The American Revolution

"During the Revolution, the British Army was to take malicious pleasure in converting Presbyterian and Baptist churches into stables and barracks."

-- Ron Chernow, "Alexander Hamilton"

This is a trifle, but I thought it deliciously wicked.

Pics

Paul Newman & Louis Armstrong, 1961: Frank Horvat

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Robert Bork

Robert H. Bork, a former solicitor general, federal judge and conservative legal theorist whose 1987 nomination to the United States Supreme Court was rejected by the Senate in a historic political battle whose impact is still being felt, died on Wednesday in Arlington, Va. He was 85.

-- New York Times

Mr. Bork figured pretty big in my mindscape during my twenties and thirties, especially when I was seriously playing with the idea that law would be my life. I had studied him before the big Supreme Court fight. Although Bork is an extreme right-winger in his jurisprudence, I somehow had a soft spot for him. Unlike Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, Bork was a true philosopher, albeit one who was indifferent to the welfare of minorities and women in his deep reckonings of the Consititution and democratic theory. I kind of admired him, but I believe that we are lucky and should be grateful that Bork was on the losing side of history. God bless America!

( Jeffrey Toobin's Response )

Virginia Woolf

“I have a deeply hidden and inarticulate desire for something beyond the daily life.”

-- Virgina Woolf

Julie and Greg

Quite a dream...

It started out like a plain dream in which I am in a library. I was definitely looking for particular materials, but I cannot recall what. Then there is a disruption, something like a fire drill. Everybody is called on to leave, but there is a strange requirement that we leave behind our book bags. It only now occurs to me that they might be concerned about people leaving with books, sort of robbing the store. In any case, I am super-reluctant to leave my book bag, but I realize that I cannot do anything about it. I at least try to drop off my bookbag in an obscure location.

Then, I leave and the dream makes a dramatic switch in directions. Guess who I run into? It’s Julie, from those old UTSA days. This time, interestingly enough, she is with Greg rather than her red-haired friend. Julie saw what I did with my bookbag and teases me. I become a part of the group and we go out on the town together.

We step into a couple of restaurants, bars. In each place, Julie calls out an exotic-sounding drink. It is as though she is a regular in these places. I could go for a margarita, but there does not seem to be anyone who will take my order.

This only gets worse when we are seated at a restaurant for a meal. The waiter takes their orders but ignores me as if I do not exist. Greg’s mexican meal looks delicious, and I ask him if he will order for me but he doesn’t. Moreover, a waiter comes and picks up his dish before he has hardly started eating, and I ask, “What happened?” Greg says that the waiter saw him struggling a little in cutting into his food and has taken it to replace it with one more suitably cooked. Meanwhile, I still cannot even place an order. This bothers me all the more because I am thinking that I even have my twenty dollars today and am able to take advantage of this outing and pay my own way, if anyone will hear and notice me.

Interestingly, Julie is almost on the sidelines throughout the dream. As far as interaction and conversation goes, it is mostly me trying to strike up a rapport with Greg. At one point, there is even mention of Ayn Rand, and I jump on it, thinking this is my chance to show off my reading, but Greg quickly pours cold water on the discussion and kills it. It seems pretty clear that I am auditioning to be part of this peer circle, and that it is Greg that I have to convince, and it is not working.