Finneran's Wake

This week's "Concise Recap" on Finneran's Wake! For those short on time, but on long on curiosity; for those to whom news and politics are an interest, but whose time is limited. The three most important news items of which you should be aware, with which you should be fluent, all brought to you in a half-hour's time: 1.) A mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas left 21 people de...

The inaugural "Concise Recap" on Finneran's Wake! For those short on time, but on long on curiosity; for those to whom news and politics are an interest, but whose time is limited. The three most important news items of which you should be aware, with which you should be fluent, all brought to you in a half-hour's time: 1.) A racially-motivated shooting in Buffalo claimed the lives of 10 people, w...

Welcome to my first "Ticklish Topic": Abortion In this, part one of a two-part series, I'll list for you the three strongest arguments in favor of abortion--arguments by which you might be repulsed, persuaded, enflamed, or unmoved. You'll have to e-mail me and let me your response... I should say, the goal isn't to win you, my dear listener, to one side or to the other of this debate, but to the e...

A political Poem

A political poem

A political poem

A political poem

A political poem.

A political poem

A political poem.

Season's Greetings, one and all! Around this joyous time of year, we're inundated by lists proclaiming absolute knowledge of the best Christmas films and songs, but little mention is ever made of the best Christmas poems... Until now! Listen along, and learn about the five greatest Christmas poems written by Virgil, Milton, Tennyson, Eliot, and Hardy. Happy Holidays, my learned friends!

"Ours is the crowning era foretold in prophecy: born of time, a great new cycle of centuries begins. Justice returns to earth, the Golden Age returns, and its first-born comes down from heaven above..." And just who might this heavenly "first-born" child be? From what royal eminence does he descend? From what divine seed is he made? To whom shall he return, when his hour on this earthy stage is th...

"One swallow does not a summer make, nor one fine day; similarly one day or brief time of happiness does not make a person entirely happy”. Does this apply to podcasts as well? Does one episode not a wise man make? Can you not comprehend all of Aristotle in twenty minutes? You'll have to listen to find out...

“Some there are who say that the fairest thing seen on the black earth is an array of horsemen; some, men marching; some would say ships; but I say she whom one loves best is the loveliest". She bats her eyes and smiles at the competition, secure in the knowledge that there is no thing, and doubtless no person, by whom her radiant beauty and unutterable loveliness will ever be surpassed. She is, w...

“Our institutions do not emulate the laws of others. We do not copy our neighbors: rather, we are an example to them. Our system is called a democracy, for it respects the majority and not the few”. To this day, some two and a half millennia hence, Athens still remains an example to its neighbors. Mounted high above us, she enjoys the lonely summit of grandeur and refinement to which every civiliz...

"He had a desire to secure eternal and perpetual fame, but his method was ill-advised. For he abolished the old names of many things and places and gave them new ones based on his own, so that he termed the month of April, 'Neroneus' and he had a plan to give Rome the name of 'Neropolis'". Can you guess the emperor about whom Suetonius is speaking? Matricide, fratricide, the attempted genocide of...

"This contagious superstition is not confined to the cities only, but has spread its infection among the neighboring villages and country. Nevertheless, it still seems possible to restrain its progress..." Emphasis on the word "seems", for, as we know, this virulent superstition of which Pliny the Younger speaks, to which we now attach the innocent name of "Christianity", would not be stymied. Pli...

"War is simply a continuation of political intercourse, with the addition of other means". Those last two words, "other means", have always left me feeling somewhat uneasy. Is it not, after all, a kind of euphemism, a gentle phrase more agreeable to sensitive ears, behind which all the horrors of war--all the carnage, bloodshed, conquest, death, and loss--are too neatly concealed? Perhaps. But we...

“The policy of the emperors and the senate, as far as it concerned religion, was happily seconded by the reflections of the enlightened, and by the habits of the superstitious, part of their subjects. The various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people, as equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the magistrate, as equally useful. A...

“Every individual is seen to be strongly actuated by a desire to be seen, heard, talked of, approved and respected, by the people about him, and within his knowledge”. This is the fundamental, universal impulse by which every single person is animated—a passion for distinction, and a desire to be loved. We all feel it—from our life’s beginning, till its end—and to its satisfaction, we apply oursel...

“Me miserable! Which way shall I fly—Infinite wrath, and infinite despair? Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell; And in the lowest deep a lower deep still threatening to devour me opens wide, to which the hell I suffer seems a heaven”. The question, then, fiend Satan, is wither goest thou? Quo vadis, king of the infernal depth? Directionless and vanquished, fallen and condemned, what home remai...

“Thus it appears that the Christian Church chose to celebrate the birthday of its Founder on the twenty-fifth of December in order to transfer the devotion of the heathen from the Sun to him who was called the Sun of Righteousness”. The Nativity of Christ, then, is observed not at some divinely-sanctioned date, an hour of which the singing angels in heaven alone foreknew, but at a time of the year...

“A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: Its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness; but still will keep a bower quiet for us, and a sleep full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing”. Indeed, forever joyous is that beautiful thing—its fair image upon the Grecian urn so fitly stamped. For beauty knows not death, nor feels the whips and scorns of time. It fears not the sli...

“Ah! Well a-day! What evil looks had I from old and young! Instead of the cross, the Albatross about my neck was hung.” And thus, in death, the image of the bird was born. Had the trigger-happy Mariner not shot this helpful fowl, this airy guide upon whom the wayward crew was dependent, we’d not have the great expression—an “Albatross to bear”. Pinions of ebony, body of creamy white, this guileles...

“You see, I wanted to become a Napoleon…that’s why I killed. Well, is it clear now? Would Napoleon have gone ahead or not?” Doubtless, he would have. The Corsican artilleryman, that great general upon whom, in the rubble of the Revolution, the dazzling title of “First Consul” was bestowed, was little encumbered by his conscience, and seldom dissuaded by the scruples of his Christian faith. Indeed,...