“I’ve discovered an immediate practical use for a small portion of my emergency supply of Duct Tape. I’ve placed 2 strips at the bottom of my Television screen – covering the lower 6″ or so, blocking out the annoying scroll and other supposedly ‘vital’ information (logo, time, stock quotes, terror alert status, etc…) they cram into that portion of the screen. Being a news/political junkie, my TV is tuned to Fox News, CNN or MSNBC about 90 percent of the time, so it works out well.” – more invaluable advice from readers on the Letters Page. Plus: a glowing BBC miniseries on the Rosenbergs and the pan-Pacific penis festival. No Harvard professors allowed.
THE ABYSSINIA PRECEDENT: A wonderful piece by my old editor, Bill Deedes, on how the Western powers, stymied by – yes! – France, bungled Mussolini’s conquest of Abyssinia. Deedes was alive and kicking as a journalist at the time and remembers it all vividly. Money quote:
The crisis in 1935 came closest to where we are now after October 4, when Mussolini launched his attack on Abyssinia. Britain’s eagerness to set in motion the machinery of the League against Italy ran into immediate difficulties with France. Pierre Laval, the French foreign minister, was unwilling to antagonise Mussolini. The sticking point was the likelihood of action by the League, involving sanctions strong enough to thwart Mussolini, precipitating war. Though never a strong believer in the principle of sanctions, Eden believed that on this occasion they would be effective. He wanted the League to apply sanctions – including oil sanctions – to bring Mussolini to the negotiating table. Without the co-operation of France, this became a farce. When I passed through the Suez Canal in 1935 en route for Abyssinia, Mussolini’s ships were drawing all the oil they wanted. Financial backing for Italy, I was told, came from the Banque de France. When I came back a few months later, the same conditions prevailed.
Appeasing Mussolini and Hitler wasn’t in France’s long-term interests then either. Plus ca change …
POSEUR ALERT: “Quoting passionately from the Irish Poet, W.B Yeats, President Mbeki insisted that NAM must ensure that the ‘centre must hold and position itself in word and deed as the enemies of anarchy.’ The President urged NAM to act to neutralise the deadly impact of the tide hungry for human blood, which seeks to celebrate a victory defined as the prevalence of an ephemereal [sic] peace whose parent is the fear of death. The usage of the word ‘tide’ was quite ephemeral at this Summit in the sense that, a week ago, President Mbeki had shaped his State of the Nation Address on the 14th February 2003 on the theme, the ‘tide has turned.’ The conscious correlation between the State of the Nation Address of President Mbeki on Valentine’s Day and the concluding statement in his opening speech at NAM, calling for NAM to ‘express the message of dialogue, peace and a better life for all human beings,’ was indicative of consistency in both South Africa’s domestic policies and its foreign policy in its quest for a better life for all human beings.” – the metaphors of president Thabo Mbeki.
The Dish 