Mensch tracht, und Gott lacht

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Cologne, Rape, and "Purim & My Bangladeshi Friend"


Seth Barrett Tillman, Purim & My Bangladeshi Friend, Gadfly: Culture that Matters, 
[Hereand [Here].


Today is Purim, that is, broadly speaking its Purim. Actually, it is a little complex.


Today is The Little Purim (Purim Katan); the real Purim is in a month. We have two Purims this year because Purim falls in the month of Adar, and this yearin the Jewish calendaris a leap year: a year with two Adars. Purim came about in consequence of the events recorded in Esther, the only book of the Hebrew canon written absent any (express) mention of God. 

I wrote and published this 8-page short story--Purim & My Bangladeshi Friend--a little while back. As I said, today is Purim, and its Purim again in a month. So my short story is, I think, once again, timely, and sadly, once again, all too relevant to life in our shared West, in our shared modernity.

My short story was reviewed (or linked to) on several blogs:

T. Greer, Notes From All Over (3/02/2014): Ghosts, Empire, and Tribal Honor, The Scholar’s Stage (Feb. 3, 2014) (favourable review, but the reviewer gives away a key plot point);






After reading my short story, you might consider—or reconsider—the meaning of the sad events in Cologne (and across Europe) in a new way. You might also consider or reconsider the meaning of the authorities’ immediate, disgraceful response, or to be more accurate, non-response.

Seth

Twitter: https://twitter.com/SethBTillman ( @SethBTillman )

Welcome InstapunditChicago Boyz, American Creation, Howl at Pluto, Right-Side-of-Lowell, and Scholars Stage readers. My co-bloggers have posted a lot of good material here at New Reform Club, so please have a look around. 


My prior post is [here]: Seth Barrett Tillman, “Taney Deserves His Tribute: Responding to George W. Liebmann’s Opinion Editorial in The Baltimore Sun, The New Reform Club (Feb. 21, 2016, 7:21 AM). 

[end]

10 comments:

LFC said...

I've been remiss in checking for comments on my blog lately, so I just saw yours now. (Thanks for leaving it.)

I did not realize until now that your account of that conversation on the train was a short story; I thought it was an account of something that had actually happened. (Not, I suppose, that it matters a lot, but just thought I'd mention it.) I also started to say something about the events in Cologne but I've changed my mind, because I don't know all the details, just bits and pieces I heard on the news a while back.

I might also say, just for clarity's sake, that my political views (and, to some extent, interests) are quite different from Lexington Green's and from T. Greer's. While I admire T. Greer's knowledge of various subjects, esp. Chinese history, we have different outlooks on things. (I think we also don't read each other's blogs very often these days.)

LFC said...

P.s. This has nothing to do with the post, but don't you New Reform Club people know that G.B. Shaw was a Fabian socialist, not a 'classical liberal' (i.e. a conservative)? He's probably twirling in his grave to find himself being lumped into this company. Sorry to be blunt, but I really don't understand why you're claiming him as one of your 'patron saints'. It's true that in old age he developed some weird political ideas and flirted with forms of authoritarianism and other unsavory and misguided ideas, but I don't think that happened till quite late in his life. And anyway late-phase GBS is really no more a classical liberal than the Fabian was.

Tom Van Dyke said...


Blogger LFC said...
P.s. This has nothing to do with the post, but don't you New Reform Club people know that G.B. Shaw was a Fabian socialist, not a 'classical liberal' (i.e. a conservative)?


Yes, we know, and neither was HG Wells---thx for reading attentively. We are referencing the good old days when the left was actually capable of polite disagreement. The photo of GBS, Belloc and Chesterton commemorates this occasion:

https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog/chesterton-shaw-and-belloc-wrangle-again

http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/debate.txt

Shaw and Wells were just the sort of intellectual adventurers of fair argument and good cheer to whom our doors open wide.

"A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul."
---George Bernard Shaw

LFC said...

@Tom Van Dyke
Thank you for the reply (and the links). I focused on Shaw b/c I know quite a bit more about him than Wells, though I'm well aware that Wells was also not a classical liberal.

btw, I think some on the left are indeed "capable of polite disagreement" (as you might agree [though I'm not sure] based on a couple of our previous encounters in another corner of the blogosphere).

LFC said...

p.s. I shd have said still capable [etc.]

LFC said...

p.p.s. have the strange feeling we've been through this Shaw/Wells thing before; if so, apologies for my not remembering...

Tom Van Dyke said...

Blogger LFC said...


btw, I think some on the left are indeed [still] "capable of polite disagreement"


[trigger warning]

As you may know, this is becoming increasingly debatable.


http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/01/not-a-very-pc-thing-to-say.html

But do permit me to plug your very interesting blog

http://howlatpluto.blogspot.com/

and happily hold our doors open for your estimable self.

LFC said...

@T Van Dyke
thanks, appreciate the plug. Will try to stop by here from time to time.

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