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STAG PARTY: DEPRAVITY, DEBAUCHERY & DEER

“The late autumn sun laid a radiant haze over the new sodded winter grass of the lawn, and even in the woods the sun shone through places where the leaves were not so dense, to make fiery golden patterns on the ground. The suddenly the sun was gone. There was a chill in the air [...]

WALK ON THE WILD SIDE:GENDER BENDING & “LE SECRET”

Perplexing could be the word. The Chevalier d’Eon could be said to have had a perplexing career. In France his name was a household word: of both masculine and feminine gender.  Voltaire once famously described the Chevalier as “A nice problem for history.” … Diplomat, writer, spy, and Freemason, a member of the elite Dragoons [...]

KARL POPPER & SEEING IS BELIEVING: INDUCTION,DEDUCTION and SEDUCTION

” Well, I don’t think the bridge is all that immediate, but I do think you could develop a theory of art according to which art is a method of creating responses.( Karl ) Popper once said or wrote that language enabled us to tell ourselves a story—you know, to console oneself by telling oneself [...]

WRETCHED DESIRES: “WEEP FOR THE SAVIOR NOT THE SEDUCER”

Peter Abelard. An impudent nuisance to his contemporaries, a romantic figment later, and perhaps our first free man. “By doubting, we come to inquire and by inquiry we arrive at truth”. The church has never quite understood Abelard to the fullest, or known what to do with him. Should the church condemn his writings or [...]

INFIDELS: MADNESS,MYTH & MISTAKEN IDENTITY

There is in the “mythology of madness” the oft repeated story of radical therapy effect by Phillipe Pinel when he released the madmen and madwomen from their chains in Bicetre and Salpetriere hospitals in Paris in 1794. Pinel’s freeing of the madmen and madwomen was said to have ushered in a revolution in the treatment [...]

STAYING MELLOW YELLOW: WHERE TO GO IN CASE OF A REIGN OF TERROR

In 1793, France’s smart set checked into a “hospital” on the rue de Charone, where, for a paltry $50,000 a month, they could drink champagne, play cards, and discuss the current theatre. …The script for the Reign of Terror in the French Revolution was in serious need of a philosopher. And fast. For whatever reason, [...]

CASEY AT THE PLATE: BATTER UP IN BABYLON

Gambling, like pornography, has somehow arranged itself to be completely normalized; an integral element in our service based economy. It is still on the margins of acceptable discourse at the Sunday family supper, sort of doing a limbo under the vice bar.Its been crawling in from the fringes, one hand at a time. Certainly, the [...]

THE ROUTING OF SAN ROMANO:PERSPECTIVE ON “RESTORING HONOR”

“Of course, there are significant differences between the two writers: Klein imagines that the problem with the world is too much focus on capitalism at the expense of progressive values and social welfare. Beck, on the other hand, loves capitalism, and thinks it can be redeemed if only power would be taken out of the [...]

LETTING YOUR HAIR DOWN WITH THE “HYENA IN PETTICOATS”

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797 ) was a radical in the sense that she desired to bridge the gap between mankind’s present circumstances and ultimate perfection. She was truly a child of the French Revolution and saw a new age of reason and benevolence close at hand. Mary undertook the task of helping women to achieve a [...]

BETWEEN MORAL PRETENSE & LURID SPECTACLE: A VERY CONTRARY MARY

“And she took this leap while displaying the full measure of female unpredictablity, while the world watched, astounded, dismayed and outraged. This Mary was quite contrary, and her reputation over time, unsurprisingly, has suffered from this complexity. Surely we women have a gene — in addition to those saucy, but ill-mannered, hormones — for theatrics, [...]