Idleness: Melancholy's Greatest Cause (and Symptom)

Idleness & MelancholyBurton cites idleness as both a symptom and cause of melancholy and enlists the authority of Rhasis, Plutarch, Homer, Montaltus and Mercurialis who account idleness as melancholy's greatest cause. Here is Burton's description of idleness written in 1628:

"…. idleness (the badge of gentry), the bane of body and mind, the nurse of naughtiness, step mother of discipline, the chief author of all mischief, one of the seven deadly sins, and the sole cause of this [melancholy] and many other maladies, the devil's cushion...his pillow and chief reposal.... Nothing begets it [melancholy] sooner, increaseth and continueth it oftener, than idleness; a disease [melancholy] familiar to all idle persons, an inseparable companion to such as live at ease, a life out of action, and have no calling or ordinary employment to busy themselves…As fern grows in untilled grounds, and all manner of weed, so do gross humours in an idle body….An idle dog will be mangy….wit without employment is a disease, the rust of the soul, a plague, a hell itself, the greatest danger of the soul.”


---Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (with the Latin completely given in translation and embodied in an All-English text), edited by Floyd Dell and Paul Jordan-Smith, Tudor Publishing Company, New York, MCMXLVVIII pages 210-213.

Kitty Pence Hamilton

The Vile Maze of Melancholy: A Hitchhiker's Guide

A Jounrey Through Melancholy
The Vile Maze of Melancholy: A Hitchhiker’s Guide.

Introduction

Herewith and hereafter I shall map a journey through melancholy’s vile maze.

The road is well-marked by tangled thickets, dark woods, deep pits, primrose paths, briar patches, cul-de-sacs and rocky roads.

I write as a hitchhiker because the journey is made with borrowed resources. My own wings are not suited for lofty flight. Weak knees impede my progress through difficult terrain and my vision is neither far-sighted nor insightful. I am no Lynceus; neither am I a Phaeton or an Icarus, foolish travelers who ignored the advice of their wise elders. I am Davus not Oedipus. I am no solver of riddles.

Like Dante, I need a Virgil to guide me, a Beatrice to inspire me.

I have found my Virgil: Robert Burton (1577-1640), clergyman, man-of-affairs, Oxford don and ‘by any known standard…regarded as one of the most learned men that every lived” (Bergen Evans). But his erudition did not protect him from shipwrecking his life on the jagged rocks of melancholy. In 1621, Burton published a tour de force The Anatomy of Melancholy, one of the most popular books of the age and one of the richest books in the English language (twenty per cent of which is written in Latin).

I shall begin now, hoping to find my Beatrice along the way.

Calvinisms: "Time does not mean nothing unless your in jail...."

"Time does not mean nothing unless you're in jail. But when you're on the back of the horse, it means a lot." Jockey Calvin Borel quoted by Eric Crawford, Courier Journal, May 17, 2009.

American Law Institute to Vote on Death Penalty

ALI to Vote on Death Penalty
In 1962, the American Law Institute (ALI) promulgated the Model Penal Code (MPC). While saying it did not want to take a position on the death penalty, the MPC incorporates Section 210.6 which seeks to ameliorate concerns about the arbitrary administration of capital punishment and to provide meaningful guidance in drafting death penalty statutes. Section 210.6 was ignored for ten years until the Supreme Court invalidated the death penalty raising concerns about its arbitrary and discriminatory administration.

Thereafter, many states readopted the death penalty using Section 210.6 as the template “hoping in part the prestige of the Institute would help to validate these new efforts.” [Professors Carol S. Steiker (of Harvard Law School) and Jordan M. Steiker (of University of Texas Law School), November 2008 Report to the American Law Institute].

In reauthorizing the death penalty in 1976, the Supreme Court relied on the expertise of the Institute and especially the guided discretion furnished by Section 210.6 in upholding the Georgia, Florida and Texas death penalty statutes.

Each year since then, however, the Supreme Court has continually adjusted the approach to administration of capital punishment. “It is clear that the Court’s attempt to regulate capital punishment—largely on the model provided by the MPC— has been unsuccessful...” [Steiker].

On May, 19 2009 the American Law Institute will vote on a proposal made by ALI leadership to withdraw Section 210.6 from the MPC and take no position pro or con on the issue of capital punishment. [The Steiker Report recommended that the Institute withdraw support for Section 210.6 AND issue a statement calling for rejection of the death penalty as a penal option reflecting its view that the death penalty should not be imposed unless its administration can satisfy a reasonable threshold of fairness and reliability. The Steiker Report says there are currently ‘intractable institutional and structural obstacles to ensuring a minimally adequate system for administering capital punishment’].

The leadership of the ALI believes neutrality is its only option since constitutional law permits capital punishment, the punishment has substantial support among the citizenry, substantial consensus within the Institute is unlikely and the Institute’s views are not likely to influence the views of legal policy makers.

May 13, 2009

A Very Long Shot: Jockey & Sage Calvin Borel

Jockey Calvin Borel said he owed his success to his father. When asked what his father did, Calvin delivered a terse and wise catechism on child rearing: "He believed in me."

Calvin won the 2007 Kentucky Derby, the 2009 Kentucky Oaks and the 2009 Kentucky Derby riding a 50 to 1 long shot that arrived at Churchill Downs after being driven across country from New Mexico in a trailer pulled by his trainer in a pick-up truck--the equine equivalent of hitch-hiking to the Derby.