Honor Thy Father

Then out spake brave Horatius,
the Captain of the Gate:
"To every man upon this earth
death cometh soon or late.

And how can man die better
than facing fearful odds,

For the ashes of his fathers,
and the temples of his gods.

Thomas Babbington Macaulay, Lord Macaulay: Horatius

Our Fathers in a wondrous age,

Ere yet the Earth was small,

Ensured to us an heritage,
And doubted not at all

That we, the children of their heart,

Which then did beat so high,

In later time should play like part

For our posterity. . .

Dear-bought and clear, a thousand year,

Our fathers’ title runs.

Make we likewise their sacrifice,

Defrauding not our sons.

Rudyard Kipling: The Heritage

Breitbart.com (via Drudge – thanks T) reports today that Keith Richards, guitarist for the Rolling Stones, snorted his father. Mixed his ashes right up with cocaine and just hoovered Dad right on up his nose: “He was cremated and I couldn’t resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow.” Mr. Richards doesn’t really tell us why he did it, but he says “I’ve no pretensions about immortality . . . .I’m the same as everyone. . .just kind of lucky.”

The Bible tells us to honor our parents. The Romans built shrines to theirs. Now we come to Keith Richard, a "Celebrity" (the historians will say that's what we call a God). Mr. Richards is a prime end-product of the great Enlightenment experiment: a demonstration of our conceit that nothing matters except personal gratification – in this case a good buzz. In this insane world of ours, you can snort cocaine, speed, dear old Dad or anything your little heart desires, unless you're too much a loser to afford a lawyer to get you easy rehab. There’s no God, you see: so our teachers tell us. No flags, no monuments, no obligations, no duties, no culture, no honor. Just the buzz of the next high, the lights of the cameras, the clicking computers and the applause of the drones wallowing in the loathsomeness.