by Gary | Sep 26, 2019 |
Earlier this year, my darling wife S. and I enjoyed a delightful and educational voyage in the eastern Mediterranean, which culminated in a four-day tour of Israel. Yes, I know that four days isn’t long enough to work through the NYT Sunday crossword puzzle, much less understand a country with as complex a history as Israel… or is it Palestine, or maybe the Promised Land, or possibly Canaan, or even Judah? You see what it I mean. It’s complex before I even begin. Before I start, and in a nod towards full disclosure, you should know that my genealogy consultant informed me some years ago that my long ago antecedents were most probably...
by Gary | May 22, 2019 |
Admit it. You have no idea where Malta is or even what it is. The words Maltese Falcon may ring a bell faintly, but that’s about it, and that puts you right in there with the rest of the world. I was pretty sure that it wasn’t associated with the wonderful British candy Malt Teasers, nor was it related to that great novel and film noir, The Maltese Falcon. That’s one of the reasons I selected this cruise. I had never been there. Not only had I never been there, I had only a vague notion of where it was. Nor had I ever been to Ephesus, Sicily, or Cyprus, which all were on the itinerary. And given the fact that I’m approaching or...
by Gary | Mar 6, 2019 |
…Is god willing to prevent evil, but not able to? Then he is not omnipotent. …Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. …Is he both willing and able? Then whence cometh evil? Then why call him god? ~ Epicurus (341-271 B.C.E.) ~ I couldn’t have said it better myself. There have been many others who proposed their own formulation, and there may have been some who said it earlier, but none have said it better than old Epicurus. Epicurus and other like-minded philosophers have bedeviled Christian, Islamic and Jewish thinkers for millennia. First a short sidebar on Epicurus: Epicurus was a Greek philosopher in the image...
by Gary | Feb 22, 2019 |
To borrow corruptly from the Bard, “A wall by any other name would still be a wall.” Whether a barrier, a fence (barbed wired or not), circles of razor wire, steel slats, stone, hog panels, rock, solid cement, a line (as in the Maginot Line), with or without turrets and machine gun emplacements… it’s still a wall. I know, you’re as sick as of hearing about “the wall” as I am, and probably you’re as confused as I am about whether and how much wall we have, whether and how much wall is currently under construction, whether and how effective it is, whether there is a need for more wall, how much it would cost, and...
by Gary | Jan 13, 2019 |
A recent visit to St. Petersburg stimulated my recollections of the six or so encounters I’ve had with the evil empire and its minions over the years. Yes, I know, a few visits over 30 years does not an expert make, but it does allow me to have an opinion. I previously shared my observations of one early encounter in a blog titled “The People I Think I Know” in August, 2011. It didn’t involve my own personal interaction with something Russian, it described an encounter of Margaret Thatcher’s (then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom) which she related to me at an engagement party for her son Mark. To get to the point, she...
