PURITANS AND ROMANTICS: Religion was reduced by the Puritans “to mere morality,” the Puritan imagination was “thoroughly moralized,” said H.B. Parkes and H.W. Schneider respectively, both of them quoted by Yvor Winters in his 1930 book Maule’s Curse. The “highly stimulated” Puritan, said Winters, was “no longer guided by the flexible and sensitive ethical scholarship of the Roman tradition.” [italics mine] Highly stimulated but Calvinistically predestined, he was told by preachers he couldn’t repent even as he was told to repent, in some of the roughest, toughest preaching this side of Beelzebub.
This morality emphasis came to the fore when many years ago I profiled a Unitarian church I knew quite well, focusing on members’ common denominator, morality. The preacher was very good. But his game was morality, nothing but. Fellow Daily News man Bill Newman saw that and observed they would feel pretty good to be characterized that way. He was right. Morality sells. The doctrine that undergirds it does not.
Young romantics of the early 19th century did not feel as Puritans did. Love is free, said the poet Shelley at 19. Monogamy, he said, like religious faith “excludes us from all inquiry.” . . . . Read the rest here.
How you do this, I don’t care, but run do not walk now to get a DVD or otherwise viewing medium of “Doc Martin.”
It’s the best thing out of Brit-humor television yet. (and probably of any TV anwhere). Trust me.
Bullish purchase here
. . . not dead yet.
Consider this, from Wall St. Journal, heading a story about steel vs. aluminum in lightweight cars:
Aluminum Tests Its Mettle Against Steel in Drive for Lighter Cars
And from same newspaper, for another about the sale of a Fort Worth building as sign of “the rebirth of the commercial-mortgage-backed-securities market”:
Loan Star: Texas Site Sells As CMBS Market Rallies
Not quite in the “headless body found in topless bar” class, but let’s hear it for at least one copy desk anyhow.
Not quite Chappaquiddick, but it took Sun-Times’ asking for records on the case, which is seven years old. Investigation closed, they hear.
Not enough, say two (black) alder-people.
Daley nephew six-three, 230 lbs., other guy five-five, 140. Punched in heat of moment? Unintended consequences?
<————– Decased five-fiver
Friends of the deceased offer to be lie-detected, but not friends of the nephew, who won’t talk at all. Another witness, one of two bystanders, has a nephew-friendly recollection, thinks he knows nephew from attending high school in Wilmette. That is Loyola Academy, of course. No Daley nephew is going to New Trier, which is Rahm E’s alma mater, by the way.
The nephew and one friend fled the scene, leaving two McCarthys behind.
Did the little guy rush the nephew’s friend in the wake of bump followed by harsh words? Or did he only stride toward him, saying something, maybe mouthing off?
Division & Dearborn, three in the morning. Not quite Chappaquiddick, but a story apparently of political connection in Chicago, where winks and nods do very nicely, thank you.
Chicago alder-people are one happy family. They vote for each other’s projects, feel a “commitment to each other.” Thus the chairman of their black caucus. Room for others in your fam, Alderman?
Along comes Rahm. “Rahm don’t want trouble,” says Ald. Walter Burnett. He’s “smart enough” to know that. “Playing . . . games and taking it on the chin. It is what is what it is.” Now and ever shall be.
Ald. Eddie Burke, however, has more money in the bank — $8 mill vs. Rahm’s $2 mill. Battle brewing.
<—————————— Burke
What, he worry?
That night in Chile!
In ’61, Ted Kennedy dropped in on Chile as part of his duties (?!) as Assistant District Attorney of Suffolk County and for relaxation became a whoremaster for a night:
While Kennedy was in Santiago he made arrangements to rent a brothel for an entire night. Kennedy allegedly invited one of the Embassy chauffeurs to participate in the night’s activities.
Everywhere he went, the angry young men (and women), leftists all, were his chief interest otherwise. For political discussion.
Wow. Those guys were afflicted, I’d say. I mean the Kennedy brothers. The family tried to block this info but failed.
Wisconsin kid off school while teacher detains senator?
At what point do you call it mob action? Disturbing the peace maybe?
They are protecting the gravy train, so any means necessary. Teachers dedicated to their work, to be sure.
Yelling “peace” in a crowded capitol.
Be happy, be vocal. Get it off your chest by putting it on your chest. Now it can be done at (Dist. 204, Neuqua) Valley High, thanks to pursuit of the matter in the courts by an inadequately celebrated free-speech protector, Alliance Defense Fund.
Very yucky business, this quelling of dissent. Rampant among us, as in (liberal) Oak Park, where gays & lesbians squelched the reverend who wanted to discuss changing from g&l to straight. Gays & L’s, feeling their oats in our fair village, put their feet down, and the guy lost his venue. Fascist behavior, I say.
Man from Kosovo did it. Article doesn’t say he’s a Muslim.
Like perps not racially identified in U.S. accounts, nor religiously, for that matter, even in midst of jihad.
Let no man (er, person) say Muslims do this.
