I
In 1992, I spent much of my free time planning a murder.
I mapped it out it out to the last detail: victim, weapon, motive, opportunity, covering the tracks, the whole meticulous homicidal mess. In the end, it went almost exactly according to plan, and was a complete success.
Almost.
Fortunately for all concerned, the murder was fictional: the plot of a mystery novel, Murder Among Friends, published in 1993. It sold out two printings; that was the successful part.But I’m remembering it now for a different reason. One of its central plot elements, indeed the underlying theme — the reason I wrote it —was not the homicide, but the context: the murder was a portent, a forerunner of a larger real-life conflict, with a grim history and an ominous future. I could feel it coming then; two decades later, long after the novel ended with this part unresolved, it has moved from fiction to perilously close to fact.
Its history was our American Civil War (the first one): my tale was set in one of its most contested killing fields, the splendid and fertile Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, near Winchester. The Valley was fought over repeatedly, and changed hands between Blue and Grey dozens of times. Today its landscape is dotted with battlefield memorials and war cemeteries.It seemed an apt locale for early warnings of a potential repeat catastrophe. Further, the Valley had the other feature I wanted for my story: a long and turbulent, but little-known Quaker presence.
Guilford College in Crisis (Again? Yes.)
This weekend I was thinking about trouble at Guilford College, when a memory popped up: during my college years, a B- was not a bad grade.
Okay, it wasn’t great, especially if you were aiming at the honor roll or grad school.
But it was above a C; over the line (if just barely) into the upper tier of the scale.
That was then: now it’s another century —hell, another millennium. Things have changed.
What about, in 2025, a grade of BBB-? Continue reading Guilford College in Crisis (Again? Yes.)
Gwynne Dyer: Happy(??) Climate New Year
Welcome to ‘Uncharted Territory’
Gwynne Dyer, January 2, 2025
New Year is when we do the accounts for the year, and the bad news always gets top billing: how many wars are going on, how big were the natural disasters, etc.? Climate change now has its own slot in this annual accounting, and here is what the climate pundits will say.
First they will acknowledge that 2024 has been the hottest year since we began keeping records a few centuries ago. This will be accompanied by the usual clucking about how naughty we have all been, not cutting our greenhouse gas emissions fast enough. Continue reading Gwynne Dyer: Happy(??) Climate New Year
Live! From New York! It’s Saturday Night, With Special Guest Host — Pope Francis!!
NYTimes
Pope Francis: There Is Faith in Humor
By Pope Francis – Dec. 17, 2024
Excerpt:
[Here’s] the one about Pope Francis in America. It goes something like this:
As soon as he arrives at the airport in New York for his apostolic journey in the United States, Pope Francis finds an enormous limousine waiting for him. He is rather embarrassed by that magnificent splendor, but then thinks that it has been ages since he last drove, and never a vehicle of that kind, and he thinks to himself:
OK, when will I get another chance? He looks at the limousine and says to the driver,
“You couldn’t let me try it out, could you?”
“Look, I’m really sorry, Your Holiness,” replies the driver, “but I really can’t, you know, there are rules and regulations.”
But you know what they say, how the pope is when he gets something into his head … in short, he insists and insists, until the driver gives in. So Pope Francis gets behind the steering wheel, on one of those enormous highways, and he begins to enjoy it, presses down on the accelerator, going 50 miles per hour, 80, 120 … until he hears a siren, and a police car pulls up beside him and stops him.
A young policeman comes up to the darkened window. The pope rather nervously lowers it and the policeman turns white. “Excuse me a moment,” he says, and goes back to his vehicle to call headquarters. “Boss, I think I have a problem.”
“What problem?” asks the chief.
“Well, I’ve stopped a car for speeding, but there’s a guy in there who’s really important.” “How important? Is he the mayor?”
“No, no, boss … more than the mayor.”
“And more than the mayor, who is there? The governor?”
“No, no, more. …”
“But he can’t be the president?”
“More, I reckon. …”
“And who can be more important than the president?”
“Look, boss, I don’t know exactly who he is, all I can tell you is that it’s the pope who is driving him!”
[Blogger’s Note. Not making this up.]
A Sparkling New Podcast on “Tell It Slant” – The Biography of Chuck Fager
Announcing A Brand-New, free podcast, now online at the link below:
Continue reading A Sparkling New Podcast on “Tell It Slant” – The Biography of Chuck Fager