Origins of Wednesday lxxv: "What's wrong with collusion?"

Such fine moments of clarity as the

original settings of reality have

provided, under the quaint name of

history, as the self-sacrifices by 

the burghers of Calais as security

for their people's safety, persist

in responding to the American Pres-

ident's bafflement with a single,

constant refrain, so infuriating

in its intangibility, so galling

in its improbability, so humiliat-

ing in its instincts of humanity,

as to call into question, by its

impenetrability, any use at all.

Now that we do not care for cap-

tives, what's the big deal with

honor?

Rodin

Sculpture in bronze

The Burghers of Calais 

  Pierre de Wiessant

1895

Museum of Israel

Jerusalem

Mem Quad

Stanford