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Posted on November 30th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
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Protected: American courts and government and the f-word
Bush’s Manicheanism destroyed him
From Glenn Greenwald’s “A tragic legacy: How a good vs. evil mentality destroyed the Bush presidency” (Salon: 20 June 2007):
One of the principal dangers of vesting power in a leader who is convinced of his own righteousness — who believes that, by virtue of his ascension to political power, he has been called to a [...]
Posted on October 11th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: history, law, politics | 1 Comment »
1 Henry VI: an example of euphuism
From William Shakespeare’s Henry VI, part 1 (I: 5):
TALBOT:
My thoughts are whirled like a potter’s wheel;
I know not where I am, nor what I do;
A witch, by fear, not force, like Hannibal,
Drives back our troops and conquers as she lists:
So bees with smoke and doves with noisome stench
Are from their hives and houses driven away.
They [...]
Posted on January 13th, 2007 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: art, history, language & literature, on writing, word of the day | Comments Off
Fouche praised with parallelism
From Central Missouri State University’s “Joseph Fouche“:
Such was Fouché’s accomplishment that Chaumette, a Jacobin extremist in the Assembly, publicly praised his efforts:
Citizen Fouché has worked the miracles of which I have been speaking. Old age has been honored; infirmity has been succored; misfortune has been respected; fanaticism has been destroyed; federalism has been annihilated; the [...]
Posted on July 5th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
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Slavery & whiskey; Foote & Grant
From Shelby Foote’s The Civil War: Fort Sumter to Perryville (184):
Commodore Andrew H. Foote was a Connecticut Yankee, a small man with burning eyes, a jutting gray chin-beard, and a long, naked upper lip. … he was deeply, puritanically religious, and conducted a Bible school for his crew every Sunday, afloat or ashore. Twenty years [...]
Posted on April 16th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
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The conspirer
From Shelby Foote’s The Civil War: Fort Sumter to Perryville (138):
[John Slidell] was aptly named, being noted for his slyness. At the outbreak of hostilities, back in the spring, an English journalist called him, “a man of iron will and strong passions, who loves the excitement of combinations and who, in his dungeon, or whatever [...]
Posted on April 16th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
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Good will to everyone … with a few exceptions
From Shelby Foote’s The Civil War: Fort Sumter to Perryville (132-133):
Two days after the first-Wednesday election an insurrection exploded in the loyalist mountain region of East Tennessee. Bridges were burned and armed men assembled to assist the expected advanced of a Union army through Cumberland Gap. … Resistance was quashed and a considereable number of [...]
Posted on April 16th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
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Jefferson Davis, seeker after discord
From Shelby Foote’s The Civil War: Fort Sumter to Perryville (127):
Men interpreted [Jefferson Davis] as they saw him, and for the most part they considered him argumentative in the extreme, irascible, and a seeker after discord. A Richmond editor later wrote, for all to read, that Davis was “ready for any quarrel with any and [...]
Posted on April 16th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
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Jefferson Davis replies to Joseph Johnston
From Shelby Foote’s The Civil War: Fort Sumter to Perryville (126):
[Jefferson] Davis read [the letter from Joseph E. Johnston] with a wrath that quickly rose to match the sender’s. … In composing his reply, however, Davis employed not a foil but a cutlass. Rejecting the nimble parry and riposte of thetoirc and logic, at both [...]
Posted on April 16th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
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Lincoln’s 1st political speech
From Shelby Foote’s The Civil War: Fort Sumter to Perryville (23):
[Lincoln's] first speech was made at a country auction. Twenty-three years old, he stood on a box, wearing a frayed straw hat, a calico shirt, and pantaloons held up by a single-strap suspender. As he was about to speak, a fight broke out in the [...]
Posted on April 16th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: history, politics | Comments Off
The spirit of the real Texas Rangers
I rather like this, even if it’s probably not true:
The story goes that Captain Jack Hayes and his men, the fabled Texas Rangers, were surrounded and vastly outnumbered during one of the many skirmishes of the Mexican War. He made the following prayer, certainly one of the most colorful ever made before battle: “Oh Lord, [...]
Posted on November 27th, 2005 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: commonplace book, history, overheard, true stories | Comments Off
Word of the day: aposiopesis
Today’s word: aposiopesis: ap.o.si.o.pe.sis n., pl. -ses [Lat. <Gk. aposiopesis <aposiopan, to become silent: apo- (intensive) + siopan, to be silent <siope, silence] A sudden breaking off of a thought in the middle of a sentence, as though the speaker were unwilling or unable to continue.
Related posts
The spirit of the real Texas Rangers
American courts and [...]
Posted on November 27th, 2005 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: commonplace book, word of the day | Comments Off