Aaro the uninfluential
I think we can all sign up to this campaign. Aaro is, of course, not Jewish, but as an "influencer of Jewish life", surely to fuck he's got to rank above Melanie Phillips, hasn't he? Wot a travesty.
(btw, readers, have we done this one before? sorry if we have. All this Watching kind of blends into a homogeneous mess after a while).
(btw, readers, have we done this one before? sorry if we have. All this Watching kind of blends into a homogeneous mess after a while).
posted by The Rioja Kid at 6/10/2008 01:36:00 PM
8 Comments:
No, we've not done this one. I did a post which mentioned that David T of Harry's Place was one of the 100. So was Ken Livingstone (for being Mayor, so he wouldn't be now). I also proposed that Michael Sophocles, the Apprentice candidate should be in there. He later turned out to be 'half-Jewish', not conversant with the meaning of 'kosher' and the only word of Yiddish or Hebrew he knew was 'schmuck'. So what do I know?
There were an awful lot of rabbis in the 100, which i found rather sad. But I like this post:
Those who followed this malign, non-existent deity were fools. When he visited Palestine in 1921, Einstein was much impressed by the sight of Jews constructing cities and a way of life out of raw dirt and effort. But the sight of traditional Jews praying at the Wailing Wall seemed to him the “dull-witted clansmen of our tribe.” They made such spectacles of themselves, “praying aloud, their faces turned to the wall, their bodies swaying to and fro,” that to Einstein, it was “a pathetic sight of men with a past but without a present.”
on a 'world of decency tip: Marko Atilla Hoare on harry's place: 'I hope McCain will win'... in fact he seems to be sugesting that he'd support whoever the republican nominee was...
But in the comments there it also said Hitchens is backing Obama as the 'least worst'? Can this be true? I thought he'd come out for Mccain?
Hitchens is quoted as saying :-
On reading Barack Obama’s autobiographies:
“I like what one learns about him from reading him, and it’s very seldom you can say that about a politician. I forced myself to watch some of the debates, and I was much more impressed than I thought I was going to be. And I sort of hope he pulls it out.”
inthis magazine:-
http://www.nyrm.org/Features/FeatureWeinstein.html
so a big turnaround for Hitchens - I guess Hitchens feels he personally policed Obama to chase away the sinful pastors, he has become saved.
Oddly, tendence decente, for a group formed around foreign policy rarely agree on foreign affairs:- who is the better US president ? Should Israel drop more,less or no bombs on Lebanon,etc. I guess this is because it is mostly a negative set of ideas (chase away the sinful isalmo lefties) than a postive one> Or perhaps because decency is realy just based on genfuflection to the Republican right, but some bend the knee lower than others. It is a sign of how right wing they are that they even worry about Obama
Ann On
Hmm. The blurb on the back of my copy of 'Dreams from my Father' contains the following endorsement: "A bestseller because of its freshness and honesty", Christopher Hitchens Sunday Times. Hitchens praises Obama's first book to damn his second; Obama's publisher takes very back-handed compliment and runs with it. What larks!
In the 2004 election, columnists on one paper Hitchens wrote for were asked whom they supported. Hitchens, who is not a US citizen and cannot vote, said, IIRC, Kerry, but sarcastically. I think his endorsement of Obama is just as full-blooded. I don't think Hitchens "comes out" for any side; this may be ironclad intellectual honesty or a relic of his Trot days ("we don't support any of the mainstream parties at all, because they are the running dogs of the capitalist system, etc").
Michael White saw Hitchens at Hay. Let me suggest that Hitchens is so sensitive to being smeared by innuendo because innuendo is his principal weapon. (Translation: he is for McCain, but he will not come out and say so.)
"Running dogs" is surely a Maoist term?
didn't hitch make a big deal of applying for US citizenship after 9-11?
i think his kerry endorsement was less sarcastic than inadvertently imposed by the subs: he had written a paragraph so dense with self-regarding irony and literary curlicue that the editors, who as journalists wanted clearly to head each contribution "kerry" or "bush", guessed wrong
(as a sub myself i approve of this tactic, by the way: bad or confused writing should be publicly shamed)
Justin - oh probably.
Belle. Ah he is one now; he wasn't at the time. Yes I remember that his endorsement was (probably intentionally) confused and impossible to decipher with certainty. Part of me thinks the best reply to questions about affiliation is "none of your business" but I think openness trumps that. Andew Marr's political leanings are well known, but he still seems to be an open-minded and fair journalist. Whatever, I do think Hitchens' obscurantism and sarcasm were all wrong.
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