The Virtual Stoa

Here’s an uncharacteristically patriotic post (and the football match earlier today was a cracker, wasn’t it?). From the BBC, discussing the Lord Mayor’s parade:

Lady Chichester’s Bactrian camel Therese also took part, after undergoing special training to cope with crowds and noise on the parade ground at Tidworth, Wiltshire.

And here she is (Therese, that is; I’m not sure who the other person is; conceivably that’s Lady Chichester, but I doubt it).UPDATE [2 minutes later]: There’s more here, and the official-looking press release for the LM’s S has this:

One of the most unusual participants in this year’s Show is Bactrian camel, Therese. The six-year-old, who lives in Wiltshire with 17 alpacas and Larry the llama, is eagerly looking forward to strutting her stuff on the streets of London – a far cry from her ancestors in Outer Mongolia.She is probably the world’s only camel who is skilled in both dressage and show-jumping – so a brisk walk through the city shouldn’t pose too many problems for Therese. The last camel to appear in the Lord Mayor’s Show was 400 years ago for Elizabeth I and it drew crowds from all over England who had never seen such an animal, but it’s safe to say that Therese will revel in the attention.

OK. That’s enough about Therese the camel. Good to hear that she lives with seventeen alpacas and a llama.

Dolores Ib�rruri, aka La Pasionaria. Born 9 December 1895; died 12 November 1989. �No Pasar�n!

Victor Adler, Austrian social democrat, born 24 June 1852 in Prague; died 11 November 1918 in Vienna.

The silverdollarcircle.

Since 11 September 2001, the world has divided into those who think that Christopher Hitchens is a beacon of moral clarity, sharp thinking and even sharper writing, and those who think he’s lost it completely. I’ve resisted the latter conclusion a bit on the grounds that I think he’s been writing some of his best lit crit over these last few years, however much I’ve disliked his political journalism, which I’ve more or less stopped reading. But some snippets from the last few days which I’ve stumbled across online suggest that, yes, he’s lost it completely.

Item One [via], Item Two, Item Three.

Over here, magnificently. [via]

Don’t forget to add yourself to the Virtual Stoa World-Map, if you haven’t already.

Vita activa:

Vita contemplativa:

UPDATE [7.30pm]: Andromache’s worrying away at the same strip of fur just behind the swivel-chair I’m sitting on to type these words, and purring so loudly that I thought it was my hard-drive on the point of collapse.

Norm reminds us that yesterday was the anniversary of Kristallnacht. Someone pointed out to me the other day just how many key dates in twentieth century German history fell on November 9 (or, as we might say, the European 9/11). Stupidly, I hadn’t noticed this pattern before:

1918: The abdication of the Kaiser and the proclamation of the Republic.

1923: The failure of the Beer Hall Putsch.

1938: Kristallnacht.

1989: The fall of the Berlin Wall.

It’s a remarkable sequence.

A chap called Peter Watt has just emailed me to tell me that he’s the new general secretary of the Labour Party. But rather than tell me who he is or why he has the right experience to be the GS of the LP, he tells me that his mum is very proud of him. So if anyone’s got the slightest idea about who this chap is, please use the Comments.

I may as well get this not-especially-surprising opinion of mine into the open.

Blair’s made it clear that he disagrees with Parliament on what he takes to be an important matter of national security, and he seems to have contempt for the majority in Parliament which voted against his government’s plans. He chose not to seek a compromise with MPs that was there for the taking, which means that he was choosing yesterday to put his personal authority at stake in the crucial vote. In the circumstances, it’s not enough just to wander around muttering about how he hopes MPs don’t “rue the day” they voted the way they did.

There’s no reason to think there isn’t a stable majority in Parliament to stand behind a Labour government that is slightly less hostile to civil liberties than the current executive, slightly less keen on franchising out the public sector to the highest bidder, and slightly less keen to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the Americans on dealings with the rest of the world.

Blair can now quit on a point of principle (and he badly needs a decent exit strategy of his own), and the Labour Party can set about sorting out a new leadership that can run the country in the time remaining between now and the next General Election.

(Oddly enough, Polly Toynbee has published an article on why Blair shouldn’t resign, which offers a number of good reasons as to why he should, and none as to why he shouldn’t, which is peculiar.)

Do any Stoa readers think there’s any merit at all in the “Well, the police have asked for 90 days, and so we should give it to them” argument, which we’ve been hearing on permanent loop over the last few days?

Over here. It’s a good list, and I’m only sorry that Oxford’s Andrew Smith didn’t manage to find a way onto it.

UPDATE: The full voting list is in Hansard. I’m also sorry to see my old undergraduate contemporary Kitty Ussher voting with Mr Blair’s mob, too.

Dead Socialist Watch, #126: Canaan Banana, first President of independent Zimbabwe, born 5 March 1936, died 10 November, 2003.

Leonid Brezhnev, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, born 19 December 1906 in Kamenskoye (now Dneprodzerzhinsk), died 10 November 1982.

It’s very old, and quite well known, but I suppose it’s conceivable that there’s some Virtual Stoa reader out there who’s never read Paul Jennings’s “Report on Resistantialism”. So, if you’re that person, here it is.