“Good sense about trivialities is better than nonsense about things that matter.”
Max Beerbohm quoted in Gilbert Magazine Vol. 9 #5 (March 2006)
“the Roman empire is afflicted rather than changed – a thing which has befallen it in other times also, before the name of Christ was heard, and it has been restored after such affliction – a thing which even in these times is not to be despaired of.”
Augustine City of God
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.)
“people often ask me, well don’t you have faith in anything? And I always have the same answer, I do have one unshakable [faith], and that is I have an unshakable [faith] in the unreliability of man. I know that no matter what we do, some damn fool will make a mess of it.”
Garrett Hardin, quoted in Julian Simon Hoodwinking the Nation
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
In my latest Mercatornet piece I say Trump remains popular with many Americans because despite everything he has gotten some important policies very right.