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Good Riddance, But Now What?
By Ogden Nash
Come, children, gather round my knee;
Something is about to be.
Tonight’s December thirty-first,
Something is about to burst.
The clock is crouching, dark and small,
Like a time bomb in the hall.
Hark! It’s midnight, children dear.
Duck! Here comes another year.
Arnold Bennett said pessimism was as enjoyable as optimism once you get used to it. But I am always an optimist. Here's to no more killing and no more war crimes in the Ukraine, the Middle East, Venezuela, Nigeria or anywhere else in 2026.
Where did 26 years go?
Did people in 1826 and 1926 ask themselves that?
Possibly not. Unlike me they had lived through world wars.
“Everything we thought we shared with the civilised world was borrowed. Moscow literary editor Varvara Babitskaya, February 2022
“Though neither Putin’s siloviki – nor even ultra-conservative philosophers like Aleksandr Dugin – would put it in these terms, a war of national salvation was the only force powerful enough to stop the encroachment of the modern world and radically cut the country off from the West.”
Owen Matthews, Overreach
"I believe the best guard against prejudice is a frequent examination of our opinions, and a cool estimate of the arguments opposed to them — You must as Cicero says identify yourself in imagination, first with your adversary and then with your judge — and above all you must have resolution to abide by the result even if it should be adverse to your preconceived opinions." US President John Quincey Adams
In the Turkish holiday village of Dalyan I'm having dinner with a Turkish bar owner in his 30s. Predictably, he loathes Erdogan, a would-be dictator.
'What do you think of the war in Ukraine?'
'I support the Russians, actually.'
'Why?'
'Because they are being attacked by America.'
'Do many Turks think this?'
'Some do. Some don't.'
One year ago I was in a bar in New Orleans talking to a Jewish American girl who told me there was absolutely nothing to be said in defence of Israel. She was certain Trump was more Zionist than Biden. I said that was impossible but she may have been right.
Later I said how sorry I was to have lost my copy of 'The Confederacy of Dunces'. A man who heard me gave me his copy 15 minutes later having gone home to get it. What Southern courtesy!
Genoa yesterday was shabby, drizzly, full of cheap hotels and absolutely delightful. Its historic centre is strung along a long line, a bit in the way that Bucharest's much more modern Calea Victoriei is.
From Lonely Planet: "Genoa's zebra-striped Gothic–Romanesque cathedral owes its continued existence to the poor quality of a British WWII bomb that failed to ignite here in 1941; it still sits on the right side of the nave like an innocuous museum piece."
When I was 8 reading about WWII it seemed obvious that countries want to extend their territory but what good could conquering Nice and Savoy have done Mussolini? Had he stayed neutral he'd have died in his bed like Franco.
What good could the Soviet territories have done Hitler?
He thought England's power was due to our possessing Canada
If England and France don't go to war with Russia or Iran all will be well.
The priest said Livorno (Leghorn is its real name in English) has few treasures. I said, "Because of the British". "Well, we declared war on you." Indeed. What a fool Mussolini was ......
And what fools Europe's current leaders and Starmer are. Still I think the people will see through the war propaganda.
[Originally posted on Sunday, 16 October 2011.]
Thomas Carlyle said, "If Jesus Christ were to come today people would not even crucify him. They would ask him to dinner, and hear what he has to say, and make fun of it."
Today what would the Guardian or the Economist make of Him?
He would shock by his views on divorce, hell, his lack of interest in Middle Eastern or any other politics or in fighting poverty or in dialogue with other religions. His celibacy would be the subject of ribaldry and innuendo, likewise his dislike of family values or respectability and his predilection for the company of rich crooks.
His preaching the imminent end of the world would be greeted by laughter and if he condemned homosexual sex he would probably be arrested and put in the cells.
The Church of England hierarchy in particular would find him quite outrageous. But perhaps so would most except the poor and badly educated.
Every ages creates Jesus in its own image. Gandhi, indirectly responsible for the Partition of India and perhaps half a million, perhaps a million deaths, and Malcolm Luther King the serial adulterer are two fashionable messiahs who are seen as Christ-like. Malcom Muggeridge was acute comparing Gandhi with Jesus:
"Professing non-violence, he indirectly stirred up much violence, before, during and after the achievement of Indian self-government, and he died by an assassin's hand deeply disillusioned with the results of the independence he had been largely instrumental in achieving. If Jesus had been lured into similarly associating himself with the Zealots, or Jewish nationalists, he would have found himself in the same case as Gandhi, who has now lost all the glory of being a great moral teacher, and become merely the symbol of a dying and deeply corrupt political movement.
"Jesus' subsequent followers have been less careful. They have sent him on Crusades, made him a freedom-fighter, involved him in civil wars and conspiracies, sent him picketing and striking and leading cavalry charges, and finally made him a paid-up member of the British Labour Party, with the strong expectation that in due course he will be given a life peerage and take his place in the House of Lords. In the light of these aberrations I have sometimes asked myself how Jesus would have fared if he had been born into one of the points of conflict in our world as Galilee was in his - in South Africa, say. As a white South African he would assuredly have been killed by his fellow whites for insisting that they should love and serve their black fellow citizens; as a black South African, he would likewise have been killed by his fellow blacks for telling them they must love and serve their white oppressors. In neither case, it is safe to assume, would he have been a beneficiary under the World Council of Churches' munificence in providing financial support for African guerrillas aiming to achieve national independence by means of terrorism."
High noon behind the tamarisks—the sun is hot above us—
As at Home the Christmas Day is breaking wan.
They will drink our healths at dinner—those who tell us how they love us,
And forget us till another year be gone!
Kipling
'Even if you gave Ukraine the same amount of foreign funding that was provided in previous years, that would at best allow it to continue to lose slowly on the battlefield.
'But fighting to the last Ukrainian appears a better bet politically, for Zelensky. A peace deal in which, at the very least, Ukraine gives up its aspiration to join NATO will be catastrophic politically for Zelensky, almost certainly ruining his chance of re-election. He knows it. Everyone in Ukraine knows it. And, of course, Putin knows it
'Meanwhile, Russia can afford to wait it out. As Karaganov recently said, Russia’s real war is with Europe, and I believe that to be the case.'
It's a fair comment.
He is what "1066 and All That" called a Good Thing.
The King has revealed his cancer treatment will be reduced in the new year.
In a televised message to the nation, the monarch said he had reached a “milestone” in his treatment, calling it a “personal blessing” and giving thanks for early diagnosis and medical advances.
He said: “Today I am able to share with you the good news that thanks to early diagnosis, effective intervention and adherence to doctors’ orders, my own schedule of cancer treatment can be reduced in the new year.”
Saying that the initial diagnosis could feel “overwhelming”, the King urged the public to be screened for their own peace of mind and said that early diagnosis “quite simply saves lives”.
A wise friend at dinner tonight said women marry men hoping to change them. Men marry women hoping that stay the same . All are disappointed.
The Bolt driver who took me home said marriage and children are important because they give us the opportunity to love
The Duke of La Rochefoucauld said there are happy marriages but no delightful ones. I can think of just one exception in books and films: Nick and Nora Charles in The Thin Man. The director of the film series, W. S. Van Dyke II, was happily married and wanted to portray a happy marriage. Perhaps this is what fiction means.
Because the novel came out at exactly the moment prohibition ended it is also a celebration of what looks to us very like alcoholism but also looks like fun.
"But even toward nightfall, as soon as the candles are lit, the mind, like the eye, no longer sees things so clearly as by day. It is a time unsuited to serious meditation, especially on unpleasant subjects. The morning is the proper time for that—as indeed for all efforts without exception, whether mental or bodily. For the morning is the youth of the day, when everything is bright, fresh, and easy of attainment. We feel strong then, and all our faculties are completely at our disposal. Do not shorten the morning by getting up late or waste it in unworthy occupations or in talk; look upon it as the quintessence of life. Evening is like old age: we are languid, talkative, silly. Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death." Arthur Schopenhauer
"The present enables us to understand the past, not the other way round."
For the past couple of years, like some Casandra with a toothache, I have haunted these pages, warning that:
1. At least since Russia regrouped and settled in for a long war of attrition, the defeat of the Former Ukraine and its NATO-sponsored armies was inevitale. CHECK
2. That, following the failure of the counter-offensive, for Kiev to fight on would simply increase the depopulation and devastation of the Rump – though it might prolong a few European political careers, it would almost certainly lead to an ultimately fierce reaction again the craven and incompetent European elites. HALF-CHECK, underway.
and, somewhat more speculatively:
3. That the end-game would come when donor-fatigue set it…very probably in the US first. CHECK
4. As the ossified European political system could not adapt to changing realities, the change in the hostility toward Russia would most likely come from Washington – the Americans are capable of turning on a dime. DOUBLE CHECK
'Many will agree with Kallas’s deep suspicion of the Kremlin and share her hopes for victory, reparations and for Putin to be brought to trial. But none of those things are, in practice, achievable – not least because Europe has consistently sent far more money to the Kremlin in payment for oil and gas than it has given to Kyiv to defend itself. The time for ideology is over. At this point many, maybe most, Ukrainians would prefer an unjust peace to a forever war.'
Colonel Wilkerson explains that Israel is closely involved in Trump's antipathy to Venezuela.
Israel is closely involved in Latin American politics in general. So it is in North American politics. Also it is important in African politics, Australian politics, et al.
Colombia's left-wing president hates Israel for reasons.
I think I heard Max Blumenthal say Israel is the most powerful country in the world.
It's no longer David but Goliath.
Some things shouldn't fall completely through the cracks, even if the pace of current news is intense and momentous.
'The corruption story has gotten legs and then the corruption issue is far far larger than just the hundred million that's been reported. It's it's in the billions: close to $50 billion out of 360 billion. Yeah. With a B. But the corruption issue is pushed by the Americans. The Americans control NABU. So this is this is the US side that says let's cut them off. We're starting to give the Ukrainians a little push over the cliff, you know, say, "Hey, come up here. Look at this." And then you give them a little shove and off they fall. I think the the realization for Trump's reading polls and there is not widespread support like there was four years ago for supporting Ukraine. In fact, the corruption story, I believe, in part is being put out there deliberately in order to help further muddy the waters because one of the things is not really widely known publicly, well not known is there are at least 23 members of Congress that have received millions of dollars. I know a particular Republican senator that got 16 to 17 million. a particular Democrat senator got 23 million.'So this is money that we gave to Zelensky, they went to the Ukrainians, then got diverted into banks up in the Baltics.'And, gee, I think we'll be shocked to discover that one foreign minister with the EU named Kaja Kallas may have had some actual financial incentives to be such an ardent supporter of Ukraine.'You'll find that this money was gone out to lubricate a variety of politicians on both the US side and European side.'
