Abide With Me, Mahalia Jackson, and New Orleans

Given that New Orleans is playing in the Superbowl this year, this seems like a fitting video to display. Oh How Beautiful. .

Authority and the Voice of God

The book of Genesis is filled with stories of the first order of importance. Every one of them is meant to be contemplated for at least a full lifetime. Everything in existence is expressed if not explained in these 50 chapters – and not in easily understandable ways. Two stories have dominated my attention for some [...]

Two Wonderful Discoveries

First, a conference in Louisville, organized by my friend David Wright: The Climacus Conference. Second, a blog that goes with a book called Beauty for Truth’s Sake. Looks wonderful, so I’m adding it to our blog list.

Could a Politician have been less than up front? No…

This, it would seem to me, is important. It might underscore the depth of Obama’s hypocricy, or it might simply show that the health care plan we were offered was 1. a disaster, and 2. not what Obama said it was. I can’t see how it can be seen favorably unless the writer is simply [...]

High School Attainments

I was just over at the Well-Trained-Mind board where I posted this bit about what a high school student should have attained by graduation. Perhaps you’ll find it valuable too: As a father with three children in college and one a senior in high school who is also home schooling his ninth graders I’ve thought [...]

Why We Learn to Write Formally

Arthur Quinn put it nice and simply: Writing is a matter of making linguistic choices, and reading depends upon understanding the linguistic choices made by someone else. The figures of speech help you see the choices available in a given context. And being able to see them helps you make them or judge them. Figure [...]

State of the Union – 1982

There is an eight or nine minute portion in Ronald Reagan’s 1982 state of the union address, beginning at about 3:30, where he clearly explains the economy and how they were solving the problem. I acknowledge that we don’t have the same problems now as we had then, but Reagan still had the basic principles [...]

Non-Pareils

Beginning today we are adding a new, irregular feature to Quiddity. We call it “Non-Pareils” which is French for something without parallel, that is to say, without an equal. Because we feel shame when we teach writers the form of careful thought, many people make a living as writers who are incapable of properly ordering [...]

Patrick Henry Explodes

Patrick Henry famously demanded of the Virginia House of Burgesses, bending down on his haunches like a lion about to leap, then exploding upward as the words passed out of his soul through his mouth and into the stunned chamber: “Give me liberty, or give me death.” Increasingly, I am persuaded that those really are [...]

The View From Concord

I returned from a marvelous 6 day tour of FL with Andrew Pudewa to learn that the devestating impact of the American school on the American mind has not yet overcome the reality of every day life to completely lobotomize the American voter. It’s a comforting thought. American Academics are so irrelevent to Americans that [...]