« January 28, 2024 - February 03, 2024 | Main | February 11, 2024 - February 17, 2024 »
February 10, 2024
Modern Alcoholics Anonymous: Springboard? Or Permanent Cocoon?
When will my beloved AA get back to getting people clean and sober to participate in real life?
Posted by JD Hull at 11:34 PM | Comments (1)
February 09, 2024
Storytelling for trial lawyers, writers and actual humans in 16 words.
Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.
--Anton Chekhov (1860-1904)
Chekhov with Maxim Gorky in Yalta, probably 1900
Posted by JD Hull at 10:59 AM | Comments (0)
February 08, 2024
Euripides: On Dog Fights
Ten soldiers wisely led, will beat one hundred without a head.
--Euripides (480-406 BC)
Posted by JD Hull at 11:50 PM | Comments (0)
February 06, 2024
This is East Anglia. Suffolk County. I start here.
Neither the tiny rural village of Lindsey nor the surrounding countryside has changed much since 1634, when one side of my family called Holden left there via Ipswich on the River Orwell for Massachusetts and, in time, a new "Groton", named after another small village near Lindsey. Three hundred and eighty-six years later, Lindsey is pastoral, green, mainly un-peopled and fairly remote. No visible overt 21st century commerce. Some farming. No tourists.
St Peter, a rough Anglican church, at one time Catholic, the one my ancestors attended, built in the 1300s, and even older church ruin, St James (1200s), are the only man-made constants. Still a "parish", Lindsey is on the B1115 Hadleigh-to-Bury road.
This is part of East Anglia--coveted, held and loved for so long by the Danes. The region's been victor and victim over and over again. Mainstream tribes from all over Europe battled here for centuries. It is storied. It is still beautiful. Nothing compares to it.
And it is a key "feeder" region in the English migration to America. From 1625 to 1640, Charles I had tried to rule England without calling the Puritan-dominated Parliament. Puritan dissenters, lots of them, lived in the area around Lindsey, and
from here hundreds of families fled across the Atlantic to the new world. The Winthrops, of tiny Groton, would become founders of the State of Massachusetts. But most of the settlers were poor, working families, and they would devote themselves to quiet, prayerful unpersecuted lives, and of work hard to build new communities. Of course, they would never see Suffolk or the valley of the gentle Brett again.
--Simon Knott
St. Peter in Lindsey
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Wayne Stanley Kramer, 1948-2024
RIP Wayne Kramer. “I’m sick and tired of playing these blues/And I’m sick to my guts of the American Ruse.”
Posted by JD Hull at 09:55 AM | Comments (0)
February 05, 2024
One Night/One Person: Season 9: It's Cold Again, Campers.
Damn. It’s getting cold again in the northern hemisphere. Cold as a witch’s tit, Jack.
The purpose of this post—which over the years I keep annoyingly if faithfully revising—is simple. To keep these homeless humans alive during the 30 coldest nights of the year by doing something simple and effective for others. And without holding pressers about what great people we are when it’s cold and we help.
Those nights are coming back.
Bear with me.
As a Yankee, Eagle Scout, outdoorsy dude, lifelong camper and all-weather philanderer, let me assure you that spending a night outside in colder weather has unique challenges. Even in the Fall. And generally in the period October through March.
Exposure. The Elements. And hypothermia. Call “it” what you will. Authors Jack London and Hans Christian Andersen each wrote well-known stories about it. And you can die from hypothermia well above 32 degrees F.
You say you would really like to help the urban homeless on both cold and super-cold American Northeastern and Midwestern nights? Chilly, plain cold and the bitterly cold, there are unpredictable nights that many cities are prepared to accommodate more homeless residents at shelters but for a number of reasons (both good and bad) thousands of Americas's rough sleepers take their chances outside?
Good. So see our inaugural post about our One Night, Person (March 5, 2015) campaign and our follow-up March 7, 2015 post. No, we don't have time to go over all of this again; we're working stiffs like you. Just read the posts.
Once again, and in short, here is the idea and the rules:
You're a Yuppie, professional or other generic dweeb between the ages of 22 and 82.You live in towns like New York City, Philly, Boston, Baltimore, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Wilmington, DC or Chicago.
Or similar cities in Europe. Or Asia. Generally? Think Northern Hemisphere. Planet Earth. Wherever Yuppies roam. You may live in the suburbs or in a downtown neighborhood of these cities. But if you work during the day in a downtown area of any of them, you and yours will go forth and do this:
1. Pick out and ask a homeless woman or man what articles of warm clothing she or he needs that you already have at home or in storage--thermal gloves, wool scarfs, warm hats and beanies, big sweaters, winter coats, thermal underwear, socks, etc.
2. Ask just one person at a time.
3. Agree on a time to meet (preferably at the same place) later that day or the next day.
4. Find the winter stuff you have at home or in storage.
5. Bring said stuff to the homeless woman or man as agreed.
6. Nine out of ten times, your new friend will be there when you show up.
7. Wait for forecasts of the next super-cold night--and repeat.
Posted by JD Hull at 10:46 PM | Comments (0)
February 04, 2024
Doing Rome
Comparisons between old Rome and modern U.S. are exciting and instructive. ~ What About Paris?
When in Rome, do as many Romans as you can. ~ Hugh Grant
Rome. I don't like working here--charitably put, work-life balance is totally out of balance in some regions of Italy--but I love being in Rome. You can walk in this city. You can frolic in it. You can play all day long in and around the The Forum and Palatine Hill, where antiquities are still being found. There's a guy with a shop at the Piazza Navona--2000 years ago the Piazza was a Roman circus (i.e., track) you can still see if you try--who sells me these unique old prints, beautifully framed, that I bought for my father in Cincinnati. I go to that shop on every trip. The Tiber River is still gorgeous and, like the Seine in Paris, steeped in history, and a bit melancholy and mysterious. Lots happened here--maybe too much--and it's as if the river can remember it all.
Pannini (1743): Ruins, Chiostre, Statue of Marc-Aurèle
In the West, our strongest ideas and institutions, including what became English law, were conceived or preserved by Rome. The increasingly-made comparisons between Rome and the U.S.--no, they are certainly not new--are still exciting and instructive. The Romans were competent if grandiose empire builders who borrowed their best ideas and forms from a previously dominant Greece, while America's cultural debt is chiefly to western Europe. Like Rome, America tended to overextend itself in all spheres. Like Rome, America was globally aggressive. (Other peoples resented it.) You get the idea.
But you can't see, experience and "do" Rome on one trip--same thing with New York, London or Paris--and you shouldn't try. Our advice: do several trips, and "live in it" each and every visit, taking small bites. And spend your trip with anyone but those from the same nation and culture as your own. If you go there with Americans, break out of that bubble. Politely say goodbye--and disappear into the streets on your own.
Original post: September 15, 2013
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)