You will never see the likes of the Brothers Berrigan again. Or Will Rogers, the Marks (Twain and Russell), Dick Gregory, Mort Sahl, George Carlin and Bill Hicks. We’re not talking historical vestiges, vintage heroes. No. We’re talking simply the best of the best who will never return. At least for a few more lifetimes. Listen herein to find the context of my cantankerous contempt.
Smoke rises from a building struck by artillery in north Damascus [Xinhua]
John Rosenthal is a European-based journalist and political analyst who writes on European politics and transatlantic issues.
He has also written extensively about the Syrian Civil War.
You’re nothing. Insignificant cosmically. And the sooner you understand this the healthier you’ll be. Psychically. Herein are subjects that you should review – humility, your role in the cosmic garbage disposal and how to self-analyze through talk therapy and thought experiments. It’s a rather simple concept and one I commend to you. Take heart. It’s all perspective. And, like incest, it’s all relative. You’re welcome.
Remember that thing called the election? I mean the election. With our media’s ghoulish and juvenescent preoccupation with over-the-top funereal renditions of what is allegedly respectful remembrance and classy eulogia, all that matters is ignored. But I tried. And try. To redirect the attention span of our collective country.
The American public is distracted, detached and distanced from anything that we vaguely recognize as relevant. And who can blame us? It’s so much easier to talk of the pol who cuts a pizza slice with a knife and fork versus the patented pleated fold. Or seeing Madame Hillary fumble with a NY subway Metrocard to travel two stops in her sudden connection with the masses. We’re a country who knows nothing, feels nothing and appreciates nothing. That involves intellectual heavy lifting. And concern. Alas.
Struan Stevenson, President of the European Iraqi Freedom Association (EIFA), is calling for “urgent action to end callous food and medicine blockade” of the Iraqi city of Fallujah.
Americans are too busy. Too busy taking pictures of their food and selfies and being self-absorbed and self-focused, bathing in a warm narcissistic glow. And when it comes to getting deep into certain issues, especially those that might be construed as being conspiratorial in nature (translation: true), you might as well change that channel, Sparky. We’re busy. But how we love to bask in the delusion that we’re news junkies, possessed of an elementary understanding of the working parts of multitiered issues analysis. Pshaw! Have a nice day.
Isn’t that a great title? It’s an even better disquisition herein. Some notes follow.
“Every person has two homelands,” the French archaeologist Andre Parrot once commented ; “His own and Syria”. T.E Lawrence (of Arabia), who spent a great deal of time exploring Syria, wrote specifically of Palmyra; “Nothing in this scorching, desolate land could be so refreshing”. It might also have been Lawrence who labelled Palmyra (or the […]
