Author Archives: jidol

Note: Click article title to read post.

Out to Pastoral by John Idol BURLINGTON North Carolina—(Weekly Hubris)—12/12/11—The earth’s population topped 7 billion during this month, adding, by net gain, another 70,797,877 mouths to feed—or some number near that. Roughly, 53 million persons claimed their six feet of earth, or something less, if they chose cremation or burial at sea or, possibly, an [...]

Out to Pastoral by John Idol BURLINGTON North Carolina—Weekly Hubris)—11/28/11—Heavily armed with assault weapons and decked out in military gear, a cadre of 25 officers from the Chapel Hill Police Department recently moved against occupiers (dubbed trespassers, and rightfully so, for they had intentionally broken the law) of a vacant building on the city’s main [...]

Out to Pastoral by John Idol BURLINGTON North Carolina—(WeeklyHubris)—11/21/11—Born in battle, our nation has a yen to turnplowshares into spears, spoiling for a fight time and again in its history, embroiled in battles minor and major some portions or wholes of 155 years out of its 226 years as a nation. We’ve outdistanced our nearest [...]

Out to Pastoral By John Idol BURLINGTON North Carolina—(Weekly Hubris)—11/7/11—I follow the lead of Greek playwrights, unknown authors of Medieval mystery plays, and dramatists and other writers of the Renaissance and modern period by putting words into the mouth of God in the following essay. Really, as you’ll see, I have no other choice if [...]

Out to Pastoral by John Idol BURLINGTON North Carolina— (WeeklyHubris)—10/24/11—My grudge against robber barons dates fromthe mid 18th century, when Johann Eitel ventured down the Rhine River on his way to Pennsylvania. Like other migrating youths of the time, his money pouch became lighter and lighter at each baron’s toll gate. The barons enriched themselves [...]

Out to Pastoral by John Idol BURLINGTON North Carolina— (Weekly Hubris)—10/10/11—A recent headline on the first page of the news section of the Raleigh News and Observer informed followers of sports in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) that money rather than fans had been favored in a new, lucrative contract with ESPN. In a deal [...]

Out to Pastoral by John Idol BURLINGTON North Carolina–(Weekly Hubris) —9/19/11—I’m challenging myself to write an essay, in the manner of two masters of the form, Richard Steele and Joseph Addison, to do an interesting piece on an apparently uninteresting subject. What more unlikely a subject is there than . . . dish-washing? If my [...]

Out to Pastoral by John Idol BURLINGTON North Carolina—(Weekly Hubris)—9/12/11—“He’s gotta do something to turn this country around, to get us out of this mess and back to work again.” Of course, the man called upon to do all this is President Obama, the fixer-upper-in-chief. It would be great to have such a wonder worker [...]

Out to Pastoral by John Idol BURLINGTON North Carolina—(Weekly Hubris)—8/8/11—The jeremiad that follows flows from my sorrow over what a zealous minority in American life and politics has done, and is doing still, to stem the democratic changes ushered in by the men and women of the Greatest Generation and those faithful to their ideas [...]

Out to Pastoral by John Idol BURLINGTON North Carolina—(Weekly Hubris)—8/1/11—My fellow columnist, Skip Eisiminger, and I played intramural softball for more than two decades at Clemson University, first for a Charlie Brown imitation fielded by the English Department; then for a team combining players from the English and History departments under the club name of [...]