Hlaudi and the return to the Bantustan | City Press

Hlaudi and the return to the Bantustan | City Press: Watching the goings-on at the public broadcaster, it is hard not to see the similarities between those buffoonish tinpot dictators and the autocratic dolt who reigns supreme there.

The man with the Napoleon complex and bloodshot eyes, who sits at the helm of the SABC, is a perfect example of the perils of giving power to the feeble-minded.

What usually happens is, when dim-witted individuals are given a shot at power, they grab it with both hands and use it destructively.

The Secret Auden by Edward Mendelson | The New York Review of Books

The Secret Auden by Edward Mendelson | The New York Review of Books: By refusing to claim moral or personal authority, Auden placed himself firmly on one side of an argument that pervades the modern intellectual climate but is seldom explicitly stated, an argument about the nature of evil and those who commit it.

On one side are those who, like Auden, sense the furies hidden in themselves, evils they hope never to unleash, but which, they sometimes perceive, add force to their ordinary angers and resentments, especially those angers they prefer to think are righteous. On the other side are those who can say of themselves without irony, “I am a good person,” who perceive great evils only in other, evil people whose motives and actions are entirely different from their own. This view has dangerous consequences when a party or nation, having assured itself of its inherent goodness, assumes its actions are therefore justified, even when, in the eyes of everyone else, they seem murderous and oppressive.

| National Review

| National Review: Hillary Clinton believes that “religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed” to expand access to abortion.

Clinton said today that it’s not enough to legalize the procedure. “Far too many women are denied access to reproductive health care and safe childbirth, and laws don’t count for much if they’re not enforced,” she said Thursday, per the Daily Caller. “And deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed.”

The Disenchanted World | Glory to God for All Things

The Disenchanted World | Glory to God for All Things: A very apt word for the world we live in is: disenchanted. It was first used by Max Weber and a number of others to describe a certain aspect of the modern world – the absence of the sacred. Where people of earlier eras and other cultures have experienced the world around them as charged with divine power (of various sorts), we simply experience the world as inert. There is nothing there.

The disenchanted world is doubtless a major source of modern atheism. When someone says they do not believe in God, they are quite likely simply relaying accurately how they perceive the world – that the world they see is simply disenchanted. This experience is captured by Tolkien in his hints of the end of Middle Earth. The “Elves are heading West,” leaving the world of Middle Earth. The Age of Elves is coming to an end and the Age of Men is beginning. There is something of a hint that with the Elves, the world of magic and wizardry is leaving as well. The new dangers will simply be the will and work of men rather than larger, darker forces.

About SouthFront

About SouthFront: SouthFront: Analysis & Intelligence is a public analytical project maintained by an independent team of experts from the four corners of the Earth focusing on international relations issues and crises and working through a number of media platforms with a special emphasis on social networks. We focus on analysis and intelligence of the ongoing crises and the biggest stories from around the world. The project provides military operations analysis, the military posture of major world powers, and other important data influencing the growth of tensions between countries and nations. We try to dig out the truth on issues which are barely covered by the states concerned and the mainstream media.

Stephen Greenblatt's The Swerve racked up prizes — and completely misled you about the Middle Ages - Vox

Stephen Greenblatt's The Swerve racked up prizes — and completely misled you about the Middle Ages - Vox: The Swerve doesn’t promote the humanities to a broader public so much as it deviously precipitates the decline of the humanities, by dumbing down the complexities of history and religion in a way that sets a deeply unfortunate precedent. If Greenblatt’s story resonates with its many readers, it is surely because it echoes stubborn, made-for-TV representations of medieval "barbarity" that have no business in a nonfiction book, much less one by a Harvard professor.

Scholars have spent the past several decades upending the old myths that the Middle Ages were intellectual stagnant, emotionally repressed, and merely masochistic. Unfortunately, The Swerve heartily embraces those myths. In its insistent representation of what Greenblatt wanted the past to be like, instead of what the evidence suggests, it exemplifies that dire trend of "truthy" nonfiction books that present One Theory to Explain Everything. It represents the importation of Malcolm Gladwell–esque yarn-spinning into the academy.

How a colonial blunder grew into a part of the War on Terror | Aeon Essays

How a colonial blunder grew into a part of the War on Terror | Aeon Essays: The Durand Line has consistently proven ineffective as the basis of territorial delineation between Afghanistan and Pakistan, its division of Pashtun tribal lands a point of contention to this day. As recently as May 2016, the portion of the line between Afghanistan and Pakistan at the Torkham checkpoint was shut down, stranding thousands of people and cargo trucks. Pakistani military forces installed barbed wire; Afghanistan, which does not recognise the legitimacy of the border, responded to this as a hostile act. Escalating tensions, well-known to either side, led to a shutdown of the Torkham border post. It was only after high level diplomatic meetings that the post could be opened again.

When will Labour’s tribal warfare come to an end? | Maya Goodfellow | Opinion | The Guardian

When will Labour’s tribal warfare come to an end? | Maya Goodfellow | Opinion | The Guardian: Labour failed to capitalise after the referendum when the Tories were thrown into a crisis of their own creation. Instead they created their own mess with a poorly executed coup. MPs, understandably panicked by the referendum results and worried that Jeremy Corbyn wasn’t doing well enough, paired up with those who had – as Peter Mandelson advised – been waiting for the last nine months for a moment of weakness to overthrow their leader. At a time when Labour should have been attacking the Tories and standing up for people experiencing xenophobic abuse, they were embroiled in a feud.

Athonite Fathers call for Rejection of Cretan Council and Cessation of Commemoration of the Patriarch of Constantinople / OrthoChristian.Com

Athonite Fathers call for Rejection of Cretan Council and Cessation of Commemoration of the Patriarch of Constantinople / OrthoChristian.Com: OVER 60 Hieromonk and monks, with a disciple of Saint Paisios, Elder Gabriel of the Kelli of St. Christodoulos (Holy Monastery of Koutloumosiou) at their head, have written an open letter to the Holy Community of Mt. Athos calling upon the Abbots to reject the Council in Crete and stating their intention to cease commemoration of the Patriarch of Constantinople on account of his leadership in the "false council" at which the pan-heresy of ecumenism was given a green light and bolstered in word and deed.

We were made for these times

We were made for these times: My friends, do not lose heart. We were made for these times. I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered. They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world now. Ours is a time of almost daily astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations of what matters most to civilized, visionary people.



You are right in your assessments. The lustre and hubris some have aspired to while endorsing acts so heinous against children, elders, everyday people, the poor, the unguarded, the helpless, is breathtaking. Yet, I urge you, ask you, gentle you, to please not spend your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult times. Especially do not lose hope. Most particularly because, the fact is that we were made for these times. Yes. For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement.

Reported rape of dead Muslim woman evokes anger, revulsion amongst Indian Americans

Reported rape of dead Muslim woman evokes anger, revulsion amongst Indian Americans: The reaction of Indians around the world over the continuing attacks on the dignity and basic freedoms of India’s religious minorities as well as Dalits (lower-castes), has been eloquently expressed by former Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Ramdas, in a recentopen letter to the President and Prime Minister of India. Drawing the attention of the highest offices in the land to the “threats to our shared heritage,” Admiral Ramdas unequivocally separated Hinduism, the faith he was raised in, from “Hindutva, that seems to be fanning the flames of division and fear across the country.”

KING: ISIS terrorists aren’t Muslims — they're just evil men - NY Daily News

KING: ISIS terrorists aren’t Muslims — they're just evil men - NY Daily News: Maybe you missed it since “pray for Baghdad” didn't trend on Twitter and Facebook didn’t give you the option of overlaying an Iraqi flag on your profile picture, but something truly horrific happened there Sunday morning. A suicide truck bomb tore through a busy shopping district in Baghdad. ISIS has already claimed the attack as their own.

A rational nation ruled by science would be a terrible idea | New Scientist

A rational nation ruled by science would be a terrible idea | New Scientist: “Scientism” is the belief that all we need to solve the world’s problems is – you guessed it – science. People sometimes use the phrase “rational thinking”, but it amounts to the same thing. If only people would drop religion and all their other prejudices, we could use logic to fix everything.

Last week, US astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson offered up the perfect example of scientism when he proposed the country of Rationalia, in which “all policy shall be based on the weight of evidence”.

Assasination By Drone: America's Fatal Fallacy

Assasination By Drone: America's Fatal Fallacy: Endless hopes were pinned on Pres. Barack Obama when he entered the Oval Office in 2009. Hardly anyone back then seriously considered it possible that Obama would trump the belligerence even of Pres. George W. Bush who was seemingly hated the world over and would bomb nearly twice as many Muslim countries as his unspeakable predecessor.

US Options in the Ukraine: Trigger a Religious War? - The Unz Review

US Options in the Ukraine: Trigger a Religious War? - The Unz Review:



The AUOC-MP is the biggest of the three. It is self-governing, but not fully independent. It is probably the biggest of the three churches and it is in full communion with all of the other “official” (read: “state approved”) Orthodox Churches out there. The AUOC-MP is viewed as the “hand of the Kremlin” by the nationalists.



The UOC-KP was founded by a former Bishop of the Moscow Patriarchate, Filaret Denisenko who created a “schism” (a unilateral separation in contradiction to the Canons of the Church) from the Moscow Patriarchate (which is ironic since Filaret was a former “deputy” (locum tenens) to Patriarch Pimen I of the Moscow Patriarchate and even considered a front-runner to succeed him). Even by Soviet standards Filaret was always known to be an exceptionally immoral, corrupt and unprincipled man, but the Moscow Patriarchate only excommunicated him when he broke-off from the MP to create his own “church”.



The UAOC is basically a 1921 creation of the Ukrainian National Republic of 1917 (just as the Moscow Patriarchate is a 1937 creation of the Bolshevik state of 1917) and it represents the “non-Soviet” version of Ukrainian Christianity, with several of its clergymen have been persecuted by the Soviet state.