Nothing to Sneeze At

| April 16, 2020

There is no corner of the world unaffected by The Pestilence, and weeks of unrelenting media coverage hell bent on not letting anyone forget it have engendered a dangerous forgetting. We’ve forgotten that people occasionally sneeze and cough, that those occasions have always represented the majority of times when they do, and for the most […]

A Safe and Dignified Manner

| April 10, 2020

March of 1994 came at the end of a bitterly cold winter practically devoid of snowfall. Every lake, still-water, and bog was frozen to a depth of 18 inches or more, and the bare ground in forest and field was stone hard. When spring finally broke over the flood plain surrounding New Germany, Nova Scotia, […]

I Think We’d Better Think It Out Again

| April 7, 2020

Our title today is a twist of a sentiment expressed in song by the character of Fagin in the musical Oliver!. In the wake of an existential threat from Bill Sikes, Fagin reflects on his own litany of bad life choices and how things might be different if he only tried some options on for […]

Cui Bono?

| April 6, 2020

The title of today’s piece is common usage short form for part of a longer expression attributed to Lucius Cassius, “… whom the Roman people used to regard as a most honest and most wise judge, was in the habit of asking time and again in lawsuits: ‘to whom might it be for a benefit?’ […]

Staying Home in Style — A Historical Precedent

| March 30, 2020

“The pleasure you find in traveling around your room is safe from the restless jealousy of men; it is independent of the fickleness of fortune. After all, is there any person so unhappy, so abandoned, that he doesn’t have a little den into which he can withdraw and hide away from everyone? Nothing more elaborate […]

Messages Mixed and Missed

| March 27, 2020

“‘And it is also said,’ answered Frodo: ‘Go not to the Elves for counsel for they will answer both no and yes.’ “‘Is it indeed?’ laughed Gildor. ‘Elves seldom give unguarded advice, for advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise, and all courses may run ill.’” ~ Lord of the […]

Origins

| February 17, 2020

  On the day I graduated from high school in 1975, my plans for postsecondary education were directed toward a career in Aerospace Engineering. It would be four years before I came to realize how the end of hostilities in a conflict half a world away had changed all that before it even left the […]

A Long Winter’s Night — 2019 Edition Day 5: The Shepherd

| December 26, 2019

The story you are about to hear was written by Frederick Forsyth as a Christmas gift for his Wife Carrie who wanted a ghost story. A former RAF pilot himself, the dutiful Husband veered wide of the usual terrestrial hauntings and delivered what you will hear tonight. The Shepherd is set on the Christmas Eve […]

War and Remembrance — Art of Darkness

| November 11, 2019

“… If you think those wars and the things these people were or are called upon to do, are horribly wrong, then I would suggest that every one of them might agree with you, for let it never be forgotten that the soldier hates war worse than anyone, but being good at waging it does […]

Dark Sentiments Season 10 — Day 27: A Word From Mother Nature

| October 27, 2019

In the wake of a certain Swedish girl’s advent upon the world stage as the front man of a new crew of environmental influencers, legitimacy of urgency has come to be blurred so an already distrustfully polarized world is more entrenched than ever in Buridan’s Dilemma. Tonight’s Dark Sentiment is a well crafted word from […]