Month: October 2025

Epictetus, Eminent Roman Stoic Philosopher, on Living Well, Dying Well, and Opposing Suicide
Aging

Epictetus, Eminent Roman Stoic Philosopher, on Living Well, Dying Well, and Opposing Suicide

10/11/2025 Bruce Strom 2

Is it wise to complain? Epictetus observes: “If someone dies young, he blames the gods because he is being taken before his time. If someone lingers on into extreme old age, he too blames the gods.” “Despite this, at the approach of death, he wants to stay alive; he sends for the doctors and begs him to do all he can.” “It is quite remarkable to see how people want neither to live nor to die.”
“Is health good and illness bad? No, man. What, then? Health managed well is good, but when badly managed, it is bad.”
Epictetus points out: “If you look at yourself in isolation, it is natural for you to live to an old age, to be rich, to be healthy. But if you look at yourself as a human being and as part of some whole, for the sake of that whole, it may be appropriate for you to be ill, or risk your life at sea, or be poor, or die young. Why get angry then?” “What is a human being? A part of a city made up of gods and human beings,” “a small copy of the universal city.” […]

Doris Day, Que Sera Sera, Que Sepa Sepa
Aging

Doris Day, Everyone’s Girl Next Door: Que Será, Será? Que Sepa, Sepa?

10/11/2025 Bruce Strom 0

Doris Kappelhoff was born in 1922, she was both a leading movie star and singer from the 1940’s through the early 1960’s, when many movies were musicals. In her youth she was hoping to be a dancer, but when she broke her leg when the car she was riding in collided with a freight train, she instead became a singer. She started singing in the hospital out of boredom, and since her voice was so clear her mother enrolled her in voice lessons.
In the late thirties Doris began her career as a big band singer, recording more than six hundred songs. Early in her career she adopted the stage name of Doris Day, inspired by the song Day After Day, as her original surname was too long to fit on marquees. She made her film debut in 1948, starring in dozens of movies with many leading men of Hollywood, many of them romantic comedies, including Rock Hudson, Jimmy Stewart, Clark Gable, Ronald Reagan, Cary Grant, David Niven, and many others.
Her public persona was the virtuous girl next door, so she declined the leading role in the Graduate. In that movie, the role of the randy mother-in-law went to Ann Bancroft, who seduced her future son-in-law, Dustin Hoffman. What was not explored in the movie was what the family holiday dinners were like after he married her daughter. Doris Day was not willing to transition to the Free Love climate of the Sixties, which quickly ended her movie and recording careers. […]

Pope Leo the Great, Confronting Attila the Hun, and His Role in Fourth Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon
Catholic Middle Ages and Beyond

Pope Leo the Great, Confronting Attila the Hun, and His Role in the Fourth Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon

10/05/2025 Bruce Strom 0

As Pope Benedict XVI writes: “The times in which Pope Leo lived were very difficult: constant barbarian invasions, the gradual weakening of imperial authority in the West, and the long, drawn-out social crisis forced the Bishop of Rome” “to play an important role in both civil and political events.”
“In a period of profound crisis, Leo the Great knew how to make himself close to the people and the faithful with his pastoral action and his preaching. He enlivened charity in a Rome tried by famines, an influx of refugees, injustice, and poverty. He opposed pagan superstitions and actions of Manichaean groups. He associated the liturgy with the daily life of Christians.” […]