Category Archive: American Politics
Socialism as Religion
Be careful who you give awards to...the Reverend Jim Jones, 1977's Martin Luther King, Jr. Humanitarian award winner
Born May 13 (1931), the Reverend Jim Jones is famous for his deep Christian-Socialist beliefs, his humanitarian impulses, his Peoples’ Temple in San Francisco where he organised leftist demonstrations, and of course, the workers’ paradise he established at Jonestown in Guyana. His passionate commitment to equality and fairness drew inspiration from thinkers such as Jesus, Buddha, Lenin, Marx, Castro and Mao, and won him kudos from the likes of well-known lib-labs Walter Mondale, Rosalynn Carter, Jerry Brown, and Harvey Milk (who called the Reverend “a man of the highest character.”) In any case, the socialist paradise shuddered to a halt…
Continue Reading →The Glorious Dead at Arlington
April 2018 ‘Over there…’ The seemingly endless rows of graves (over 600 acres’ worth), begun to accommodate the charnel house that was the Civil War, testify to the blood and treasure hazarded by the US over the years, and not just on the battlefield… Recently a series of photos were featured of the funeral train that took RFK’s body from New York (after it was flown from California, where he was shot) to Washington, to be buried near his older brother. People lined the track to pay homage, and even to reach out and touch the passing carriages, as if to lay hands…
Continue Reading →You Heard it Here First
We have noticed that after a supine period of Olympian insouciance, New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo has awoken, flexed his muscles and started ‘governating’. He recently moved to heal factional rifts in the NY Democratic Party and then swooped to carry off a key piece of education policy from the hands of hapless NY Mayor, Bill de Blasio, leading to one of the New York Post’s typically urbane headlines: “Daddy’s Home.” (OK, so it’s not as good as “Ford to New York: ‘Drop Dead’” but still quite satisfyingly pungent.) We just hope that somewhere along the way Mr Cuomo has…
Continue Reading →10 Birthdays and A Funeral
'We have to make a birthday tea for 10 and a funeral tea...'
20 March – a big day in cultural history: 43 BC – Ovid “Take your fill of amusement, but cast the veil of modesty over your peccadilloes. Never make a parade of your good fortune, and never give a woman a present that another woman will recognise.” [The Art of Love] “Death is not accustomed to injure genius, and greater fame arrives after we have become ashes…” [Epistle to an Envious Man]. 1828 – Henrik Ibsen “SOLNESS: Human beings haven’t any use for these homes of theirs. Not for being happy in. And I shouldn’t have had use for a…
Continue Reading →Where Art At?
We have to say that we didn’t (totally) mind Kehinde Wiley’s cartoonish, faux-classical official portrait of President Obama – though it is frankly braver of the 44th President than of the artist. Better State flora than wallpaper, we guess, but the most vivid image the portrait evokes is of a fairy at the bottom of the garden. On the other hand, Amy Sherald’s offering for posterity of Michelle Obama (below) renders the former First Lady as a cross between Godzilla and one of those Olympic swimmers on steroids. The Last Refuge (online) commented: “The portraits are just plain goofy.” Diego…
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