Category Archives: Historical

My First Book Review: well, since school anyway, and there we always had to conclude that Dickens was the greatest prose stylist the universe has ever seen

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A review of The Dream of Rome, by Boris Johnson, who is on the blogroll over there if you look closely.  And all of this was posted over there anyway, but give the man a click. It's the least you can do since none of my readers will ever vote for a Tory anyway.

First off, I don't review. I opine. This will hopefully excuse much.

As an introduction to the Roman Empire and the reasons for its long-running success, The Dream of Rome is perfectly marvelous. Boris obviously loves his subject, knows it fluently, and isn't afraid to go to the experts when he's at a loss. Picks interesting experts, as well. And of course the writing flows like the river in a Hudson School painting. It's quick, it's beautiful, and it's sometimes challenging.

And, like the contemporary Hudson river, it's sometimes full of crap.

As an explanation of why the EU is doomed to failure, however, The Dream of Rome fails to prove its case. Really, it must be said that it doesn't seem to try very hard. Boris has some policy points to make, and he makes them, but any examination of the EU is glaringly incomplete without mention of our apparently limitless desire to form meta-states like the UN, NATO, G7, NAFTA, etc etc. There is a reason behind this, and it's not mere economic advantage. Nor is it mere ego.

The only emperor-manque the world has who has any sort of real power is Osama bin Laden. So it's easy to see the point of the Americans who don't want his videos and audio broadcast, lest they start a cult of personality. His power comes from the fact that he writes the cheques. Once that stops, he's over.

William S. Burroughs, who had a knack for being as right as he was wasted, wrote a fascinating piece on why we don't have grand Augustus figures anymore. Here it is:

No More Stalins, No More Hitlers

We have a new type of rule now. Not one-man rule, or rule of aristocracy or plutocracy, but of small groups elevated to positions of absolute power by random pressures and subject to political and economic factors that leave little room for decision.

They are representatives of abstract forces who have reached power through surrender of self. The iron-willed dictator is a thing of past.

There will be no more Stalins, no more Hitlers.

The rulers of this most insecure of all worlds are rulers by accident. Inept, frightened pilots at the controls of a vast machine they cannot understand, calling in experts to tell them which buttons to push.

–William S. Burroughs, "No More Stalins, No More Hitlers," from Dead City Radio, Island Records, 1990; and Interzone, Viking Books, 1989.

Trailer Trash: Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will

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The soundtrack, though: isn't that American? It makes so much sense now…

Hearts and Minds: Do the Tories Have Either?

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A Soldier's Reaction, Upon Hearing of Four Canadian Deaths

Apparently not. It appears to be more important for the newly-elected Tories to distinguish themselves from the Liberals than it is for them to honour the four Canadian soldiers who died while serving in Afghanistan under their rule. Actually, scratch that.

They have no intention of honouring any future fallen soldiers either.

The newly elected Conservative government will no longer lower the flag to half-mast every time a Canadian soldier is killed, saying the automatic flag-lowering was a break with tradition by the Liberals.

Indeed it was, but that tradition has been broken continuously for the past thirty years; at a certain point, it becomes a new tradition.

This decision makes no sense as a PR stunt except that it will reduce public awareness of the fatal toll in Afghanistan, and it does effectively point up the differences between the Tories and the Liberal party. In so many ways.

As William S. Burroughs said:

"It's the little touches that make a future solid enough to be destroyed."

This gesture, flying the flags at half-mast to honour Canadians who have given their lives in what is, at least on paper, a peacekeeping mission, is a gracious and solemn one, and one that does not cost the taxpayers anything whatsoever. It's not cheaper to run the flags halfway up, but it's no more expensive either. The sight of flags at half-mast is resonant and historic; people everywhere know its import. They stop, dead. For just a second. And they contemplate, which people seldom actually do today. A flag at half-mast, in this secular and insular world, has wider emotional impact than a crucifix, or a pentagram. It is more universal than an SOS, more visible than a news story, and communicated completely democratically to everyone who is out in public in a given region. Like radio waves connecting distant points, for a moment it knits together the viewer with the country, and the country with the fallen. In that moment we experience the burden and the majesty of citizenship: of civilization.

That the Tories have heartlessly dumped this tradition for short-term political branding gains shows that they are concerned with none of the real issues of government. In fairness, they never pretended to be patriots; they ran as slavering priests of free-marketry and loyal Ameri-neo-cons. Well, Emerson ran as a patriot; we just didn't realize he was the Benedict Arnold type.

When the Tories go, no-one will fly a flag at half-mast for them. I suggest, in a return to a very old tradition indeed, that we salute their leaving office with the hoisting not of flags to half-mast, but something more petard-based.

Half Mast at the Peace Tower

The Sweet Smell of Success

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Totally stole this entire thing, but since I stole it from two different sources it works out to being independently verified twice! So, yeah. So there!

America done right

 Sitting together on a train, travelling through the
Canadian Rockies,  were an American guy, a Canadian guy, a little old Greek lady,  and a young blond German girl with large breasts.
 
The Train goes into a dark tunnel and a few seconds later there is the sound of a loud slap. When the train emerges from the tunnel, the American has a bright red hand print on his cheek.  No one speaks.
 
The old Greek lady thinks: The American guy must have groped the blonde in the dark and she slapped his cheek. The German girl thinks: That American guy must have tried to grope me in the dark, but missed and fondled the old lady and she slapped his cheek. 

The American thinks: The Canadian guy must have groped the blonde in the dark. She tried to slap him but missed and got me instead.
 
The Canadian thinks: I can't wait for another tunnel, just so I can smack the American again.

Slight Bitter Aftertaste

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Black and TanBen & Jerry's, no longer owned or operated by either Ben or Jerry, finally catches on to the fact that not all of their customers think a "Black & Tan" ice cream will go down smoothly.

Ben & Jerry's, the socially aware ice-cream maker, has apologised to Irish consumers for launching a new flavour evoking the worst days of British military oppression.

Black and Tans, irate customers explained, was the term for an irregular force of British ex-servicemen recruited during the Irish war of independence and renowned for their brutality, including the 1920 massacre of 12 people at a Dublin football match.

Some things are still hard to swallow after seventy-six years.