BYCU Welcome to the first day of fallthe eve of the first day of fall, my favorite time of year. I'm celebrating its arrival tonight. I want to have gin and tonic, but that's not a fall drink, so I might have Sam Adams' Octoberfest.

Random Rambling Whew, brutal blitz these past nine days: four lunch meetings, funeral, overnight-obligation wedding, three tennis matches, an out-of-town cross-country meet, and a six-hour obligation in my service club's County Fair fundraiser. I think I'm done for awhile, though. It

From the Notebooks The historian of intellectual history, Frances Yates, wrote extensively about the realm of magical pursuits in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Yates pointed out that Renaissance magic–though characters like Ficino, Giordano Bruno, Campanella, and Cornelius Agrippa–reached its apex in the sixteenth century. But in 1614,

Kavanaugh I'm not saying teenage antics are irrelevant, but accusations that fall way short of rape that are 35 years old? Come on. And let's be honest: The pound-me-too shifted the social consciousness radically on such things. What would've been deemed acceptable

Miscellaneous Rambling I think I've watched that Weather Channel video ten times now. Cracks me up every time. Whatta fraud. TWC said it wasn't fraudulent: the anchor (ironic name) was standing on wet grass and was tired. Ha. Derisible stuff. The video triggers an epistemology discussion

> So dramatic! Dude from the weather channel bracing for his life, as 2 dudes just stroll past. #HurricaneFlorence [https://twitter.com/hashtag/HurricaneFlorence?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] pic.twitter.com/8FRyM4NLbL [https://t.co/8FRyM4NLbL] > — Tony scar. (@gourdnibler) September 14, 2018 [https://twitter.com/gourdnibler/

> Interesting perspective https://t.co/WlL6Jokwo9 > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) September 14, 2018 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/1040717525288402944?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Brews You Can Use I have a confession: I've never outgrown drunken hijinks. Sure, I don't have that many myself anymore, but my mind still guiltily goes back in time and recollects some of my more, ahem, immoderate antics and laughs. I honestly don't

Miscellaneous Rambling Feast Day of the Golden Mouth [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Chrysostom]. Dostoyevsky, we hardly know thee: "A Domino's franchise owner in Russia offered customers 100 years of free pizza (max of 100 pies per year) if they got the Domino's logo

Rambling Great podcast at Econtalk: Solzhenitsyn, the Soviet Union, and In the First Circle [http://www.econtalk.org/kevin-mckenna-on-solzhenitsyn-the-soviet-union-and-in-the-first-circle/] . Econtalk is starting a reader's club and In the First Circle is the first book. The podcast is