by Brian Volck | Feb 19, 2020 | Christian Picciolini, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Uncategorized
Last month, in a post on gun violence and the growing understanding of Robert Kennedy, I mentioned the 1963 meeting between Kennedy, James Baldwin, and other civil rights leaders that went disastrously awry. The consequences of that gathering proved varied and...
by Brian Volck | Feb 6, 2020 | Hannah Arendt, impeachment, Imperial Presidency
What historians of the future will make of this week’s events on Capitol Hill is more than any of us can know. It may seem the United States can hardly grow more divided and angry, but that, I fear, is wishful thinking, an understandable attempt to deny the ongoing...
by Brian Volck | Jan 20, 2020 | Baltimore, Martin Luther King Jr., murders, Robert F Kennedy
There was nearly a murder a day in my adopted city of Baltimore in 2019; the official total being 348. The casualties in this ongoing, undeclared, and pointless war fell once again most heavily on African-American families. We are a very long way from “the dream” well...
by Brian Volck | Jan 6, 2020 | Epiphany, TS Eliot
It’s the Feast of the Epiphany in the West and of the Theophany in the East, and though T S Eliot’s Ariel Poem, “The Journey of the Magi,” gets trotted rather often this time of year, there’s still something in the words that makes me shiver. From the slightly...
by Brian Volck | Dec 24, 2019 | Christmas
Cum ortus fúerit sol de cælo, vidébitis Regem regum procedéntem a Patre, tamquam sponsum de thálamo suo. When the sun rises in the heavens you will see the king of kings. He comes forth from the Father like a bridegroom coming in splendor from his wedding chamber. For...
