"By 1970, Horowitz's chief claim to eminence on the Left was as co-editor of Ramparts magazine with Peter Collier. Ramparts, based in San Francisco, was a politically engaged publication of the sort that was too pure to ever actually turn a profit. It depended on a series of financial angels and the fundraising skills of its managers. Collier and Horowitz took it over in a coup made possible by the fact that the angels of the East Coast could not be bothered to come to a board of directors meeting in San Francisco to discuss the latest financial crisis. Once in control, they attempted for a while to institute a regime of Maoist equality. Everyone got the same salary, all major decisions were made by collective agreement, even the names on the masthead were arranged alphabetically to avoid the taint of hierarchy.
One thing that this experiment proved was that hierarchy is an instrument of kindness. Without it, every dispute must be personalized and decided in public. Ordinary staff meetings became day-long struggle-sessions that not only wasted time, but envenomed personal relations. And behind it all, of course, was the fact it was a fraud. Collier and Horowitz actually ran the magazine as long as they had the angels on their side. It followed the policy they set, and their most unfortunate policy was to promote the Black Panther Party as a revolutionary vanguard."
http://www.johnreilly.info/index.html
and the previous entry on this journal.
American security is a function of the state of the world. It does not depend on the state of American culture or the competitiveness of the American economy. Such things may determine our ability to do what we have to do. However, the domestic life of America does not define our international needs. Naturally, just because we need to do something, it does not follow that we will be able to do it. One can conceive of a world so hostile or chaotic that no level of American mobilization would make us physically safe and let our society flourish. In such a case, some commentators might be tempted to speak of an America that had turned its attention homeward. The reality would be an America that had ceased to be a subject of history and had become an object. The "state of the world" is not like the state of the weather. It is defined by physical and cultural geography, and it changes far more slowly than daily newKspaper readers are apt to think. The fundamental reality is that Earth is Eurasia. The important parts of Eurasia are its extremities. The rest of the world's territory is important only as it relates to the ancient civilizations that exist on the supercontinent's eastern and western ends. America is endangered if either of these peripheries becomes aggressive, or falls under the control of a hostile power of the interior. Preventing these things from happening is what American statecraft and armed forces exist to do. Everything else, absolutely everything else, is optional....
This is all you absolutely have to know to keep American foreign policy on-track. Still, there are some other points you might want to keep in mind. For instance, be wary about trying to whittle down U.S. defense commitments to "vital interests." A vital interest is something that, if you don't have it, you are likely to die. A country that will fight only when its vital interests are at stake will only fight when it is fighting for its life. This is not a good idea.
I have posted a brief and entirely inadequate tribute to Mr Reilly on my Live Journal site; joetexx at livejournal dot com. I would like to do a little to help keep the memory of this talented man alive.
I ran across Mr John J. Reilly's website in the late 1990's searching for references to the philosopher of history Oswald Spengler. Within about a week I had read every essay and review on his site, as well as his (then) only published book, Spengler's Future. I wrote him a fan letter and received a gracious and funny reply; I have followed his work ever since and learned a great deal about topics as diverse as airline regulation, esoteric fascism and traditionalism, the zombie apocalypse, evolutionary science, and of course, Oswald Spengler.
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I am planning to gather a collection of quotes from John Reilly's essays and reviews that have struck me over the years.
Link to obituary below:
http://obits.nj.com/obituaries/jerseyjou
JOHN J. REILLY JERSEY CITY John J. Reilly of Jersey City, 58, passed away on May 30, 2012. Beloved son of Jean Reilly (nee Harkins) and the late John Reilly, dear brother of Donna Reilly (Dennis Goonan), Mary Spence (Jack Spence), Nancy Reilly Zollo (Louis Zollo) and Nora Reilly, and uncle to David, Jennifer, Elizabeth, Kathryn and Michael, he was also cherished by many compassionate friends, especially those with whom he worshiped at Holy Rosary Church. After graduating from St. Peter's College and earning his law degree from Georgetown University, he embarked upon a career as a writer, editor and attorney. His keen intellect and wry sense of humor resulted in many publications and a world-wide network of correspondents. His intellectual pre-occupations ranged from theology and in particular eschatology to politics, cultural history, and the philosophy of science and literature. He published four books including Apocalypse and Future, Notes on the Cultural History of the 21st Century. John regularly appeared in First Things, Kirkus Review, and had been an editor at Culture Wars before he with-drew in protest to a drift toward anti-Semitism which he publi-cally denounced. John also maintained a blog, The Long View, where John serenely surveyed the world and opined that, indeed, everything is going to be ok. John's intellectual interests also expressed themselves in various societies in which he was active including The International Society for the Comparative Study of Civilizations, the Center for Millennial Studies, the Simplified Spelling Society, and American Literacy Counsel. A man of breathtakingly ecu-menical feeling, he was without compromise a true and devout Catholic. It must have been his faith and his character formed by it and by his loving family that made him without a doubt the most optimistic expert on apocalyptic movements and dys-topias. John explained himself thusly: After long thought, I realized that the most important thing in life is to be helpful. So, I have taken to explaining things, carefully and empathetically, and often at very great length 'Spengler with a Smile' is how I usually characterize the organizing principle. The loss of John's self effacing cheerful genius has left the world a darker place and for those who were privileged to share his company, a son, brother and friend whose absence will always be felt. A wake will be held on Friday, June 1, from 4 - 8PM at McLaughlin's Funeral Home, Jersey City. A requiem mass will be held at 10AM on Saturday, June 2, at Holy Rosary Church followed by interment at Holy Cross Ceme-tery in North Arlington. In lieu of flowers, John would have appreciated donations to Holy Rosary Church. .McLaughlin Funeral Home 625 Pavonia Avenue Jersey City, NJ
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History of Eastern Christianity by Aziz S. Atiya (1968).
NUBIAN CHRISTIANITY:THE NEGLECTED HERITAGE [pdf]
Medieval Nubia and Byzantium
Christian Nubia and its churches
The medieval kingdoms of Nubia: pagans, Christians and Muslims along the Middle Nile
possibly named from Merkurios (reigned 697 - ca. 722)?
there is even a RPG Makurian knights Broken Crescent!
Alodia or Alwa last Christian Nubian kingdom Muslims conquered AD 1504.
One wonders if the sense of identity and cultural self-awareness witnessed by this fusion contributes in
Inspired by Ben Epsen and with time on my hands I decided to compile a list of my reading over the last few years. I'll start with a conveniently copied list of my interlibrary loan books,(most recently read first.) The list is light on fiction as I order little of that from ILL. It does not reflect my regular library borrowing or my purchases. I assure you I read a lot of trash. I have omitted books I checked out but read little of; save where noted I have read through everything on the list, which is not to say, alas, that I actually absorbed all or most of it.
| The diaries of Dawn Powell, Powell, Dawn Recommended by: Gore Vidal Powell's often harrowing and always funny life should make for great reading but somehow I couldnt get into it. I'll have to content myself with her brilliant post WWII novels, especially Wicked Pavilion |
| Willard Gibbs, Rukeyser, Muriel I was interested to see a poet tackle the biography of America's greatest mathematical physicist. Rukeyser wrote this when she was only 25. Alas I got only as far as her account of Gibb's father, the attorney for the slaves in the celebrated Amistad case, before I had to turn the book in. |
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I wuz robbed!
- Two (2) laptops, my working one and an older model I was planning to pass along to a friend.
- The Lexar thumb drive plugged into the working laptop for quick storage -so all my saved files are gone.
- The speakers attached to the laptop
- The traveling case
- Eight bucks and change that had reposed in an old hat, my substitute for a wallet.