Editor’s Note: We are starting the new week with some thoughts onconstitutional issues. Arrias this morning, Point Loma tomorrow. Notice how COVID has knocked everything else off the charts since last Friday? It almost makes one think…oh, never mind. – Vic Aesop and Government Aesop was born a bit more than 600 years before Christ, […]

Editor’s Note: This is a piece from Arrias on the nature of life, and some of the real and emotional issues that come with it. We are in a transitional place in our society. This is an example of why it is so profound. In it, I discovered I was an Aristotilian. Arrias approaches from […]

Here’s a question: at the next US Olympics Trials will people who were born male, but who identify as female, be allowed to compete as females? There are now people who were born male but who identify as female, who are competing in various female college athletic programs. This is being defended by those who […]

Author’s Note: I have a copy of McGuffy’s Reader – I started going through it the other day (I hadn’t opened it in years and years) and was struck by what I read… – Arrias A Shadow Of Its Former Self: Education Today There’s a wonderful scene in the movie “A Man For All Seasons” […]

43 years ago next month protests started in Iran against the Shah, under the leadership and inspiration of the Ayatollah Khomeini. The demonstrations would lead to the Shah’s fall 16 months later. Iran remains under the control of Khomeini’s hand-picked successor, the Ayatollah Khamenei. One of the memorable mnemonics of that uprising, one that still […]

It’s a “well-known fact” that much of what we have of the great Greek and Roman philosophers, scientists, mathematicians, historians and playwrights came to us via the Islamic civilization. Except it wasn’t really that easy. While some of these great works and great thoughts were translated into modern languages inside the courts of the Sultans, […]

Editor’s Note: Eight for Brunch! No singing, social distancing, masks optional! Lovely day in the country! Arrias was with the Warriors! – Vic Modern Major Generals I spent this past week with some real professionals – 15 guys who are seasoned members of one of those DOD organizations that doesn’t exist, and 3 guys who […]

The tentative Democratic Platform proposes $1.2 trillion in Defense cuts over the next ten years (nearly a 20% cut). In one article on the subject the author commented that “nearly half of all US discretionary spending goes to national security.” Hmmm… Meanwhile… Things are getting sporty in Belarus; President Lukashenko, who received 80% of last […]

Editor’s Note: This is the best National Emergency since I have been sequestered at Refuge Farm. I am following common sense plague avoidance, avoiding crowds and masking in situations that would discomfit my fellow citizens. There was something else I was doing, but have forgotten what it is. This has been a bountiful week. Below […]

Two thousand years ago Cicero wrote about a noted Roman judge, Lucius Cassius Longinus Ravilla, that the Roman people regarded him as a “most honest and wise judge.” Cassius, in an effort to reach the most accurate and just finding, was famous for asking, again and again: Cui bono? “Good to whom?” Or, more colloquially: […]