Philosophy
-
Dinner with Robespierre, and others
You may have heard these two observations of America: I do not know if the people of the United States would vote for superior men if they ran for office, but there can be no doubt that such men do not run. And The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that…
-
Sweet Sixteen
Sixteen years ago yesterday I wrote my first blog post, opining on the then-hot controversy about the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals wanting to cut a hole in the foundation of the Pioneer Courthouse for access to secure parking. Since then the driveway onto the transit mall has become part of the background. I surmise…
-
What is a liberal? Perhaps the liberals are the ones who support liberty
The recent use of the word "liberal" as a criticism and a comment from one of the Laquedemimonde called to my mind one of the works of A.P. Herbert, in which he imagined that thirteen political parties, each calling itself in some form the "Liberal Party," were battling in court over which one should receive…
-
Jakob Kryszek (1918-2019) and the American dream: He who dies with the most joys wins
The most religious of rabbis might have forgiven Jakob Kryszek if he had become an agnostic. Born in the small Polish town of Poddębice in 1918, the fourth of six children in a devout Jewish family, he moved to Lodz in 1937 after his father died. There he went to work for an uncle who…
-
One Hundred
If a young man in a German concentration camp 75 years ago were asked to define "surviving" he might have taken it to mean living to see the next day, or the next week, or the next month — maybe, by a stretch, living to see the end of the Second World War. He would…
-
A very special wish for a happy 99th birthday
In 2008, I wrote: Some years ago, here in Portland, two businessmen had a disagreement. One said to the other, "If you don't settle this dispute on my terms, I will sic my lawyers on you and they will tie you up in court for years. It will be the worst experience that you've ever…
-
Happy birthday to a true survivor
To a survivor of Auschwitz, the rest of life's challenges must seem easy. In September 2008 I wrote about one such survivor, a Portland resident who that day celebrated his 90th birthday, something that must have seemed impossible for him to imagine in September 1944. Last week he moved even further into improbability as he…
-
O2 say can you see? Venerable Mom cuts the wrong budget
I spent some time with Venerable Mom this week, helping her navigate the vagaries of the health care system while she lay in a hospital bed awaiting some tests. Somewhere in our discussions (which, in the parlance of diplomats, were "frank and open") she said that she didn't like what she was paying for her…
-
Obama’s health plan works — just ask my aunt
Two years ago her doctor told the Aunt of the Left, who was bedridden and gravely ill, that she had only a few days to live. Following her lifelong habit of questioning authority, the Aunt of the Left told her doctor that his schedule wouldn't work for her at all, as she needed to live…
-
Happy Mother’s Day to Venerable Mom Laquedem, assisted by Professor Lehrer
Venerable Mom Laquedem was instantly taken with "Momsms," by Anita Renfroe, to which I linked in my other post for this Mother's Day, when I played it for her for Passover. (Our family has some unusual observances.) My regular Mother's Day serenade to her is Tom Lehrer's song "Oedipus Rex," which I'll sing to her…