We can only imagine how poetry entered human consciousness. I intuit that its emergence was linked to the first use of fire, that most seminal of technologies, whose devouring mysteries transfix us with a spirit that endows our own. I see one among a band awakening from a dream, and entering a trance. She incants … Read more
Last month’s opening of the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem served to re-ignite Palestinian rage against what many there regard as a latter-day ‘Crusader’ state, a term with particular resonance in that region. No other city juxtaposes such piety and passion as Jerusalem. It is sacred to the three great monotheistic faiths of Judaism, Christianity and … Read more
What does it mean to be a loafer? Loafing as an activity has always existed. It has been carried out, witnessed, imagined and sung since the dawn of human time; from the ancient Aborigines on their walkabout, to the modern idling of the nineteenth and twentieth century dandies. Today, loafing as a mode of existence, … Read more
Perhaps we can agree on this much: conflict is intrinsic to the human condition. We are desiring creatures. Our needs and wants rub up against those of others. Add in an event of intensification: a road accident, a perceived act of negligence, breach of commitment or betrayal of trust. Then there arises anger and its … Read more
Where to begin the story of Roger Casement, humanitarian crusader, knight of the British realm, and 1916 revolutionary? Lawrence of Arabia wrote that he had ‘the appeal of a broken archangel’; Joseph Conrad said: ‘He could tell you things! Things I have tried to forget, things I never did know”; Edmund Morel described him as … Read more