Today is the 70th anniversary of one of the greatest crimes in history: the Molotov/Ribbentrop Pact. These two villains scrawled a line through a map of Europe to show who would grab what, then signed it. Here it is in two legendary cartoons by Herblock and Low:
Guardian writer Jonathan Steele dies, and as such goes straight to Hell. He is greeted warmly by the Devil, who praises his life’s work and offers him a choice of bijou accommodation. Jonathan peers uneasily through three windows. In the first cell is Tito, screaming as he twists impaled on a […]
Mark Steyn on Budd Schulberg: As a 20-year-old Dartmouth student, Schulberg visited the Soviet Union and was shown its artistic glories. He fell in love with the theatre of Vsevolod Meyerhold, Stanislavski’s wayward disciple. Meyerhold loved the older stylized dramatic forms—commedia dell’arte, pantomime—and refused to confine himself to Socialist Realism. […]
Lordy. The BBC on the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact: The pact was signed by German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and his Russian counterpart, Vyacheslav Molotov, in Moscow. It led to the carving-up of Poland between Nazi Germany and the USSR, as well as the annexation by the USSR of eastern Finland, […]
Lots of people are watching this. So you must too. And if you are unfortunate enough to watch the mawkish, trashy British equivalent of this show in the coming weeks, just remember what Talent is really all about – deftness, insight and moral sensibility. Show us, Kseniya Simonova:
Most of the noise generated by Foreign Secretary David Miliband’s observations on a BBC Great Lives radio programme has been linked to his words on terrorism: Asked by presenter Matthew Parris whether there were any circumstances in which terrorism was justified, Mr Miliband said: ‘Yes, there are circumstances in which […]
Here is a shrill squawk from the playpen about ‘high pay’. And here is an adult talking about the same subject. Note the differences. The spoilt naive Kiddies have no concept of risk or responsibility, so they call in some sort of grumpy grandpa from the government to solve their […]
The point being that in the USA each side in the healthcare debate is wailing about astroturfing by the other side: the organised and often funded presence at public meetings of people claiming to be nothing but concerned or interested citizens, but expressing points of view specified in advance by their Organisers. […]
There have been strong reactions in ‘Western’ capitals to the latest punishment handed out to Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma, the key effect of which is to stop her running in the next round of national elections. Malaysia too is dismayed. President Sarkozy and the British government are talking […]
Remember Honduras? Remember witty Ivor, who commented on my earlier postings: This is splendidly comical. On one side, the United Nations, the OAS, the United States government and, apparently, most informed opinion worldwide. Lined up against them, someone who spent 12 months as Honduran Minister of Culture – a political big-hitter, […]
