William Buckley

William F. Buckley died today. He'll be lionized by some and vilified by others. But whatever political pigeonhole you fit yourself into, maybe we can all agree that this is worth listening to:

The skeptics get away with fixing the odds against the believer, mostly by
pointing to phenomena which are only explainable -- you see? -- by the belief
that there was a cause for them, always deducible. But how can one deduce the
cause of Hamlet? Or of St. Matthew's Passion? What is the cause of
inspiration?

This I believe: that it is intellectually easier to credit a divine
intelligence than to submit dumbly to felicitous congeries about nature. As a
child, I was struck by the short story. It told of a man at a bar who boasted of
his rootlessness, derisively dismissing the jingoistic patrons to his left and
to his right. But later in the evening, one man speaks an animadversion on a
little principality in the Balkans and is met with the clenched fist of the man
without a country, who would not endure this insult to the place where he was
born.

So I believe that it is as likely that there should be a man without a
country, as a world without a creator.

Smart, thoughtful, and maybe enough to give even the most devout athiest pause ... for a second, at least. Rest in peace, Mr. Buckley.

Here Bigynneth the Tale of the Asse-Hatte

If you were ever forced to read the Canterbury Tales, and have been following the current nonsense regarding the Archbishop of Canterbury's shilling for Sharia law in Britain, just read it.