Verse of the week: “Poets to come! orators, singers, musicians to come!/ Not to-day is to justify me and answer what I am for/ But you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater than before known/ Arouse! For you must justify me I myself but write one or two indicative words for the future,/ I …

Quote of the week: “You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.” – Leon Trotsky In the world of high-wire, high stakes diplomacy, you have to be good to succeed. It’s better to be good and lucky. The stars were aligned just right for James Baker, the ace political consigliere and …

Verse of the week: “Everyone knows the great energies running amok cast/ terrible shadows, and each of the so-called/ senseless acts has its thread looping/ back through the world and into the human heart. – Mary Oliver, “Shadows” Sinclair Lewis’s novel about the rise of fascism in the United States, It Can’t Happen Here, published …