Sunday, November 17, 2013

Oprah and criticism of the president

In a person's death, 'I will come as a thief in the night.' Fr. Denis Farkasfalvy pointed out 'for the skeptics' that Jesus must certainly have said that for none of his followers would have put those words in his mouth. 'Have you ever had a thief in your house?' Fr. Abbot said. 'It is a surprise, disruptive, and humiliating. The passage of time is the passage of opportunity and can you imagine the disruption, the humiliation of the thief death.' And I think in a roundabout way these thoughts explain Oprah Winfrey's assertion that criticism of the president is racist. Many back lives did not come to a full fruition but rather were taken, at least in part, by thieves. So, opportunity lost, Oprah sees her black president as not being able to come to fruition because of criticism; and it reminds her of those other losses, the racism in them. But sometimes, as the not so Catholic Sigmund Freud said, 'A cigar is just a cigar;' or criticism is just criticism, ordinary political competition.

Friday, November 08, 2013

Divide and Ruin

Been reading . Just read about 'Munich' regarding which the author, Fritz Stern, asserts that General Beck, then head of the German military, had prepared a coup should England have refused to give in to Hitler's demands. The first World War was in part occasioned by Britain's strategy of keeping down a strong power on the continent, which conflict Germany looked to win without German opposition. This apparently mirrored Britain's strategy in India where it sought to keep in conflict potentially rival factions so that it could rule. It is what Britain did in interwar Palestine promoting ant anti-Jewish mufti over other more natural or qualified rulers for the Arab side. It looks to be a policy that was 'too clever by half' as it impairs successful cultural or personal development.