The Ironist

The modern world has suffered in the past century, and into the present one, from the tyranny of monomaniacs, from murdering monsters of depravity like Hitler, Stalin, and Chairman Mao, to cultural purists infected with the arrogance of privilege, like Trump and...

Shelley’s sonnet Ozymandias uses the Greek name for Ramesses II, the most famous of Egyptian pharaohs, and was written as a great statute of him was in transit to the British Museum in a wave of awe and Orientalism sweeping Europe.

Children like to play in mud. It is (or was, for us ‘oldies’), a relatively rare treat to be able to play in the mud.  It is slippery, fun, sticky, squishable, slimy, and well, just fun to mess around with wet dirt.