Cantos XXI and XXII The Barrators

Canto XXI

The Fifth Bowge, Barrators, who made money by trafficking in public offices, are plunged in Boiling Pitch, guarded by demons with sharp hooks. Virgil crosses the bridge and goes down to parley with the demons. Belzicue, the chief demon, says that the spur of rock which the Poets have been following was broken by an earthquake (at the moment of Christ's entry into Hell) and no longer bridges the Sixth Bowge; but he will give them an escort of ten demons to "see them safe as far as the bridge which is still unbroken". In this disagreeable company, Virgil and Dante set off along the lower brink of the bowge.

Canto XXII

As the party proceeds along the bank of the bowge, the devils fork a Barrator up out of the pitch, who tells the Poets who he is and mentions the names of some of his fellow-sinners. By a trick he eludes the devils who are preparing to tear him to pieces; whereupon his captors quarrel among themselves and two of them fall into the pitch.

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My job duties are about to change significantly in the coming weeks. I'm worried what this may mean for maintaining this group, but we'll burn that bridge when we come to it. In the meantime, under the assumption that we are going to continue, let's talk about what's next.

Lugnuts has suggested a collection of Chesterton's essays. While they are, as a rule, excellent, they are also short, and on a wide variety of subjects. It seems to me that this would complicate trying to discuss them on our usual schedule.

I have three suggestions at the moment. One I've borrowed from Wiffle: The Suicide of the West, the one by Burnham, not Goldberg. The second I've read before, but it's been some time, and seems worth another look: The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt. The third is Ship of Fools by Tucker Carlson. He seems one of the few people still connected to the major media networks to be genuinely on the side of the American people, even if he's not explicitly addressing the racial problems. Perhaps that's the price he must pay to have any voice at all.