Lionel Deimel's Farrago (Home)

Major Site Update in Progress

Largely resulting from computer problems, Lionel Deimel’s Farrago has enjoyed few updates in quite a while.

Beginning 1/20/2023, a major edit and update is in progress. The project will likely take weeks.

Updating necessarily begins with verifying the validity of existing hyperlinks. Many pages to which the text links no longer exit or no longer contain relevant content. In such cases, an invalid link is (1) eliminated, (2) replaced with a different but equally meaningful link, or (3) replaced with a link to a page saved by Internet Archive. Where a link is replaced by a link to an archived page, the date of that page depends upon which page captures are available.

In cases where errant links have been corrected but no other significant changes have been made to a page, the date tag at the bottom of the page has not been changed.

Internet Archive is an invaluable resource for Web developers and historians alike. It deserves your financial support.

“Farrago”?

Miller brilliantly exposes ID [intelligent design] for what it is: a farrago of theological assertions and discredited scientific claims designed to inveigle a religious view of life into the biology classroom.

—“Seeing and Believing” by Jerry A. Coyne, The New Republic, February 4, 2009

Will the vogue use of “It is what it is” become fixed in the farrago of unresponsive responses?

—From William Safire's “On Language” column of March 5, 2006

The farrago of pop may make the period setting easier for kids to take, but it’s an experiment dictated by fear of committing yourself to any one sound, to any one composer’s imagination of love.

—From a review of Moulin Rouge by David Denby in the May 28, 2001 issue of The New Yorker

“Farrago” was also Dictionary.com’s Word of the Day for March 25, 2002.

Opinions may be mistaken; love never is.

—Harry Emerson Fosdick, 1922

Welcome to Lionel Deimel’s Farrago, a diverse collection of information, opinion, fiction, poetry, and trivia—what you might expect from a farrago, which, according to the dictionary, is a medley, conglomeration, or mixture.

Lionel Deimel’s Farrago reflects most of my passions. I am now retired, but I have been a computer consultant and computer science professor. I have always been a generalist, however. I am interested in science and mathematics, in technology, history, and politics. I am a musician, photographer, writer, and railfan. (Sadly, there isn’t much railroad material here.) I am a Christian who, attracted by its music, liturgy, and tolerance, discovered the Episcopal Church long past my adolescence. I have been a church activist, defending my church against the forces of reaction.

More specifically, I am an essayist and poet, a clarinetist and singer, a steam locomotive enthusiast, a cat lover, a liberal Democrat and liberal Christian. My varied interests are responsible for this eclectic site, which offers material that should be of interest to a variety of visitors.

Lionel Deimel’s Farrago is organized into sections to help you find items of interest and avoid everything else. The sections are accessible through navigation buttons at the top left of this and other introductory pages. The sections of my Web site are described below:

	Home (this page)
	Biography offers professional, rather than personal information. Here you will find pre-retirement résumé and publication list.about me. It contains my résumé and publication list.
	Church Resources is a collection of the spiritual, liturgical, and the pragmatic, including commentary on Episcopal and Anglican disputes. Cross-listings are provided here to original poetry and hymns in the Poetry section, as well as some material in the Commentary area. Much of this material is of interest to non-Episcopalians. My Web Log also contains a good deal of commentary on the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion.
	Commentary is a miscellaneous collection of personal and political essays. Additional essays, generally shorter ones and ones of more transitory interest, can be found on my Web Log.
	Computer Science contains a somewhat arbitrary selection of papers and reports I’ve published. Of special interest (because it hasn’t been published elsewhere) is brief paper that attempts to demystify radix conversion.
	Contact Information tells how to contact me.
	Farrago Gift Shop offers merchandise sporting some of my designs.
	Fiction contains stories. I don’t write much fiction, and I don’t claim to be good at it. This section is small.
	Language Notes is about—in H. L. Mencken’s words—the American language. Other essays on language can be found in my Web Log.
	Poetry, of course, contains my poetry. I am a down-to-earth, unsentimental poet whose work is quite diverse. This section contains both serious and humorous verse. It includes several hymn texts.
	Recreational Math contains sections on digital invariants and curve stitching.
	Search allows visitors to search Lionel Deimel’s Farrago and Lionel Deimel’s Web Log.
	Site Map lists pages on this site and describes newly added material. It also contains a complete table of contents for my Web Log.
	Web Log is not your typical blog. It is neither a diary nor a running commentary on some particular topic. Rather, it is a vehicle for posting (usually) modest essays that could, in principle, go elsewhere on this site. Blog pages include a search box at the upper left. In the right column is a listing of all posts by date and title but without the brief descriptions found on the Site Map page.

Be sure to notice the navigation links at the top and bottom of most pages. These allow you to do such things as read poems one after another without returning to the introductory poetry page. Lionel Deimel’s Farrago is largely organized hierarchically, and, after moving around the site, navigation should become pretty intuitive.

You will notice that pages have wide margins. Although this is, in part, a holdover from the days before higher screen resolutions became common, the narrow format generally allows for pages to be printed on letter-size paper in portrait mode without truncation or scaling. I hope that this will be appreciated by those who like to read from paper or who want to share my work with others. On mobile devices, pages can be enlarged as necessary. On mobile devices, you may prefer to read my blog using the desktop version rather than the mobile version.

Comments and suggestions, as well as requests for permission to use anything I have written, are always welcome. Use the Contact page to contact me, or click on my e-mail address, found at the bottom of most pages. Please write to me if you discover any broken links or encounter any other technical problems with the site.

You may also follow me on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy your visit to Lionel Deimel’s Farrago. If you like the site, be sure to tell your friends about it.

Thanks for dropping by.

— LED, 2/18/2023