Category Archives: general
Paris: a Muscovite in Boston speaks
My friend Sue Beardon alerted me to this FB post of November 17 by Greg Afinogenov, a Muscovite living in Boston MA: I’m so sick of seeing the endless debate about “if you care about Paris you don’t care about … Read More »
Islamist terror beyond the middle east
Today I came across a few commentariat exchanges below a soberly laid out (if a tad detached) Grauniad piece by Kenan Malik. That zerohoursuni chap seems reasonable, well informed and scrupulously polite. Though heavily outvoted by the philistine element, he’s … Read More »
Lets bomb Syria! Goering nails it in one
Don’t we instinctively recognise the truth of Goering’s words? I began my last post but one by describing Corbyn’s response to the Paris question – would he endorse shoot to kill by special forces if even greater carnage might thus … Read More »
Only connect – it’s not whataboutery
Like countless others on Saturday morning I padded bleary-eyed into the kitchen to make coffee and, while I waited, switch on the radio. You know something big has happened by the muted tones of those on the scene, and by … Read More »
Class society? Blame the farmers!
We have dual natures, you and I. On the one hand we are supremely social animals. Unlike pike or tigers or black widow spiders, who associate only to mate or commit internecine violence, we need one another. Ill equipped for … Read More »
Isis and Corbyn: a couple of clarifications
I had a mildly sticky phone convo yesterday, apropos my last post, Corbyn: the first five days, with someone I’ve known a very long time. An intelligent man, highly so in fact, he had two beefs. One (tacitly informed by … Read More »
Bus seats, spiders and boiling kettles
It’s a great story. Mild mannered, law-abiding lady in her forties – black lady in her forties – is too tired, after yet another hard shift as seamstress, to do as she’d done a hundred times before and give up … Read More »
Political realism and the Ukraine Crisis
For all I know Putin’s a nasty piece of work who eats cats and cheats at chess. And for all I know somebody in Washington really is sincere about bringing democracy to Ukraine. Fortunately, there’s a way of viewing the scary … Read More »
Is this democracy?
Where we get to tick a box every five years while billionaires spray venom and foretell doom should too many of us tick The Wrong Box? (How many editorials and headlines did you get to write this past few weeks, … Read More »