remembered on YouTube or in my online store.)

Wish I'd said that - November 11, 2018

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

John McCrae In Flanders Fields

Wish I'd said that - November 1, 2018

“It is the curse of our epoch that the educated are uneducated, especially in the study of history – which is only the study of humanity. Their ignorance is less logical than the ignorance of the Dark Ages, because those ages filled the place of history with legends, which at least professed to deal with the first things, while we only fill it with news, which can only deal with the latest.”

G. K. Chesterton in Illustrated London News March 22, 1919, quoted in Gilbert Magazine April-May 2009