In a conversation with a professor of mine about a paper assigned by another professor, he and I drew parallels between Roman emperors and  Tolkein's Denethor. Specifically, Denethor claims in his conversation with Gandalf that he is the only bastion against the darkness of Mordor. He, like Rome, builds his power on the claim that Gondor is the only hope for civilization in a terrible struggle against all the powers of ignorance, darkness, and barbarism. Denethor claims to be culture and light, he claims that Gondor is peace. 


"If you understand it, then be content," returned Denethor. "Pride would be folly that disdained help and counsel at need; but you deal out such gifts according to your own designs. Yet the Lord of Gondor is not to be made the tool of other men's purposes, however worthy. And to him there is no purpose higher in the world as it now stands than the good of Gondor; and the rule of Gondor, is mine and no other man's, unless the king should come again."

"Unless the king should come again?" said Gandalf. "Well, my lord Steward, it is your task to keep some kingdom still against that event, which few now look to see. In that task you shall have all the aid that you are pleased to ask for. But I will say this: the rule of no realm is mine, neither of Gondor, nor any other, great or small. But all worthy things that are in peril as the world now stands, those are my care. And for my part, I shall not wholly fail of my task, though Gondor should perish, if anything else passes through this night that can still grow fair or bear fruit and flower again in days to come. For I am a steward. Did you not know?"


return of the king, chapter 1


Notice that Gandalf doesn't tell Denethor he's wrong. Not in so many words. He grants that Gondor is a key player, and that the steward is important. Yet he offers a counter-story to Denethor's. The Steward claims exclusivity because without the exclusivity he has no reason to demand what he does of his people. Either he must appeal to a higher authority or he must be that authority. And as we see later, his pride cannot stand the return of the king. Gandalf tells him, quite plainly, that while Denethor must steward Gondor, Gandalf is too a steward, and over a greater charge. Gandalf is responsible for this world. 


Like Gandalf, Christians offered to Rome a story that subsumed their own. Rome claimed exclusive rights to civilization: they were the only source of peace. Christians chuckled and said sure, but only because our Prince of Peace lets you stay there. 


In an interesting twist, Rome when the Christians show up is very much like Gondor when Gandalf shows up. Threatened by a great power in the east (Parthia, one of the only nations to ever defeat a Roman Emperor in battle), they are faced with mounted men from the east (the famed Parthian archers), wild men from the north (the Germanic tribes), and corsairs from the south (there were already pirates basing themselves in the Tunisia). The salvation of Rome, eventually, would come in the form of royalty from the north: Charles Martel's Frankish armies. So all that to say, weird. Or, because it's Tolkein, wyrd. 

One day I nearly dropped a bowl of oyster stuffing when I read with disbelief and disappointment that the average American family spent only $2.59 a person on Thanksgiving dinner in 1991, down from $.289 the year before, an undeniable sign of the decay of family and national values under two successive Republican administrations.

jeffrey steingarten, the man who ate everything, p.34

Hunter Stockton Thompson (July 18, 1937 – February 20, 2005) was an American journalist and author who wrote Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1971) and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 (1973).

He is credited as the creator of Gonzo journalism, a style of reporting where reporters involve themselves in the action to such a degree that they become central figures of their stories. He is known also for his unrepentant lifelong use of alcohol, LSD, mescaline, and cocaine (among other substances); his love offirearms; his long-standing hatred of Richard Nixon; and his iconoclastic contempt for authoritarianism. While suffering a bout of health problems, he committed suicide in 2005, at the age of 67.

On August 20, 2005, in a private ceremony, Thompson's ashes were fired from a cannon atop a 153-foot (47 m) tower of his own design (in the shape of a double-thumbed fist clutching a peyote button) to the tune of Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit in the Sky" and Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man."Red, white, blue, and green fireworks were launched along with his ashes. As the city of Aspen would not allow the cannon to remain for more than a month, the cannon has been dismantled and put into storage until a suitable permanent location can be found. According to his widow Anita, Thompson's funeral was financed by actor Johnny Depp, a close friend of Thompson. Depp told the Associated Press, "All I'm doing is trying to make sure his last wish comes true. I just want to send my pal out the way he wants to go out."

Other famous attendees at the funeral included U.S. Senator John Kerry and former U.S. Senator George McGovern; 60 Minutes correspondents Ed Bradley and Charlie Rose; actors Jack Nicholson, Bill Murray, Johnny Depp, Benicio del Toro, Sean Penn, and Josh Hartnett; singers Lyle Lovett, John Oates and numerous other friends. An estimated 280 people attended the funeral.

wow. just wow. all i can say about that. if you had read that in a book, you'd say there's no way, there's nobody quite that strange in the world. and you'd be wrong.

via wiki

At one time, Latin womenfolk would be kept pure

By humble fortune; and to stop vice tainting their small

Abodes they had to work, slumber brief, and hardened hands

Fretted with Tuscan fleece, and Hannibal beside

The city, and husbands standing on the Colline tower.

Luxury has set in, avenging the conquered globe.

Not one crime has been wanting or one act of lust

Since Roman poverty expired.

juvenal, satires 6. ll.287-295, in juvenal's sixteen satires upon the ancient harlot.

quoted in augustine's letter to marcellinus, pp.39-40

again, america.

If God allows that sort of thing to flourish, it shows that he is seriously displeased. By letting it go unpunished he inflicts a more savage punishment. But when he overthrows such aids to vice, and reduces their pampered passions to poverty, then his opposition is merciful.

augustine, letter to marcellinus, p.38

exactly why america should be terribly, terribly afraid. God has given us the desires of our own hearts.

Augustine also witnessed direct conflict in Milan when Arian imperial troops attempted to seize a Catholic basilica, with Ambrose, the Catholic bishop, inside.

robert dodaro and margaret atkins, introduction to political writings by augustine, p.xiii

it's hard for me to see any pastor in the u.s. doing this. admittedly, my exposure is limited, but i can only think of a handful of men who would stand outside their church and calmly tell the armed marines outside that they couldn't come in.

O Lord, do not your eyes look for truth? You have struck them down, but they felt no anguish; you have consumed them, but they refused to take correction. They have made their faces harder than rock; they have refused to repent.

jeremiah 5:3 esv

In other words, evangelicals seem to be inherently inconsistent, striking a pose at once adaptable and rigid, progressive and conservative, modern and old-fashioned, at ease and at odds with American ideals. The result of these apparent anomalies is a religion that on Sunday is comfortable with the church looking like the world (such as [Contemporary Christian Music]) and throughout the rest of the week insists that the world look like the church (as in family values.)

D.G. Hart

that old-time religion in modern america, pg. 215.

He would be a rash prophet who should assert that the expansive character of American life has now entirely ceased. Movement has been its dominant fact, and, unless this training has no effect upon a people, the American energy will continually demand a wider field for its exercise. But never again will such gifts of free land offer themselves. For a moment, at the frontier, the bonds of custom are broken and unrestraint is triumphant. There is not tabula rasa. The stubborn American environment is there with its imperious summons to accept its conditions; the inherited ways of doing things are also there; and yet, in spite of environment, and in spite of custom, each frontier did indeed furnish a new field of opportunity, a gate of escape from the bondage of the past; and freshness, and confidence, and scorn of older society, impatience of its restraints and its ideas, and indifference to its lessons, have accompanied the frontier. What the Mediterranean Sea was to the Greeks, breaking the bond of custom, offering new experiences, calling out new institutions and activities, that, and more, the ever retreating frontier has been to the United States directly, and to the nations of Europe more remotely. And now, four centuries from the discovery of America, at the end of a hundred years of life under the Constitution, the frontier has gone, and with its going has closed the first period of American history.

frederick jackson turner, the significance of the frontier in american history, ch. 1

this makes me wonder about space. final frontier indeed. nasa never seemed like a good idea to me until now.

The purchase of Louisiana was perhaps the constitutional turning point in the history of the Republic, inasmuch as it afforded both a new area for national legislation and the occasion of the downfall of the policy of strict construction. But the purchase of Louisiana was called out by frontier needs and demands. As frontier States accrued to the Union the national power grew. In a speech on the dedication of the Calhoun monument Mr. Lamar explained: "In 1789 the States were the creators of the Federal Government; in 1861 the Federal Government was the creator of a large majority of the States."

frederick jackson turner, the significance of the frontier in american history, ch. 1

Top 11 Hip-Hop Producers of All Time

11 | Organized Noize

10 | Kanye West

09 | DJ Quik

08 | Rick Rubin

07 | Pete Rock

06 | The Bomb Squad

05 | Erik Sermon

04 | RZA

02 | Marley Marl

02 | DJ PREMIER

01 | Dr. Dre

the sad thing is, i don't know about half of these guys. shows my lack of culture, i suppose. and i would have thought timbaland would be on there. then again, he did work with onerepublic. sold out to the nerds.

via ugo.com

Count Hermann Keyserling once said truly that the greatest American superstition was belief in facts.

John Gunther