Etymology and the Rosary

Over dinner last night my German-speaking husband let drop that our English word bead derives from the German beten, which means to pray. Not one to receive a piece of information lying down — if I had written my own marriage vows, my responses would all have been, “Oh, yeah?” . . . . Continue Reading »

Banana republic law and zombie economics

Over at Asia Times I have been maintaing a financial blog called Inner Workings. Most of the material is technical, but I posted a Jeremiad today about the end of the rule of law in American business that is generally relevant.Don’t zombies come from places where they grow bananas?Over a year . . . . Continue Reading »

American Rapture

There are two models of rapture — one super-worldly, one this-worldly, one in which we are abducted, from here to eternity, and one in which we are inducted, to infinity and beyond. The first model is depressing if it’s the only opportunity we have to experience eternity. Even the . . . . Continue Reading »

Stonewall and Southern Strategery

Bob Cheeks below, with admirable selective nostalgia, speculates that the South could have won at Gettysburg with Jackson on the field.  Well, maybe.  Bob is right that, from Stonewall’s view,  the very location of that battle was misconceived and probably guaranteed not to . . . . Continue Reading »

Bill Buckley’s New Republic

The Boston Globe has a review of Christopher Buckley’s memoir of his parents—and it notes: Oh boy, William F. Buckley Jr. must be rolling in his Sharon, Conn., grave . . . . His only son, Christopher, came out in a Daily Beast column this past fall with, “Sorry, Dad, I’m . . . . Continue Reading »

Miscellaneous Stuff

  Jackson died this day, one hundred and forty-six years ago. He was thirty-nine years old, a kid for crying out loud, and to have accomplished all that he did! We can only wonder at what he would have done at Gettysburg. Surely he would have insisted that Stuart stay close to the army, that . . . . Continue Reading »