A BRIEF REPLY

For reasons that are utterly beyond me, when I am here in Paris, Google will not allow me to post a comment on my own blog, telling me that the adminstrator of the blog [me!] does not allow anonymous comments -- even though I have just signed in to the Blog Dashboard, using my password. But rather than curse the darkness, I will light a candle. Since the same computer program that does not recognize me as a legitimate commentator accepts me as the author of the blog and allows me to post new material, I shall take a moment to reply to a few of your comments in a blog post rather than with a comment.

High Arka is waiting for the "punchline" to my Hume series. I have not a clue what he/she/they mean by this, so I shall pass.

What do I think of Cicero's dialogue? I must have read it at some time before the Viet Nam War, but I confess I have no recollection of it. Since I was totally unimpressed with the Cicero I read during the Spring of 1958, I have not gone back to his writings. I do not know Latin, but I assume that he was a great stylist of that language, which perhaps explains why he was held in such high regard over so many centuries.

I would love to launch a series of posts on food and restaurants, but I am a complete amateur in the kitchen, and even though I spent my entire career teaching things I had never studied, there are limits. However, if anyone wants to send in an exciting recipe, I will be happy to post it for the delectation of all.

Now I must spend some time re-reading Hume's Dialogues before beginning detailed comments on them. On Tuesday, Joe McGinnis' new book about Sarah Palin is officially released. I gather it is snark central, and should be good for a deliciously unhealthy bout of schadenfreude.