How did an illiterate peasant that never sat on a horse in her entire life, much less have military training of any kind, march to war at seventeen years old, change the entire fate of France, and then defy the learned authorities of the Church for six months before being executed at nineteen? In many… Continue reading The impossibility of Joan of Arc, the one story that could transform even Mark Twain into a believer
Tag: mark twain
Celebrating 1,000 posts with a few near incoherent thoughts on the past, present, and future
Benjamin Franklin famously or infamously said that the country was a Republic, if you can keep it. To liken great things to small, this is a blog if I can keep it up, but isn’t that true of everything in life? When I started this blog in November 2020, it wasn’t clear to me how… Continue reading Celebrating 1,000 posts with a few near incoherent thoughts on the past, present, and future
Sleep, death, and the limits of Mark Twain and William Shakespeare
If only we could sleep as easily as we can die. I could end my life in an instant, but for reasons that defy explanation, simply putting the mind to rest for a few hours can prove impossible. If only we could sleep as easily as we can die. I could, if I chose, end… Continue reading Sleep, death, and the limits of Mark Twain and William Shakespeare


