What permits a democracy to survive? The Italian case

Beppe Grillo and Antonio Di Pietro

There are many ways to look at the main political issues—such as for instance the freedom of the press, which is very timely, both here in Italy and in the U.S.—as much as there are many ways to look at the social, economic and cultural ones, but only a few of them are compatible with democracy. Apart from the obvious need, for a democracy, of the dialectic confrontation between two or more political alliances, parties and individuals, that is, in other words, apart from the rules of the game itself, politics, as well as an open newspaper, should be a place of tolerance and reason where a frank exchange of ideas is directed at building up, not tearing down.

“Genuine debate—wrote the new editor of the Corriere della Sera newspaper in his first editorial—brings forth the best policies; insincere or incomplete debate only the most superficially viable policies, those that are apparently the least costly. In short, claques and spin doctors won’t get you very far.” And he has remained faithful to his principles since then, to the point that the Corriere della Sera recently got into a major verbal fight with the left-wing la Repubblica newspaper, whose antiberlusconian excesses—along with the cries of the European Left and the UK-based part of the international media group News Corporation, controlled by Rupert Murdoch—have become legend.

A couple of days ago, the Corriere published an editorial by Angelo Panebianco—one of the most prominent Italian scholars of political science—headlined “L’estremista, il settario e il pluralista” (“The extremist, the sectarian and the pluralist”), which is part of that war of words and ideas. Well, what I first thought when I finished reading it was that this article needed to be written. My second thought was, “This piece needs to be translated from Italian to English.” So, since I had not the time to “accomplish the mission,” I emailed Mirino and asked him whether he was willing to undertake the task. His answer was “Yes” (thank you so much, my friend!), and below is the result. I highly recommend a thorough reading of this article, which will help non-Italian readers gain a better understanding of what Italian politics are all about and what they are missing by not being allowed to get accurate information about Italy from their habitual sources of political news.

The extremist, the sectarian and the pluralist
(Corriere della Sera, October 19, 2009)

We live in a phase similar to others in our meandering history of political battles. We are immersed in a virtual civil war. We are, even with our faults, a democracy, yet a considerable amount of thinkers from other countries, provoked by our demagogues, need to explain to us that we are subject to a dictatorship. We have completely open public debate, yet there are others who say that the freedom of the press is threatened. Some even speak of Italy as though it were Iran or Burma. We have free and regular elections but a large proportion of electors of the defeated alliance don’t recognize the legitimacy of the government in office (but certain electors of the actual majority did the same thing when the opposition was governing).


These are suitable moments to return to “fundamentals:” What permits a democracy to survive? With what virtues or qualities must democratic citizenship be endowed with? Democracy is a moderate regime. To be guided it always needs moderate forces of government, of right or left wing, and that the extremist components are kept at bay. But for this to happen it’s necessary that between the citizens prevail certain attitudes rather than others. In all democracies the majority of citizens have insufficient, sporadic, or no interest whatsoever in politics. It is always a minority, perhaps consistent but even so, still a minority, that follow political events with continuity. The prevailing attitudes of this minority dictate the tone and quality of the democracy.


There are three types of humans that meet more frequently in such a minority : the extremists, the sectarians and the pluralists. I list them in the order corresponding with the least to the most compatible with democracy. The real extremists as I refer to here are (fortunately) few, even though they are noisy, and often dangerous. Their presence depends on certain characteristics of politics, on the fact that politics, more than any other human activity, lends itself to be where one can unload one’s personal frustrations. For the extremists, politics represent a huge rubbish dump on which is thrown the worst part of themselves. Extremists are those who hate. They hate themselves in fact but they transform this self-hate into a “political enemy.” Given the competitive and conflictual nature of politics, they are ideal for this operation. The unfortunate youth who, on Facebook, wonders why Berlusconi hasn’t yet been shot in the head, is victim of the climate created by extremists (Incidentally, such an incident could be to his fortune : If he’s not stupid he will reflect and understand that a man is such only if he thinks with his head, he is otherwise commanded or influenced by the dominant climate of his environment).


Then there is the sectarian. With the exception of the extremist, the sectarian, as intended here, is not a psychiatric case. But the sectarian is terrified of opinions that differ from his or her own. Through means of communication the sectarian looks for confirmation of his or her own prejudices, rather than information or debates of ideas. The sectarian is reassured by the idea that exists, in matters of politics, the one and only, clear and incontestable “truth,” and that he or she, being honest and intelligent knows this. For the sectarian, those who don’t want to accept this established truth, are dishonest or stupid.


The sectarian fears the stress that would be created by acknowledging that the world is indeed complex and ambiguous, and needs to count on an image of certainties: good on one side, evil on the other. A great economist, Joseph Schumpeter, said that often excellent people, proficient in their work, are capable of speaking with competence and maturity about their professional problems, but regress to infancy when they start to talk politics: Good, Evil, fairies and ogres, sheriffs with white hats and bandits with black hats. Sectarians, often being anything but stupid, live with the suffering of their own contradiction: the internal coexistence of the horror of opinions that differ from theirs, and the acknowledgement of the necessity of pluralism of opinions in democracy.


Finally there is the pluralist. The pluralist accepts the fact that the world is complex, and thus there is not, based on contingent facts of politics, a permanently acquired Truth. The pluralist accepts the daily problem of (tediously) facing opinions and reflecting on facts in order to succeed in grasping that tiny, precarious “truth.” Without abdicating from his or her own deeper convictions, the pluralist can listen to diverse opinions without fear and thinks that one can be enriched by good and elegantly presented arguments.


The more the pluralist type prevails in the minority interested in politics, the more solid and sure is democracy. It’s not an issue of left or right, or actually of being berlusconian or antiberlusconian. There are sectarians and pluralists of every tendency. For example, the difference between a sectarian antiberlusconian and a pluralist antiberlusconian is that for the former, Berlusconi is the enemy whilst for the latter, he is simply the opponent.


There is then the question of the egg and the hen. There are phases in which, within the minority following politics, the pluralists find themselves in difficulty and seem to almost succumb from the overbearingness of the sectarians (always followed by an embarrassing long queue of extremists). It’s difficult to establish if, in these moments, the sectarians prevail because of being incited by the cries of the shrewd demagogues, or if, on the contrary, the shrewd demagogues have succeeded because of the existence of a large patrol of sectarians.
Angelo Panebianco *

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* Angelo Panebianco is Professor of International Relations at the University of Bologna. He also teaches Political Theory at S. Raffaele University of Milan and writes commentary for the Corriere della Sera. Among his most important publications, Political parties : organization and power, Cambridge, [England] ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1988.

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P.S. Ooops, I forgot to say that the picture above shows Beppe Grillo and Antonio Di Pietro. How do they come into it? Well, er ... can't you guess?

Against the great march of mental destruction

In the last few weeks I happened to quote a couple of thoughts of G.K. Chesterton, who is perhaps one of the most unjustly neglected writers of the 20th century—although his “common sense for the world’s uncommon nonsense” seems “more timely than ever here in the 21st century,” as the American Chesterton Society fairly puts it. In fact, it would be hard to deny that he was a prophet of the cultural disintegration of our times. “Vulgarity,” for instance, was the term he used to describe the abyss into which society was about to fall and the (ultimate?) result of “standardization at a lower standard.” Sounds familiar? Or the great march of mental destruction because of which “everything will be denied,” even that “leaves are green in summer” and “two and two make four” (ask Deconstructionalists, Postmodernists, etc. for further details about this and other brilliant “intellectual achievements”).

But, as Hölderlin’s famous verse goes, “Where peril grows, there also grows what saves.” And that’s why I will keep on quoting G.K. Chesterton & perusing the American Chesterton Society website and its weblog. And I suggest you to do the same, for your own edification. Have a good read!

Swords will be drawn

“ Truths turn into dogmas the instant that they are disputed. Thus every man who utters a doubt defines a religion. And the scepticism of our time does not really destroy the beliefs, rather it creates them; gives them their limits and their plain and defiant shape.

We who are Liberals once held Liberalism lightly as a truism. Now it has been disputed, and we hold it fiercely as a faith. We who believe in patriotism once thought patriotism to be reasonable, and thought little more about it. Now we know it to be unreasonable, and know it to be right. We who are Christians never knew the great philosophic common sense which inheres in that mystery until the anti-Christian writers pointed it out to us.

The great march of mental destruction will go on. Everything will be denied. Everything will become a creed. It is a reasonable position to deny the stones in the street; it will be a religious dogma to assert them. It is a rational thesis that we are all in a dream; it will be a mystical sanity to say that we are all awake.

Fires will be kindled to testify that two and two make four. Swords will be drawn to prove that leaves are green in summer. We shall be left defending, not only the incredible virtues and sanities of human life, but something more incredible still, this huge impossible universe which stares us in the face. We shall fight for visible prodigies as if they were invisible. We shall look on the impossible grass and the skies with a strange courage. We shall be of those who have seen and yet have believed. ”

~ Gilbert Keith Chesterton, Heretics, 1905

The Health Care Battle - Free Choice or Submission to the State?

~ “LETTERS FROM AMERICA” - by The Metaphysical Peregrine ~

Obama and Congress are making yet another push to force Americans onto Nationalized Health Care. This past week the Senate passed the Baucus bill. All Democrats and one Republican voted for it. The Republican, Olympia Snowe, is a RINO (Republican In Name Only) that votes most of the time with the Democrats. From that and the House bill, there will be a reconciliation bill that is supposed to be the bill that will finalize ultimate control of the people to the State.

Obama and the Dems are intent on getting control of health care in this country, because it would effectively place everyone in the country under the thumb of the State. What can’t be connected to health care and legislated to control behavior? What you eat, what you wear, the car you drive, how you raise your kids, what doctor you go to…everything is related to health care. The Statists have gained control of a huge chunk of the automotive industry, the banking and investment industry, education, and insurance industry. Of this last, they will be able to control completely with the enforcement of ObamaCare.

Over half of the American people want no part of ObamaCare, yet the Statists persist. All during August a huge movement and protests rose up against it. The result was if you’re against it you’re a racist and a whole bunch of other nasty and vile names. Right now in America, if you oppose anything Obama wants, you’re a racist; because you’re too stupid to understand policy, so that can be the only explanation.

The Statists are saying they can insure 47 million more people, cut costs, make it more affordable, eliminate waste and fraud, and provide even better health care. The waste and fraud part is especially a hoot; if that can be done, why hasn’t it already done so with existing government programs? If illegal aliens are taken out of the mix plus people that don’t want health insurance by choice, the number of people is closer to 12 million. They can address those specifically, but won’t because the intent is not helping people, but controlling them. What government program ever cost less over time and increased efficiency?

Not to bore anyone, but the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office says this is going to be a huge unfunded mandate that will cost close to a trillion dollars. (In an ‘oops’ moment on the floor of the Senate, Senate Majority leader Harry Reid let slip that the cost would be closer to two trillion.) Only raised taxes, higher national debt and denied care can even begin to address that much cost. "The CBO provides 10- year projections of a bill's cost. But most provisions of the health bill don't take effect until 2014. So the '10-year' cost projection only includes six years of the bill. Plus, the costs ramp up slowly. In its first year, the House bill would only cost about $6 billion; in its first three, less than $100 billion. The big costs are in the final years of the 10-year budget window -- and beyond. In fact, over the first 10 years that the House bill would be in existence (2014 to 2024), its costs would be closer to $2.4 trillion." --Cato Institute
Investor's Business Daily: "The study (PricewaterhouseCoopers) estimates that the average family-coverage cost of about $12,300 [per year] could reach $17,200 in 2013 if these provisions were implemented, $21,300 in 2016 and $25,900 in 2019. Meanwhile, average single coverage -- $4,600 today -- could reach nearly $10,000 in 2019." (This is an additional cost to about a $4,000 per year increase in energy bills to families if “Cap and Trade" legislation gets passed.)

None of the ObamaCare bills (there are 4 or 5), House or Senate, have been printed. No one has read them. The Democrats can pass this legislation without one Republican voting for it, and have vowed to do so, even though most of Americans are against it. The Dems in Congress and Obama said all bills will be posted for a week before voting. No fiscal bill that has run us trillions more in debt were posted, but were voted on before printed; now they are doing the same with ObamaCare. Statists know better what’s good for you than you do. Welcome to Amerika.

Political Correctness Run Amuck in American Football

~ “LETTERS FROM AMERICA” - by The Metaphysical Peregrine ~

It’s frequently said that baseball is America’s pastime. That may have been true once, but the sport we truly have a passion for is football. One would like to be able to have a seat on weekends to watch, and during the week discuss the strategies and people of the teams, and get away from politics and political correctness. This week, Conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh was under attack by the Left because he wanted to become a minor owner in the St Louis Rams. Limbaugh has the largest radio talk show in the nation, a nation currently overseen by Statists. If you’re not a Statist here, you are by definition a racist, bigot, homophobe. So much for sport for the sake of sport.

Limbaugh has been on the air for twenty one years, and has been vilified since day two. Without script he talks on air for fifteen hours a week; quite a skill. When it was announced that he was to be an investor in the Rams (which was supposed to be confidential and was leaked), the anti-diversity crowed started crowing. {Leftists promote diversity only if you belong to a group that supports them. Conservatives and Christians don’t count.} He was accused by racists and extortionists Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, CNN commentator Rick Sanchez, MSNBC News Analyst Chris Matthews and some ESPN sports commentators and a whole host of other leftist liars of making specific racist comments. What they were doing was blocking Limbaugh’s investment because he was a racist (because he’s a Conservative), and were primarily using two quotes attributed to him. Those were: "I mean, let's face it, we didn't have slavery in this country for over 100 years because it was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: Slavery built the South. I'm not saying we should bring it back; I'm just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark." and "You know who deserves a posthumous Medal of Honor? James Earl Ray. We miss you, James. Godspeed." (Ray assassinated Martin Luther King.)

These Leftist Liars ran into a huge problem. Limbaugh never said them. Everything he’s said for twenty one years is recorded, and no one can come up with the quotes. A few of these liars have retracted their charges; none have apologized for the slander and defamation. Limbaugh does have legal wheels in motion, and it wasn’t until he said he did that any retractions were offered. No apologies needed from their point of view though. If you’re a Republican or Conservative in this country, you are by definition a racist. For the race hustlers like Jackson and Sharpton, if you’re white you’re a racist by definition.

Several Conservative commentators, Limbaugh among them, said the election of Barack Obama to the Presidency of the United States would only heighten racial tensions, not lower them. So it has become. If one questions, let alone opposes, the fascist policies of Obama, of his hiring of communist “czars” to implement those policies, then you are a racist. If you are labeled so by the administration, his political party, or his lap dog supporters in the Main Stream Media, then you can’t even invest or spend your own money the way you want. Limbaugh was fired from the investment group. This is America?

Rainbow alphabet doggerel (Y,Z)

Y is for Yesterday

'Another year gone,'
The old yak yawned
As he combed his shaggy hair

He was not as young
As he used to be,
But he still had his hairy flair

He still had his horns
And enough teeth left
To chew the yellow hay

And as long as a yak
Has his memories,
He's as young as yesterday.

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Z is for Zebra,

The zany, zoophobic zebra
Played a zither with great zeal.
He wore a striped, zippered zephyr
Much too tight for him I feel.

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Text © Mirino (PW) images © Juliette, Madison & Mathias. October, 2009
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W and X

A and B

Tony Blair for president!

I haven’t ever been an euro-enthusiast, and this not because of any prejudice against the thing-in-itself, but rather because of the ways and means of bringing about European political integration. Yet, among doubts and uncertainties, there is one thing I am certain about: Tony Blair is the perfect candidate for the role of president of the European Council as set in the Lisbon Treaty (the EU president is expected to chair EU summits, take on some of the functions of the current presidency of the Council of the European Union and represent the EU on common foreign and security policy).

The former UK prime minister (from 1997-2007) and leader of the Labour Party (from 1994-2007), is currently a Middle East peace envoy. He has the high-level experience of EU politics necessary for the new job. As the Italian daily newspaper Il Foglio—which is mounting a campaign in support of Blair—puts it, he is “a politician of great cultural leadership, of innovative mind and with the strength to lead important ideal and moral struggles,” the man who “has revitalized the international left and has become a model for the more moderate right.”

Yet, the prospect of Tony Blair becoming the first President of Europe dimmed a little last night after President Sarkozy, once one of his chief supporters, acknowledged that he faced strong opposition because of Britain’s Eurosceptic status. “Personally I believe in a Europe that is politically strong and embodied by a person. But the fact that Great Britain is not in the single currency remains a problem,” he told Le Figaro.

The candidacy of Blair is supported by eastern and southern Europe—with Italy at the top of the list—but opposed by the Netherlands and Belgium, and above all by the European Left in general for his support of the war in Iraq and his free market capitalism approach.

Not the best context.. Let me cross my fingers and hope for the best.

The new tyranny

Among its main contributors, L'Osservatore Romano, the newspaper of the Holy See, has a famous convert. He is the Spanish and former non-believer writer Juan Manuel de Prada, whose latest book collects the combative articles that he has been writing in recent years in defense of Catholicism and against the subtle and pervasive deception—the “progressive Matrix,” in Prada’s own words—which is at work in the mainstream European culture.

Entitled La nueva tiranía. El sentido común frente al Mátrix progre, the book went through five edition in just five months. Last October 2, L'Osservatore Romano translated and reprinted (on paper) the preface to his book, and now Sandro Magister has had the excellent idea of republishing it on his website. Undoubtedly a must read, in my view.

Here is an excerpt :

“How can one talk about a ‘new tyranny’ when never before have men enjoyed so much freedom and so many rights?” It’s a question the reader unfamiliar with the subject might well ask. The classical tyrannies, in effect, were characterized by the fact that they stifled freedom and denied rights. Men were aware of this usurpation because, deprived of something that belonged to them by nature, they felt diminished.

The new tyranny of which we are speaking, instead, exalts man to the point of adoration, giving him the opportunity to turn his interests and desires into freedoms and rights, which however are no longer inherent in him by nature, but become the “gracious concessions” of a power that legally ratifies them. And so, turned into a child who contemplates his own whims as these are maximized and satisfied, the man of our time is more than ever the hostage of the assertions of power that guarantee him the enjoyment of all-encompassing liberty and constantly expanding rights. In the classical tyrannies, the subject at least still had the consolation of knowing that he was oppressed by a power that was violating his nature; but those who are subjected to this new tyranny have no consolation other than the protection of the same power that has lifted them up to the altar of adoration. And so without even realizing it man has become a tool in the hands of those who tend to him with painstaking care, as ants tend to aphids before feeding on them.

In exchange for these “gracious concessions,” man accepts a hegemonic view of the world that is imposed on him and turns him into an object of social engineering. Let’s call this hegemonic view the "progressive Matrix": a mirage, a grand illusion or trompe-l’oeil that is accepted with a gregarious spirit. Those who dare to question the trompe-l’oeil are immediately the target of anathemas, they are considered reprobates or blasphemers, enemies of the worship of man. The progressive Matrix used by the left has also been assimilated by the right, which has declined to join the battle where the confrontation with the adversary would be dynamic and exciting: on the level of principles. In its capitulation, the right limits itself to introducing insignificant variations on the working of the grand machine, but does not dare to use its gears. It’s like plowing without oxen.

The progressive Matrix has thus become a sort of Messianic faith; it has instituted a new order, it has imposed unassailable cultural principles, it has established a new anthropology that, while promising ultimate liberation to man, holds nothing for him but future suicide. And standing against this new order is only the religious order, which restores to man his true nature and offers him a correct view of the world that undermines the foundations of the trompe-l’oeil on which the new tyranny is based, dispelling its falsehoods. A vision that power makes a great effort in combating, since the religious order is the only bulwark to be destroyed before its triumph is complete.

But that was not Obama's fault

“Let’s face it: this prize is premature to the point of ridiculousness” (Joe Klein, Time Magazine). Well, perhaps there would be little or nothing to add to this synthetic definition of the Nobel Committee’s decision to award President Obama the Nobel Peace Prize. Yet, I feel like saying more, and this for the simple reason that it seems to me that it would be unfair to be too negative towards Obama. After all, paraphrasing the subtitle of today’s Washington Post editorial, if he won the prize, that was not his fault.. Which is (obviously) not the case of the Committee itself—and to think that I didn’t suspect there could be, in all of the Western countries, anything stranger and/or more tedious than Italian politics: now, thanks to our Norwegian committeemen, I see that there’s no limit to what we can achieve. May God help us.

Italy’s top court rejects Prime minister’s immunity

Some weeks ago, a State legal service memorandum stated that if the Constitutional Court would throw out the so-called Lodo Alfano, namely, the law passed a few weeks after Berlusconi took power last year to block legal action against the four highest offices of State, then “there would be damage to elective functions, which could not be exercised with due dedication, and resignation from office could even ensue. […] There would in any case be damage, most of it irreparable.”

Well, a few minutes ago the 15-member panel of Italy’s top court ruled that the law was unconstitutional—because, besides having been passed by parliament as a normal law rather than a constitutional reform, it violated the constitutional guarantee of equality before the law—thus paving the way for two corruption trials to resume against Prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.

A spokesman for the Prime minister, Paolo Bonaiuti, called the court’s decision “politically motivated.” And perhaps he is right. At the moment, it’s difficult to foresee what the future holds in store. Let’s just recall that, while Berlusconi’s battles with the law have marked his public life since he burst onto the political scene in the mid-1990s, and although some initial judgments have gone against him, he has never been definitively convicted. What this may mean, it’s up to you, folks, to guess. Please, be nasty-minded and without blinkers, and you’ll have a chance to hit the mark..

Obama's paradox

It was Nathaniel Hawthorne who said that grand schemes have perverse effects: “We miss the good we sought, and do the good we little cared for.” And it is thanks to the current President of the United States, according to Rich Lowry, the editor of National Review, that the theory proves true. In fact, even though for Obama, proving that the US is a center-right country presumably isn’t a “good” at all, “he’s done it with a finality that the late sociologist Seymour Lipset—a student of America’s cussedly right-leaning attitudes—might envy.” Thus, he has turned out to be “the Right’s best community organizer.” Here is how the ‘miracle’ (or ‘heterogenesis of the ends’, if you prefer) happened:

In nine months, he has breathed life into the Republican party, boosted pro-lifers, tarnished the reputation of regulation, bolstered traditional values, increased the public’s desire for immigration restriction, and shifted independent voters rightward.
[…]
Obama’s liberal grandiosity has reminded people why they tend to be conservative, something they wanted to forget during the last four years of the Bush administration. Gallup’s surveys in recent months are a long catalog of the Obama snap-back.

Without a doubt, it’s Rich Lowry at his best. [Thanks: Andrea]

Power and Grace

“Power and Grace – The Patron Saints of Europe” (October 8 through January 10, 2010, at Rome’s Palazzo Venezia), as Italian Foreign minister Franco Frattini pointed out at the exhibition preview, offers an opportunity to “re-advance the theme of the Old Continent’s Christian roots,” which is made all the more topical by “the persistence of the Union’s crisis of identity.”

Promoted by the Italian government and the San Floriano Committee of Illegio (a small mountain village of 350 inhabitants in north-eastern Italy which has become a national case because of its magnificent initiatives on this field), this great exhibition will be the first dedicated to the fascinating and complex interplay between the history of Europe and its peoples with the Christian vicissitudes of Western civilization, namely, to the saga of the encounter and the conflict between power and religion, civitas and ecclesia, crowns and halos.

More than one hundred and twenty works—coming from the most prestigious museums of Europe—by artists such as Van Eyck, Memling, Mantegna, Del Sarto, van Dyck, Tiziano, Veronese, El Greco, Guercino, Caravaggio, Murillo and Tiepolo will be on display.

The basic focus of the exhibition are the biographies, in their iconographic version, of the patron saints of the different European states and the six saints who are the guardians of Europe itself: Benedict, Cyril and Methodius, Catherine of Siena, Bridget of Sweden, and Teresa Benedict of the Cross (Edith Stein). Of course, all is aimed to throw light on the society, politics, religion, and cultural context of the times in which they lived and played their important role. The Christian roots of Europe being the result of this role and of the dynamic interplay of civitas and ecclesia, politics and religion, liturgical and devotional phenomena and social and ethnic phenomena.

A very interesting and unique cultural operation. As Frattini also pointed out, Europe’s Christian roots include “the values of the person and his dignity” from which to “depart in giving Europe back its soul.” Which is not an easy task given the state-of-the-art in this field and our intellectually Christophobic elites, as one leading Catholic neoconservative philosopher, George Weigel, stressed in his excellent The Cube and the Cathedral: Europe, America, and Politics Without God.

It is to be hoped that this initiative will be crowned by success and soon followed by others of the same kind throughout the Western countries.

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First written for The Metaphysical Peregrine

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Rainbow alphabet doggerel (W,X)

W is for Wish

"I grant you three wishes,"
The wizard declared,
"Think wisely and note
That a wish can't be shared."

"I wish for peace for all people,
Their happiness and good health,
Then three more wishes,
Just for myself."

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X is for Xenophobe

Alex was an xenophobe
Who never went abroad.
He was born in Sutton Coal Field
And so was his wife Maud.

Alex had an xylophone
A Xmas gift from Nell.
He never took it anywhere,
Which perhaps was just as well.

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Text © Mirino (PW) images © Mathias & Eddie. October, 2009
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Y and Z

U and V

No time for the Dalai Lama

Who remembers how, on the last January 17th, the Dalai Lama greeted the outgoing President of the U.S., George W Bush? He chose these words: “I love President George W Bush.” Leaving the audience stunned—he was delivering the Madhavrao Scindia Memorial Lecture in New Delhi—the Tibetan spiritual leader recalled how he and the then US President instantly struck a chord in their first meeting. Of course he was well aware that in his most recent visit to Washington, in 2007, George W Bush was the first American president to meet him in public in a ceremony on Capitol Hill.

But times have changed, and much water has flowed under the bridge since then. In fact, now His Holiness the Dalai Lama of Tibet, who is in Washington these days after a long tour through North America, for the first time since 1991 won’t be welcomed by the U.S. President. Why? Because the White House has preferred not to have Barack Obama meet him now in order not to damage relations between China and the U.S. ahead of Obama’s visit to China in November.

Well, this is precisely what is called “realpolitik” in international affairs. And yet, in my humble opinion, at this stage two questions, at least, arise spontaneously: “Is this the America that the Founding Fathers would have wanted?” And “Is this the America that Obama wants?” Or, more pragmatically, along with Frank Wolf, a Republican member of Congress involved in the fight for human rights, we might ask ourselves, “What would a Buddhist monk or Buddhist nun in Drapchi prison think when he heard that President Obama, the president of the United States, is not going to meet with the Dalai Lama?” In China, Wolf added, “It’s against the law to even have a picture of the Dalai Lama. I can almost hear the words of the Chinese guards saying to them that nobody cares about you in the United States.” Of course, this is an exaggeration, but..

Brother Sun, Sister Moon

Just don’t forget what day this is: October 4, St. Francis of Assisi Feast Day..

From Brother Sun, Sister Moon (1972), by Franco Zeffirelli:

“How Would You Introduce Jesus?”

I watched this video today—thanks to my FaceBook friends Kim and Alan—and loved it. It’s absolutely amazing. This is Steve Harvey, a secular comedian, actor and entertainer, addressing a secular audience on the subject of “How Would You Introduce Jesus Christ to a Room Full of People?”

As someone noted, “it’s hard to imagine that this is a comedian and not a preacher, and this is an audience and not a congregation.”

The next time you have opportunity to introduce Our Lord to someone, why not begin with this video?

The Polanski Case, or The Double Standard (Updated)

To prove that nowadays, in America and Europe, we can argue about anything, there is the heated debate over whether to prosecute a man who drugged and raped a 13-year-old girl. Ok, the crime occurred so long ago—more than 30 years ago—and the victim, now a 45-year-old mother of three, has asked authorities to drop charges against the man who sexually abused her.

“But seriously:” as Howard Kurtz put it in yesterday’s Washington Post, “some folks are saying that an adult can do this to a child, flee the country before sentencing and pay no price?” Well, it seems so. They say that the girl was willing and sexually experienced and, what is more, that she has forgiven him. They also say that the rapist has somehow suffered enough because he’s had to live outside the United States, and that he had a tragic childhood and life. But most of all they seem to think that perhaps he should not be punished “because” he is a great artiste. As a matter of fact, directors, actors and intellectuals have been signing a petition demanding Polanski’s immediate release.

What is almost certain is that, if Polanski were not an award-winning film director, we wouldn’t be having this debate. “The Hollywood elite,” Kurtz writes, “wouldn’t give Polanski the plumber the time of day if he had sexually assaulted an underage girl. And that suggests to me a stunning double standard.” Double standard? Fair point. I mean, all considered, it is difficult not to agree with him.

That’s why it’s hard to understand how French Foreign minister Bernard Kouchner—on the same wavelength with his Polish counterpart (they both have written to secretary of State Hillary Clinton about the issue)—could have declared the arrest was “a bit sinister … frankly, (arresting) a man of such talent recognised around the world, recognised in the country where he was arrested — that’s not very nice.” And how Culture minister Frédéric Mitterrand could have said “just as there is a generous America that we like, there’s also an America that scares us, and that’s the America that has just shown us its face.”

Fortunately for France (and Europe), one might argue, the Greens leader Daniel Cohn-Bendit made headlines by bucking the trend and saying he was “ill at ease” with the rush to absolve Polanski and the culture minister should have been more cautious in his comments.

Another “ill at ease” observer is Rev. Thomas J. Reese, a senior fellow at Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University, who posted an item headlined, “Father Polanski Would Go to Jail,” at his Washington Post blog On Faith. Here is what he thinks about the above mentioned arguments against Polanski’s prosecution (and the “double standard”):

Such arguments from pedophile priests would be laughed out of court and lambasted by everyone, and rightly so. It makes no difference that the girl is willing and sexually experienced, it is a crime. It is the role of the court, not the victim, to decide who goes to jail and for how long.
It is not as if Polanski is the only Hollywood celebrity to be accused of child abuse. Woody Allen and Michael Jackson come to mind. I am sure that with a little research the media could come up with quite a list. The Catholic Church has rightly been put under a microscope when 4 percent of its priests were involved in abuse, but what about the film industry?
The world has truly changed. Entertainment is the new religion with sex, violence and money the new Trinity. The directors and stars are worshiped and quickly forgiven for any infraction as long as the PR agent is a skilled as a saintly confessor. Entertainment, not religion, is the new opiate of the people and we don't want our supply disturbed.
Is there a double standard here? You bet

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UPDATE (October 4, 2009, 11:00 am) :

..Just wanted to let my readers know that this is worth reading (how it came that a rape turned out to not to be a rape anymore, etc.).

Ah, Fidel!

Hey, you might think that all powerful men are equal, but then again you realize that some of them are more equal than others..

Rainbow alphabet doggerel (U,V)

U is for Unicorn

I once saw a unicorn
Quite unexpectedly.
It stood upon a mountain side
Under a eucalyptus tree.

Unable to contain myself
I uttered words of joy,
Aware of the enchantment
That I was once more a little boy.

The unicorn looked at me
And seemed to understand.
The dream was unforgettable,
A utopian wonderland.

___



V is for Vision

The vulgar vulture
Was very vain
Until he viewed
His reflection
In a puddle of rain.

"What a vile vision",
He vociferated,
Then vexed by the verity,
Flew off exasperated.

___

Text & image © Mirino (PW) image © Eva. September, 2009
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W and X

S and T

'A Great Good Man'

Irving Kristol, who died one week ago at the age of 89, was undoubtedly one of the most important American political thinkers of the second half of the twentieth century. Yet, for me, as well as for most of my fellow countrymen who have been following American politics for years and happened to follow a similar political path—from liberal to (neo-)conservative, to tell it in a few words—he was far more than that: he was a major point of reference, a guiding star. I have read many of his writings and watched some of his interviews on TV. Of course I have learned a lot from him, and then again, I must say that most of all I have admired his moral and intellectual personality. That’s why, amongst all the tributes paid to him after his death, the one that I love most is this piece by Charles Krauthammer :

The wonder of Irving was that he combined this lack of sentimentality with a genuine generosity of spirit. He was a deeply good man who disdained shows of goodness, deflecting expressions of gratitude or admiration with a disarming charm and an irresistible smile. That's because he possessed what might be called a moral humility. For Irving, doing good -- witness the posthumous flood of grateful e-mails, letters and other testimonies from often young and uncelebrated beneficiaries of that goodness -- was as natural and unremarkable as breathing.
Kristol's biography has been rehearsed in a hundred places. He was one of the great public intellectuals of our time, father of a movement, founder of magazines, nurturer of two generations of thinkers -- seeding our intellectual and political life for well over half a century.
Having had the undeserved good fortune of knowing him during his 21-year sojourn in Washington, I can testify to something lesser known: his extraordinary equanimity. His temperament was marked by a total lack of rancor. Angst, bitterness and anguish were alien to him. That, of course, made him unusual among the fraternity of conservatives because we believe that the world is going to hell in a handbasket. That makes us cranky. But not Irving. Never Irving. He retained steadiness, serenity and grace that expressed themselves in a courtliness couched in a calm quiet humor.