Scenes From The Paris Of Appalachia

An American Hero

The Joke's On Us

"The election isn't until November, but we've convinced Progressives that they have no choice but to vote for me. Thanks Bernie! Bob Byrd would be so proud..."

Why Books Matter

Diary of the Dark Years.

American Genius

Diyanet Center Of America

A Turkish contribution to American pluralism.

NYSL: Why Trilling Matters

JK

Jack Kerouac thought he was a Buddhist but he was not a Buddhist. He was too Catholic for Buddhism to really stick. He could not get the suffering out of his soul.

He was, in fact, a dervish--which is what you get when you cross a Catholic with a Buddhist--something that he discovered when he was in the Maghreb.

In the end, what John Clellon Holmes said of Kerouac was more true than anything anyone else ever said, including anything he had ever said about himself:

If he'd known how the world worked he never would have broken his heart over it.

(Quoted in Jack's Book, 318).

Righteous Voices Of Resistance

Cornel West


Chris Hedges


Noam Chomsky


Jill Stein


The late Howard Zinn

Death Of Seneca

Or is it Uncle Sam?

The Writing's On The Wall

60% Of Americans Want A Viable Third Party.

How To Weather The Coming Clinton Years

For half a millennium Stoicism was very likely the most widely accepted world view in the Western World. Although there was, of course, never a single all-pervasive world view in antiquity, yet from the third century B.C. to the second century A.D. more people in the Mediterranean world seem to have held a more or less Stoic conception of the world than any other. The Peripatos had its following among a few intellectuals; Platonism was dormant while skepticism ruled in the Academy; and even if Epicureanism had a slightly larger following, it, too, was limited to a small coterie of ardent believers with a somewhat larger group of sympathizers, particularly among the Roman aristocrats. The Stoic world view, however, appealed to all classes, attracting slaves and laborers as well as kings and emperors. Its ideas infiltrated religion and science, medicine and theology, poetry and drama, law and government. Even when it had to yield to other world views, it left its mark on Christianity, Gnosticism, Neo-Pythagoreanism, and Neo-Platonism. For a variety of reasons the Stoic outlook, both physical and ethical, captivated a large number of people in the ancient world, probably many more than we shall ever realize; and, in fact, in view of its pervasiveness, it may not be much of an exaggeration to say that the Stoic physical world view was the ancient counterpart of our current, popular, scientific world view.

~ David E. Hahm, The Origins of Stoic Cosmology, Ohio State University Press (1977), xiii.

W.W.Gh.S.?

What would Ghazali say to those who argue that we should vote for Clinton to avoid electing Trump? I think he would liken them to "a man arrested and incarcerated by a sultan with a view to cutting off his hand or his nose, and who spent all night wondering whether he would be cut with a knife, a sword, or a razor, and neglected to devise a plan which might ward off the punishment itself"--a response that Ghazali deemed to be "the very height of folly..."

[The metaphor comes from Dhikr al-Mawt, T. J. Winter translation].

No Ballot Cast In Fear Is A Ballot Freely Cast

Given the choice between Trump and Clinton, the argument of the "Lesser Evil" implies a comparison that is never actually made and which is not possible to make since Trump as a government official is a complete unknown.

So it really isn't an argument so much as it is an insinuation.

In any case, it is a counsel of fear and no ballot cast in fear is a ballot freely cast. Counsels of fear are forms of intimidation and actions taken pursuant to such counsels are the product of intimidation.

This intimidating insinuation of the "Lesser Evil" is part of the discourse of voluntary servitude. It is groupthink. It will never liberate the American people from the albatross we call the "two-party system."

Any person who advises another to ignore the promptings of conscience is not acting in the advisee's interest.

A Green New Deal

American Metaphor

The electorate.

Wandering Troubadours Of Love