Leninism is Marxism operationalised. Stalinism is Leninism with an intense cult of personality added. Hereditary Stalinism, which is what North Korea (or the Kim Family Regime as US military forces call it) has, must be one of the strangest political manifestations of our time. It is even stranger given that many analysts count its official ( Read more... )

Vaclav Havel's life is one of the truly inspiring stories of our time. A dissident: a dissenter when such dissent took genuine courage and involved genuine privation, a founder of Charter 77 who ended up the democratically elected President of his country. In a 2008 piece, Bruce Bawer considered his career as a dissident and the example it provides ( Read more... )

While his death was expected, I was saddened to read of the death of Christopher Hitchens. His premier media "home", Vanity Fair, has an obituary.

Most of the bloggers on my bloglist have posted on his death.

Metamagician's post popping up on my bloglist was how I first learnt of his passing. Richard Fernandez (who knew him slightly) thinks of ( Read more... )

Betty Ford dies at 93.

Remembering Geraldine Ferraro.

About how American politics is affected by hopes of a transformational landslide election.

Printing a pamphlet including Lincoln’s Gettysburg address, carefully leaving out two words.

About the power of extra information and position to affect the actions of the powerful ( Read more... )

Filipinos have made "Cory" Aquino's funeral a great public eventSince the events in Eastern Europe in 1989, we have become used to the idea of mass demonstrations leading to the peaceful (or near-peaceful) outbreak of democracy. That "democratic revolution" does not have to be a sad oxymoron. But, after the assassination of her husband Sen. "Ninoy ( Read more... )

I originally met Steve through his long-term (21 years, 1985-2006) partner Karl. I met Karl through the SCA. The SCA was never Steve's thing, though he did accompany Karl to the odd event.

Karl and I shared an SCA household for a while, House Ganymede, along with damned_colonial, thorfinn, raven_, Ben C and others. It broke up in extremely acrimonious circumstances which were ( Read more... )

Rafe Champion's wife Kilmeny has died. I had never met her or Rafe, but Rafe and I have emailed each other in recent years and he has commented on this LJ. He had mentioned that he was nursing her and that she had stopped responding to the chemotherapy. This is very sad news and somehow still a bit of a shock.

Helen Suzman, for many years the only Opposition member of the South African Parliament, has died. An appreciation.

I heard her speak once, at Mietta's in Melbourne and have a copy of her autobiography signed by her, which she was promoting at the time ( Read more... )

I was a little late getting to Dennis Pryor's funeral on Friday at Hollibones Funeral Parlour, in that the celebrant was already talking when I slipped in. I stood at the back until I spotted a seat next to David Greagg and slipped in there ( Read more... )

I knew of Max Teichmann (seen here at his Monash Uni retirement party) long before I met him. I remember his commentaries on ABC radio when I was a teenager. I do not remember agreeing with them much, but I do remember the rich voice, somewhat sarcastic and knowing wit and wide-ranging subject matter and references ( Read more... )