Making Light :: Forces of nature :: comments

Forces of nature

This morning's Guardian has an editorial about the sudden turnaround in British public opinion regarding the need to help Syrian...

Forces of nature -- comment #1 from Dave Bell

Sat, 05 Sep 2015 06:48:36 -0500

I'm a little surprised that a British newspaper didn't use a Terry Pratchett quote for that, because he certainly used the idea: Witches Abroad I'm pretty sure of, and he promptly subverts the idea with the little old lady joining the game of Cripple Mr Onion. The card sharps think they know the story...

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Posted September 5, 2015 6:48 AM by Dave Bell

Forces of nature -- comment #2 from praisegod barebones

Sat, 05 Sep 2015 07:25:58 -0500

This is probably a bad time to cavil (when isn't?), but I'd like to protest just a tiny bit at the equation of 'opinions expressed by large British media outlets' and 'British public opinion'. The two are not necessarily especially closely aligned, any more than their American equivalents. (I guess it's to be expected that people who work for newspapers should make this kind of elision, but let's not encourage it.)

On a more positive note, while I undertand your reaction to the namecheck it surprises me not a whit that someone on the Guardian editorial team reads Making Light.

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Posted September 5, 2015 7:25 AM by praisegod barebones

Forces of nature -- comment #3 from oldster

Sat, 05 Sep 2015 08:39:17 -0500

Story is a force of nature.

Aphorism is a force-multiplier.

(In other words: TNH is right about stories. But she expressed her insight, not by writing a story, but by crafting an unforgettable aphorism to encapsulate it. Which is really cool, too.)

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Posted September 5, 2015 8:39 AM by oldster

Forces of nature -- comment #4 from Scraps

Sat, 05 Sep 2015 08:47:47 -0500

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Posted September 5, 2015 8:47 AM by Scraps

Forces of nature -- comment #5 from Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Sat, 05 Sep 2015 09:08:10 -0500

#2: "I'd like to protest just a tiny bit at the equation of 'opinions expressed by large British media outlets' and 'British public opinion'."

Praisegod, good point.

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Posted September 5, 2015 9:08 AM by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Forces of nature -- comment #6 from Christopher Davis

Sat, 05 Sep 2015 13:13:44 -0500

I'm a little surprised that a British newspaper didn't use a Terry Pratchett quote for that.

The Guardian might be a little wary of bringing up Sir Terry at the moment, given their publication of that terrible Jonathan Jones column.

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Posted September 5, 2015 1:13 PM by Christopher Davis

Forces of nature -- comment #7 from Clifton

Sat, 05 Sep 2015 14:46:42 -0500

So Teresa's brilliant coinage has hit the big time. I confidently expect to see it in a GIF on Facebook any day now, attributed to Mark Twain.

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Posted September 5, 2015 2:46 PM by Clifton

Forces of nature -- comment #8 from Lila

Sat, 05 Sep 2015 15:07:46 -0500

Dave Bell @ #1, demonstrating that Granny Weatherwax is ALSO a force of nature.

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Posted September 5, 2015 3:07 PM by Lila

Forces of nature -- comment #9 from David Harmon

Sat, 05 Sep 2015 16:23:07 -0500

Clifton #7: Give it another couple of decades, and I suspect that Teresa will herself be a "quote magnet", with all sorts of aphorisms awarded to her by association.

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Posted September 5, 2015 4:23 PM by David Harmon

Forces of nature -- comment #10 from janetl

Sat, 05 Sep 2015 18:53:13 -0500

It is an excellent change in newspaper coverage, and wonderful to see Teresa's beautiful quote.

For readers in the States, I'd like to point out a whitehouse.gov petition to resettle some refugees here.

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Posted September 5, 2015 6:53 PM by janetl

Forces of nature -- comment #11 from Stefan Jones

Sat, 05 Sep 2015 21:42:58 -0500

There's another picture out there, much less circulated, of Aylan alive and happy.

I'll let my tweet speak for itself:

https://twitter.com/StefanEJones/status/640023728336670720

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Posted September 5, 2015 9:42 PM by Stefan Jones

Forces of nature -- comment #12 from Linkmeister

Sat, 05 Sep 2015 21:59:32 -0500

Clifton @ #7, that is excellent!

Then the pedants will show up to say "no, it's Mencken." And other pedants will remonstrate that it's really Ambrose Bierce.

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Posted September 5, 2015 9:59 PM by Linkmeister

Forces of nature -- comment #13 from Stefan Jones

Sat, 05 Sep 2015 22:04:22 -0500

Oh: And congrats to Teresa for the reference.

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Posted September 5, 2015 10:04 PM by Stefan Jones

Forces of nature -- comment #14 from Xopher Halftongue

Sat, 05 Sep 2015 22:59:28 -0500

That's brilliant. But then, so is Teresa.

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Posted September 5, 2015 10:59 PM by Xopher Halftongue

Forces of nature -- comment #15 from Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Sun, 06 Sep 2015 19:56:21 -0500

Clinton, Linkmeister: And someday, if I'm very very lucky, I'll see a remark of mine misattributed to Dorothy Parker.

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Posted September 6, 2015 7:56 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Forces of nature -- comment #16 from Megpie71

Sun, 06 Sep 2015 20:55:51 -0500

Here in Australia, the Murdoch press (guided by the hand of their apparently sociopathic overlord, whose only interest has always been the sales figures, and never the people hurt by the harm he causes) has been having their way practically non-stop for years. As a result, we have two major political parties who think it is a right, good and politically expedient thing to do to cater to the opinions of the xenophobes, and "turn back the boats". We have asylum seekers from Afghanistan, from Sri Lanka, from Myanmar (Rohingya) all turned back and sent to resettlement camps on places like Nauru and Papua New Guinea, where we tell them they are not welcome in Australia. These camps are basically prison camps, and the evidence emerging from the inquiries into them indicates the people who wind up in them are being treated cruelly by the contractors paid to guard and administer the camps. There have been reports of waterboarding, and repeated reports of rape and child abuse. Our government's response? They've made it illegal for the people who work at the camps (medical practitioners, teachers, social workers etc) to speak out about these things, and the government of Nauru has made foreign journalist visas a lot more expensive recently.

I hate what is happening. I hate what this government is doing in my name. I hate that if we do the right thing, vote the bastards out, and get rid of them, we're going to inherit an opposition party which has all but adopted their policy position on the matter wholesale, because they feel this is necessary in order to be elected.

And I really, really hate that this is all coming from the callous opinions of one sociopathic old man who sold his Australian citizenship for a chance at making money in the USA. Do NOT trust the Murdoch media to give you news - they're not giving you news, they're giving you vicious old Uncle Rupert's opinions, dressed up in someone else's words.

(I will also note that for a nation which was founded by a bunch of criminals who arrived here in boats from a far-away country, our national position on this matter is the basest hypocrisy of them all).

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Posted September 6, 2015 8:55 PM by Megpie71

Forces of nature -- comment #17 from Dick Gregory

Mon, 07 Sep 2015 04:22:49 -0500

Kenan Rahmani:
The ultimate injustice one can commit to Aylan Kurdi and his family is to omit the parts of his story which explain why he ended up dead on the beach. The details matter:
1) Abdullah Kurdi, the father, was detained for 5 months in Air Force Intelligence in Damascus. While in detention, he was tortured and his teeth were pulled out. He had to sell his shop in Damascus in order to bribe the officers to let him out. This cost him 5,000,000 Syrian Liras (around $25,000)
2) After he bribed his way out of jail, Abdullah fled to Aleppo with his wife and sons, Alyan and Ghalib. The situation in Aleppo became dangerous due to the constant aerial bombardment, so he fled again to Kobani, his hometown.
3) When ISIS attacked Kobani last year, the family could no longer live in their hometown, so they fled to Turkey. Once in Turkey, the Turkish government did not provide them with assistance, so they paid almost $6,000 to secure 4 spots on a rubber dingy to the Greek island of Kos.
4) While on the boat, rough waters caused the boat to flip. The lifejackets they were given were fake. His sons and wife all drowned in front of his eyes, in his arms.
5) Kurdi had applied in June for refuge to Canada, but was rejected. After Aylan's photo became a media story, he was reportedly offered citizenship to Canada. But he doesn't want to go to Canada or Europe anymore. He says he will go bury his family in Kobani and stay there to fight against ISIS, because everything has been taken away from him and he has "nothing to live for."
So if the world wants to no more Aylans on the beach, someone needs to do some combination of the following based on above: (1) stop torture and arbitrary detention by the Assad regime, (2) stop the regime's aerial bombardment, (3) stop ISIS, (4) make traveling to Europe safe, (5) get Canada and the USA to accept more refugees.
[http://notris.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/why.html]

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Posted September 7, 2015 4:22 AM by Dick Gregory

Forces of nature -- comment #18 from Dave Bell

Mon, 07 Sep 2015 06:16:07 -0500

The UK media this morning seems to be pushing the "bomb Syria for Aylan" idea.

Words don't fail me, but they're not the sort I would wish to use here.

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Posted September 7, 2015 6:16 AM by Dave Bell

Forces of nature -- comment #19 from Dick Gregory

Mon, 07 Sep 2015 08:55:36 -0500

I wrote this a couple of years ago, when supposedly, the US was threatening to bomb Assad.
"And so we come to the story of the Boy Who Cried Wolf, which if anybody doesn’t know it, spoiler alert, when the wolf finally does come nobody believes the boy. If the Left claims that thousands will die in carpet bombing, that depleted uranium will be scattered across Syria, that American soldiers will be dying to help al-Qaida, and none of these things turn out to be true, it will discredit the Left, and because the Left does not control the media, that impression will stay for a long time, and when the US does want to intervene, the pendulum will have swung back to it being easy again for the US to do what it wants. And if the situation in Syria takes another step towards Hell, then there is a greater likelihood that American, French or British power will be brought to bear on Syria, rather than the empowerment of those rebels that we just don’t know about from what we’ve read in the press.
If the Left commentary on air strikes has been to see them as the main problem, it will be a bystander to the debate. If it correctly identifies the regime as the problem, and arming the FSA as the solution, it has a better chance at being part of the answer to the Syrian crisis and the instability that comes with it, posing a better solution than imperial imposition (which both a hawks’ invasion and the peaceniks deal with the Russians would be), and not just part of the furniture."
[http://notris.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/dominoes.html]

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Posted September 7, 2015 8:55 AM by Dick Gregory

Forces of nature -- comment #20 from oldster

Mon, 07 Sep 2015 09:04:25 -0500

Megpie71 @16

"(I will also note that for a nation which was founded by a bunch of criminals who arrived here in boats from a far-away country, our national position on this matter is the basest hypocrisy of them all)"

As a proud citizen of the US, I'm not sure I can concede your claim to "basest hypocrisy of them all" without a challenge.

I mean, sure. Sure, Australian hypocrisy is pretty base. But you really want to say it's baser than ours? Have you ever read that poem on the Statue of Liberty?

Maybe you'll win on points. But we deserve a shot at the title.

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Posted September 7, 2015 9:04 AM by oldster

Forces of nature -- comment #21 from David Weingart

Fri, 11 Sep 2015 17:43:57 -0500

oldster @ 20: And we have enough guns and ammo to KEEP shooting if we miss the first time.

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Posted September 11, 2015 5:43 PM by David Weingart

Forces of nature -- comment #22 from pericat

Tue, 15 Sep 2015 15:51:27 -0500

Teresa is a wise woman. Pleasing to see that so noted in the larger world.

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Posted September 15, 2015 3:51 PM by pericat