Sometimes, You Just Can’t Win

2009 September 18

by Robert

Daily Mail headline, 4 June 2007:

Bush faces demonstrations over missiles as he arrives in Prague

Meaning those Europeans sure were angry over that President Bush trying to foist that “shield” on them, fearful he was pushing them into a confrontation with Russia.

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Daily Mail headline, 18 September 2009:

Obama infuriates Europe as he scraps Bush’s ‘Son of Star Wars’ missile defence shield

Meaning those Europeans sure are angry over that President Obama cancelling that “shield”, and now leaving them quite possibly at the mercy of Russia.

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It’s nice to be the Mail: present news any which way you want.

3 Responses leave one →

2009 September 18

jonolan permalink

Strangely, both headlines accurately reflect the sentiments of the governments of those regions. I can’t speak to how their people felt or feel though.

They bitched when we started the program, and now they’re bitching when we’re stopping it. No surprise really; Europeans bitch at just about everything America does.

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2009 September 18

rob permalink

“Right You Are, If You Think You Are,” or, in an alternative translation of Luigi Pirandello’s classic, “It Is So, If You Think So” ..

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2009 September 19

jonolan permalink

Rob,

There were complaints from any European governments when we started the program and now there are complaints when stop. That’s a fact.

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Just in case you actually think you've heard everything... http://yweb.com/7tq 4 hours ago

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At today's 11th hour, for the first time, there was not a single living Briton in Britain, who had fought in WWI. http://yweb.com/7qh 1 week ago

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In English terms, this blog loves this country, and it just wishes its politicians would somehow always remember that Britain is where our modern, free world truly began. Not Brussels. (Actually, to be more precise, just south of Brussels, where Wellington had thumped a certain well-known continental who was also in favor of "European union".)

In political U.S. terms, this blog is disgruntled Democrat turned Republican, slightly right of what is now deemed "center" -- but admits still to possessing moments of weakness for the rapidly vanishing Democratic party that helped win WWII and the Cold War. (Then again, finding oneself "right of center" is not difficult nowadays, given that according to what one sees of much U.S. political discourse, even a Castro -- and Hillary Clinton -- are apparently now rather rightist, and merely attending church weekly gets one labelled "Ker-ris-chan". Eeeeyou! Not one of those!)

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Expatyank@aol.com.

This writer sure as heck doesn't know everything -- unlike the BBC's Jeremy Bowen, who obviously does -- so disagreement is expected. For up to 90 days after a post, comments may be offered. (After that, well, that's that. Blogs are also about timeliness, remember. If one has to draw a line somewhere, 3 months sounds reasonable.)

Thus well-expressed alternative views and interpretations are more than welcome, for that's how we all learn more in this life. Which means that vulgar and/or obscene comments will probably be deleted. So please phrase all abuse politely, and if in doubt refrain from any colorful metaphors and get thee to a thesaurus.

If you have never commented before, please note there may be a delay of however long before your comment appears. It is merely being held for first-time approval.

Afterwards, assuming you follow the modest guidelines above, your comments appear immediately.

This writer recalls having felt much the same, at the Hertz desk at Catania airport …

'...For the first time in my life, I felt comfort, the firmness of identity that a name might provide, how it could carry an entire history in other people's memories, so that they might nod and say knowingly, "Oh, you are so and so's son." No one here in Kenya would ask how to spell my name, or mangle it with an unfamiliar tongue. My name belonged and so I belonged, drawn into a web of relationships, alliances and grudges that I did not yet understand...'

President Barack H. Obama, "Dreams From My Father."

[Also, there was that time the Wife strode into a London meeting hosted by a group of Italian businessmen, who, having seen her name on the list, but not having seen her previously, were taken aback by the height and red hair, when she walked in.

That troubling identity crisis at last resolved to the world's satisfaction, yours truly can now obviously be president also.]

There’s little more tiresome abroad, than those too full of themselves

"But we love the Old Travelers. We love to hear them prate and drivel and lie. We can tell them the moment we see them. They always throw out a few feelers; they never cast themselves adrift till they have sounded every individual and know that he has not traveled. Then they open their throttle valves, and how they do brag, and sneer, and swell, and soar, and blaspheme the sacred name of Truth! Their central idea, their grand aim, is to subjugate you, keep you down, make you feel insignificant and humble in the blaze of their cosmopolitan glory! They will not let you know anything. They sneer at your most inoffensive suggestions; they laugh unfeelingly at your treasured dreams of foreign lands; they brand the statements of your traveled aunts and uncles as the stupidest absurdities; they deride your most trusted authors and demolish the fair images they have set up for your willing worship with the pitiless ferocity of the fanatic iconoclast! But still I love the Old Travelers. I love them for their witless platitudes, for their supernatural ability to bore, for their delightful asinine vanity, for their luxuriant fertility of imagination, for their startling, their brilliant, their overwhelming mendacity!"

Mark Twain, in "The Innocents Abroad."

Theodore Roosevelt’s Nine Reasons a Man Should Go To Church

1 In this actual world, a churchless community, a community where men have abandoned and scoffed at or ignored their religious needs, is a community on the rapid down grade.

2 Church work and church attendance mean the cultivation of the habit of feeling responsibility for others.

3 There are enough holidays for most of us. Sundays differ from other holidays in the fact that there are fifty-two of them every year. Therefore, on Sundays go to church.

4 Yes, I know all the excuses. I know that one can worship the Creator in a grove of trees, or by a running brook, or in a man's own house as well as in church. But I also know, as a matter of cold fact, that the average man does not thus worship.

5 He may not hear a good sermon at church. He will hear a sermon by a good man who, whith his wife, is engaged all of the week in making hard lives a little easier.

6 He will listen to and take part in reading some beautiful passages from the Bible. And if he is not familiar with the Bible he has suffered a loss.

7 He will take part in the singing of some good hymns.

8 He will meet and nod or speak to good, quiet neighbors. He will come away feeling a little more charitable toward all the world, even toward those excessively foolish young men who regard churchgoing as a soft performance.

9 I advocate a man's joining in church work for the sake of showing his faith by his works.

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Expat Yank: One American living in the south of England

Sometimes, You Just Can’t Win

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