In winter, I'm a Buddhist,
And in summer, I'm a nudist.
- Joe Gould
"My Religion"
In fact the whole of Japan is a pure invention. There is no such country, there are no such people.
- Oscar Wilde, aware in 1889 that popular conceptions about the country and its people are mostly fiction.
Not even 10% of what Japanese people are thinking is communicated overseas.
- Watanabe Tsuneo of CSIS
All foreign correspondents, whenever they desert statistics for judgments of opinion...become models of self-deception. They may call themselves, with proper gravity, ‘reporters’. But...they are nothing but quack psychiatrists who do not even know that this is the field they practise.
- Alistair Cooke
Where all news comes at second-hand, where all the testimony is uncertain, men cease to respond to truths, and respond simply to opinions. The environment in which they act is not the realities themselves, but the pseudo-environment of reports, rumors, and guesses.
- Walter Lippmann
We want...a revolution - a turning of the wheel, so that the state becomes once again the servant of the people, and not the other way around. We are the progressives now, comrades, (and) you the reactionaries.
- Daniel Hannan
If the textbook says, "It is well known that...", you can be sure that is a very good place to begin a research inquiry.
- Isaiah Bowman, geographer and former president of Johns Hopkins University
The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.
- Cicero (55 BC)
We do not need a censorship of the press. We have a censorship by the press. It is not we who silence the press. It is the press that silences us. It is not a case of the Commonwealth settling how much the editors shall say; it is a case of the editors settling how much the Commonwealth shall know. If we attack the press, we shall be rebelling, not repressing.
- G.K. Chesterton
You can see a lot by looking.
- Yogi Berra
All text copyright 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 by William Sakovich
E-mail:
ampontan
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Roual Deetlefs said
Ampontan.
South Africa never had a friend like China during the days Apartheid. We had friends in Israel and Argentina that’s all. Whatever else one can say, nobody wants to antagonize China. Nor the vassals of China. That and one must not underestimate the undertone of romanticism with communism in the left/liberal media.
Communists will get better media treatment than right-wing fascists. Compare the media treatment of Pinochet of Chile, and Castro of Cuba with one another. Pinochet was more useful to his country than Castro. But Castro is treated with kid gloves. If you don’t believe me, read this :
http://gonzalolira.blogspot.com/2010/08/social-security-and-chilean-afp-system.html#more
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/11/AR2006121101166.html
As for South Africa, I can honestly say that there is some kind of a miracle going on here. The ANC government is not buggering up. And the guiding spirit of Mandela’s reconciliation is still potent. You should watch the movie Invictus to understand. Here is the link …
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invictus_%28film%29
But will this miracle continue ? Already there seems to be a groundswell of populist statism. Here is some more links regarding this. What is fascinating, is that a black journalist wrote two of these articles.
http://www.thedailymaverick.co.za/article/2010-08-30-analysis-where-to-next-south-africa
http://www.thedailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2010-08-30-is-the-beloved-country-really-that-nave
http://www.thedailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2010-08-16-for-democracys-sake-mistrust-the-government
For South Africa to prosper, she must be strong economically. I fear for this country should a prolonged economic downturn hit this country.
Henry Kissinger once remarked about the Middle East :
… there can be no war without Egypt, and no peace without Syria …
Regarding North Korea, can one say : no change without China, and no progress without America ???
Enlighten me …