Eric Robert Nolan graduated from Mary Washington College in 1994 with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology. He spent several years a news reporter and editorial writer for the Culpeper Star Exponent in Culpeper, Virginia. His work has also appeared on the front pages of numerous newspapers in Virginia, including The Free Lance – Star and The Daily Progress. Eric entered the field of philanthropy in 1996, as a grant writer for nonprofit healthcare organizations.
Eric’s poetry has been featured by Dead Beats Literary Blog, Dagda Publishing, The International War Veterans’ Poetry Archive, and elsewhere. His poetry will also be published by Illumen Magazine in its Spring 2014 issue.
“It was C. S. Lewis who, in his unforgettable Screwtape Letters, wrote: The greatest evil is not done now in those sordid `dens of crime’ that Dickens loved to paint. It is not even done in concentration camps and labor camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried and minuted) in clear, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice.”
“Well, because these quiet men do not raise their voices, because they sometimes speak in soothing tones of brotherhood and peace, because, like other dictators before them, they’re always making their final territorial demand, some would have us accept them at their word and accommodate ourselves to their aggressive impulses. But if history teaches anything, it teaches that simple-minded appeasement or wishful thinking about our adversaries is folly. It means the betrayal of our past, the squandering of our freedom.
“So, I urge you to speak out against those who would place the United States in a position of military and moral inferiority. You know, I’ve always believed that old Screwtape reserved his best efforts for those of you in the church. So, in your discussions of the nuclear freeze proposals, I urge you to beware the temptation of pride — the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil.”
— President Ronald Reagan, addressing the National Association of Evangelicals, March 8th, 1983
It is a simple matter to call your United States Congresspeople and ask them to compel the President to resign.
Calling 202-224-3121 will give you the Capitol switchboard, and providing your zip code will direct you to your representatives in the House of Representatives and in the Senate.
You can also find Free Speech for People’s petition to impeach the president here. As of this writing, it has just shy of 1.4 million signatures.
These are just a few shots of the City of Roanoke in the vicinity of Mill Mountain. I really like the style of the houses here, although I don’t know what it is. They’re truly immense, despite looking a bit boxlike.
Here’s my plan, anyway. I’m going to find out where that adorable lady cop’s regular patrol is, and then shoot past her in my car doing 70. When she pulls me over and asks to see my license, I’ll just wink slyly and ask if she means my poetic license.
Again, Mill Mountain rises to about 1,750 feet, and I think my friends and I were at the overlook at or near its summit. These videos don’t do justice to the view, although the second one at least gives you the best sense of looking down at the world. The slope is so steep that peering down nearly induces vertigo.
I don’t know how true this is, but I read somewhere that Roanoke is the only American city with a mountain that is actually inside the city limits.
