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Leave a Comment / By Paul Hughes / October 3, 2013

The physician must be able to tell the antecedents, know the present, and foretell the future — must mediate these things, and have two special objects in view with regard to disease, namely, to do good or to do no harm. The art consists in three things — the disease, the patient, and the physician. The physician is the servant of the art, and the patient must combat the disease along with the physician.
— Hippocrates

Breaking Bad is the best show ever, by Allen St. John

According to the September 30, 2013 Wall Street Journal (C8, “Overheard”) the fourth most-used term to fill in the Google search

“I want to sell my … “

“kidney.”

And look into the crap we eat, you’ll find a smoking gun.
— The Lost Dogs

Mark Twain brand maven

Everyone talks about the weather and here’s someone selling something about it.

Why we’re wearing under there.

primum nil nocere

Recent

Coyotes and Christians

I am not saying Christians are like coyotes. [For that, some could cut caustically to coyotes are like Christians — tricksters, roaming in the dark, feeding on the dead … ] Simply noticed — somewhat in passing, as it’s said, having attained, apparently … achieved? … some kind of state where nearly anything I hear,

And Did Dostoevsky Say ‘Beauty Will Save’

Short answer: he did not. Neither did Prince Myshkin, that we know of. Likely both believed it. Beauty — in the person of Christ — will do so. And clearly D wrote of M in The Idiot to explore art and beauty and ugliness and salvation. But did he say it, and did he believe that

What I Recalled Watching Netflix

[Television is educational.] One Saying the same stuff over and over looks like you have different things to say. Two If you’re ever in a below-average film or streaming series, and you beat the tar out of a guy, in a house, and you gaze down in both some shock as also a certain

Seeking the King

A line everywhere misattributed to Chesterton reads thus: The young man who rings the bell at the brothel is unconsciously looking for God. This line is not from the great [several senses of the word] man who recently celebrated his 150th birthday, but the mid-century most unmodern novelist Bruce Marshall. The words — which do

Happy in Our Work

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All Hat No Cattle

The men I respected most when I wrote about the golf business — and being the golf business they were mostly men — were course superintendents. I loved talking with them, because they more than nearly anyone else wanted to be there simply for the grass and the golfers, and in that order. And this

Who They Are

The poet felt injustice in calling it Fancy Ketchup. The priest said the most grievous sins can be forgiven. * The priest wondered if anyone changed. The poet said he’d seen it often, depending on who was paying. * The poet would punish evil by making them hated by all. The priest would in having

I Wish I Had Written This Post

If you could do it, I suppose, it would be a good idea to live your life in a straight line — starting, say, in the Dark Wood of Error, and proceeding by logical steps through Hell and Purgatory and into Heaven. Or you could take the King’s Highway past the appropriately named dangers, toils,

Get Out Of The Boat

For Jonah, dissent was a felix culpa, a happy fault that brought him closer to God. Or like Dante, when doubting pleased him no less than knowing (Inferno, Canto 11), for what he could learn and gain. Our error brings us closer to Him. And He knew it would do so. Then we know he

Columbo: Why It Matters

This is part two of a two-part post on why, some 45 years later, Columbo still matters. Part one is here. This essay is excerpted from The Columbo Case Files: Season One, found here. Thank you. * I now have the entire collection, all 35 years, nearly 70 episodes in all, and I’ve seen each

Hey Babe, Wanna Increase My Downline?

This wouldn’t be the first time someone “posted” a “blog” on their “website” while having nothing to say. Well, not nothing exactly, but certainly not being sure exactly what he wants to say. But then that’s part of what a blog is, or was. Or maybe that’s just the bad kind; definitely it’s the old

Giant in the Land

Dallas Willard revised his affairs yesterday, moving to the headquarters of the Kingdom of the Heavens to live slightly nearer to God, whom he spoke of, served, embodied. The life he continues to live today. Unceasingly infused, this life was and is. For these ideas and Our Lord were everywhere in what Dr. Willard said

All retch no vomit