This is just too icky and sad
Aug. 14th, 2006 10:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rozkI feel slightly soiled from reading this particular bit of gossip - Supposedly this is what Bin Laden does in his spare time Copied from Avedon
Where is Charles Grey with a white Persian cat on his knee? Or Stalin listening to Mozart as he lay dying? Standards have declined, I tell you, standards have declined.
****
And farewell Caligula, as played by John Hurt, a performance that goes on giving right to the end. Venus, sea-shells, dice, swapping Homer quotations, giving his uncle Messalina as a joke.
Now poor old Clau-Clau is emperor. In a way, it is a shame it doesn't end there, because most of the best bits are over by then.
When I first read the books, as a kid, the worst thing I could imagine - and it is pretty bad - is the rape of Sejanus' daughter because they couldn't kill a virgin. I hate violence and treachery, but what I particularly despise is the legalism with which people justify their crimes. And the crimes they support.
This applies to Blair and Bush over the Lebanon, but it also applies to Qaradwi. and this is the man Livingstone wanted to ask to London People die in agony because this fatuous academic thinks it would be a neat idea and is what God wants. Heaven knows I wouldn't want to hurt the old fool, but I would cheerfully throw a drink in his face were I ever to be in the same room.
Where is Charles Grey with a white Persian cat on his knee? Or Stalin listening to Mozart as he lay dying? Standards have declined, I tell you, standards have declined.
****
And farewell Caligula, as played by John Hurt, a performance that goes on giving right to the end. Venus, sea-shells, dice, swapping Homer quotations, giving his uncle Messalina as a joke.
Now poor old Clau-Clau is emperor. In a way, it is a shame it doesn't end there, because most of the best bits are over by then.
When I first read the books, as a kid, the worst thing I could imagine - and it is pretty bad - is the rape of Sejanus' daughter because they couldn't kill a virgin. I hate violence and treachery, but what I particularly despise is the legalism with which people justify their crimes. And the crimes they support.
This applies to Blair and Bush over the Lebanon, but it also applies to Qaradwi. and this is the man Livingstone wanted to ask to London People die in agony because this fatuous academic thinks it would be a neat idea and is what God wants. Heaven knows I wouldn't want to hurt the old fool, but I would cheerfully throw a drink in his face were I ever to be in the same room.
vision-free leadership
Date: 2006-08-14 10:55 pm (UTC)There's a story -- John Romer tells it -- that a young architect went to Alexander with a plan for a new city. A mountain would be carved into a bust of Alexander, and the slope down sculpted into an arm, with canals for the veins. At the base, the city would literally rest in the king's palm. Alexander understood that this was an impossible project, but he rewarded the architect, and told those around him, "This is the kind of man I want. He has a vision of great things."
We have leaders who draw their imaginings from popcult images, and very specifically don't want anyone with a bigger vision than theirs to be allowed in the room. (PNAC, let it be noted, is not a large vision; it is a tiny-minded view of Running Everything from the Playstation gamepad. With cheats enabled.)
I seem to be all rantyfying this week. Will probably get better.
JMF