The ideals which have lighted my way, and time after time have given me
new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and
Truth. -Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (14 Mar 1879-1955)
Hello Mountain Bard! I certainly enjoyed your rugby flat pics, [Lost in automatic translation! I'm using the dictation function on my Mac and it is pretty good, providing me with some unexpected jokes!] Must say that I find that I can hardly believe that I am experiencing so little discomfort after my surgery. Only took extra strength Tylenol yesterday before I left the hospital and then last night when I went to bed. Given the fact that I had such a good sleep with really no pain whatsoever I decided to forgo the Tylenol and so far I feel just fine.
 |
Gamification Sartre Way
Photo:
cea +
|
British wit: Have you seen a more insightful analysis??
Someone asked
"Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?" Nate White, an articulate and witty writer from England, wrote this magnificent
response: "A few things spring to mind. Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem. For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no
compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no
self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace - all qualities, funnily
enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed. So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into
embarrassingly sharp relief.
Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said
anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing - not once, ever. I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever.
And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility - for us,
to lack humour is almost inhuman. But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is
- his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of
cruelty.Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs;
he only crows or jeers. And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults - he actually
thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and
knee-jerk nastiness. There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all
surface. Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront. Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul.
And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes
are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist. Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that. He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat. He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege. And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully. That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a
snivelling sidekick instead. There are unspoken rules to this stuff - the Queensberry rules of basic decency
- and he breaks them all. He punches downwards - which a gentleman should,
would, could never do - and every blow he aims is below the belt. He
particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless - and he kicks them when
they are down.
So the fact that a significant minority - perhaps a third - of Americans look
at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think 'Yeah, he seems like my
kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British
people, given that: * Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are. * You don't need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the
man.
This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss.
This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss.
After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence
or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art
form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are
fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum. God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of
nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so
stupid. He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart. In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from
human flaws - he would make a Trump. And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and
scream in anguish: 'My God… what… have… I… created? If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set.”
AMAZING that your replacement went so well. Perhaps I should seek one in advance of actual need. We return to California tomorrow morning after a week in New York visiting my father. Taste of winter but I know you laugh. Will look at pics and Trump article when we return to the big screen. My motto tonight is "No brandy left behind." Best of luck in rehab. Cactus
AMAZING that your replacement went so well. Perhaps I should seek one in advance of actual need. We return to California tomorrow morning after a week in New York visiting my father. Taste of winter but I know you laugh. Will look at pics and Trump article when we return to the big screen. My motto tonight is "No brandy left behind." Best of luck in rehab. Cactus
No comments:
Post a Comment