Small-town news

From Lüderitz, Namibia: Music Instructor Revealed as Con Artist, and other fascinating small-town headlines. I had to look up Lüderitz after its recent mention at Andrew Cusack's fine blog.

The last peaceful evening

From Book IV, lines 596-607, of Paradise Lost, the last peaceful evening in Eden. Satan has tricked the archangel Uriel into leading him to God's new creation, where he spies on Adam and Eve and conceives a cunning plan...

Now came still Evening on, and Twilight gray
Had in her sober livery all things clad;
Silence accompanied; for beast and bird,
They to their grassy couch, these to their nests
Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale;
She all night long her amorous descant sung;
Silence was pleased: Now glowed the firmament
With living sapphires: Hesperus, that led
The starry host, rode brightest, till the moon,
Rising in clouded majesty, at length
Apparent queen unveiled her peerless light,
And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.

Some of that for us, please

I see that our esteemed House of Representatives in Washington has passed a bill that "[e]xpresses support for all Iranian citizens who embrace the values of freedom, human rights, civil liberties, and rule of law." Now if only we could get one of those passed in support of American citizens who do the same.

Neither a novice, a statistician, nor a Yankee

The mint julep ceremony of Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr. Though I'm of Kentucky Catholic blood, I was born a Yankee. We'll see what happens.

A mint julep is not the product of a FORMULA. It is a CEREMONY and must be performed by a gentleman possessing a true sense of the artistic, a deep reverence for the ingredients and a proper appreciation of the occasion. It is a rite that must not be entrusted to a novice, a statistician, nor a Yankee. It is a heritage of the old South, an emblem of hospitality and a vehicle in which noble minds can travel together upon the flower-strewn paths of happy and congenial thought.