FORTVNA DILIGIT

I have to claim 'Her', too. [Note my "handle"] In fact, I wear an Hadriatic coin with Fortuna AVG[usta] on the reverse. Sulla [and long after, Napoleon] were on to something when they observed that 'luck' follows some of us like an undeserved benefit from the Gods. Not quite right... For myself, I believe we make our own 'luck' by living in the context of understanding how This Existence actually works. 'Luck'... 'Fortuna's Favor'... They are nothing more than preparing oneself for opportunity. Dumb behavior is not rewarded. Smart behavior is rewarded. It's Her Law. Ominously, She was also the Goddess of Bad Fortune, too. - Michele Stefano Arancio

As Fortuna's Favorite, I'm confident that soon the book will be headed this way.

There

My choice was 'a little bit of everything', but that doesn't really capture the obsession. As close as I can come to explaining my passion is the rain of tears that [in spite of my best effort to suppress them] cascade down my face when I burst onto Piazza della' Rotunda after dark and behold Hadrian's Pantheon. Of course, every incrotio in Italy provides a similar opportunity to be staggered to tears over the events that took place there and their significance for everything we know, even now. Last year, I scared the *** out of some Japanese tourists when I bawled like little girl before Titiano's La Venere d'Urbino. [Yeah, not Roman, but I make scant distinction for these high points of Rome's legacy.] It's to stand in those places and hear all those ancient voices that inrtigue me. By the way, Fortuna willing I'll turn 60 in Campus Martuis next June.

It occurs to me that the citizens of this Forum are in a position to take the 'long view' of all this silly angst. Be faithful to the principles of our heritage and know that we survive and prevail over the temporary ascendancy of [in the words of the US President] "small men with oversized rage". We are Rome's inheritors and we take the "long view".