The Art of Tetman Callis

Some of the stories and poems may be inappropriate for persons under 16

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Entries from June 2019

Those are not hammers

June 30th, 2019 · No Comments

“The Constitution and the rule of law are not partisan political tools. Lady Justice wears a blindfold. She is not supposed to peek out to see how her political master wishes her to weigh a matter.” – James Comey, A Higher Loyalty Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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Tags: Politics & Law

Submission to the lesser god

June 29th, 2019 · No Comments

“There was once a time when most people worried about going to hell if they violated an oath taken in the name of God. That divine deterrence has slipped away from our modern cultures. In its place, people must fear going to jail. They must fear their lives being turned upside down. They must fear […]

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Tags: Politics & Law

Busted

June 28th, 2019 · No Comments

“If federal agents burst into a hotel room and find a kilo of heroin piled in the middle of a table, everybody sitting at that table is going to jail. It isn’t open to any of them to say it had never occurred to them that this activity was illegal, or that their accountants and […]

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Tags: Politics & Law

It would even kill for you

June 27th, 2019 · No Comments

“Evil has an ordinary face. It laughs, it cries, it deflects, it rationalizes, it makes great pasta.” – James Comey, A Higher Loyalty Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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Tags: Politics & Law

It starts at the top

June 26th, 2019 · No Comments

“Without a fundamental commitment to the truth—especially in our public institutions and those who lead them—we are lost.” – James Comey, A Higher Loyalty Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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Tags: Politics & Law

He could be president

June 25th, 2019 · No Comments

“How miserable that man is that Governes a People where six parts of seaven at least are Poore Endebted Discontented and Armed.” – Governor William Berkeley (quoted by Howard Zinn in A People’s History of the United States) Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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Tags: Politics & Law · The American Constitution

Woman and child, too

June 24th, 2019 · No Comments

“Man has long talked somewhat arrogantly about the conquest of nature; now he has the power to achieve his boast. It is our misfortune—it may well be our final tragedy—that this power has not been tempered with wisdom, but has been marked by irresponsibility; that there is all too little awareness that man is part […]

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Tags: Verandah

If you can find one

June 23rd, 2019 · No Comments

“The Christian is to seek justice. Politics holds the power necessary for the establishment of justice. Therefore the Christian must participate in the political process. The perspective and beliefs of Christianity make the Christian indispensable in a political order intent on seeking justice in a world pervaded by self-interest.” – James B. Comey, “Reinhold Niebuhr […]

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Tags: Politics & Law

Starts out that way

June 22nd, 2019 · No Comments

“Modern man is not immoral because he is irreligious; he is irreligious because he is immoral.” Reinhold Niebuhr, Faith and Politics Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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Tags: Lit & Crit

In fear and trembling we reside

June 21st, 2019 · No Comments

“Anxiety, or insecurity, is the natural condition of all men at all times.” – James B. Comey, “Reinhold Niebuhr and Jerry Falwell: the Christian in politics” Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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Tags: Politics & Law

Pushme-Pullyu

June 20th, 2019 · No Comments

“Logic is the morality of thought just as morality is the logic of action.” – Jean Piaget, The Moral Judgment of the Child (trans. Marjorie Gabain) Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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Tags: Science

There’s two types of harness

June 19th, 2019 · No Comments

“Society is the sum of social relations, and among these relations we can distinguish two extreme types: relations of constraint, whose characteristic is to impose upon the individual from outside a system of rules with obligatory content, and relations of cooperation whose characteristic is to create within people’s minds the consciousness of ideal norms at […]

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Tags: Politics & Law · Science

The principle of the interest

June 18th, 2019 · No Comments

“It is a maxim founded on the universal experience of mankind, that no nation is to be trusted farther than it is bound by its interest; and no prudent statesman or politician will venture to depart from it.” – George Washington, “Letter to Henry Laurens, November 14, 1778″ Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email […]

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Tags: Politics & Law · The American Constitution

Always look on the bright side of life

June 17th, 2019 · No Comments

“The human mind is always poring upon the gloomy side of Fortune, and while it inhabits this lump of Clay, will always be in an uneasy and fluctuating State, produced by a thousand Incidents in common Life, which are deemed misfortunes, while the mind is taken off from the nobler pursuit of matters in Futurity. […]

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Tags: Economics · The American Constitution

Go hungry and see how good everything tastes

June 16th, 2019 · No Comments

“Mankind are never truly thankfull for the Benefits of life, until they have experienc’d the want of them. The Man who has seen misery knows best how to enjoy good. He who is always at ease & has enough of the Blessings of common life is an Impotent Judge of the feelings of the unfortunate.” […]

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Tags: Economics · The American Constitution

When the war was young

June 15th, 2019 · No Comments

“I am Sick—discontented—and out of humour. Poor food—hard lodging—Cold Weather—fatigue—Nasty Cloaths—nasty Cookery—Vomit half my time—smoak’d out of my senses—the Devil’s in’t—I can’t Endure it—Why are we sent here to starve and Freeze—What sweet Felicities have I left at home; A charming Wife—pretty Children—Good Beds—good food—good Cookery—all agreeable—all harmonious. Here all Confusion—smoke & Cold—hunger & filthyness—A […]

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Tags: Politics & Law · The American Constitution · The Forever War

When she looks at you, it’s not that way

June 14th, 2019 · No Comments

“There is no female equivalent to the male gaze.” – Diana Goetsch (interviewed by Alan C. Fox and Asha Fox in Rattle 58, Winter 2017) Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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Tags: Lit & Crit

So high, you can’t get over it

June 13th, 2019 · No Comments

“I really am of opinion that there is few of the young fellows of the modern age exempt from vanity, more especially those who are bless’d with exterior graces. If they have a fine pair of eyes they are ever rolling them about a fine set of teeth, mind they are great laughers, a genteel […]

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Tags: The American Constitution

some people think

June 12th, 2019 · No Comments

“some people my dear think that there’s no difference between good nature and good humour. but according to my opinion they differ widely good nature consists in a naturally amiable and even disposition free from all peevishness and fretting, it is accompany’d by a natural gracefulness a manner of doing and saying everything agreably, in […]

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Tags: The American Constitution

How to make a democrat

June 11th, 2019 · No Comments

“The essence of democracy resides in its attitude towards law as a product of the collective will, and not as something emanating from a transcendent will or from the authority established by divine right. It is therefore the essence of democracy to replace the unilateral respect of authority by the mutual respect of autonomous wills. […]

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Tags: Politics & Law · Science

Results may vary

June 10th, 2019 · No Comments

“Discipline, far from thwarting the growth and expansion of the individual, is the sole condition for the development of personality.” – Jean Piaget, The Moral Judgment of the Child (trans. Marjorie Gabain) Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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Tags: Science

How special, you’re a writer

June 9th, 2019 · No Comments

“Writing isn’t a precious thing and I’m not in eternal search of keeping what I do holy or built up out of shimmering gems. I don’t eat my lunch off a gold plated lunch truck. The great American novel doesn’t know it’s the great American novel until it’s been out almost a hundred years and […]

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Tags: Lit & Crit

Daddy sky-god boss man

June 8th, 2019 · No Comments

“Social constraint—and by this we mean any social relation into which there enters an element of authority and which is not, like cooperation, the result of an interchange between equal individuals—has on the individual results that are analogous to those exercised by adult constraint on the mind of the child. The two phenomena, moreover, are […]

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Tags: Politics & Law · Science

Someone will have to pay

June 7th, 2019 · No Comments

“Every society consists primarily in a collection of beliefs and feelings forming a whole which must be defended. The kernel of these beliefs is the feeling of the sacred, the source of all morality and religion. Whatever offends against these powerful and well-defined feelings is crime, and all crime is sacrilege. A crime that breaks […]

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Tags: Politics & Law · Science

We’re working on it

June 6th, 2019 · No Comments

“How melancholy is the Reflection, that the Folly & Wickedness of Man, under the abused Titles of Prudence & Patriotism, shall ruin the finest Countries, and proceed, as far as they may, to desolate the Earth!” – Ambrose Serle, Journal, August 28th, 1776 Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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Tags: Economics · Politics & Law · The American Constitution · Verandah

The shining

June 5th, 2019 · No Comments

“It happened late Friday night. That morning no one suspected anything. I sent my son to school, my husband went to the barber’s. I was preparing lunch when my husband came back. ‘There’s some sort of fire at the atomic station. They’re saying we are not to turn off the radio.’ This wasn’t any ordinary […]

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Tags: Other Stuff · Science · Verandah

Say we’ll meet again

June 4th, 2019 · No Comments

“We have everything here—graves. Graves everywhere. The dump trucks are working, and the bulldozers. The houses are falling. The grave diggers are toiling away. They buried the school, the headquarters, the baths. It’s the same world, but the people are different. One thing I don’t know is, do people have souls? What kind? And how […]

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Tags: Other Stuff

An everyday thing

June 3rd, 2019 · No Comments

“Many people deceived others so often that at last they deceived themselves.” – Landon Carter, Diary, July 1776 Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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Tags: Politics & Law · The American Constitution

It’s logical

June 2nd, 2019 · No Comments

“Just as in logic, we can see a sort of reaction of the form of the proposition upon its content when the principle of contradiction leads to a simplification and purification of the initial definitions, so in ethics, reciprocity implies a purification of the deeper trend of conduct, guiding it by gradual stages to universality […]

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Tags: Politics & Law · Science

Reciprocity failure is another matter entirely

June 1st, 2019 · No Comments

“Like all spiritual realities which are the result, not of external constraint but of autonomous development, reciprocity has two aspects: reciprocity as a fact, and reciprocity as an ideal, as something which ought to be. The child begins by simply practising reciprocity, in itself not so easy a thing as one might think. Then, once […]

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Tags: Politics & Law · Science