Where have we been?

Solzhenitsyn doesn't live in Vermont anymore?

No - not since 1994. We wonder how the von Trapps are getting along without him...

It turns out that the author of the Gulag Archipelago has gotten a mite cranky:

He described the problems of both East and West as "a disaster" rooted in agnosticism and atheism. He referred to it as "the calamity of an autonomous, irreligious humanistic consciousness."

It has made man the measure of all things on earth — imperfect man, who is never free of pride, self-interest, envy, vanity, and dozens of other defects. We are now paying for the mistakes which were not properly appraised at the beginning of the journey. On the way from the Renaissance to our days we have enriched our experience, but we have lost the concept of a Supreme Complete Entity which used to restrain our passions and our irresponsibility.

We thought that was Protagoras who came up with all that "Man is the measure of all things" stuff...

Well, at least CP's dog Gilligan came to visit us today. At least we've got that.