Grim: Why don't we focus on one nation and deal with that? I suggest Pakistan. Thanks for your message. I see your point, but nonetheless I think it would be useful to have a discussion embracing all of these countries, because our policies toward them are interrelated. Here's the rationale: Bacevic...

Folks: Thanks for this very interesting discussion. Would any of you be interested in starting a new thread in the Politics/History section, to discuss U.S. foreign policy in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Israel, and the Palestinians (i.e., the Holbrook and Mitchell areas)? I ask because I see ...

Penelope:

I assume you mean between Christianity and Science (or am I missing something here?)

Yes, you're quite right. Thanks. I've corrected the posting.

Giselle: Thanks for your comments. I suspect that our modern day, western culture has a positive bias toward the notion of a "road less travelled" (in a crowded, harried world) and the suggestion of a "difference" (making a difference suggests positive control over ones life and ...

Robert (Richards1000) had suggested that we do 4 poems at a time.

I'm happy to slow down and read fewer per day, if you folks want to spend more time on the book.

Penelope:

Respecting your statement: "I was not arguing in favour, or against these issues. I was just summing up what I had learned so far from this forum." My apologies. I thought you were making those arguments.

Grim:

My apologies. I incorrectly represented the view you are advocating. I jumped from your initial post in this thread to the one immediately before my first message and failed to read your postings in between. Sorry.

Grim: Thanks for your message. Respecting your statements: "An inability to recognize a problem does not mean that there is no problem. And I would recommend that we should be erring on the side of there being a problem here." I'll explain further: The Establishment Clause is a component o...

Read "An Old Man's Winter Night" for the first time tonight. I think it's a very lovely poem. It has a transcendent feel to me, in the last lines, like Larkin's "High Windows" or Whitman's "The Sleepers" or Joyce's "The Dead": after this vivid, detailed scene ...

Saffron: Thanks for starting this thread. About "The Road Not Taken," my word, what a fine poem. Excellent craft, as always: the skillful use of enjambment, the assonance, the use of monosyllabic words to slow us down and evoke a sense of the pace of walking in the woods. (I've been notici...