By Michael Murry “Midway in our life’s journey, I went astray …” – Dante Alighieri, The Inferno “Methought I sate beside a public way …” – Percy Shelly, The Triumph of Life A Clockwork Phoenix Epiphany (Lines 1-112 of The Triumph of Strife: an homage to Dante Alighieri and Percy Shelley) A poet woke midway…
by Alex Dunn So, further rumblings from the old countries have reached the shores of the United States. A familiar sound, but this time originating from a different place – Ukraine. The sound itself? Russian tanks, once again bulldozing their way into a peace-loving nation. To European ears, the rumble is louder and more disconcerting…
By the Editors On June 6, 1944, seventy years ago today, allied forces attacked the Germans at Normandy in France in an immense cross-channel invasion. Omaha Beach was an especially nasty kill zone for American troops, as re-created in Steven Spielberg’s film, “Saving Private Ryan.” After that long and deadly first day, an allied beachhead…
P.J. Sullivan Albert Einstein said that the way to prevent wars is to prepare for them. Jeanette Rankin disagreed, saying that preparation for war leads to war. Armies always claim self-defense. They don’t like to admit to being the aggressor. It is always “the other guy” who started it. Of course, this is absurd. Somebody…
b. traven Last Friday, Eric Shinseki took the fall at Veterans Affairs. His resignation was driven mainly by reports of substandard medical facilities. But substandard medical care for veterans is hardly new (or news): the VA has never been funded adequately by a penny-pinching government that prefers to ladle money to defense contractors for more…
Daniel N. White The best ever analysis of the United States’ strategic position comes from a speech Abraham Lincoln made in Springfield, Illinois, in 1858 if my memory serves me rightly, at the annual Springfield Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner. Lincoln got to talking about the United States and its position in the world, and said: “All…
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: “A mnemonic (the first “m” is silent), or mnemonic device, is any learning technique that aids information retention. Mnemonics aim to translate information into a form that the brain can retain better than its original form. In fact, ‘Memory Needs Every Method Of Nurturing Its Capacity’ is a mnemonic for…
b. traven I’ve got to admit that a pet peeve of mine is senior members of the Democratic party who talk the talk of liberals or progressives but walk the walk of self seeking hypocrites who are only interested in their own careers. Of course my leading peeve is our liberally eloquent president who can…
W.J. Astore A New York Times editorial back in February caught two trends in higher education today: the proliferation of underpaid adjunct professors as well as the expansion of administrative positions within America’s colleges and universities. These trends are unsurprising. America’s colleges and universities are becoming more and more like businesses every day, with a…
We have appointed Michael Murry as the Contrary Perspective’s “poet laureate” and have decided to bring his ” Polemical Poetry” to our readers as a regular feature that will appear every month. From time to time established poets have written verse that is political and verges on the polemical but Michael has brought his poetry…
The Contrary Perspective 