I finally got to see Troy (the movie) tonight. My wife had already seen it and she was unimpressed. She particularly disliked Achilles, because he’s a selfish, arrogant jerk. Just like in the book. She hasn’t read the Iliad, so she didn’t know what to expect. Over the last 2800 years or so we’ve become a lot less tolerant of flaws in our heros. We demand that great deeds be accomplished by men incapable of error. This cuts two ways, both on the part of the hagiographer who plasters over the gaping flaws in a man’s character, and in the critic who points them out as if this in some way diminishes the greatness of the deed. We look to the Greeks as the founders of our civilization, and their clear-eyed view of human failings should be revived. Heroes are heroic because they do great things, not because they are without failings. By acknowledging this simple fact we are better able to see the greatness in others, and the potential for greatness in ourselves.

The world just lost a man who will be remembered by history long after most of us are dust. I disagreed with much of what he did, but no amount of kvetching on my part can take away from his legacy, which is no less than to liberate the world from totalitarian communism. The Soviet Union is dead, and Ronald Reagan killed it. The rest is details.

By my count, we now have four living ex-Presidents–Ford, Carter, Bush I, and Clinton. Before President Reagan’s demise today, we had five, and I believe that’s the most that we’ve ever had. It seems unlikely that we’d have ever had more than that in our nation’s history, given the lengths of terms and the ages at which presidents normally become president, but does anyone know for sure?

Of course, if one wanted to be macabre, one could start a pool on who will be the next to go, and if it will occur before the current president joins their ranks (which of course depends a lot on what happens in November…).

Ronald Reagan has died, a day before the sixtieth anniversary of the Normandy landing. It looks like Andrew Lloyd’s sources were right a few days ago. Given this weekend’s somber remembrances, it might be appropriate to replay his D-Day speech from twenty years ago (though that would put a lot of pressure on President Bush to deliver a real humdinger tomorrow if it’s not to be overshadowed).

I never voted for him (I voted Libertarian), but he was one of the great presidents of the twentieth century, and I’m glad he won both times (and was at the time, considering the alternatives). The Soviet Union may have collapsed eventually, but there’s zero doubt in my mind that he accelerated the process, and broke us out of the failed policy of containment. He was a man of great vision, and in that, we haven’t had a president since, including the present one, that was his match.

Of course, in my mind he’s been dead for years, and it’s sad that we give so much reverence to the body and too little to the mind. I don’t know if he was suffering toward the end, but this has to be a sorrow tinctured with relief for his long-suffering family.

If you’re interested in philosophy but don’t have a background in it, check out The Philosopher’s Magazine. It’s a philosophy version of Popular Science or Discover Magazine. I’ve subscribed for a year now, and I’m happy with it. It’s not mindbogglingly deep, but it also doesn’t presume familiarity with lots of jargon, so it’s a nice way to stimulate the mind without the frustration of running to the dictionary (or Google) all the time.