We seek no treasure man finds himself equal in the eyes of the law
In 1941, Mr. Harry Hopkins toured Great Britain as the personal representative of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
At a dinner with the Prime Minister, Mr. Hopkins asked, “What”, should he tell the President, “are Britain’s War Aims?”
Winston Churchill replied:
We seek no treasure,
we seek no territorial gain,
we seek only the right of man to be free, we seek his rights to worship his God,
to lead his life in his own way, secure from persecution.
As the humble labourer returns from his work when the day is done,
and sees the smoke curling upwards from his cottage home in the serene evening sky,
we wish him to know that no rat-a-tat-tat [here he rapped on the table] of the secret police upon his door will disturb his leisure or interrupt his rest.
We seek government with the consent of the people,
man’s freedom to say what he will,
and when he thinks himself injured,
to find himself equal in the eyes of the law.
But war aims other than these we have none.
I think we lost a lot of people today at, “we seek no treasure.“
Otherwise …
Well …
As Mr. Churchill, having a British father and American Mother, said when addressing Congress on December 26, 1941 (19 days after Pearl Harbor mind you) … “By the way, I cannot help reflecting that if my father had been American and my mother British instead of the other way around, I might have got here on my own.“
Maybe he would have made his way there … back then.
Mr. Dowling’s list includes, “I live in fear of being scammed, I feel a strange obligation to monitor bad news in real time, It’s given me unfiltered access to the opinions of stupid people and It’s given stupid people unfiltered access to each other’s opinions.
I like “I’m no longer able to have arguments in pubs.”
Mr. Dowling writes, “I can remember a time when it was considered ungentlemanly to check the factual accuracy of a statement made by a drinking companion. You were just meant to counter their argument by presenting specious facts of your own. But when everyone has the GDP of every Brics country at their fingertips, there doesn’t seem to be much point in spirited debate. You end up spending the whole evening looking things up and saying, “Huh.” These days, if you want to get into a petty squabble over obscure facts in an environment where phone use is banned, you have to go to prison. Or do the pub quiz. Either way, it’s no life.”
I remember listening to a call in sports show from New Zealand once and they asked a trivia question and got a caller on the line who was a bit shocked that he got through and spent some time chatting up the two hosts of the show.
Then one of the hosts caught on and says, “Hey, you’re playing for time while you’re doing the Google!”
And Yes, that is when I started referring to using Google with the definite article, The or as the host said, “Doing THE Google.”
(Admit it, it sounds better with a bit of the kiwi/down under upper lift interrogative accent when saying “Doing THE Goggle”).
Back in the day my toughest baseball trivia question was, “What player started a game as a member of one team, was traded in the middle the game to the other team and ended up scoring for the other team?“
This gets interesting as this question cannot be answered using The Google but I didn’t know that until today.
I am saving this story for another day.
In a final twist, I can ask what does the TV show, the Brady Bunch and the the only player in MLB History who started the game as a member of one time, was traded in the middle the game to the other team and ended up scoring for the other team have in common?
But to the point, you could raise these points to make a point and counter points with presenting specious facts of your own.
It was fun.
It was real engagement.
But when everyone has the GDP of every Brics country at their fingertips, there doesn’t seem to be much point in spirited debate.
You can challenge.
You can prove your point.
Or you don’t talk amongst yourselves, you just play the trivia contest that you can access via the QR Code on the coasters.
You can call out your score, but who cares?
Either way, it’s no life.
BTW, I knew Carol Brady’s maiden name because a book on the Brady Bunch came out back in 1990 with a complete cast list for the pilot and each season along with Guest Stars and in the pilot, two actors I cannot remember were listed as … Mr. and Mrs. Tyler (Parents of the Bride) and this factoid was added to the library of useless knowledge that is my brain.
Carol Brady was Caroline Ann “Carol” Brady or Caroline Ann “Carol” Martin née Carol Ann Tyler when see married Mike Brady.
dangerous business no knowing might be swept off to follow your bookmark
I couldn’t help myself.
It was sitting there and it was only a $1.
Sitting there in the Friends of the Bluffton Library shelves of cheap books.
It was an oversize paperbound, what we used to call ‘trade edition’ of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.
I have owned many different editions of Tolkien over the years but circumstances of late have reduced my holdings to just e-editions.
So I bought it.
I doubt it has ever been opened and it is a solid one volume with a strong binding and pretty much it stays open to what ever page I have the book open to, even when laying flat.
So I am off into Middle Earth once more.
Don’t ask my thoughts on the movies as my opinion is the same in that I wish that those folks who made the movies had bothered to read the books.
But I digress.
I will say this about ebooks versus printed books.
I truly do miss following my bookmark as it moves through the pages.
With that, I am off.
As Frodo quoted Bilbo, “It’s a dangerous business, going out of your door,” he used to say. “You step into the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.”
you have been my friend he said, that in itself is a tremendous thing
“Why did you do all this for me?” he asked. “I don’t deserve it. I’ve never done anything for you.”
“You have been my friend,” replied Charlotte. “That in itself is a tremendous thing.
I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what’s a life, anyway? We’re born, we live a little while, we die. A spider’s life can’t help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone’s life can stand a little of that.”
From Charlotte’s Web by Elwyn Brooks White, Harper and Row, New York, 1952.
As Mr. White put it, “No pig ever had truer friends, and he realized that friendship is one of the most satisfying things in the world.”
The next to last line of Charlotte’s Web reads:
It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend.
quizzical sense earth far more fascinating place than allowed it to be
In my reading I often come across a short collection of words by an author and I say to myself. that might work as a haiku if I could connect it with something.
In my adventures, I often come across a scene and take a photo and I say to myself that might work with a haiku if I connect it with something.
We had taken a walk today along what is called Fish Haul beach on the north end of of Hilton Head Island.
This is the location of the one of the first successes the Union Army and Navy had back in 1861 in the Civil War.
You can look out over the waters where Port Royal Sound and the Atlantic Ocean come together and I said to my wife that take away the few cottages you could see, and this is what it looked like back then except there were 40 warships under sail, moving a circle as they fired some 4000 shells at Confederate forts on the Phillips Island to the north and Hilton Head island to the south.
The shelling lasted about 4 hours and all the Confederates ran away.
“And nothing has changed,” I said again.
It was an extremely low tide and we were able to walk further back along the salt marshes behind the beach front.
We came to a pond that we have looked at for years but never from this side before.
There were dead trees and reeds and marsh grass and sea shells.
It was place and a view new to us.
And I thought …
In a few hours, the tide will come and rearrange all this.
Nothing in front of us will stay the same.
This view, what we are seeing, will never been seen in this way again.
And I thought of this passage from True North by Jim Harrison.
“ … [the] quizzical sense that the earth was a far more fascinating place than I had allowed it to be.
I was not inclined at the moment to blame anyone else for the number of ways I had been single minded in the wrong direction.”
I told my wife I wanted to stay at the point until the tide turned and wait as long as possible amd leave just before the tide cut us off.
I wanted to see it.
My wife stared at my and shook her head and walked back the path out of the marsh.
I have this quizzical sense that the earth is a far more fascinating place than I had allow it to be.
I am not inclined at the moment to blame anyone else for the number of ways I had been single minded in the wrong direction.
No Haiku For You 