Excerpts

"If television has ­produced anything worse than the talkshow in its long history of lousy ­formats and hateful ideas, I'd like to know what it is. As a format, the talkshow actively works to purge everything it touches of sincerity or spontaneity, life or human joy. The tone of engagement is one of mirthless bonhomie, a ­pantomimed five-minute friendship designed to fool neither guest, nor host, nor audience into imagining that the host has the slightest interest in what the guest is saying, or the guest the faintest interest in the questions.

It's often pointed out, with either ruefulness or weird pride, that the US talkshow doesn't work in Britain. The last attempt to do a wholesale Letterman – with house band and all – was Channel 5's The Jack Docherty Show, and it died a death. I'm not sure even Jack Docherty remembers it very well.

But it's not as if we've been short of awful chatshows of our own. Think of Terry Wogan in the 1980s, bringing his beige guests on to his beige set, twitching his trousers up over his knees as he sat down and prepared to be avuncular. Or Gloria Hunniford, her face an oasis of orange in a desert of pastels. And Parky, a man who never asked a question that ended in a question mark when he could simply cue up a tinned anecdote with a statement: "You worked with Burton in the 60s. And you drank with him, too. Heh heh. Interesting times." Or think of Jonathan Ross, the current king of the format, with his guests looking politely pained as he asks them about what they get up to in bed.

Ross is a talented broadcaster, Wogan a brilliant raconteur, and I'm sure Parky is very nice in person. ­(Actually, I'm not sure Parky is very nice in person but let that slide; I bet Gloria is lovely.) Chatshows still blow – and if the media landscape in which the chatshow was king is vanishing, that's to the best. If this puts paid to a world in which hardcore punks Hüsker Dü can find themselves being ­interviewed by Joan Rivers, we can all die that little bit happier."

--Sam Leith , guardian.co.uk
 

"America will never be destroyed from the outside.

If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves. "

-- Abraham Lincoln

Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece?

Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.

[Gilbert: "There is one difference. In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."]

Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.

Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, to interviewer Gustave Gilbert during Easter recess of the Nürremberg trials, 18 April 1946.

The Holy Now

There were no formerly heroic times, and there was no formerly pure generation. There is no one here but us chickens, and so it has always been: a people busy and powerful, knowledgeable, ambivalent, important, fearful and self-aware; a people who scheme, promote, deceive and conquer; who pray for their loved ones, and long to flee misery and skip death. It is a weakening and discoloring idea that rustic people knew God personally once upon a time -- or even knew selflessness or courage or literature -- but that it is too late for us. In fact, the absolute is available to everyone in every age. There never was a more holy age than ours, and never a less.

There is no less holiness at this time -- as you are reading this -- than there was the day the Red Sea parted, or that day in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, as Ezekiel was a captive by the river Chebar, when the heavens opened and he saw visions of God. There is no whit less enlightenment under the tree by your street than there was under the Buddha's bo tree. There is no whit less might in heaven or on earth than there was the day Jesus said "Maid, arise" to the centurion's daughter, or the day Peter walked on water, or the night Mohammed flew to heaven on a horse. In any instant the sacred may wipe you with its finger. In any instant the bush may flare, your feet may rise, or you may see a bunch of souls in a tree. In any instant you may avail yourself of the power to love your enemies; to accept failure, slander, or the grief of loss; or to endure torture.

Purity's time is always now. Purity is no social phenomenon, a cultural thing whose time we have missed, whose generations are dead, so we can only buy Shaker furniture. "Each and every day the Divine Voice issues from Sinai," says the Talmud. Of eternal fulfillment, Tillich said, "If it is not seen in the present, it cannot be seen at all."

--Annie Dillard, For the Time Being

- Osho

"...It's a messy movie, often intentionally, often not. And it shows off Keira as we've never seen her: raw, dirty, bad. Fifteen minutes into the movie, she strips down to her underwear and administers a sweaty lap dance to a room full of Latino gang members, played convincingly by a roomful of actual Latino gang members. Other elements of the scene - Keira's ass for example - are less authentic.

'You have to decide for yourself what you're comfortable with', she says. 'I'm OK with topless, but I won't show my bottom. I used a double. Tony brought in three girls for me to chose from. Before they came into the office, I'm like, How do I act? I decided to be very businesslike. It was hard not to laugh, but I didn't want to offend anyone. Anyway, they all had very nice bottoms, and I chose one. Then a few weeks ago, I hear about this girl in Vegas claiming to be Keira Knightly's body double. It wasn't her. She wasn't the girl in the movie.'

It's almost cliché by now: You haven't really made it until you've got a low-rent stripper masquerading as your ass double..."

--David Katz

THEN: "Let's start with one simple fact: Iraq is a black box that has been sealed shut since Saddam came to dominate Iraqi politics in the late 1960's. Therefore, one needs to have a great deal of humility when it comes to predicting what sorts of bats and demons may fly out if the U.S. and its allies remove the lid. Think of it this way: If and when we take the lid off Iraq, we will find an envelope inside. It will tell us what we have won, and it will say one of two things. It could say, 'Congratulations! You've just won the Arab Germany - a country with enormous human talent, enormous natural resources, but with an evil dictator, whom you've just removed.' Or the envelope could say, 'You've just won the Arab Yugoslavia - an artificial country congenitally divided among Kurds, Shiites, Sunnis, Nasserites, leftists, and a host of tribes and clans that can only be held together with a Saddam-like iron fist. Congratulations, you're the new Saddam.'

In the first scenario, Iraq is the way it is today because Saddam is the way he is. In the second scenario, Saddam is the way he is because Iraq is what it is. Those are two very different problems. And we will know which we've won only when we take off the lid. The conservatives and neocons, who have been pounding the table for war, should be a lot more humble about this question, because they don't know either."

  - Thomas Friedman in The New York Times, January 26, 2003

IN HINDSIGHT: "To me, the real intelligence failure was how broken Iraqi society was. It was so much more decimated than the CIA were telling the U.S. government. Those guys had memories of an Iraq of the fifties and sixties, not the Iraq that had been battered by eight years of Iran-Iraq war, Gulf War I, ten years of sanctions, and then an invasion. I knew this was going to be hard. Believe me, it didn't take any genius to know that. You just needed to have a basic acquaintance with the Middle East and the history of Iraq to know that.

And that's always been my issue with the Bush administration. My issue is not that this isn't important. No, I think it is important. It's important and hard, and they thought that it was important and easy."

- Thomas Friedman in  Esquire, December 13, 2005

Happiness cannot be found through great effort and willpower, but is already present, in open relaxation and letting go.

Don't strain yourself; there is nothing to do nor undo.

Whatever momentarily arises in the body mind has no real importance at all, has little reality whatsoever.

Why identify with, and become attached to it, passing judgment upon it and ourselves.

Far better to simply let the entire game happen on its own, springing up and falling back like waves-without changing or manipulating anything-and notice how everything vanishes and reappears, magically, again and again, time without end.

Only our searching for happiness prevents us from seeing it.

It's like a vivid rainbow which you pursue without ever catching, or a dog chasing its own tail.

Although peace and happiness do not exist as an actual thing or place, it is always available and accompanies you every instant.

Don't believe in the reality of good and bad experiences; they are like today's ephemeral weather, like rainbows in the sky.

Wanting to grasp the ungraspable, you exhaust yourself in vain.

As soon as you open and relax this tight fist of grasping, infinite space is there-open, inviting and comfortable.

Make use of this spaciousness, this freedom and natural ease.

Don't search any further.

Don't go into the tangled jungle looking for the great awakened elephant who is already resting quietly at home in front of your own hearth.

Nothing to do or undo,

Nothing to force,

Nothing to want,

And nothing missing-

Emaho! Marvelous!

Everything happens by itself.

--Ven. Lama Gendun Rinpoche

Karam Tarchine Lundroup Buddist Monastery

Biollet, France

There then followed the most extraordinary evening in which, each time we hankered for food or additional refreshment or just the sound of an Australian voice, we had to go off and stand by the kitchen doors until we caught someone emerging. Some of the other few diners were doing likewise. During one foray I asked a man with an empty beer glass if he dined here often.

"Wife likes the view," he explained, and we looked across the room to a plump little woman who gave us a small but cheery wave.

"Service is a bit slow, don't you think?

Bloody hopeless," he agreed.

In the morning a new man was behind the front desk. "And how did you enjoy your stay, sir?" he asked smoothly. "It was singularly execrable," I replied. "Oh, excellent," he purred, taking my card.

"In fact, I would go so far as to say that the principal value of a stay in this establishment is that it is bound to make all subsequent service-related experiences seem, in comparison, refreshing."

He made a deeply appreciative expression as if to say, "Praise indeed," and presented my bill for signature. "Well, we hope you'll come again."

"I would sooner have bowel surgery in the woods with a stick."

His expression wavered, then held there for a long moment. "Excellent," he said again, but without a great show of conviction.

--Bill Bryson, "In a Sunburned Country"
 

Down the Yangtze the awful prediction has been fulfilled. You expect this river trip to be an experience of the past — and it is. But it is also a glimpse of the future. In a hundred years or so, under a cold uncolonized moon, what we call the civilized world will all look like China, muddy and senile and old-fangled: no trees, no birds, and shortages of fuel and metal and meat; but plenty of pushcarts, cobblestones, ditch-diggers, and wooden inventions. Nine hundred million farmers splashing through puddles and the rest of the population growing weak and blind working the crashing looms in black factories. Forget rocket-ships, super-technology, moving sidewalks and all the rubbishy hope in science fiction. No one will ever go to Mars and live. A religion has evolved from the belief that we have a future in outer space; but it is a half-baked religion — it is a little like Mormonism or the Cargo Cult. Our future is this mildly poisoned earth and its smoky air. We are in for hunger and hard work, the highest stage of poverty — no starvation, but crudeness everywhere, clumsy art, simple language, bad books, brutal laws, plain vegetables, and clothes of one colour. It will be damp and dull, like this. It will be monochrome and crowded — how could it be different? There will be no star wars or galactic empires and no more money to waste on the loony nationalism in space programmes. Our grandchildren will probably live in a version of China. On the dark brown banks of the Yangtze the future has already arrived.

--Paul Theroux, from "Sailing Through China", 1983

--Dave Barry

A favorite anecdote of yours explaining why you love or hate New York:

Outsiders think New York is an intimidating, always-make-sure-to-check-your-pockets type of a town. Yet my forgetful husband has now left his cell phone in the back seat of a taxicab on five separate occasions and each time some thoughtful New Yorker has found it, taken the time to track my husband down, and returned his phone. In fact, my husband left me for the fifth guy who found his phone and now lives down in Chelsea.

(That last sentence isn’t true, but it could be, and that’s why I love New York!)

--Gillian Zoe Segal

"I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend... if you have one."
--George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill

"Cannot possibly attend first night; will attend second, if there is one."
--Winston Churchill's response to George Bernard Shaw

"Winston, if you were my husband, I would poison your coffee!"
--Lady Astor to Winston Churchill at a dinner party

"Madam, if I were your husband, I would drink it!"
--Winston Churchill's response to Lady Astor

from the novel  How To Be Good:

At the beginning of my third week in Janet's flat, I come home to find Tom watching TV with a new friend. The new friend is a little fat child with a boil near his nose and a boy-band fringe that only serves to accentuate, or perhaps even poke fun at, his almost startling unattractiveness. "You know the kind of faces I'm usually found on?" the fringe seems to be saying. "Well, have a look at this one!" Tom's friends don't look like this. They look handsome and cool. Cool is very important to Tom; fat and boils (and fluffy brown-and-white sweaters) are usually of even less interest to him than they are to anyone else.

"Hello," I say brightly. "Who's this?"

The new friend looks at me, and then looks around the room, head wobbling, to try to locate the stranger in our midst. Heartbreakingly, given his other disadvantages, he doesn't appear to be very bright; even after having ascertained that there is no one else with us, he declines to answer my question presumably on the assumption that he would get it wrong.

"Christopher," mumbles Tom.

"Hello, Christopher."

"Hello."

"Are you staying for tea?"

He stares at me again. Nope. He's not going to risk getting caught out on that one.

--Nick Hornby

Alcohol is often called a “social lubricant,” which I always took to mean that it was friendlier than other lubricants — like that party-pooper, motor oil. But “social lubricant” apparently refers to the fact that alcohol eases conversation by removing your fear of saying something idiotic, or, if you have no such fear, by dulling the fight-or-flight reflex of acquaintances who otherwise would be nimble enough not to get stuck talking with you.

The quotations below bear that definition out. Every single one of them is something I actually heard said by someone holding a drink at a holiday party. Or maybe misheard because of all the drunken holiday babbling. Or, O.K., maybe they’re things I might have heard if I ever got invited to any holiday parties, which I don’t because of my habit of following people around with a notepad waiting for them to utter something stupid.

“I don’t believe we’ve met. Oh, really? Right next door? Ten years?”

“We’re not really budgeted for a vacation this year, what with the exchange rate and my gambling addiction.”

“I have to apologize for not reading your new book yet. It’s just that the last one was so awful.”

“That’s a great outfit! It really shows off your breasts.”

“I’m lucky in that my business is recession-proof. People will always need stool softeners.”

“So I told human resources flat out, it’s not sexual harassment if I can prove I’m impotent.”

“I haven’t seen you in forever! Whatever happened to that morals charge?”

“I could be further up the ladder, but I won’t play their corporate games. Men’s Room, Women’s Room — too many rules.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you have the air of a much more successful person?”

“Sometimes accidental electrocution can be a blessing in disguise, but try telling that to the other mothers in the playgroup.”

“Did anyone see a prescription bottle with a label reading ‘Do Not Take With Alcohol,’ and if so, were there any pills in it, and if not, do you know where the nearest emergency room is?”

“You know, in this light you don’t look cross-eyed at all.”

“Einstein didn’t talk until he was three either, but it sounds like your kid’s just stupid.”

“Did you have some work done? Because, you know, too little too late.”

“I don’t usually drink this much, but you’re insufferable.”

“I had pants on when I came in, right?”

--Glenn Eichler.

1421 - The Year the Chinese Discovered America

"On the issue of how could a European cartographer construct a map and a globe showing the Pacific Ocean years before the first known European saw it, there is a very interesting book that came out in 2002. The book is called 1421, subtitled The Year the Chinese Discovered America, by Gavin Menzies, a retired Royal Navy submarine captain. His thesis is that in 1421 the Ming Emperor Zhu Di sent out a large fleet commanded by eunuch admirals and charged with sailing and charting the entire globe. The part of this story that is well known is that a fleet sailed to the East coast of Africa, returning with among other things a giraffe. But Menzies's claim is that off the coast of Africa the fleet divided into smaller, but still large fleets that separately explored and charted: 1) the southern Indian Ocean and southern and western Australia, 2) a fleet that entered the South Atlantic and sailed up the west coast of Africa before dividing again into groups that explored and charted, 3) the north coast of South America, the Caribbean (where it was hit by a hurricane off the Bahamas), Florida, the eastern seaboard, sailing all the way up to and circumnavigating Greenland, and finally sailing the seas north of Siberia, and down through the Bering Strait, and 4) the east coast of South America and Patagonia, then through the straits of Magellan to the west coast of South America, where the fleet divided again, one part going 5) north along the west coast of the Americas at least up to and into San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento delta, and 6) another group heading west across the south Pacific all the way to eastern Australia. Further, while the fleets suffered extensive losses through storms and shipwrecks, at least one ship from each fleet made it back to China, where things then got very strange.

"Just after the fleets had departed China Beijing was hit by a strong electrical storm, and the Temple of Heaven was struck by lightning. There were many casualties in the resulting fire, including the Emperor's favorite concubine. But more significantly, the Confucian Mandarins, who had opposed Zhu Di's efforts to expand China's tribute system so widely, used this event to overmaster the now aged and demoralized emperor by claiming that Heaven was showing its displeasure at his actions, so that, when the fleets eventually began returning to China they were decommissioned and their logs and all records of their journeys destroyed. All records kept in Beijing were also destroyed, as were the shipyards capable of constructing more fleets. China then turned inward and isolationist.

"However, one or more maps and accounts of the voyages made it to the Ottoman Empire, and into the hands of at least one European who had converted to Islam and met, and possibly sailed for a time with one of the fleets. Eventually some Italians and the Portuguese (first) and later Spanish courts became aware of this information. This prompted Henry the Navigator to launch his voyages of exploration, which put the Portuguese around the Cape of Good Hope and into the Indian Ocean, as well as into the Atlantic. It also prompted the Columbus brothers to seek and get the support of the Spanish crown to sail west, where they knew they would find land.

"Menzies provides a large amount of evidence to support his claim, some "circumstantial", some very tangible (e.g., wrecks of Chinese junks in Australia, Chinese artifacts found in a number of places, Aboriginal rock paintings in Australia of what can only be Chinese coming ashore, the same in Baja California, the presence of Asian domesticated foul in South America when the Europeans arrived, etc. Other odd historical facts that this theory addresses include the fact that Magellan told his crew, who didn't want to keep sailing south, that he KNEW there was a way through to another ocean because he HAD SEEN it on a map! This for the man who supposedly discovered the strait bearing his name. Also, when the Spanish first landed in the Caribbean they reported meeting people who were clearly not Indian, but more obviously Chinese and even Portuguese (probably survivors of wrecks blown off course in storms, or of voyages presumed lost). Columbus could have used this to lend credence to his belief that he had actually got to some islands off the coast of Asia, which he maintained until his death, and for which he has always be castigated. Contrary to popular belief there were also records of horses in the Americas when Spanish arrived. Only the Chinese or earlier Portuguese visitors could have brought these. Some of the Indians the Spanish met apparently knew what horses were, and some of the paintings in Baja and elsewhere show men wearing Chinese style garments riding horses.

"Menzies claims he was greatly aided in his ability to track the fleets' courses due to the construction and handling characteristics of the ships themselves. The vessels were very seaworthy, much larger than anything that existed in Europe or the Middle East, and constructed of teak and mahogany, making them much more durable and resistant to worms and rot than ships constructed of oak or soft woods. However, the vessels could not sail well against the winds or currents. So the routes taken would have had to track with the major ocean currents and prevailing winds.

"If Menzies is correct, this is truly a case of truth being stranger than fiction. How different history would have been if China had not disowned and abandoned these discoveries for internal political and religious reasons. Its naval capabilities, wealth and general level of technological sophistication at the time far exceeded anything in Europe. The world was truly China's oyster had it wanted to take it."

Here are some URLs on this: www.1421.tv
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=2WQU6TDJPN&isbn=0060537639&itm=1

The first URL is a link to Menzies's Web site. The second URL is a link to the book itself at Barnes and Noble. -Mike Duggan