June 2016

9 articles in June 2016

Even at sea Katya had followed him, like the stars, invisible by daylight, at night everywhere.

Stewart O'Nan, City of Secrets

Ii was asked why I thought the United Kingdom should have stayed with the European Union. My first thought was I wondered if Britain remembers how nationalism, hubris, and fear led them to the guns of August. And while I’m certainly no subject matter expert on the EU or the world economy, these were my second thoughts:

I think the people were lied to about what a Leave vote would do for them.…

Tthe Orlando massacre has rattled me.

I’ve wanted to write something for the last week, but I’ve not been able to. I don’t know why, but the massacre in Orlando has shaken me in ways that its many, many predecessors (e.g., Kalamazoo (6 dead), San Bernardino (14 dead), Umpqua Community College (9 dead), Charleston (9 dead), the Navy Yard (12 dead), Newtown (28 dead), the Sikh temple in Oak Creek (7 dead), Aurora (12 dead), Fort Hood (13 dead), Binghamton (14 dead), Virginia Tech (33 dead)…) did not.…

You only have power over people so long as you don't take everything away from them. But when you've robbed a man of everything, he's no longer in your power - he's free again.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The First Circle

Tthe Aisne River flows in a northeast direction through northern France, at least until it reaches Reims, where it bends nearly due west and continues to its confluence with the Oise, and then on to the Seine and into the English Channel at Honfleur and Le Havre. The scenery alongside its banks is tranquil and bucolic, lined with trees and pastures as it has been for centuries.

In 1917 a ferocious battle was fought between French and German armies for a ridge near the Aisne River called Chemin des Dames, which translates to English as “the ladies’ path,” and was the preferred route for the daughters of Louis XV when they journeyed from Paris to the Château de Boves.…

Wwe had a crazy amount of rain when I sat down to write this post. You know how sometimes the rain falls so thick and so heavy that it looks like a grey curtain? Well, it rained like that. But just for a short time. The clouds rolled in, the bomb bay doors opened, the cloud burst thunder in my ears, the rain fell, and then it all packed itself up and went on its away.…

“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”

Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

The first time I found the little jar of gourmet honey on the floor in the pantry I figured it had just been knocked over by accident. When I found it on the floor the next morning I thought it was odd, but whatever. A couple of days passed and the honey remained steadfast on its shelf. And then I woke one night and heard scratching sounds downstairs. It didn’t sound like the ice maker in the fridge, which can raise an ungodly racket when it gets going, so I investigated.…

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