For What Can Be Imagined

...to Be Paid For One's Joy Is To Steal.

Rigel, Betelgeuse, And Orion. There Was No Finer Church, No Finer Choir, Than The Stars Speaking In Silence To The Many Consumptives Silently Condemned, A Legion Upon The Dark Rooftops. The Wind Came Down From The North Like A Runner In Lacrosse, Violent And Hard, To Batter Every Living Thing. They Were There, Each One Alone In Conversation With The Stars, Mining Ephemeral Love From Cold And Distant Light.

Of Course, You Would Have To Be Insane To Hope Your Child Grows Up To Be A Playwright Or Poet. Given The Odds, You Would Have To Be Quite Cavalier About Your Children's Future.

Why Do You Think Great Leaders And Great Orations Are Coincident With Wars, Revolutions, And The Founding Or Ending Of Governments And States? Common Interests Then Are So Clear That Speeches Are Effortlessly Drawn, But At Present Neither The Facts Nor The Consequences Are Sufficiently Clear To Make Oratory Legitimate. This Is The Kind Of War That Will Wind On And Make Fools Of Its Partisans And Opponents Both.

There's An Expression In Yiddish, Which Is "der Gelernte Naar" - A "learned Fool." You Can Know A Great Deal, You Can Have A Ph.d., And You Can Still Be A Total Idiot.