There Is No Cat

As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly

Thursday, January 30, 2003

Farewell to a philosopher-king

Friday marks the retirement from public life of the Czech president, Vaclav Havel. Havel is a remarkable writer; his essays from his dissident days are astounding for their moral clarity. The Power of the Powerless seemed hopelessly idealistic at the time it came out; it eventually turned out to be a virtual prophecy. And his plays are wonderfully surreal portraits of life under a totalitarian regime, with all the odd ironies of life in such a society polished to a fine sheen. It seems inevitable in retrospect that he would wind up leading the country that had done so much to oppress him.

His record as a politician may not have been quite what the Czechs had hoped for. Sometimes his ruminations could seem moored in the clouds. But from the other side of the ocean, he still seems to have had a remarkable run, a true philosopher-king.

Timothy Garton Ash is one of my favorite writers on the topic of eastern Europe. He has a long connection with the countries behind the Iron Curtain, dating to his days as a student in East Berlin, chronicled in his memoir of betrayal and discovery, The File. He was present during most of the revolutions of 1989, and his book The Magic Lantern told that story. He writes of his good friend Vaclav in tomorrow's Guardian and tells of the times their paths crossed.

Posted at 10:02 PM

Comments

Note: I’m tired of clearing the spam from my comments, so comments are no longer accepted.

Trackbacks

This site is copyright © 2002-2024, Ralph Brandi.

What do you mean there is no cat?

"You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat."

- Albert Einstein, explaining radio


There used to be a cat

[ photo of Mischief, a black and white cat ]

Mischief, 1988 - December 20, 2003

[ photo of Sylvester, a black and white cat ]

Sylvester (the Dorito Fiend), who died at Thanksgiving, 2000.


Stylesheets


This site is powered by Missouri. Show me!

Valid XHTML 1.0!

Valid CSS!

XML RSS feed

Read Me via Atom

new host

Me!

Home Page
Resume
Married
Photographs
Flickr Photostream
Instagram Archive
Twitter Archive

last.fm

There Is No Cat is a photo Ralph Brandi joint.


Archives

Search



Family Blogs

Geneablogy
Jersey Girl Dance
Awakening
DullBlog
Mime Is Money

Blogs I Read

2020 Hindsight
AccordionGuy
Adactio
Allied
Apartment Therapy
Assorted Nonsense
Backup Brain
Burningbird
Chocolate and Vodka
Creative Tech Writer
Critical Distance
Daily Kos
Dan Misener likes the radio
Daring Fireball
Design Your Life
design*sponge
Doc Searls
Edith Frost
Elegant Hack
Emergency Weblog
Empty Bottle
Five Acres with a View
Flashes of Panic
Future of Radio
Groundhog Day
Hello Mary Lu
iheni
Inessential
Interllectual
Jeffrey Zeldman Presents
Jersey Beat
John Gushue ... Dot Dot Dot
john peel every day
JOHO The Blog
Kathryn Cramer
Kimberly Blessing
La Emisora de la Revolucion
Lacunae
Loobylu
mamamusings
Medley
mr. nice guy
MyDD
Orcinus
oz: the blog of glenda sims
Pinkie Style
Pinkie Style Photos
Pop Culture Junk Mail
Seaweed Chronicles
Shortwave Music
Slipstream
Talking Points Memo
The Unheard Word
Tom Sundstrom - trsc.com
Typographica
Unadorned
Vantan.org
WFMU's Beware of the Blog