Though he compared himself again today to Jesus Christ,

Donald Trump is defending himself for paying off Stormy Daniels. As Lawrence O’Donnell astutely pointed out, he’s not aware of Jesus Christ ever paying off a porn star.

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Patrick Drysdale, Who Made Me a Book Author in 1980

Patrick (Paddy) Dockar-Drysdale, 1929-2020 | Radley History Club

Good old Paddy of the long-defunct Gage Publishing came to Edmonton in the hot summer of 1978 to sign me and Glen Kirkland to a three book Connections series contract for grade 10-12 general/non-academic streams in Canada.

A true gentleman, he had a lot of character and wore a white smoking jacket to the first (Vancouver) social function we attended after the books came out! A lover/student of language, he single-handedly oversaw the 1983 Gage Canadian Dictionary.

He left his Toronto job around 1984 when he inherited a family member’s U.K. country estate and became a ‘laird of the manor’ overnight, as shown here. He was a true character, a one-of-the-olde-school-Brit-kind.

Without him, I would never had a second/sideline career spanning 30 years of writing and editing books for senior-high school students, of which over a million were eventually sold, with each province using many of them. That also included doing well over 100 teacher workshops and conventions.

Thank you, Paddy, for your respect, faith, and trust in me at age 28.

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A Core Dylan Image for Me

The Times They Are A-Changin' | unknown | V&A Explore The Collections

In it, a self-chosen defining identity, a symbolic archetypal youth attitude, and a definition of a a recurring idea and age.

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From Robert Frost’s “West-Running Brook”

IMG_20130918_0001

‘Speaking of contraries, see how the brook
In that white wave runs counter to itself.
It is from that in water we were from
Long, long before we were from any creature.
Here we, in our impatience of the steps,
Get back to the beginning of beginnings,
The stream of everything that runs away.
Some say existence like a Pirouot
And Pirouette, forever in one place,
Stands still and dances, but it runs away,
It seriously, sadly, runs away
To fill the abyss’ void with emptiness.
It flows beside us in this water brook,
But it flows over us. It flows between us
To separate us for a panic moment.
It flows between us, over us, and with us.
And it is time, strength, tone, light, life and love-
And even substance lapsing unsubstantial;
The universal cataract of death
That spends to nothingness — and unresisted,
Save by some strange resistance in itself,
Not just a swerving, but a throwing back,
As if regret were in it and were sacred.
It has this throwing backward on itself
So that the fall of most of it is always
Raising a little, sending up a little.
Our life runs down in sending up the clock.
The brook runs down in sending up our life.
The sun runs down in sending up the brook.
And there is something sending up the sun.
It is this backward motion toward the source,
Against the stream, that most we see ourselves in,
The tribute of the current to the source.
It is from this in nature we are from.
It is most us.’

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Ric Burns’ PBS “Dante” in 2-2 Hr. Parts

Dante (TV Series 2024) - IMDb

Two thumbs up.

A nice background, summary, analysis, and appreciation of Dante’s The Divine Commedia (1321) several years in the making. A brilliant, seamless, entertaining fusion of speeches, interviews, and narratives by actors, experts, and others. Every aspect of earthly human life is analyzed.

“Dante’s literal journey is also an allegory of the progress of the individual soul toward God, and the progress of political and social mankind toward peace on earth.”–The Reader’s Encyclopedia

A true labor-of love and long overdue film on the epic allegorical poem.

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Basics: Relationships Are Basic

“No man is an island.”–John Donne

We all need others to connect to, communicate with, to and for support and purpose.

Living with a significant other or significant others is a basic. Living alone for any length of time is potentially lonely and problematic unless you are a very strong, independent, inner-resourced individual.

Family is basic. We all start and often finish with/in families. Families, parents, siblings, and relatives give our lives meaning and purpose.

Friends are valuable. They supplement families and significant others. They give us different audiences with diverse, interesting backgrounds and individual sensibilities to connect to. Friends can be neighbors, workmates, and schoolmates. They can be recent or, if we’re lucky, go very far back in time to our childhood or youth.

Mentors and role-models are, likewise, basic. They help shape us in our choice of careers, lifestyles, and values overall.

Pets also often fulfill deep inner needs within us and provide a daily connection to Nature.

Relationships are the contexts of individuals’ lives. Having relationships is natural and automatic like breathing fresh air. Relationships are chosen to add more feeling, empathy, sympathy, depth, wisdom, and love to our lives.

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Basics: Politicians lie and break promises.

Look no further than Danielle Smith and Donald Trump.

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Belated Elegy for Lorne (d. 2023)

(gr. 12 yearbook photo; the teacher would ask him for answers!)

Early Sunday Morning, July 1967

Looked out my apartment window
and saw Sunley trundling home
like a chubby “Far Side” kid,
his back to me, mere months
after his Physics whiz-kid fame
and baby-blue school sweater.

Where had he been all night?
Smoking Sobranies, grass, and snifting
brandy till dawn, no doubt.
It was Shakespeare who said
“The nobleness in life is to do thus.”
A view which was Lorne by 18.

…………………………

Pin on Vintage tins

Sobranies: imported vintage Turkish cigarettes which came in a tin

Lorne Sunley

(2023 obit pic: Lorne remained true to his eccentric, idiosyncratic self)

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Full Circle, Back to Dante (1300), the “Inferno”

Dore’s illustrations of Dante remain hauntingly relevant in 2024. They also serve as a (modified) framework for Ric Burns’ well-timed PBS Dante series currently playing, significantly just before Easter weekend. (“Inferno” was the Good Friday book, so to speak, with “Purgatorio and Paradisio”–Easter, to follow.)

We are currently living in lost, dark times for the individual and society; hence, the relevance of Burns’ series about The Divine Comedy.

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UCP Opens Edmonton’s New Hospital:

Travelodge Edmonton Airport - UPDATED 2024 Prices, Reviews & Photos (Leduc, Alberta) - Hotel - Tripadvisor

A friend retorted that this choice might be preferred to the federal Liberals’ medically-assisted suicide plan for killing off people.

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