Entering Sector D

The Washington Post today has a piece by staff writer Henry Allen called “Entering Sector D.” Naturally, given my name, I was interested. This is the first paragraph and-a-half:
There’s something about the word “disembowel.” Or “depravity,” or “disfigurement” — about so many words that begin with the letter “d.” Divorce, destitution, doubt, drugs, dirt, dwindle. [...]

Milk and Honey

Milk and Honey (April 24, 2006)
I spent part of my weekend reading Sidney’s and Shelley’s defences of poetry. Reading Sir Phillip Sidney drove me to drink, literally, an abject sadness emanating from his insistence upon poetry’s worth in an age which pays it no credit — his assembling of all forces from the dawn of [...]

Canon Aid

Canon aid
February 26, 2006
World War I is still bleeding into us.
See, Leavis and T.S. Eliot really defined the standard canon of English literature. Eliot, with his conservative St. Louis starched upbringing, was stunned into a bleak and declining view of civilization by the First World War — or, shall we say — civilization, he believed, [...]

A Thought

We scoff at intelligent design
but then:
the Galapagos were placed just so
for Darwin to find them.