Randy | October 29, 2017
“The sagas tell two tales of Freydís – one that marks her as brave and admirable, the other much less so. But the sagas were written centuries after the events they describe, and as we know from reading incarnations of The Bible, influential literature can be depended upon to contain a healthy dose of axe […]
Randy | October 26, 2017
“Tales abound with ingredients that torture the imagination of the susceptible, even long after the story has been read, heard, or watched. The effect is the same whether the tale comes from experience or fiction, for the imagination is a wondrous thing if taken in hand by someone who can play it like a harp.” […]
Randy | October 23, 2017
“As a Husband, a Father, a Teacher, a Student, a Friend, a Comrade, a Man — as one who strives to be a complete specimen of that animal called Human — I understand that in all things, cycles prevail. “To be a complete Human is to embrace the spectrum of Life from end to end, […]
Randy | October 21, 2017
“During my attendance at the trial of Peter Mailman, — listening day after day to the horrible details of the murder as they were brought out by the different witnesses; and holding frequent intercourse with the prisoner in his cell, I was led to contemplate very fully and seriously the crime of murder. Nothing is […]
Randy | October 20, 2017
“The warrior’s tale is no happy thing. It is bitter as bile and dark as death. But it is also a grand and glorious thing. For even in its full naked truth, it is the story of perseverance in the face of every agony and betrayal. It is the tale of how we live and […]
Randy | October 19, 2017
Waste Not Your Dram By LFM No Wisdom ever grew from Begging others what to do, Who live to make the same mistakes As frequently as you. It lies in finding Mentors — Learning where and when to ask. It lies in finding things that work, Then harnessing to task. It lies in learning Teachers […]
Randy | October 18, 2017
“Our Dark Sentiment du jour presents a documentary film from the National Film Board of Canada. Made in 1990, The Burning Times was directed by Donna Read and was part two in a trilogy on women and spirituality. The Burning Times has been criticized as feminist revisionist history and I can see a reasonable argument […]
Randy | October 17, 2017
Tonight’s Dark Sentiment is Full Circle, presented here as the third part of the National Film Board of Canada‘s Women and Spirituality Trilogy. Yes, I know I’m presenting them out of sequence, but I have my reasons. The mission statement of this collection is certainly a worthy one: A series of three titles investigating the […]
Randy | October 16, 2017
“Twenty-first century human culture worldwide still tolerates murder, torture, and eradication of entire cultures on religious grounds. Before, after, or entwined with all that, we have that covetous constant called greed. No matter the driving force behind it, we’ve proven ourselves to have a tendency to accept attack on dissent, or even attack on those […]
Randy | October 12, 2017
Unless you haven’t been paying attention, or were born to such privilege that you didn’t have to, you will at least by now have come to the suspicion that the world is not fair, and all people are not created equal. All that stuff about rights to free expression, and all people being “created” equal […]