Latest Reading

Madness and Democracy, The Modern Psychiatric Universe by Marcel Gauchet and Gladys Swain, translated by Catherine Porter from the French. This is a profound book that explains how, in the modern secularDemocracy, the self is cut away from its relationship to others in the community and how eventually Democracies sink into a sort of statism where the government becomes a god.

Latest Reading

Boswell's Presumptuous Task, The Making of The Life of Dr. Johnson, by Adam Sisman, Farrar, Scraus, and Giroux, New York, 2000. This just isn't the kind of book that grabbed my attention. I suppose if I had read some of Dr. Johnson's works first rather than just his quotes I would have been more interested. One thing that was very clear, though, was that you have to be careful if you have any literary minded friends, if you are famous. Your most intimate conversations may be recorded for all the world to read. This is the reason Boswell became a pariah. Although his biography of Johnson was one of the great works of English literature, his lack of character in revealing trusted confidences was looked upon as an act of bad faith.

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Memorable quotes

Eartha Kitt, African-American entertainer, on Rhodesia.

"In Rhodesia you have mixed audiences, and if a black man has money he can go anywhere he wants to go."

Another memorable quote from a book I am reading

I was really impressed with this quote by Lt. Col. Ron Reid Daly as told to Peter Stiff in the book, "Selous Scouts Top Secret War", as he began his time of forming the scouts from the native Rhodesian African Rifles and former terrorists who had renounced communism, found on page 91...

"What impressed me most was the immensely close sense of comradeship which was evident between the Europeans and the Africans. There was no racial discrimination whatsoever...the atmosphere was one of an easy, almost casual mutual respect and there was no doubt that they all trusted and had a high regard for each other, and that this cut right through racial lines.
I determined then and there that this was how the Selous Scouts must continue to be ...where men were men and neither race nor colour made a jot of difference."

Memorable Quote from a book I'm reading.

From the out of print book which cost me $80 to get a copy of entitled "Selous Scouts Top Secret War" by Lt. Col. Ron Reid Daly as told to Peter Stiff.
Page 84, paragraph 2

"Certainly, I can categorically say now, I have nothing but the utmost admiration for the African soldier, and this includes many of the so-called tame* terrorists I later commanded, who proved to be fine soldiers indeed, and I shall always count myself as fortunate, and I am certainly proud, to have commanded them."

*These were former communist guerrillas who chose to join the Rhodesian Army to fight their former comrades. They had every opportunity to escape and were always armed and could have killed their black and white Rhodesian comrades but that only happened ONE time.