From Theodore Dalrymple

I’ve only ever been in one political riot, and it soon became apparent to me in the course of it that there are few pleasures known to man greater than that of smashing shop and car windows for the good of humanity. (Here, incidentally, I really do mean man rather than woman, for women are but poor and unenthusiastic rioters.)

The rioters are, of course, young men, between 18 and 30, which raises the question of the role of testosterone in the causation of riots. If male children were castrated at birth, I very much doubt that there would ever be any riots though, of course, the cure would be worse than the disease. Also, they never riot in the rain or snow, which suggests that good, or at least clement, weather is a cause of riots, or perhaps I should say a precondition of them.

In my experience beer plays a major role in rioting. When I was in university a number of my acquaintances were drunken sots and cared for little other than alcohol, girls and creating havoc wherever they went. I recall watching a demonstration – I have forgotten on whose behalf the revellers were despoiling the property of others –  on TV and identifying a significant number of my fellow students. I knew them: they had given themselves to destruction for destruction’s sake.

A number of years later, in the 70s, I was in San Francisco minding my own business when a man in a long coat sidled up to me and advised me to cross the street. A number of ne’er do wells were preparing to vent their disapproval of something the USA was doing somewhere by igniting an American flag. The flag was duly ignited; I watched with interest; the police moved towards the protesters; the media rolled their cameras; the protesters, before being touched by anyone, writhed in mock agony and screamed “police brutality”; the pyromaniacs were arrested.

All this gave me an appetite, so I went for a seafood dinner on Pier 5.

Andrew Roberts, author of the excellent “A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900”

Has this to say about President Bush – read it all here:

History will show that George W Bush was right

The American lady who called to see if I would appear on her radio programme was specific. “We’re setting up a debate,” she said sweetly, “and we want to know from your perspective as a historian whether George W Bush was the worst president of the 20th century, or might he be the worst president in American history?

“I think he’s a good president,” I told her, which seemed to dumbfound her, and wreck my chances of appearing on her show.

In the avalanche of abuse and ridicule that we are witnessing in the media assessments of President Bush’s legacy, there are factors that need to be borne in mind if we are to come to a judgment that is not warped by the kind of partisan hysteria that has characterised this issue on both sides of the Atlantic.

Films such as Oliver Stone’s W, which portray him as a spitting, oafish frat boy who eats with his mouth open and is rude to servants, will be revealed by the diaries and correspondence of those around him to be absurd travesties, of this charming, interesting, beautifully mannered history buff who, were he not the most powerful man in the world, would be a fine person to have as a pal.

Instead of Al Franken, history will listen to Bob Geldof praising Mr Bush’s efforts over Aids and malaria in Africa; or to Manmohan Singh, the prime minister of India, who told him last week: “The people of India deeply love you.” And certainly to the women of Afghanistan thanking him for saving them from Taliban abuse, degradation and tyranny.

Sneered at for being “simplistic” in his reaction to 9/11, Bush’s visceral responses to the attacks of a fascistic, totalitarian death cult will be seen as having been substantially the right ones.

Iraq has been a victory for the US-led coalition, a fact that the Bush-haters will have to deal with when perspective finally – perhaps years from now – lends objectivity to this fine man’s record.

By all that is sensible, Christians should have supported Bush for his staunch opposition to abortion, his aid to Africa (higher than any preceding president), his opposition to embryo destruction through stem cell research, his defense of traditional marriage  and for the fact that he is himself a Christian. Regrettably, many Christians took their cue from leftist secularists and heaped obloquy on Bush, confirming the fact that faith does not inoculate against bigotry.

Bush IQ jokes are for stupid people to laugh at.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Mr. Bush’s 2006 reading list shows his literary tastes. The nonfiction ran from biographies of Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Carnegie, Mark Twain, Babe Ruth, King Leopold, William Jennings Bryan, Huey Long, LBJ and Genghis Khan to Andrew Roberts’s “A History of the English Speaking Peoples Since 1900,” James L. Swanson’s “Manhunt,” and Nathaniel Philbrick’s “Mayflower.” Besides eight Travis McGee novels by John D. MacDonald, Mr. Bush tackled Michael Crichton’s “Next,” Vince Flynn’s “Executive Power,” Stephen Hunter’s “Point of Impact,” and Albert Camus’s “The Stranger,” among others.

Fifty-eight of the books he read that year were nonfiction. Nearly half of his 2006 reading was history and biography, with another eight volumes on current events (mostly the Mideast) and six on sports.

Each year, the president also read the Bible from cover to cover, along with a daily devotional.

In 2006, Bush read 95 books and in 2007, 51 books.

I wonder how many books the average rabid Bush hater read in the same period.

Why, in spite of everything, I still have a soft spot for Christopher Hitchens.

Rowan Williams, continuing his cycle of platitudes:

He continued: “People of all faiths in this country will want to join their voices to the statements of the Christian Muslim Forum and the Council of Christians and Jews in urging a return to the ceasefire and efforts to secure a lasting peace. We must unite in urging all those who have the power to halt this spiral of violence to do so.

“Those raising the stakes through the continuation of indiscriminate violence seem to have forgotten nothing and learned nothing. It must surely be clear that, whilst peace will not wipe out the memory of all past wrongs, it is the only basis for the future flourishing of both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples.

“Return to a ceasefire”?

Since 2001 around 4000 missiles and the same number of mortar shells have been lobbed from Gaza into civilian targets in Israel. Where were Rowan’s articles imploring Hamas to stop their terrorist aggression? There don’t seem to be any; instead, Rowan once again reveals his leftist roots and wades in with criticism of Israel. So “returning to a ceasefire” is really doublespeak for getting Israel to stop defending itself and allowing Hamas to continue firing rockets.

An interesting discussion on the significance of Alexander Solzhenitsyn. This summary is from Theodore Dalrymple:

It seems to me that we have asked three fundamental questions:

i) What is the literary standing or status of Solzhenitsyn?

ii) What was his political effect in practice, in the Soviet Union and the West.

iii) Did or do his less attractive opinions detract from one or both of the above?

Let us take the first question first. Will anyone, other than specialists in Soviet and Russian history, read him in a hundred years’ time, for what he tells us about the human condition sub specie aeternitatis? Here it seems to me that he will be in what Somerset Maugham called the first rank of the second-raters (where he put himself). I am reminded of Trigorin’s self-proclaimed epitaph in The Seagull: He was a good writer, but not as good as Turgenev. But it seems unfair to criticize every writer because he is not as good as someone else. Which of us would ever put pen to paper if he were to be compared all the time with Shakespeare? But we wouldn’t want there to be only Shakespeare.

It seems to me undeniable that he had a great effect in the Soviet Union and the West. It is possible of course that this tells us more about the West than about Solzhenitsyn. It seems to me also undeniably true that he told us nothing that we could, and should, have know before. But as Gide remarked, everything has been said before, but it has to be repeated. Solzhenitsyn confronted western intellectuals with evidence in such a way that they could not deny it any longer, and surely he deserves credit for that. The fact that some people suffered even more than he does not make him any the less of a brave man – far braver than I, for example.

Finally, his undoubtedly unsavoury opinions on some subjects. Can he match Dostoyevsky for the viciousness and stupidity of his anti-Semitism, however? Surely not. But who thinks that Dostoyevsky’s insights into human psychology and the real wellsprings of revolutionism are any the less valuable for that? Also, it seems to me that some charity is in order regarding Solzhenitsyn’s age when he espoused Putinism. Not only is judgment sometimes impaired with age, but so too does the fight go out of some people, especially those who have suffered in their own flesh and blood.

In summary: Great as a man? Yes. Flawed? Yes. Of the first rank as a writer? Possibly not. Which of us on the panel equals him?

Some things are as certain as the sun appearing in the morning, so it surprises no-one that Barack Obama is Time’s man – sorry – person of the year 2008. It and the inevitable fawning was so predictable that it is almost not irritating. Almost.

Obama sits down on one of the mesh chairs and launches into a spoken tour of his world of woes. It’s a mind-boggling journey, although he shows no signs of being boggled — unless you count the increasingly prevalent salt in his salt-and-pepper hair. By now we are all accustomed to that Obi-Wan Kenobi calm, though we may never entirely understand it. In a soothing monotone, he highlights the scariest hairpin turns on his itinerary, the ones that combine difficulty with danger plus a jolt of existential risk.

How could we mere mortals, ever understand what Obi-Wan Kenobi calm is. As it happens, Obi-Wan was apparently personally responsible for the death of Darth Maul and General Grievous, and indirectly caused the deaths of Darth Tyranus, Darth Vader, and Darth Sidious. He had a long and tumultuous career that has helped shape the fate of an entire galaxy.

Doesn’t sound particularly calm to me; of course, the modern equivalent, Obami-Wan, goes out for a quick drag now and again: it’s the only thing that stops him running amok killing numerous and sundry Darths and shaping recalcitrant galaxies.

And why do we have to have “existential” dropped into everything: a risk that is not existential is non-existent. Just like the impartiality of Time.