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I should like to quote from the masterful new book by Ted Sorensen on his close years of friendship with John F. Kennedy…
“I was deeply touched-and frankly surprised in view of the unevenness of our relationship in the early years-to discover that when (the oral historian of the JFK Presidential Library asked) to whom the President turned for advice, Bobby (RFK), my friend and onetime competitor for the president’s ear, answered, “Ted Sorensen…whenever it became a difficult matter, whether it was domestic or … foreign policy, if it was difficult, Ted Sorensen was brought in”.
I have devoured with delight the first 214 pages of the book I only obtained yesterday from Barnes and Noble. No more important serious book have I read in the past few years. I well remember watching the young man on Inauguration day who made such a memorable speech…and the old poet who quoted from memory that noble poem of America and its purpose in the world…not to take but to give…such as she would become…Go and find Sorensen’s work and rekindle faith in the purpose of mind and heart, of the skeptic and the progressive…I only wish I could have just one moment to say thank you to Ted Sorensen for the selfless service he gave the President and the nation…
war…what is it good for…
http://www.zotero.org/
I should like to read each and every issue of the elegant journal of classical studies, ARION. (http://www.bu.edu/arion/)
early in the morning we rise having THE GREEN KNIGHT a rather disappointing Iris Murdoch novel for the day’s opening reading…and gathering our box of new ink pens and new vanilla coloured papers and our William F Buckley style clipboard but both Buckley and FIRING LINE are gone (well there is always YOUTUBE)…but Jackson has had his bath and we are set to drive without (much) ceasing to the land of Smackover, Arkansas where mothers wait for us… my bank seems to have failed but that is the advantage of having no money…no anguish…just curiosity…i have a mystery to read when we get where we are going…that will be good…most of life has been a mystery to me…despite a valve which has a huge flaw we flourish in our work and in our home…i have repainted the yellow chair…will we have our own golden pond…may it be so…and for you also…
having completed THE SEA, THE SEA I move on to THE GREEN KNIGHT. I had forgotten what a truly powerful novelist of ideas Iris was…next stop THE BLACK PRINCE…
Isn’t it wonderful to view the classics…and to hear Bernstein explain it in further videos from Harvard’s hallowed lecture halls and practice rooms–yes it is…how wonderful it is…
this american life
what do you remember of yesteryear…
