Reading Alexander Walker’s book ‘Garbo’, a biography of the actress, I was surprised to come across this:
‘The war neither touched her financially not stirred her passionately; her own nature precluded the sort of war-work that the stars got up to. Apart from her desire to assassinate Hitler, already alluded to, she is not on record as making any less bloodthirsty political gestures. It had not always been so. Members of the Lincoln Brigade who had fought against Franco in the Spanish Civil War were surprised, on disbanding, to be entertained to a brunch at Farmers Market, Los Angeles, where an inquisitive Garbo appeared and questioned them about their baptism in the anti-Fascist battle lines. By World War 2, she had lost her curiosity. William Orr made tentative enquiries in 1943 as to whether she would record a message in Swedish, for broadcasting overseas, expressing America’s esteem for her neutral homeland. The request was Government-inspired. No matter: it got nowhere. Garbo’s resistance to being ‘used’, even for the war effort, was inflexible.’ (Page 165)
There may be a typo above, perhaps ‘less’ should read ‘more’? Anyway, I was startled that the elusive Swede had betrayed any political interests.
I occurred to me that perhaps others may have encountered similar curious occurrences, and would share their tales of the unexpected.
I was reading today’s
I was reading today’s Guardian (23-11-13) when I stumbled across Philip Hensher writing about Charles Moore’s book, ‘Margaret Thatcher’, in the Review section ‘Get Stuck In’, page 3. He expresses surprise at the number of adoring gay men who surrounded her.
It reminded me of when I was in a bed-sit in Chiswick. Returning from work one evening I surprised the landlord, who was sneaking out of a bed-sit along the corridor from mine. This was rented by a gay bloke, who worked in the costume department at the opera house in Covent Garden and never returned till very late at night. Anyway, I determined to shop our slimy landlord to him, as I’d no idea what this b**tard was up to (he was the same creep who thought I’d a porno stash, which I mentioned previously on a Solidarity thread).
The following Saturday I spotted him waiting at our local tube station and told him what I’d seen - adding my opinion on landlords in general. He was glad I’d put him in the picture though after two minutes it was clear he was a rabid conservative who was only slumming it until he’d enough jack to shoot the crow. Talk about gob smacked! The gays I’d met in Glasgow had all been on the left - my small world shaping my provincial prejudices. Why shouldn’t there be as many political reactionaries in the gay community as in the straight?
Really worth a listen from
Really worth a listen from BBC World service available for 26 days:
The 'Menstruation' Man
The 'Menstruation' Man - how an Indian inventor of low-cost sanitary pads tested his idea.
EDIT:
The original link is unfortunately non-operational, having time lapsed. The report is worth looking out for as stuff is sometimes recycled.
It is the story of a fellow who had the guts to stick to his principles and invent a sanitary towel, which working class women could afford to buy. His own family were embarrassed as it was considered beneath the dignity of a man to take an interest in such matters.
I had to kill some time last
I had to kill some time last Saturday so browsed inside a second-hand book shop. After a bit I went back to a shelf, to a slim volume entitled ‘Some Men Are Brothers’ (1960) by D.J. Enright. I’ve now learned he was/is fairly well known, though I’d never heard of him.
I read several of his poems thinking this is old stuff and yet new in insight (to me). Several pieces are outstanding, this is an example though in the light of recent news its meaning has changed.
No Offence
In no country
Are the disposal services more efficient.
Standardised dustbins
Fit precisely into the mouths of a large cylinder
Slung on a six-wheeled chassis.
Even the dustbin lid is raised mechanically
At the very last moment.
You could dispose of a corpse like this
Without giving the least offence.
In no country
Are the public lavatories more immaculately kept.
As neat as new pins, smelling of pine forests,
With a roar like distant Wagner
Your sins are washed away.
In no country
Do the ambulances arrive more promptly.
You are lying on the stretcher
Before the police, the driver, the bystanders and the neighbouring shopkeepers
Have finished lecturing you.
In no country
Are the burial facilities more foolproof.
A few pfennigs a week, according to age.
Will procure you a very decent funeral.
You merely sign on the dotted line
And keep your payments regular.
In no country
Are the disposal services more efficient
- I reflect-
As I am sorted out, dressed down, lined up,
Shepherded through the door,
Marshalled across the smooth-faced asphalt,
And fed into the mouth of a large cylinder
Labelled ‘Lufthansa’.
Last night I listened to the
Last night I listened to the World Service ‘Assignment: Canada’s Red River Murders’ programme.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/search?q=red%20river%20murders
…More women and girls from Canada's Aboriginal population go missing or are murdered than any other section of society. Joanna Jolly reports from the banks of the Red River which runs through the city…
I found the report very disturbing.
I’d recommend a few minutes of your life to catch it, particularly if you habitually use the c**t word. Racism and sexism in our language is so endemic we are often blind to it. I understood the word ‘squaw’ was derogatory though never knew its meaning or origin.
Auld-bod You may be
Auld-bod
You may be interested in listening to CBC radio on the subject. There's roughly 1,200 murdered or missing indigenous women in Canada and there's programming underway attempting to put stories to their names -
http://www.cbc.ca/radio_template_2012/audiopop.html?autoPlay=true&clipIds=2663173799
And some further background-
http://www.cbc.ca/news/aboriginal/topic/Tag/Missing%20and%20Murdered%20Indigenous%20Women
Thanks Fleur. It is good that
Thanks Fleur.
It is good that there is some media interest helping to expose this nauseating behaviour.
Quote: Thanks Fleur. It is
Unfortunately, it doesn't mean that anything is getting done about it. It's rather the opposite. As Harper would say: "No need to commit sociology".
Heard this last night, then
Heard this last night, then found it hard to get to sleep.
Denmark’s Inuit Experiment
The children who were taken from their homes in Greenland for a social experiment.
"My mum said, 'No,' to them twice. But they kept pushing her and said we think you should send Helene to Denmark, it's only for six months.”
…The children from Greenland already speak Danish quite well but when joy or anger makes them agitated, a flood of Greenlandic words suddenly gushes out and the sounds of gobbledegook are heard throughout the house…
“Throughout my life, I could never understand why I was often sad and prone to tears. When I first met my husband Ove in 1967, he almost gave up on me because I cried so much," she says.
It wasn't until 1996, when she was 52 years old, that she discovered why she had been taken away from her mother.’
‘Far from serving as a model for cultural change in Greenland, the children ended up as a small, rootless and marginalised group on the periphery of their own society. Several of them became alcoholics and died young.’
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02st6pw
Excellent World Service radio broadcast, 9mins.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-33060450
Short video 4mins.
same arguments, different
same arguments, different year...
http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=6842
We get lied to so often that
We get lied to so often that usually we don’t notice. One example is when bad stuff happens in the world and the ‘broken or failed state’ theory is trotted out by our politicians to explain the necessity of law and order.
This is an extract from a page length piece by Rory Stewart on re-reading Philip Gourevitch’s study of the Rwandan genocide, ‘We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families’.
‘Knowing that he was writing in the throes of contested history, Gourevitch was careful to conclude his book with the dates his reporting began and his writing ended: May 1995- April 1998.
His account holds up, however, and his central arguments remain very powerful. His basic portrait of Rwanda – as a place not naturally split but instead unified through one language, one religion, one territory – is compelling. So too is his conclusion: that there were many contributing factors – resentments from the colonial period, massacres in the 1960s, a civil war/invasion – but none of them led inevitably to genocide. The genocide was an entirely gratuitous crime, planned by the Hutu government, and executed through the channels of the state. Rwanda was often presented as a “failed state”. But in fact, “the genocide was the product of order, authoritarianism, decades of modern political theorising and indoctrination, and one of the most meticulously administered states in history”.’ (Guardian, 21st March 2015)
Worth remembering when next the media presents us with the bland ‘failed state’ explanation.
Two snippets you may not have
Two snippets you may not have come across.
Last night on the BBC World Service it was claimed that the sales of e-books/devices had peaked in 2011. Since then ‘dead tree’ book sales had started to pick up. I don’t know what this could signify, if anything.
Trying to clear out my reading backlog, I found a review by Richard Davenport-Hines of ‘Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania’ by Erik Larson.
‘…Larson speculates that the Admiralty wasn’t more active in protecting the Lusitania as outraging American opinion against Germany would help to draw the US into the European war – but he holds back from making a direct accusation of deliberate endangerment. Perhaps the most astonishing part of this breezy book is the letter that Admiral Lord Fisher, first sea lord at the Admiralty at the time of the incident, sent in 1916 to Admiral von Tirpitz, Germany’s foremost advocate of unrestricted submarine warfare. “Dear old Tirps,” he wrote. “You’re the one German sailor who understands War! Kill your enemy without being killed yourself. I don’t blame you for the submarine business. I’d have done the same myself, only our idiots in England wouldn’t believe it when I told ’em.” He signed off the letter, “Yours till Hell freezes, Fisher.”
Another exceptional image comes from a U-boat commander watching through his periscope the result of torpedoing a ship transporting horses. In the eerie silence that envelops a submerged vessel, the commander witnessed the ship in flames, an overloaded lifeboat rowing away and a panic-stricken dapple-grey horse jumping overboard, landing on the lifeboat and kicking its occupants to death...’ (Guardian 09/05/15)
Nothing to keep Lord Fisher and old Tirps awake.
Was not sure where to post
Was not sure where to post this information.
The World Service occasionally is a mine of information
'What's Killing White American Women?'
The rich world has got used to health and longevity getting better, and death rates falling – for everyone. But over the past few years data has been accumulating which suggests that this trend has stopped for poorly educated, white Americans. And for one group in particular - middle-aged women – death rates are going up. It’s a shocking finding, meaning many will die at a younger age than their mothers. What’s happening? Certainly, life is tough for many low-income American families. “What the data look like,” says the economist Paul Krugman, “is a society gripped by despair, with a surge of unhealthy behaviours and an epidemic of drugs.” Is he right? Are the conditions of working class life in America killing white women?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03sxmyn
I was talking with some
I was talking with some relatively elderly political folk recently and many of the fears addressed in this program were raised by them in discussion. Well worth a listen, and I’d be interested in people’s opinions.
‘Why does a parent’s awe over their child’s ability with technology turn so quickly to fear? Aleks Krotoski explores the anxieties at the heart of modern parenting and tech.’
The Digital Human
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b079nfz6
Was looking for the story of
Was looking for the story of the British 'heroes' who drowned a fifteen year old lad (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37380673), and ran across this:
'The man stuffed and displayed like a wild animal'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-37344210
Taking on Nepal’s Sex
Taking on Nepal’s Sex Traffickers.
The first fifteen minutes of the program is excellent. Anuradha Koirala’s views on ‘human rights’ tells it straight (08:50-11:30).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04ckntr
The 1948 French Miner’s
The 1948 French Miner’s Strike
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04h15gl
The link dies in 29 days.
Nice, cheers
Nice, cheers