During the last years our politicians, playing to the lowest common denominator, have stressed the existence of evil in the world and the need to combat it. George Bush gave us the axis of evil; before him Ronald Reagan described the Soviet Union as the evil empire; and over images of British soldiers being killed [...]
The opening is astounding. Some three to four pages of small print in which Camus attempts to describe his Oran, the setting of the novel. The following is an extract:
Certainly nothing is commoner nowadays than to see people working from morn till night and then proceeding to fritter away at card tables, in cafes, [...]
I spent this morning, World Book Day, with a radio crew in a shop window in Harrogate giving away new books for old. Don’t ask how I got involved in it. I was offered it by a local radio station and then got swept up in the euphoria.
I write novels and publish, most of the [...]
Richard Dawkins explains why God is a delusion, religion is a virus, and America has slipped back into the Dark Ages:
That trend toward enlightenment has indeed continued in Europe and Britain. It just has not continued in the U.S., and not in the Islamic world. We’re seeing a rather unholy alliance between the burgeoning theocracy in the U.S. and its allies, the theocrats in the Islamic world. They are fighting the same battle: Christian on one side, Muslim on the other. The very large numbers of people in the United States and in Europe who don’t subscribe to that worldview are caught in the middle.
Actually, holy alliance would be a better phrase. Bush and bin Laden are really on the same side: the side of faith and violence against the side of reason and discussion. Both have implacable faith that they are right and the other is evil. Each believes that when he dies he is going to heaven. Each believes that if he could kill the other, his path to paradise in the next world would be even swifter. The delusional “next world” is welcome to both of them. This world would be a much better place without either of them.
Table of contents for Lest We Forget
- Lipstick
- Google - the evil empire?
- Presque vu XXXXI
- Himmler - Speaking To His Own
- Evil? I Don’t Think So.
- Can the President Pardon Himself?
- Bush Acting Strangely? - I Don’t Believe It
- Paul Wolfowitz and Accountability
- Presque vu XXXX
- Presque vu XII
- Subversive Vanity Fair
- Bush Lied
- Science and Reason
- The Dixie Chicks
- Egyptian blogger sentenced to four years
- Women at Work
If you enjoyed this post, subscribe to my RSS feed
Save a Blogger from Begging: Buy Stuff:
Signed first editions
at special prices.
Subscribe to posts
Recent Comments