Fallen Heroes Remembered

Posted on May 27, 2018May 28, 2018 by bfaure Leave a comment

The British Advance The Battle of Brooklyn 1776 Somewhere, beneath the brownstones and newly chic coffeehouses and restaurants of the Gowanus district of Brooklyn, […]... Read More

Who’s Country Is It Anyway?

Posted on May 20, 2018 by bfaure Leave a comment

In significant quarters of the United States, the election of Richard Nixon was a cultural event. An appalling cultural event. Nixon was seen by many as an abomination of the symbol America was supposed to project to the rest of the world in their chief executive position. He was a dark, conniving destroyer of […]... Read More

Ramparts of Civilization : New Look, Same Vision

Posted on May 5, 2018 by bfaure 2 Comments

We are rapidly approaching the ninth year of this labor of love I call Ramparts of Civilization. Since inception on July 4th, 2010, almost 500 individual treatises encompassing over 400,000 written words have filled the pages of this blog. Topics have kept a diverse view of an interesting world. We watched the unfolding amazing rescue […]... Read More

House Republicans Leave Town As Democrats Extend Gun Sit-In

Flying Too Close to the Sun

Posted on April 14, 2018 by bfaure Leave a comment

Daedalus, having created the ultimate labyrinth to secure forever the Minotaur for King Minos on the island of Crete, was imprisoned by the king to prevent him from ever revealing the brilliant secrets of the labyrinth to anyone else, on any other land. Daedalus, however, determined to set himself free, and using his profound intellect […]... Read More

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Jascha Heifetz: “God’s Fiddler”

Posted on April 7, 2018April 7, 2018 by bfaure 1 Comment

It is daunting to be the very best anyone ever saw, capable as no other, of a unique skill. The rarified achievement at this level, and the difficulty maintaining it, does strange things to people, and is often associated with at times somewhat bizarre or aberrant behavior. Michael Jordan for the brief years he was […]... Read More

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People We Should Know #33 – James Lovell

Posted on March 25, 2018March 25, 2018 by bfaure 1 Comment

March 25, 2018, is Commander Jim Lovell’s 90th birthday. He is of course part of a very small group of people who know what its like to be placed upon an ignited, controlled bomb weighing over 6 million pounds fully fueled and delivering over 7.6 million pounds-force through a 33 foot diameter circle achieving a […]... Read More

People We Should Know #32 – Roger Bannister

Posted on March 4, 2018 by bfaure Leave a comment

The above photo freezes in time one of the epic moments of the 20th century. Much of what passes for civilization today is the concept of celebrity, the idea of being known for being well known — but this is a relatively new laurel. Until recently, Western civilization, particularly since the Enlightenment, had oriented its […]... Read More

People We Should Know #31 – Leonard Bernstein

Posted on January 28, 2018 by bfaure Leave a comment

2018 is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Leonard Bernstein, and many of the world’s greatest orchestras are honoring the occasion by opening up their repertoires to display the dash and splash that was ‘Lenny’s’ compositional gifts of music to the world. From the well known Broadway inspired cadences of West Side Story and […]... Read More

Finding a Way in the Age of Uncompromise

Posted on January 21, 2018 by bfaure Leave a comment

On Friday, the United States Senate failed to extend funding to United States government functions when Democrat Senators unanimously blocked the passage of a continuing resolution for government funding absent funding support for DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). As with all typical government verbiage, the relatively mundane language of DACA belies its controversial roots, […]... Read More

Darkest Hour – Winston Churchill and the Monomyth

Posted on January 7, 2018January 7, 2018 by bfaure Leave a comment

In the last six months, bookend movies have been produced that focus on a very tight window of time from May to June, 1940, when the United Kingdom, under enormous external threat, faced an existential crisis of leadership and free will. In a few short weeks, a dark reality presented with the spectacular collapse […]... Read More