Author Archives: Roger W. Smith

About Roger W. Smith

Roger W. Smith is a writer and independent scholar based in New York City. His experience includes freelance writing and editing, business writing, book reviewing, and the teaching of writing and literature as an adjunct professor at St. John’s University. Mr. Smith's interests include personal essays and opinion pieces; American and world literature; culture, especially books and reading; classical music; current issues that involve social, moral, and philosophical views; and experiences of daily living from a ground level perspective. Sites on WordPress hosted by Mr. Smith include: (1) rogersgleanings.com (a personal site comprised of essays on a wide range of topics) ; (2) rogers-rhetoric.com (covering principles and practices of writing); (3) roger-w-smiths-dreiser.site (devoted to the author Theodore Dreiser); and (4) pitirimsorokin.com (devoted to sociologist and social philosopher Pitirim A. Sorokin).

”Sympathy has nothing to do with it.”

 

‘Two Bakers Face Trump’s Immigration Wrath’ – NY Times 5-17-2025

 

Sympathy has nothing to do with it. In the words of one Trump supporter, who said: “Sympathy has nothing to do with it. The law is the law.”

Oh, really?

He was commenting on the case of Leonardo Baez and his wife, Nora Alicia Avila, proprietors of a bakery in Los Fresnos, Texas. They have been charged with conspiring to transport and harbor undocumented migrants and face sentences of up to ten years in prison.

See:

‘Whom Shall I Fear?’ In South Texas, Two Bakers Face Trump’s Immigration Wrath.

By Edgar Sandoval

The New York Times

May 17, 2025

“Harboring charges used to be saved for cases where criminal groups would help smuggle undocumented people into the U.S. illegally,” one of the lawyers for the couple, Jaime Diez, said.

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This is another example of cruelty masked as policy

Every law is not enforced. Is not and has not ever been the case. If the law were enforced this way — by Stephen Miller type idealogues totally lacking in humanity — half the population would have criminal records and there would not be enough jails, or personnel to staff them.

I am not a legal scholar or expert, but I know whether to bring criminal prosecutions is a “judgment call” in many cases. Common sense — or whatever one would call it — is required.

The law should not be used as a weapon.

Read the Times article and tell me what you think.

 

— posted by Roger W. Smith

   May 2025

“Truman was right, even if there was such carnage.” … “There was no reason to drop the atomic bomb on Japan.”

 

‘The Lonely Voyage of the Enola Gay’ – Washington Post 5-15-2025

comments – Enola Gay article

 

Posted here:

“The lonely, 80-year voyage of the Enola Gay”

By Samuel Hawley

The Washington Post

May 15, 2025

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/05/15/enola-gay-history-anniversary-atomic-bomb/

As well as readers’ comments on the Post site.

 

— Roger W. Smith

   May 18, 2025

 

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See also my posts:

 

a letter to editor re the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

a letter to editor re the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

 

more thoughts about Hiroshima and Nagasaki

more thoughts about Hiroshima and Nagasaki

 

thoughts about Hiroshima

thoughts about Hiroshima

 

music that catches shades of meaning

 

 

 

I was listening today to the enchanting “Lida Rose” duet (barbershop quartet and soprano) from The Music Man  (track above).

In another blog, I wrote that “music distills, packages, and holds emotion.”

This is true — I guess one would say obvious. You hear music and recall precisely the circumstances when you first heard it and your state of mind at that time.

The thought that occurred to me today was that some of the best music — the best songs — are not, in this sense, “obvious”; and that they convey a sort of “intermediate” or “indeterminate” state of mind (a mind in flux); unique to the circumstances and characters they portray (and who are portrayed by the singers) — in this case, in Broadway musicals (see tracks below). that we can all relate to. They are often moments of realization, epiphany. and yet the words and music are simple and sincere: unpretentious,

Listen to these songs. The characters are at a moment of acute realization. Something is happening — they don’t quite know what, foresee the outcome.

This makes me think about — realize — the complexity of human experience.

Yours and mine.

We remember when we first fell in love. It was unique (the experience) in that it was ours alone, yet “general” in the sense that it connected us to humanity. to human feelings. Which, at the time, we would not have known to define; or have known quite what was happening.

This can be seen in the songs below.

Pop music (e.g. rock ‘n’ roll) never achieves this — needless to say — is not subtle.

 

Till There Was You

The Music Man

 

This Nearly Was Mine

South Pacific

 

Happy Talk

South Pacific

 

If I Loved You

Carousel

 

When the Children Are Asleep

Carousel

 

People Will Say We’re in Love

Oklahoma

 

Hello, Young Lovers

The King and I

 

Something Wonderful

The King and I

 

I Have Dreamed

The King and I

 

Come to Me, Bend to Me

Brigadoon

 

The Heather on the Hill

Brigadoon

 

Love, Look Away

Flower Drum Song

 

— posted by Roger W. Smith

    May 13, 2025

The Doxology

 

 

 

 

The Doxology (“praise God from whom all blessings flow”)

Praise God, from whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

How often I heard it in the North Church Congregational in Cambridge, Massachusetts and the First Parish Unitarian Universalist in Canton, Massachusetts when I was growing up.

At the second of these two churches, played on a booming organ by my father: Alan W. Smith. Usually without the choir.

 

North Church, Congregational, Cambridge, MA

First Parish Unitarian Universalist, Canton, Massachusetts

 

— posted by Roger W. Smith

   May 2025

 

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Addendum:

The Doxology is quoted repeatedly in Virgil Thomson’s The Plow That Broke the Plains.

 

the second most beautiful Broadway song?

 

“We Kiss in a Shadow”

Tuptim, Lun-Tha

Rogers and Hammerstein, The King and I

 

 

PDF (below) contains production credits from performances by the St. Paul’s Theatre Guild in Dorchester, MA

King and I

My father. Alan W. Smith, was Musical Director.

 

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See also:

the most beautiful Broadway song, ever

 

 

 

— posted by Roger W, Smith

  May 2025

the most beautiful Broadway song, ever

 

“Something Wonderful”

from Rogers and Hammerstein’s The King and I

“Something Wonderful” is sung by Lady Thiang

 

My father. Alan W. Smith, was Musical Director of several productions of the King and I in Boston by the St. Paul Theatre Guild.

The role of Lady Thiang was played by Barbara Tyler and Andra Wahl in different productions by the St. Paul Theatre Guild.

I am so proud of my father.

 

— posted by Roger W. Smith

   April 2025

 

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See also:

the second most beautiful Broadway song?

 

 

 

 

 

 

largo; Vivaldi, Concerto for Two Cellos

 

 

posted here:

largo

Antonio Vivaldi

Concerto for Two Cellos in G Minor, RV 531

 

— posted by Roger W. Smith

  April 2025

Vladimir Nabokov and Pitirim A. Sorokin

 

In 1940, Vladimir Nabokov emigrated to the United States. Some correspondence related to this event is contained in the following post on my Sorokin site:

 

Sorokin, Nabokov II

 

— Roger W. Smith

Charles Ives, songs

 

 

Some of my favorite songs of Charles Ives (1974-1954).

 

— posted by Roger W. Smith

   March 2025

the crooked straight

 

“Improvement makes straight roads, but the crooked roads without Improvement are roads of Genius.”

William Blake, “Proverbs of Hell”

* * *

“He would never make concessions for money—always was so.” – George W. Whitman (Walt Whitman’s brother), as told to Horace Traubel

* * *

“There was silence in the room. It was an awed, a dreadful silence, the vacant interval when death itself was yet a moment away.”

Roger Sugrue: ‘ “I think we can say this: that knowing what he knows now, if he had it to do all over again, there’s not the slightest doubt but that he’d do it all very, very differently!”

Frank Skeffington: “The hell I would!”*

*The Last Hurrah by Edwin O’Connor. The main character, Frank Skeffington, was based on Boston Mayor James Michael Curly.

 

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my work/life experience

high school senior summer job as night clerk in hotel on Cape Cod … $35 a week plus room and board

college freshman; great job in library … my supervisor, a Haitian guy, was very nice to me

1965: horrible summer jobs … busboy dishwasher; boss was a jerk didn’t like me I got fired … got job in factory. I was inept and hated job … foreman was an a-hole; everyone hated him …. maybe $2.50 per hr

summer 1966: got great summer job on college grounds crew $2.50 per hr … J loved being outdoors weeding gardens, raking, etc. I became good friends with Jim Sweeney, a regular employee, and his family

1968: worked on a private estate near Boston as an assistant gardener … boss (head gardener) was Dutch

1969: first job in NYC … worked for a nonprofit on East 18th Street … office boy … salary $80 per week

1970-1972: conscientious objector status … did alternative service in hospitals on psychiatric ward and an intensive care unit

Christmas 1972: worked as temp in Boston department store

1973-77: worked in clerical capacity in dean’s office at Columbia University … took lots of courses

1977-1986: publishing firms: copywriter … freelance writing and editing

1986-1988: grad school at NYU … internship at New York Newsday …. freelance writing

1989-2001: worked for international consulting firm in Communications and Marketing departments

2001-present: freelance writing and scholarship … taught briefly in English Dept of St. John’s University (not a great job) … developed websites and became proficient at translating

The people I met! The experiences! The opportunities for study and learning.

 

— Roger W. Smith

   March 2025