From Sophie's front desk — Wednesday, July 15
Associated Press — read the full story
Blockade. Strikes. Silence. The Associated Press: the U.S. has reimposed a blockade on Iran's ports and resumed strikes on Iranian targets; Iran struck back, and the Strait of Hormuz—chokepoint for global energy—thinned to near-stillness on the fifth day. Epictetus thought this worth a word. Thoreau has the next.
A merchant stands on the quay at Hormuz. His ships sit empty. The strait has closed before — pirates, Persian fleets, the winter storms that care nothing for contracts. He paces. He calculates losses.
He curses the admiral, the king, the wind. His cargo is not his. The passage is not his. The price of grain, of frankincense, of the slave who rowed his galley — none of it answers to his desire. We have seen this.
The young man at Nicopolis who came asking how to secure his father's inheritance. I asked him: which part of the inheritance is yours? The land? The house? The silver?
A fever takes the land. A fire takes the house.
vessel? Who does not value a benevolent and faithful adviser? Who will not willingly receive a man who is ready to bear a share, as we may say, of the difficulty of his circumstances, and by this very act to ease the burden, by taking a part of it. THE ENCHEIRIDION, OR MANUAL. I.…
vessel? Who does not value a benevolent and faithful adviser? Who will not willingly receive a man who is ready to bear a share, as we may say, of the difficulty of his circumstances, and by this very act to ease the burden, by taking a part of it. THE ENCHEIRIDION, OR MANUAL. I.…
overthrow the government; to try to sever that part of the United States of America once known as the Republic of Mexico, from the Union to which it sent a petition less than one hundred and fifty years ago, asking for annexation, which was in due time granted.” “Yes,” piped out …
stand;—to rectify the great injustices done to the followers of the orthodox, to those who believe in and follow the precepts of the inspired works of biblical writers. I say there is but one way to recover our waning power and that is, to fight for right.” Hurrah after hurrah we…
The Internet Classics Archive | The Enchiridion by Epictetus Home Browse andComment Search Buy Books andCD-ROMs Help The Enchiridion By Epictetus Commentary: A few comments have been posted about The Enchiridion. Download: A 40k text-only version is available for download. The En…
I walked the river this morning before the light had fully decided itself. The alewives were running, silver needles threading the current where the falls break. They do not ask permission of the dam. They do not negotiate with the mill-owner. They follow the old law written in their blood, and the river answers. You have read the dispatches by now. A strait narrowed by gun-smoke. Ships holding station.
The great powers trading blows over a channel that has carried hulls since hulls first floated. The news calls it a blockade, a strike, an escalation. I call it the same worm boring the same timber. The passage from my week on the Concord returns: twine, wine, and hides, a preponderance of the fluid elements. The cargo changes — tea, opium, cotton, now the black stuff they pump from the ground — but the reckoning holds. Men build forts on Staten Island, on Hormuz, on every headland where the water narrows. They mount brass teeth. They call it sovereignty.
The worm calls it lunch. I watched a single ant haul a grass-seed across the path. It climbed the blade, fell, climbed again. No general staff directed it. No treaty guaranteed its passage. The ant knows what the admirals forget: the current owes you nothing. The channel was here before the flag. The alewives will run it long after the brass has greened and the hulls have settled into mud.
The river does not keep accounts. It only flows.
Such near aspects had we Of our life’s scenery. It might be seen by what tenure men held the earth. The smallest stream is _mediterranean_ sea, a smaller ocean creek within the land, where men may steer by their farm-bounds and cottage-lights. For my own part, but for the geograp…
crisis? “A drab of state, a cloth-o’-silver slut, To have her train borne up, and her soul trail in the dirt.” Practically speaking, the opponents to a reform in Massachusetts are not a hundred thousand politicians at the South, but a hundred thousand merchants and farmers here, …
the antipodes? We prayed that their bright anticipations might not be rudely disappointed. Though all the fates should prove unkind, Leave not your native land behind. The ship, becalmed, at length stands still; The steed must rest beneath the hill; But swiftly still our fortunes…
the southwest, at length revealed to us, which have so long been reflecting our own sky in their bosom. The great plain of India lies as in a cup between the Himmaleh and the ocean on the north and south, and the Brahmapootra and Indus, on the east and west, wherein the primeval …
W. I., “one cod line,” “one brown mug,” and “a line for the seine”; rum and sugar, sugar and rum, “good loaf sugar,” and “good brown,” W. I. and N. E., in short and uniform entries to the bottom of the page, all carried out in pounds, shillings, and pence, from March 25th to June…
The story ran in the Associated Press. A closed strait moves empire—no war, no declaration, just supply lines breaking. That's Old News for today.