The Column Rule | Arthur H. Gunther III /essays since 1981

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  • Modern-day Königssee

      January 16, 2016   By Arthur H. Gunther III ahgunther@hotmail.com The first photograph above this column is a 2016 shot I took of the Austrian Alps from the Königssee, Germany’s third deepest lake and with water so clear that… Continue reading

  • AN AMERICAN MOMENT

    January 9, 2016 By Arthur H. Gunther III ahgunther@hotmail.com NYACK, N.Y. — One of the givens of a Hudson River village like this is that in snow it is particularly beautiful, especially with lights on the water. But, as with… Continue reading

  • ‘THE IRREVERENT’ ARE FEWER

    January 2, 2017 By Arthur H. Gunther III ahgunther@yahoo.com “The Front Page,” a reverent bow to the once more-irreverent news profession, written by Nyackers Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur and recently revived on Broadway, could have been staged in the… Continue reading

  • ‘SEWING A FUTURE…’

      December 26, 2016 By Arthur H. Gunther III ahgunther@hotmail.com Rita-Eileen Glynn Smith, a former Rockland County, N.Y., resident, notes on Facebook that she owns her great aunt’s Singer sewing machine, complete with accessories and the equally famous oil can.… Continue reading

  • A WALT WHITMAN CHRISTMAS

    My son, Arthur Henry Gunther IV, inhabits this space each holiday season. Here is his 2016 story.   By Arthur Henry Gunther IV ​     It had been a strange year. One of those years where cynics seemed to… Continue reading

  • ROSE MARIE WAS IN CHARGE

      December 12, 2016 By Arthur H. Gunther III ahgunther@hotmail.com It was not surprising that my childhood friend, Rose Marie Strippoli, appeared calm in    announcing via Facebook that her beloved cat, Maggie, had passed after 18.5 years. I recall… Continue reading

  • FLAVOR REMAINS

    December 5, 2016 By Arthur H. Gunther III ahgunther@hotmail.com      It was a crisp fall morning, and the third-grader had 15 cents in his corduroy pants pocket, a rarity since it was usually empty except for the tissue his… Continue reading

  • DIGITAL RUMOR-MONGERING; A ‘PUBLIC’ NEWSPAPER?

    November 21, 2016 By Arthur H. Gunther III ahgunther@hotmail.com “All the News That’s Fit to Print” has long been the masthead motto of the New York Times. The intention and obligation of that phrase to help keep a society free… Continue reading

  • SILVANO AND A TIME OF CIVILITY

    November 14, 2016 By Arthur H. Gunther III ahgunther@hotmail.com      The most important thing about trying to do good is that you have to do it in silence, which means no horn tooting, certainly, but also no emotional self-rejection… Continue reading

  • NOVEMBER 9, 2016 — THE DAWNING

    November 7, 2016 By Arthur H. Gunther III ahgunther@hotmail.com      For a third grader on Nov. 5, 1952, the day after President Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected, the ordinary was still in place, in my neck of the woods… Continue reading