Category Archive: POLITICS
Jimmy Carter
President Carter with a dangerous friend
(1 October, 1924 – 29 December, 2024) Jimmy Carter seems by popular acclaim to have been a very nice guy, choc-full of honesty and integrity. It just goes to show that such qualities are not necessary or sufficient to be a good President of the United States. Carter was not a good President, but he was liked and respected for the human qualities that bloomed post-office, notably in the fields of diplomacy and philanthropy. His presidential legacy would seem to be the 1978 Camp David Accords, where his tendency to micro-manage and his own personal bona fides got two enemies…
Continue Reading →Social Justice Fallacies
(By Thomas Sowell, 2023) Described by economic historian Niall Ferguson as a tour de force, Social Justice Fallacies arrives, like Spiderman, just in time, the imminent end of Peak Woke (aka Peak Stupid). Wikipedia defines Social Justice thus (footnote omitted): “Social justice is justice in relation to the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society where individuals’ rights are recognized and protected. In Western and Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has often referred to the process of ensuring that individuals fulfill their societal roles and receive their due from society. In the current movements for social…
Continue Reading →Now What?
The US Presidential election is coming to a head. Although 5 November 2024 is D-Day, early polling in numerous states has been going on for quite some time already. In a country of some 340 million (not counting the undocumented), where voting is a privilege rather than an obligation, free hot dogs, going-on-a-billion-dollars for advertising and events, and, in the case of the Democrat Party, Hollywood celebrities, are all deployed to get-out the vote. As of writing, the polls put the two candidates, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, as even, or where in some cases one…
Continue Reading →Henry ‘Chips’ Channon Diaries Volume 1
(1918 – 1938) (Edited by Simon Heffer) In the elusive search for historical truth, contemporary records such as diaries, even unreliable ones, can be valuable. Private diaries in particular, as they can break free of censorship, even self-censorship to a degree. Furthermore, insider diaries can give great insight into the mores of the times. Classic examples include Pepys, Boswell, Francis Kilvert, Anne Frank and Alan Clark. Henry “Chips” Channon (the nickname came when he roomed at Christ Church College, Oxford with a friend nicknamed “Fish”) was born in 1897 in Chicago, son of a wealthy family; served with the Red…
Continue Reading →Angels in America
By Tony Kushner; University of Adelaide Theatre Guild; directed by Hayley Horton – Part 1 (‘The Millennium Approaches’) 2 May 2024; Part 2 (‘Perestroika’) on 3 May 2024 The AIDS epidemic hit New York City the worst (San Francisco came second). It emerged in the early 1980s, primarily in the gay community, and became synonymous therewith, but was in no way actually so localised. Poorly understood initially by medical science, it was first tagged as Kaposi’s Sarcoma (cancerous lesions on skin, lymph nodes, mouth and other organs). Like all plagues, it caused fear, suspicion, mistrust, prejudice and panic. Lives and…
Continue Reading →