E.T. > Recent Status Updates

“They tell me,” Churchill spat, “that competitive examinations are an excellent means of weeding out idiots and imbeciles. It is a monumental pity,” he continued, “that elections don't appear to be so discriminating.”

"Not that he has been awarded the Peace Prize yet, of course. But his Noble Laureate brother had never had a poem dedicated to his honor by the Poet Laureate, John Masefield:

As Priam to Achilles for his son,
So you, into the night, divinely led,
To ask that young men's bodies, not yet dead,
Be given from the battle not begun."

Wrt Neville Chamberlain in 1938. How fortunes changed for him and Churchill a yr later!

“So whose fault was it?”
“The System.”
“What system?”
“Any System. Happens everywhere.
Politicians and rulers who decide, who decree, and who leave ordinary folk like me to pay for their mistakes.
At least one thing about the Russian Revolution, Mr. Burgess, is that when they shot the Tsar at last they got someone to pay for their own”

“Harold Macmillan, the forty-four-year-old Conservative Member for Stockton, drifted in their direction. He was not often popular with his colleagues.
Not only did he have a conscience, he would insist on sharing it.”

“4.Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.

6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state.”
On the plus side, a lot of stress on education and freedom from religious dogma (except for Marxism ironically)

“What else does the history of ideas prove, than that intellectual production changes its character in proportion as material production is changed?”

“You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths.”

“Capital is a collective product, and only by the united action of many members, nay, in the last resort, only by the united action of all members of society, can it be set in motion.

Capital is, therefore, not a personal, it is a social power.”

“The theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.”

“The old order of the shopkeepers, the handcraftsman are conservative and are a part of the “revolution” only to save their skin.”
Its amazing how this book is not considered “hate speech”.

“The proletariat, the lowest stratum of our present society, cannot stir, cannot raise itself up, without the whole superincumbent strata of official society being sprung into the air.”

“Owing to the extensive use of machinery and to division of labor, the work of the proletarians has lost all individual character, and, consequently, all charm for the workman.”
Parallels with rise of AI and also discussion of economic crises.

“Modern bourgeois society with its relations of production, of exchange and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells.”

Reminded of the song
“bourgeoisie, bourgeoisie, who the f is bourgeoisie ?”

“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”

“Sometimes I think we’re alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we’re not,” he said. “In either case the idea is quite staggering.”
- Arthur Clarke (scifi author)

His weakest book so far - both in terms of humour and plot.

The author picked up one passage - just one - from Dr. Ambedkar's Partition and frames it to give the impression that Savarkar was responsible for Partition and thereby absolving Congress which stayed in power throughout.
I hope it was intentional, for if not - he is just a retard.

“Why did they kill him? He was a Muslim! How could they declare him an atheist divorced from his religion?”
Actually, to me, the grieving lady is in the same boat with the killers.
“He was a human being.” Period. Nothing more should be needed.

“The Saudi sponsorship of the Arab Afghans would lead to the rise of al-Qaeda.
The problem with Saudi imperialism, cultural or other, was that they were bad managers. More often than not they lost control over their product—then feigned ignorance or innocence.”

Words like "jahiliyya" and "kaafir" crop up repeatedly.
My 2 cents :- Every society has practised discrimination and has used slurs it is now ashamed of. Except one it seems !

the constitution declared that the Islamic Republic of Iran supported “the just struggles of the oppressed against the oppressors in every corner of the globe.”
Hmmm ! Ever supported non-Muslims oppressed by Muslims anywhere ? Surely, the latter must have erred sometime in 47 years ?

“How did we get here ?”
The author began in 1979 with the Islamic revolution in Iran.
I m surprised that none of the intellectuals outside India/Pakistan have studied the trajectory of India’s partition indepth and with an open mind and full honesty !

I remember reading about his escape from Aurangzeb's house-arrest in Class 3 in school. Such a joy then. Such a joy now ! Also Afzal Khan.
Also, love the साम-दाम-दंड-भेद and शठे शाठ्यं समाचरेत् employed instead of just bravado (something which I felt was the weakness of many our Hindu kings).
Finally, ppl who scorn Savarkar's "petitions" would do well to read about Shivaji and his zeal to put the nation above self.

Couple of observations so far :-
a) Chhatrapati Shivaji was pretty ruthless. Not a bigot, not a tyrant but extremely pragmatic and ruthless. Like the historian Jadunath Sarkar who himself was pretty matter-of-fact, this is without judgement.
b) It was the norm and not the exception for Muslim attackers, even those born in India, to desecrate Hindu temples. Not just loot, but desecrate - smash idols and humiliate.

At some point in life, the world’s beauty becomes enough. You don’t need to photograph, paint, or even remember it.
- Toni Morrison

I never excelled academically, and took some pride in “not fulfilling my potential,” in part because I was terrified that if I tried my hardest, the world would learn I didn’t actually have that much potential.

This book itself is actually this book’s autobiography.
Ppl are chasing the author to stop publication 😬
300 pages more to go. Wish they had succeeded !

Rather than "pseudo-science" passages being the problem, the real problem is that the motive and urgency for the crime dont make sense. So far at least.

Travelogue
(Pseudo) science
Fast-paced thriller
The challenge of separating nonsense from sense.
So far so good 😊
PS:- And helps that i hv a trip booked to Prague later in the year.