Pelshval

Category: ENGLISH

  • Overwhelmed and overpowered

    The “West”, meaning the USA and their coterie of client states are currently engaged in two wars, in Ukraine and in the Middle EAst. Most of us who live in US client states in Europe were knocked out of our political lethargy when we learnt that Europe was at war again “for the first time…

  • The brave 12

    In the USA, 12 brave men and women have resigned their posts as United States government officials in protest over the part the USA is playing in the war against Palestine in general and the population of Gaza in particular. On 2 July, they issued and signed a JOINT STATEMENT explaining why they did so.…

  • Literature – letter to a king

    I am currently reading The Years, Virginia Woolf’s last novel, published in 1937. Actually, I bought the book accidentally, in French, mistaking it for Ernaud’s Les Années. Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway and To the Lighthouse happen to be among the very few books I have read twice. Having dutifully read some 20 % of The…

  • The hero and the villain

    Team Biden eventually considered it expedient to offer Assange a filthy plea deal. Do I thank them? Certainly not, though like everyone else, I’m relieved that the barbaric mistreatment of Assange has come to an end. So are, I suspect, Biden’s few remaining supporters. Please note that even Associated Press (AP) comments the public’s distrust…

  • I missed the jokes

    I am not and never have been in thrall to US entertainment, so I never heard the late comedian George Carlin. To be honest, I might not have appreciated him back then (he died at the age of 71 in 2008) because I was not partial to foul language. Now, of course, thanks to rap,…

  • Palestine

    Quoting Aljazeera 19 June: “Israel is ready for an “all-out war” in Lebanon and has plans approved for an offensive targeting Hezbollah, officials have said.” How about “talking” to Hezbolla? How about “talking” to Hamas? How about actually listening? While Israel and the USA kill and maim and starve people right, left and centre in…

  • Is it or isn’t it?

    What is “democracy”? I’ve been asking the question ever since I was a kid. Just as I asked what is “good art”? Is it at all possible to arrive at a universally acceptable definition of “art”? Let alone “good” art? Art historians and critics maintain it is. I suspect that in any case, there is…

  • The inscrutable ways of the brain

    Climate and ecology activists, e.g. in Extinction Rebellion, are often bitterly accused of moralising. The rest of us, all who do not follow their rigorous precepts, are made to feel we are an abomination to the planet. I am certainly not innocent in this context. Although far from being an activist, I tend to consider…

  • May 17

    This year, waking up on 17 May brought to mind a Cat Stevens song: Morning has broken, like the first morningBlackbird has spoken like the first bird I had to look up the text, and saw then, that it is essentially a hymn of gratitude. No matter. The song is beautiful, and the sunlit morning…

  • Nineteen eighty-four revisited

    It was one of those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it ran. The atmosphere in the novel’s first chapters is oppressive. Every one of the protagonist’s moves, every breath, is recorded by “telescreens”. The protagonist knows he will…