Jacques Barzun is dead. He died late last year at age 104 and his family’s loss is barely greater than our loss. Barzun is one of my heroes and has been that since about 1970 when I first heard of him. His was a gigantic intellect and no one can fail to appreciate his writings if one takes the trouble. His grandson Charles has found a perfect way to communicate with Barzun even now. The letter is both a touching tribute and a profound wisdom essay. Please read it all. I am very grateful to BARRY FISH for forwarding it to me.

http://chronicle.com/article/A-Letter-to-My-Grandfather/139117/

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I am filing this post in the archives under “education,” “everything,” “language,” “love,” “personalities,” and “philosophy.”

I just don’t know whether I will publish anything else this year of equal importance.

For some people, the music in this video is the thing. For most of us, I hope, it is an astonishing revelation of the way the world turns.

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=L7N6slVrQeY&vq=medium

The mailbag has been overflowing this month with letters from people who need to know. I know all the answers to all the questions, so let us begin, but I have time for only a short sample.

Request 1: Dear Master, why do you write “them that know” rather than “they who know”?
Master: Why indeed! Did your mother never tell you that “Y” is a crooked letter? Be gone! that is all the answer you need.
Request 2: Most Noble Sire, What is the meaning of life?
Master: Frunctulious.
Request 3: Your reverent Sir, How do I ensure that the mixture of gasoline and air in my carburetor is precisely what it should be?
Master: Look deep within your heart and you will see the answer as plain as the islets of langerhans on a clear day. Silly boy!
Request 4: Who is more deserving of great wealth, Lebron James or Bill Gates?
Master: You blew it. You did not address me with proper reverence. Be gone!
Request 4: Grandest of the Grand, Will they ever finish repairs on Bruckner Boulevard?
Master: Excellent question, for a nincompoop. All things are contingent, including the Bruckner Boulevard. For the specifics concerning the BB, I refer you to St. Thomas’s Summa Theologica. Go to the Third Part (Tertia Pars then, turn to “Penance as a sacrament.” (p 84) Combine what you learn there with the “Sanctification,” (p 27) and you may now induce, deduce, traduce and flappendoodleduce all that your measly, pathetic heart desires to know about the noble, stately, monumental Bruckner. And never darken my doorway again, you low grade CREEP.

**********************
But wait! Just in case you are not a low grade creep, settle down for the next 2 hours and 55 minutes and listen to this performance of Wolfie’s DON GIOVANNI. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nV1yNgiEvIQ

IN MEMORIAM

Ronald Dworkin

1931 – 2013

“Without dignity our lives are only blinks of duration. But

if we manage to lead a good life well, we create something

more. We write a subscript to our mortality. We make our

lives tiny diamonds in the cosmic sands.”</blockquote>

*********************

Excerpted from Ronald Dworkin’s final masterpiece, JUSTICE FOR HEDGEHOGS

Want to know if and how you will die THIS YEAR? Here’s the good word.
http://www.v1news.com/page4/1/odds_of_dying/odds_of_dying.htm

If you don’t like clicking, here are some highlights.

Chance that you will die from a bee sting this year – 1 in 25 million.
From an asteroid impact – 1 in 75 million. Better chance of winning a big lottery.
From dog bite – 1 in 11 million. Struck by lightning – 1 in 10 million.
Firearms discharge – 1 in 514,000.
From falling down stairs – 1 in 157,000.
Killed by acts of war – 1 in 135,000.
Post-Surgical complications – 1 in 117,000. [This does not include deaths by surgical negligence and incompetence. The odds against the latter are not given but these events occur 100,000 times per year.]
In a fire – 1 in 107,000.
Suicide – 1 in 9000.
Vehicular accident – 1 in 6500.
HEART DISEASE – 1 in 467.

If you live long enough, something will get you.

Cause of Death Lifetime Odds
Heart Disease 1-in-5
Cancer 1-in-7
Stroke 1-in-23
Accidental Injury 1-in-36
Motor Vehicle Accident* 1-in-100
Intentional Self-harm (suicide) 1-in-121
Falling Down 1-in-246
Assault by Firearm 1-in-325
Fire or Smoke 1-in-1,116
Natural Forces (heat, cold, storms, quakes, etc.) 1-in-3,357
Electrocution* 1-in-5,000
Drowning 1-in-8,942
Air Travel Accident* 1-in-20,000
Flood* (included also in Natural Forces above) 1-in-30,000
Legal Execution 1-in-58,618
Tornado* (included also in Natural Forces above) 1-in-60,000
Lightning Strike (included also in Natural Forces above) 1-in-83,930
Snake, Bee or other Venomous Bite or Sting* 1-in-100,000
Earthquake (included also in Natural Forces above) 1-in-131,890
Dog Attack 1-in-147,717
Asteroid Impact* 1-in-200,000**
Tsunami* 1-in-500,000
Fireworks Discharge 1-in-615,488

Odds against writing a NY Times best seller 220 to 1
Odds against dating a supermodel 88,000 to 1 Odds against dating a millionaire 215 to 1.
Odds against winning a powerball jackpot 146 million to 1.
Odds against being audited by the IRS 175 to 1.

THE REALLY GOOD NEWS – ODDS OF GETTING AWAY WITH MURDER 1 IN 2.

Data excerpted from NATIONMASTER.COM

Mathematical literacy – USA is 18th. [Japan, South Korea and New Zeland are the top three.]
Civil and Political Liberties -The USA’s highest ranking. Tied for #1 with 14 other countries.
Rape incidents – USA 57th.
Political corruption – With a score of 7.2 out of a possible 10, the USA ranks 20th. [Finland and Denmark ties for best.]
Life expectancy at birth – USA ranks 38th. [Japan, Hong Kong and People's Republic of China ti for 1st.]
Infant mortality – USA ranks 51st.
Obesity – With 30% of the the country overweight, the USA ranks worst.
Weighted average of countries most inclined to execute people – 39.8. USA – 42.
Where the money is – weighted average of 220 nations $15,267.54 per capita.
……………….- weighted average of European Union $29,423.40.
Poorest country of the 220 making up the index – Democratic Republic of the Congo $347.45. [Less than a dollar a day.]
#13 USA $45,759.46 per capita.
#1 Liechtenstein $145,747.
Total number of crimes – not corrected for population or population density. USA #1 – 11,877,218. U.K. #2 – 6,523,706.
Total crime 63,523,202. Weighted average 774,770. [These figures are ridiculous. I have written about this often enough, including as far back as 1963, 50 years ago. A better estimate would be gotten by multiplying these numbers by 365 - for every day of the year. This correction probably would not effect the relative positioning.]

Political Liberal – certifiable lunatic. Believes in some bizarre thing called
Bipartisanship - the business of arrogantly ignoring third parties.
Conservative Republican – vicious idiot; preaches that the highest politica duty is
Fiscal Responsibility – code word for “stick it to the poor.”
Socialist – madman who thinks the world can be better than it is. Completely off his rocker. Escaped from Bedlam in 1798.
Global economy – economic plan to ignore the needs of 9/10th of the world.
Person of color – impolite way of addressing schvoons, schvartzes and niggers. It embarrasses them.
Economist – schmuck with Ph.D. in the dismal science.
Philosopher – genius, knows everything. Exemplar of the GREAT MAN THEORY. Vot a guy. Oy, oy, oy.
Beethoven, Shakespeare, Michelangelo – the REALLY Great Guys. May be addressed as GG 1, GG 2, or GG 3.
Police Officer – gun-toting FUCK.
Surgeon – scalpel-toting FUCK.
Lawyer – moron with bad grammar; takes your money after tacking on a travel charge.
Journalist – all-round freak, specializes in knowing nothing about anything; widely celebrated on TV as a
Pundit – A would-be guru. Pronounces judgments on anything and everything; schizophrenically, mistakes himself for Sidney Gendin.
Veterinarian – a person who has learned to disguise his hatred for animals but can’t fool your cat.
Rocket Scientist – person who kvells at the adoration, veneration and reverence he receives from the rest of mankind.
Banker – A person who knows only one word – MORE!
Movie Star – one who accepts the adulation of boot lickers. Has no reason whatsoever to live. Appears on TV occasionally in great finery as part of a self-celebratory exercise.
Athlete – Concussion-laden dope who thinks he is better than movie stars.
Human Beings – disgusting, loathsome, odious, detestable, contemptible, repulsive, stomach-churning stand-ins for the Neanderthal man.

1. With all the coy disingenuousness of a professional politician, Ben Affleck has gone public and and boldly announced he does not know whether he wants to pursue a career in politics. What a guy! Could anyone be better suited for political baloney than Handsome Ben? He oozes insincerity from every pore.

2. Led by John Fugelsang and Cenk Uyger of CURRENT TV and the low IQ nitwits over at MSNBC (Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O’Donnell, Ed Schultz, Chris Matthews), the semi-automatic assault weapons of the lunatic left keep firing with barely a finger on the trigger. Apparently these nut cases do not know that, although necessity may be the mother, insanity is the father of invention. Thus, they do not have the cleverness to see that murder cannot be stopped or slowed by getting guns out of the hands of private citizens while permitting police to run berserk with powerful handguns, tear gas and billy clubs and simultaneously cheering on hunters who have already killed or sent bleeding into the woods tens of thousands of “sporting animals” just since the Connecticut massacre. The notion that we should allow cops and hunters to have a free go at weaponry is a demented twist on gun control. Has any anti-gun looney ever seen a spelling bee? Can he spell “MATCH”? How long after the ban on semi-automatic weapons will it be before the lunatics discover M-A-T-C-H spells a great way to go on the rampage and be even better at destruction than they ever could be with guns? Bar the doors, Katy, and don’t let anybody out of the theaters, school auditoriums, the sports arenas and other venues where we can cause a panic and take out thousands instead of a few dozen children. Would that really happen? You can bet your sweet tutti-fruity it would and will within two years of a ban on guns. How to prevent this? Get the guns out of the hands of cops and hunters. Get toy guns out of the hands of children. Make it clear that guns are bad business whenever and wherever the occur. Do not encourage the mad idea that some people are good with guns and that they are good at protecting us. Do not encourage the idea that there is good violence and bad violence.

Now that the public swears allegiance to cops, police brutality is on the rise. Easily 95% of vicious felonies since the Connecticut mayhem has been done by police. It will get worse once we are all convinced that only by restricting weapons to police can we be safe. One word best described the American public – GULLIBLE. Another pretty good description is BRAINWASHED. What must be done? (A) Get weapons of all sorts out of the hands of police. If they need weapons to operate, we don’t want them at all. If you have no idea how police can do their work without possessing the means of viciousness, move to another country, where witlessness is encouraged among the citizenry. (B) Propagate the idea that violence is bad business. Do not go to movies where the themes are blown up cars, thrilling car chases, and smashed glass. Do not let your children see “hero” movies in theaters or on TV. (C) Discourage all praise for “good guys.” (D) Surrender worship of rap stars who divide their time between making billions of dollars and going out on drunken brawls. Even that plays its roles. (E) Don’t go saloon-hopping at 1 A.M. Try this instead: stay home and read a good book. If need be, read a bad book. (F) End police access to cocaine, heroin and other hard drugs they so easily steal from storage bins. (G) End police corruption and brutality altogether. http://www.policebrutality.info/tag/usa-police. (H) Pay more attention to foreign policy. Ignorance is desensitizing. Consider the last 8 days: 6 drone strikes, 35 dead. Did you know that? Do you know that poachers in Kenya opened the new Year by killing three rhino? Do you care? Will you slug me over the head with the old shibboleth, “At a time like this, are you worrying about animals?” If you are not worrying, I doubt you really give a damn about children, either. (I) Stop the crap of “Our people first. Then the rest of the world.” All inhumanity hangs together. (J) Organize a petition that reads: “Mr. Cuomo, you are a stupid man. Please step down from your perch as governor of NY.” (L) Send a note to Charles Schumer, Chairman of the Presidential Inauguration lunch that features bison and lobster and tell him “Mr. Senator, you are a very stupid man. Please resign from the Senate.” Why don’t you do that instead of crying about dead children? Too constructive a step, I imagine. (L) Don’t vote for Republicans. (M) Don’t vote at all. Wait until an honest candidate makes his appearance. It will be a long wait but there is no alternative to patience. (N) Don’t waste your time and mine by sending me a note that I made a mistake by skipping “K” in this list. I know I did. It was intentional in order to see which of you is so stupid as to get a note ready for me.

3. Stop sending me private e-mail notes asking me not to call people stupid. That’s a stupid thing to do. Stop telling me to be nasty because the simple truth is that I am the least nasty person in the world.

4. Get on to a meaningful life. Learn the difference between “hence” and “henceforth.” Until then, stop crying over spilled blood.

Crazy to try to put these in any order but these are the ones that most impressed me. Again, NOT in any order.

1. The continued parade of massacres by insane persons, usually on children.
2. The never-ending salute to the “legitimate” hunting activities of deer, squirrel and other animals by demagogues from Obama on down in their efforts to mollify and curry favor with rabid-dog riflemen.
3. The extraordinary willingness of the American public to accept the trivial tax increases proposed by Obama on persons making more than $250,000/year and his fear and trembling at the idea of a 45% tax on that portion of income exceeding $1 million.
4. The unthinking acceptance of the American public and their brainwashed “liberal” dupes of the notion that gun violence is mainly a matter of much better gun control: elimination of the right to carry or own so-called automatic assault weapons, stricter regulation of who can obtain licenses plus a variety of other foolish measures.
5. The bold, hot, OPEN pursuit by congressional Republicans to preserve their ill-begotten gains.
6. The continued mind boggling indifference on the part of Congress and the Administration of animal welfare laws including the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and the ignoring of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (to which the USA has been a party since 1973).
7. The unjustified condemnation of Israel for its allegedly genocidal treatment of Palestinians, combined with the dogmatic refusal of Hamas, Hezbollah, and other Islamist terrorist groups to publicly admit Israel has a right to exist.
8. America’s paltry efforts to supply humanitarian aid to starving, diseased people throughout most of Africa, combined with the abominably miserable level of charitable giving by the American public [well under 2% of income of those with $100/000 per year].
9. The astonishing attack on medicare and social security from people who would be President and Vice President.
10. The blind fury of millions of Americans and their sense of outrage and indignation directed at a certain man because he may have lied about how he was able to make the wheels of his bicycle turn over so quickly while riding in races in France.

I’m sure I am forgetting much else. Chip in with your thoughts. [But not on my failed grammar.]

I am taking on the unenviable assignment of listing the worst persons in the world. I am not interested in low grade demagogues like Bernie Sanders who appears on TV every night to tell us that 1% of the population has 99% of the wealth. Get crushed under the wheels of a trolley, Bernie and do your fan club a favor. I am interested in the big fish – the classes of vicious gangsters that we admire so much or find excuses for. Here they are in no particular order. I know you have your own favorites so put them in any rank-ordering you wish.

1. Cops. They march in full battle regalia down the streets of Newtown, Ct. looking for 6-year olds that escaped Mr. Lanza. We need to put assault weapons into the hands of every 6-year old child so he can defend himself. Cops spend half their time bashing the skulls of black kids and half their time telling us “I thought he was going for a gun.”
2. Priests. This is a true story. When I was nineteen years old I met a seminarian who was not a sex pervert.
3. Scalpel wielders – Score: 100,000 dead of us. Zero of them. Like those odds?
4. Other “physicians and health care providers.” – “Listen, you low life! Grovel, when I tell you to grovel.”
5. College professors – “I’ll take another twenty reams of white paper and fifteen reams of blue. You say that stealing is bad, you putzhead? Not when I do it. As for your C-, schmuckhead, get down on your knees and thank me.”
6. Prison guards – You don’t know why? You’re kidding me.
7. Kindergarten teachers – Exhausted freaks. Can’t blame them, they say, for not remembering who George Washington was.
8. Soldiers – Go, America. Kill more gooks and other contemptibles. Then bitch over your post-traumatic something or other.
9. Politicians – Always on good terms with their “friends on the other side of the aisle.” That tells you everything unless you are an imbecile – which most likely you are.
10. Lawyers and judges – Show me an honest lawyer and I’ll show you a dead lawyer.
11. Auto mechanics – “Your fibisticulator is on the blink and the skim milk is leaking into the electric circuits and contaminating the diodes. Don’t worry, I’ll have it fixed in no time and the charge is only $659 plus taxes.”
12. All dentists have small orgasms whenever they strike a nerve in your mouth. Who can blame them? You are scum, and don’t you forget it.
13. Bubonic plague carrying prostitutes determined to spare you the agony of AIDS. They’ve all got it. I hope you catch it.
14. CEOs and bankers – The 1% of whom douche bag Bernie complains.
15. Computer gurus – “Uh, duh! I’ll show you but I can’t tell you.”
16. Security guards – “Which end of the gun do I put in my mouth?” Both, you moron. Bend it like Beckham.
17. Blog readers – the scourge of humanity. They threaten to quit reading and beg not to be notified of posts. Bloggers should only be so lucky. I say this: GO AWAY! Who needs you? If I can only get 70 or 80 people telling me I am a lousy misanthrope and they hate me as I hate them then my life will be complete and lacking in nothing. [To brightly coin an Aristotelian-like phrase.] Would you rather be blogging or reading Lady Murasaki Shikibu’s Tale of Genji? Don’t tell me unless you want me to pray for your death.