 T. S. Eliot Tuesday, 06 January 2009 London, UK. This poem, The Journey of the Magi by T. S. Eliot, is an enduring meditation on the intersection of uncertainty and resolve during a time of change. [N1]
The poem was the first in a series that T. S. Eliot later grouped together as the Ariel Poems (1927), a cycle that emanates Eliot's spirituality and emerging religious convictions. [N2] However, it was not a smoth transition; Eliot insisted on an accounting of the facts of the world and relegation of belief to the realm of what is unknown (or unknowable).
The Journey of the Magi begins with lines adapted and modified from a Nativity Sermon by Lancelot Andrewes in 1622, which places it in the beginning of a crucial period for literary and religious history. [N3]
However, this beginning is experiential, A cold coming we had of it, the past was hard, a word in its times that was nearly interchangeable with cold, and realistic. The poem ends with that cold and hard realism, and a glimmer of, perhaps, hope.
— SSG
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Opinion
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Nina Funnell
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Monday, 29 December 2008
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Sydney, NSW, AUS. Of the thousands of decisions that a couple must make before a wedding, one of the more political ones is what to do about surnames. For my brother and his fiancée, the issue is more loaded than for |
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Lisa Jain Thompson
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Wednesday, 24 December 2008
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Fairfax, VA, USA.Some would have us believe that Jesus Ben Miriam is the one and only God, the earthly incarnation of the Creator of All. Some would say that Allah is the One and all others prophets are false idols. S |
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Lisa Jain Thompson
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Sunday, 21 December 2008
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Fairfax, VA, USA. The holiday season presents an opportunity for the topic-short columnist to demonstrate her wit in a light hearted column of faux holiday cheerfulness.
Christmas carols are endemic on the radio and on television — you can’t avoid them — and lend themselves easily to parody. Politicians and political activists also lend themselves to parody |
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John Rennie Short
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Thursday, 18 December 2008
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Baltimore, MD, USA. Much has been made of the need for infrastructural investment in the states to stimulate the economy.
Traditionally, economists advise against large-scale infrastructure investments because they take too long to inject increased spending into the system. But this recession is likely to be so long and |
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G. Terry Madonna & Michael L. Young
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Tuesday, 16 December 2008
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Lancaster, PA, USA. Why did she do it? Why did Hillary Clinton agree to become secretary of state in an Obama administration? Many believe it effectively ends any presidential aspirations she may have, locks her into a |
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 Suzanne Cooke Friday, 02 January 2009 Texas, USA. Forty years ago in the early morning hours of December 31 I took the first step in the process of coming out. 1968 was a year of turmoil, police beatings, and random arrests on trumped up charges, a jailhouse rape, an assault in the street for looking too queer.
I took heavy doses of LSD and journeyed deep within myself and realized I couldn’t suppress who I really was. Yet I was afraid. I was afraid even though I had faced police with clubs and military with bayonets.
In 1967, I had met a queen (possibly transsexual like me) in Greenwich Village. She had spoken of San Francisco as the place to go, a place where people like us went to find doctors and others like ourselves.
After I had been raped a sister helped me get transferred to the queen tank and in meeting others I lost the excuse that it was impossible for me to be Suzy.
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 Lisa Jain Thompson Sunday, 04 January 2009 Fairfax, VA, USA. Whenever someone at TS-Si makes a distinction between men and women born with Harry Benjamin Syndrome (HBS or True Transsexuality) and the transgendered, we always anticipate that a male transgender or a male cross-dresser will send us a whiny email.
Any discussion of the medical differences between being born with HBS and being transgendered is immediately met with ad hominem attacks on the writer, misstatement or lack of knowledge of current scientific research, and, in the worst cases. outright scientific illiteracy. Charges of hate and elitism often follow.
Sharon Gaughan’s rational, non-judgmental column, What About Non-op Transsexuals? A No-op Notion [N1], has always received comment both here and around the internet, often during the winter holidays. We were not disappointed this year, reconfirming that some things never change.
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TS-Si News Service
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Saturday, 03 January 2009
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Coral Gables, FL, USA. Self-control is critical for success in life, and a new study finds that religious people have more self-control than do their less religious counterparts.
These findings imply that religious people may be better at pursuing and achieving long-term goals that are important to them and their religious groups. This, in turn, might help explain why religious people tend to have low |
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Jessica Wyndham
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Saturday, 03 January 2009
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Washington, DC, USA. On 10 December, the world marked 60 years since the UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a global framework for human rights, which includes the right to "share in s |
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TS-Si News Service
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Thursday, 01 January 2009
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Southampton, UK. Nostalgia is a sentimental longing for the past. In the 17th and 18th centuries, nostalgia was viewed as a medical disease, complete with symptoms that included weeping, irregular heartbeat and anorexia. By the 20th century,
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Lisa Jain Thompson
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Wednesday, 31 December 2008
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Fairfax, VA, USA. One of the problems with growing older is that everyone you have ever known is growing older with you. Eventually, some of them die and a piece of your life that has been there birth is gone forever.
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Get On With It
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Randall Munroe
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Monday, 05 January 2009
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Christine Vestal
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Monday, 05 January 2009
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Washington, DC, USA. As job losses mount, states are likely to get more federal dollars to respond to growing demand for low-income aid. But welfare r...
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Randall Munroe
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Friday, 02 January 2009
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Amanda DeBard
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Thursday, 01 January 2009
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Randall Munroe
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Wednesday, 31 December 2008
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Pauline Vu
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Wednesday, 31 December 2008
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Daniel C. Vock
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Tuesday, 30 December 2008
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Randall Munroe
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Monday, 29 December 2008
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