Here’s a neat poem by diplomat and Milwaukean George F. Kennan called “Three Score and Ten”:

When the step becomes slow, and the wit becomes slower,
And memory fails, and the hearing declines;
When skies become clouded, and clouds become lower,
And you find yourself talking poetical lines;

 

When the path that you tread becomes steeper and darker;
And the question seems no longer whether, but when –
Then, my friend, you should look for the biblical marker,
The sign by the road that reads: Three Score and Ten;

 

At this point you’ll observe, if you care to look closely,
You’re no longer alone on the highway of life;
For there trudges behind you, and glowers morosely,
A bearded old man with a curious knife;

 

At first you defy this absurd apparition
(For it’s old Father Time, with his glass and his scythe);
You swear you were never in better condition –
The body more jaunty, the spirit more blythe;

 

And you laugh in his face, and you tell the old joker;
“You must be mistaken; I’m feeling just fine,”
But the wretched old scarecrow just picks up his poker
And gives you a jab and says: “Get back in line”;

 

So you swallow your pride, and you march with your brothers;
You do all the things you’re instructed to do;
But you’re sure this compulsion, just right for the others,
Could not have been really intended for you;

 

And you turn to the thought of your erstwhile successes –
How brilliant, how charming, how worthy of fame;
‘Til a small voice protests and the conscience confesses
What an ass you once were and how empty the claim;

 

Then the ghosts of the past find you out in your sadness,
And gather about, and point fingers of shame –
The ghosts of stupidities spawned by your madness –
The ghosts of injustices done in your name;

 

And you grieve with remorse for the sins you’ve committed:
The fingers that roamed and the tongue that betrayed;
But you grieve even more for the ones you omitted:
The nectar untasted, the record unplayed.

 

But the cut most unkind, and the cruelest teacher,
Is the feeling you have when, as sometimes occurs,
The wandering eye of some heavenly creature
Encounters your own, and your own catches hers;

 

And you conjure up dreams too delightful to mention,
And you primp and you pose, ’til it’s suddenly seen
That the actual object of all her attention –
This burning, voluptuous female attention –
Is a fellow behind you who’s all of nineteen.

 

So you swallow your pride, and you scurry for cover
In the solaces characteristic of age:
You tell the same anecdotes over and over,
Forget the same names, and reread the same page;

 

And at length you concede, though with dim satisfaction,
That it’s not on yourself that your peace now depends –
That for this you must look to a different reaction:
To the weary indulgence of children and friends.

 

Yet, if given the chance to retread, as you’ve known it,
The ladder of life – to begin at the spot
Where the story picked up, and before you had blown it
Would you take it, dear friends?
I suspect you would not;

 

So let us take heart; we are none of us friendless;
And fill up your glasses, and raise them again
To the chance that an interval, seemingly endless,

Will ensure
Before you
Become Three Score and Ten

Follow the link and read this whole thing.

This has been the deliberate shattering, in the name of virus control, of what was left of our common life.

 

Between individual experiences and those on the bigger scale of national or international politics lies most of human society: clubs, church groups, voluntary associations, the whole organic life of communities great and small. All of this relies on peer- to-peer social connection – and it was all abruptly halted by lockdown.

 

[…]

 

It’s just difficult to see, because everything now, from our media to Government lockdown policy, seems geared toward ‘just me’ or ‘everything’ – but nothing in between.

 

Who cares about local life, now our public conversation happens online, at colossal scale, in terms set by Chinese companies and Silicon Valley social justice evangelists and massaged by algorithms?

 

The answer has to be: us. We care. Even as it’s grown harder to see our life in common, we need it more than ever. The alternative future is an unjust, atomised, deeply inhuman place.

What a legacy she left to generations of kids.

Cleary died on Thursday at her home in Carmel, California, publisher HarperCollins said in a statement.

On this day, Washington saved our nation again. Truly the Indispensable Man.

And here, on March 15,1783, Washington’s officers met for what the historian James Thomas Flexner saw as “probably the most important single gathering ever held in the United States.” That gathering involved mutiny. Mutiny by Washington’s officers.

 

Some historians call the incident the “Newburgh Addresses”; others know it as the “Newburgh Conspiracy.” Simply stated, it was a chain of events culminating in a meeting to decide whether the officers would trust Congress to redeem overdue pay and pension claims or whether they would open the national treasury with the army’s bayonets. In every successful armed rebellion the generals eventually must decide whether to yield to civil authority or opt for military dictatorship. The choice they make frames that country’s future. For America the hour of decision fell in the last, bitter winter of the war.

 

Washington’s concern for his camp’s appearance was not for aesthetics alone. Having commanded the army for more than seven years—outlasting three British counterparts—he knew his regiments well. And he sensed that the army’s morale, particularly that of its officers, was as low now as it had been at any other time during the war—even the dark winter days of Valley Forge. He expected trouble. Keeping everyone busy might help.

 

[…]

He rode to the cantonment. All seemed calm, but a sixth sense sharpened by many crises warned him that it was not. Long-shared camaraderie seemed strained. Officers swept off their hats in salute but avoided his eyes and did not smile. This was new. An unmistakable hostility lurked near the surface. The officers seemed almost embarrassed by his presence.

Cool

Mission head Victor Ghica said “19 structures and a church carved into the bedrock” were discovered in 2020, according to the statement.

 

The church walls were decorated with “religious inscriptions” and biblical passages in Greek, revealing “the nature of monastic life in the region”, Ghica said.

 

It clearly showed that monks were present there since the fifth century AD, he added.

 

The remote site, located in the desert southwest of the capital Cairo, was occupied from the fourth to eighth centuries, with a likely peak of activity around the fifth and sixth centuries, according to the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology, in charge of the mission.

Enough already. We have seen these dire warnings for a year now and almost all of them have proven to be wrong. Stop lecturing people about having some fun. They know the risks and are free Americans. Let them be.

Massive crowds of St. Patrick’s Day revelers have descended on Savannah, Georgia, leading the city’s mayor to call it a ‘recipe for a superspreader event’ amid efforts to curb the coronavirus pandemic.

 

Savannah, long known for hosting the largest St. Patrick’s Day celebration in the South, cancelled its parade for the second year in a row, but the city still expected up to 50,000 out-of-town visitors to arrive over the weekend.

 

On Saturday night, huge crowds were seen swarming the Plant Riverside, a new $375 million hotel and nightlife development whose owners are promoting a six-day festival with live music, a large fountain synchronized to Irish music and green lights illuminating the complex built from a shuttered power plant.

 

Savannah Mayor Van Johnson said the festival plans were ‘a slap in the face’ to the city’s efforts to curb coronavirus infections by foregoing events that draw big crowds.