Randy | June 7, 2020
Yet horns of war and strife now blow, And echo through the land. Loud enough, I hear them yet From where I choose to stand. For Peace is in that place, you see, That strife is furthest from, But no vantage have I ever found Whence I can’t hear its drum. ~ The Woodsman’s Song […]
Randy | May 24, 2020
“Growing up, I was always ahead of my contemporaries in my skills with the written and spoken word. To my great fortune, that gift was recognized and cultivated by a succession of exceptional Teachers. While I can’t pin down the date beyond the certainty that I was still in elementary school, I remember a day […]
Randy | May 18, 2020
Back in March of 2018, I published an article here titled Smoke, Mirrors, and a Soldier, the inspiration for which was summed up in its first paragraph: I read an article the other day written by Josh Makuch and published last Friday to Vice with the title, “I’m a Veteran In Favour of More Gun […]
Randy | May 9, 2020
“The first time I read Lord of the Rings, I’m sure I was personally responsible for skyrocketing values of stocks for companies involved in the production of bacon, mushrooms, and dark, full bodied beers. I absolutely enjoy any literature that confronts me with a description of food consumed by the characters that leaves me wanting […]
Randy | May 2, 2020
All these weeks into the global clusterfuck spawned by The Pestilence, it seems natural that as governments have become comfortable with the new reality (notwithstanding whether or not the body politic has) they would revert to the old habits inherent in partisan politics and party defining ideologies going back to great great great granddad’s generation. […]
Randy | 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 […]
Randy | 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, […]
Randy | 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 […]
Randy | 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?’ […]
Randy | 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 […]