Currently reading Robert Caro’s books about Lyndon Johnson (link here to the first in the series). What a life; what a life force Johnson was. I’m laughing. I’m crying. I’m in awe of the good and the bad and the ugly and the beautiful of the man – the hate, the love, the pain, the whole damn thing.
Most of all, reading these books has confirmed to me something I’ve always thought: hippies are evil.
I shall miss David Cameron – have always liked him. A shame he felt he had to fall on his sword. Only a few days after Brexit, he had these choice words for Jeremy Corbyn, obviously playing on Leo Amery’s famous words to Chamberlain – in turn borrowed from Cromwell. (FYI, I referred to my mother using this quote in a column from two years ago.)
A shame, as I quite like Boris Johnson. One thing I have hated in the past few days is the leftists and elitists (but I repeat myself) comparing him to Trump. But for the wild hair, there is simply no comparison. Trump in power would be a disaster. Johnson, not so.
(And speaking of Brit politics: my observations regarding Nigel Farage at April’s Munk Debate here.)
There has been a lot of crazed commentary from leftists and elitists (but I repeat myself) and even the occasional sane person (Niall Ferguson comes to mind for that category), since last week’s vote. Yes, it is a big deal. Yes, it was unexpected. But the idea that all “Leave” voters are frightened bigots and the idea that the UK’s economic future is surely at risk as a result are both absurd ideas.
Megan McArdle provides an eminently sane analysis here, Matt Ridley another here.
One of the British Tories I most admire is Daniel Hannan (boy, I would love to see him be leader of the UK Conservatives). Of note, he wrote a short book called “Why Vote Leave,” which is most definitely worth a read if you want to understand the issues at hand beyond the unfair media characterizations. I mention him not merely in order to link to his book, but also as a lead-in to this video of him being “interviewed” (i.e., bullied) by leftist and elitist (but I repeat myself) Christiane Amanpour. He does not let her get away with nonsense, and you can tell it makes her apoplectic.
What I find most infuriating about this “interview” is when she shows three obviously carefully-picked sound-bites from bigoted “Leave” voters and tries to suggest that somehow they are representative of every “Leave” voter. Again, he doesn’t fall for it, and she does not like that. (Sadly, I remember when she was a good journalist, over 20 years ago – in particular, her reporting from the former Yugoslavia was compelling. Those days are long gone.)
Behold Daniel Hannan, an extremely smart and decent man dealing very patiently with a nasty fool.
I referred to Reggie Perrin in my Brexit post, and I have managed, through the wonders of the internets, to find what I consider one of the finest moments in the history of television. From season 2 of the Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, Reggie has created a business he hoped would fail, and has appointed a bunch of clowns and rubes and looneys to run the business, in order to ensure disaster. Well, of course, the opposite happens: the business booms. Reggie, trying to fire all the people who have made it so, finds that at least one of the buffoons he has hired has seen through him. Go to shortly after the 27 minute mark and listen to Seamus Finnegan as you watch the hilarious body language and facial expressions of Perrin. I believe the moral of the story is…never count out the English.
Many have been posting this wonderful clip from “Yes, Minister” (a show I used to watch with my parents). No reason I shouldn’t post it, as well. It certainly brings to mind that terrific “Reginald Perrin” series, in particular the episodes where Reggie creates what he hopes will be a failing business. Very British.
I was thinking about that banal thing folks often say, that you don’t regret what you did in life, but what you didn’t do. For me, this is not so. There are almost no things that I chose not to do or that fate wouldn’t allow me to do for which I have regret. And the few things I didn’t do for which I have regret are all things I can still do (for e.g., I sometimes regret that after by post-B.A. studies I didn’t continue on to a Ph.D. And I sometimes regret not going to law school. I can still do both of those things).
The things I regret in life are things I did do. And you can’t do much about those, other than try and make amends if you feel the case merits them, or just try to learn from them or, failing being able to learn from them try either to not think about them much , or put them in a book or column.
We are in a period of neo-appeasement. Thankfully, there are people like Maajid Nawaz – who wrote this must-read column — and Douglas Murray, who, dealing with half-wit members of what Nawaz calls “the regressive left,” doles out some unpleasant truths that regressive leftists don’t want to hear.
The remarkable British historian of the Middle East turned 100 last week. Mosaic magazine published this feature about him and his prescience – 40 years ago he predicted the rise of radical Islam. Virtually no one else did.
Thus did the West receive its very first warning that a new era was beginning in the Middle East—one that would produce a tide of revolution, assassination, and terrorism, conceived and executed explicitly in the name of Islam.
Another slogan, “The End of History,” would make its appearance with the demise of the cold war in the early 1990s; it has since come and gone. “The Return of Islam” is still very much with us.
I say to anyone who wants to understand what has happened, what went wrong, to read his aptly-titled book, What Went Wrong?: The Clash Between Islam and Modernity and the Middle East. I also recommend his book about Turkey and frankly, anything else he has written.