Monthly Archives: March 2020

“I Ask You, Ladies and Gentlemen” by Leon Surmelian

Posted on March 30, 2020 by Joel D. Hirst

Can an epic be simple and full of longing and nostalgia? Can it be gentle and childlike, growing with the reader as the protagonist also grows. Childhood and the fits and bursts of young love, frustration and that small bitterness … Continue reading →

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History Has Started Again

Posted on March 27, 2020 by Joel D. Hirst

I never expected to have a ringside seat to the end of an order. Edward Gibbon live-streamed on YouTube; Cicero in 140 characters. “The enemy is within the gates; it is with our own luxury, our own folly…”  You always … Continue reading →

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Stories For Which One Could Die

Posted on March 19, 2020 by Joel D. Hirst

Great talent rarely appears alone, silent on a hill or sitting solitary in an ancient monastery contemplating life and god and that which has come before. Gifts grow in a specially cultivated ecosystem prepared and set into which the seeds … Continue reading →

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To Talk of Many Things… (Vol. #9 – Coronavirus)

Posted on March 17, 2020 by Joel D. Hirst

“It seems a shame,” the Walrus said, “To play them such a trick. After we’ve brought them out so far, And made them trot so quick!” There’s a new resoluteness, a steadfastness, a single-mindedness that is gripping America in the … Continue reading →

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“Burning Orchards” – by Gurgen Mahari

Posted on March 15, 2020 by Joel D. Hirst

Is a classic really only a novel still read 100 years after its publication? And is it true that history only chooses the works of literature that will stand the test of time from the ‘winners’? From those novels that … Continue reading →

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A Funny Anecdote…

Posted on March 11, 2020 by Joel D. Hirst

About eight years ago, when I was a Fellow in Human Freedom at the George W. Bush Institute doing research, writing and speaking about the ongoing threats to democracy coming from Cuba and Venezuela’s “Bolivarian Alliance”, I was invited to … Continue reading →

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The Day The Music Died (but only for a few…)

Posted on March 11, 2020 by Joel D. Hirst

I have started this piece a dozen times, each time drawing my cursor back up to the top highlighting and deleting in order to start anew. Because how does one express relief, and not sound naïve? In our cynical world, … Continue reading →

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