People We Should Know #9 – Daniel Hannan

Posted on February 27, 2011 by bfaure Leave a comment

Since the 1950’s, when Great Britain, beset with the crushing debt and physical exhaustion of having fought two massive wars in twenty years, voluntarily gave up the mantle as a a world leader, the country has been in a steady decline in creativity and influence internationally. This is a natural consequence of the progression […]... Read More

SANFORD GIFFORD, A GORGE IN THE MOUNTAINS - wikipedia

CHURCH, TWILIGHT IN THE WILDERNESS - wikipedia

ALBERT BIERSTADT, LOOKINg DOWN YOSEMITE VALLEY - wikipedia

ALBERT BIERSTADT, SIERRA NEVADA - wikipedia

The Landscape Artists of the American Ideal

Posted on February 26, 2011March 13, 2011 by bfaure Leave a comment

The North American continent landmass has inspired from its first explorers onward a special spiritual awareness. The explorers and early settlers, predominantly from lands crowded with civilization and restricted by their birth position found a overwhelming sense of a higher reality in the huge, untamed, and essentially uninhabited and unbounded country. Even as the eastern […]... Read More

The Man In The Arena

Posted on February 26, 2011February 26, 2011 by bfaure Leave a comment

In early November, 2010, the citizens of the state of Wisconsin elected the chief executive of Milwaukee County to the governorship of the state of Wisconsin on the basis of his reputation for fiscal discipline and firm resolve. The state of Wisconsin, like most governments of the United States, including its federal one, had […]... Read More

The Virginian

Posted on February 22, 2011 by bfaure Leave a comment

In our more cynical, superficial age we find it hard to imagine the set of circumstances that would lead a man to risk all that he had, and give up the greater portion of his life, to an idea. 279 years ago today, such a man was born in the colony of Virginia, and […]... Read More

Sic Semper Tyrannus?

Posted on February 21, 2011February 21, 2011 by bfaure 1 Comment

In December, 1989, with almost inconceivable suddenness, the dictator who had ruled Romania with an iron fist for 34 years, Nicolae Ceausescu, in the space of one week fell from emperor king to the wrong end of a firing squad. His was the last thugocracy government to collapse in the spectacular year of Revolution […]... Read More

Enter The Fixer

Posted on February 21, 2011February 21, 2011 by bfaure Leave a comment

We have become so numb to the inability of governments to address in adult and disciplined fashion the significant issues of our time that when such discipline is revealed, its harshness is initially tart as pickle juice. Thus the response of thousands of public employees to the adult requests of the governor of Wisconsin, […]... Read More

Ramparts Hiatus

Posted on February 15, 2011 by bfaure Leave a comment

To all my fellow guardians of the ramparts, a brief hiatus is in order for the captain of the guard. I will be computer free for a few days, brewing up some new thoughts and sharpening my attention for the days ahead. Please take the time to peruse past favorites and stay in touch. Ramparts […]... Read More

Who’s Next – Maybe Turkey?

Posted on February 13, 2011 by bfaure Leave a comment

The events in Egypt continue to evolve at a breathtaking pace. The most recent news is the dissolution of the puppet parliament and the government’s associated agencies with the role of comptroller in the hand’s of Egypt’ military. The military insists it is positioning itself to moderate a transition to representative government with elections […]... Read More

The Great One

Posted on February 12, 2011February 12, 2011 by bfaure Leave a comment

February 12, 1809, 202 years ago, lost in the wild frontier of Kentucky in a log cabin placed at the side of a creek called Nolan, outside the settlement of Hogdenville, a miracle of history occurred. An illiterate tenant farmer named Thomas Lincoln and his wife Nancy Hanks brought into the world an epic […]... Read More

INTERNET'S UNRESTRICTED REACH 2011 (courtesy labnol.org)

Freedom and the Internet

Posted on February 12, 2011February 12, 2011 by bfaure 1 Comment

Who is Wael Ghonim? Whether the name is familiar or not, Wael Ghonim is the new Egyptian face of the freedom uprising in Egypt and the human symbol of the power of the Internet. Ghonim, a marketing manager for the Internet giant Google, managed to become the focus for the dispersal of information and […]... Read More

Ramparts of Civilization

Come Defend The Ramparts!

Month: February 2011