CIVIL strife often follows a grimly predictable pattern. What at first seems a soluble dispute hardens into conflict, as goals become more radical, bitterness accumulates and the chance to broker a compromise is lost. Such has been the awful trajectory of Ukraine, where protests that began peacefully in November have combusted in grotesque violence. The centre of Kiev, one of Europe’s great capital cities, this week became a choking war zone. Buildings and barricades were incinerated and dozens of Ukrainians were killed.
Despite talk of a truce between some of the participants, the horror could yet get much worse. The bloodshed will deepen the rifts in what has always been a fragile, complex country (see article). Outright civil war remains a realistic prospect. Immediate responsibility for this mayhem lies with Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine’s thuggish president. But its ultimate architect sits in the Kremlin: Vladimir Putin...
'Falling out of love is chiefly a matter of forgetting how charming someone is...'
'Education doesn't make you happy. And what is freedom? We don't become happy just because we are free, if we are. Or because we have been educated, if we have. But because education may be the means by which we realize we are happy. It opens our eyes, our ears. Tells us where delights are lurking. Convinces us that there is only one freedom of any importance whatsoever: that of the mind. And gives us the assurance, the confidence, to walk the path our mind, our educated mind, offers...'
'Perhaps when distant people on other planets pick up some wavelength of ours all they hear is a continuous scream...'
'The bicycle is the most civilized conveyance known to man. Other forms of transport grow daily more nightmarish. Only the bicycle remains pure in heart...'
'Perhaps misguided moral passion is better than confused indifference...'
'The theatre is a tragic place, full of endings and partings and heartbreak. You dedicate yourself passionately to something, to a project, to people, to a family, you think of nothing else for weeks and months, then suddenly it's over, it's perpetual destruction, perpetual divorce, perpetual adieu. It's like éternel retour, it's a koan. It's like falling in love and being smashed over and over again.’ 'You do, then fall in love.' 'Only with fictions, I love players, but actors are so ephemeral. And then there’s waiting for the perfect part, and being offered it the day after you've committed yourself to something utterly rotten. The remorse, and the envy and the jealousy. An old actor told me if I wanted to stay in the trade I had better kill off envy and jealousy at the start...'
'We live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion. The great task in life is to find reality,' says Iris Murdoch. 'But given the state of the world, is it wise?'
Well, I woke up Sunday morning With no way to hold my head that didn't hurt And the beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad So I had one more for dessert..
Then I fumbled in my closet through my clothes And found my cleanest dirty shirt Then I washed my face and combed my hair Stumbled down the stairs to meet the day..
I'd smoked my mind the night before With cigarettes and songs that I'd been pickin' But I lit my first and watched a small kid Playing with a can that he was kicking..
Then I walked across the street And caught the Sunday smell of someone fryin' chicken And oh it took me back to somethin' That I'd lost somewhere, somehow along the way..
On a Sunday morning sidewalk
I'm wishing, Lord, that I was stoned 'Cause there's something in a Sunday That makes a body feel alone..
And there ain't nothin' short of dyin' As half as lonesome as the sound Of a sleepin' city sidewalk And Sunday mornings coming down..
In the park, I saw a daddy With a laughing little girl who he was swinging And I stopped beside a Sunday school And listened to the songs that they were singing..
Then I headed down the streets And somewhere far away a lonely bell was ringing And it echoed through the canyons Like the disappearing dreams of yesterday..
On a Sunday morning sidewalk Oh, I'm wishing, Lord, that I was stoned 'Cause there's something in a Sunday That'll make a body feel alone..
And there ain't nothin' short of dyin' That's half as lonesome as the sound Of a sleepin' city sidewalk And Sunday mornin' comin' down...
In Greek mythology, Iris is the personification of the rainbow and messenger of the gods. She is also known as one of the goddesses of the sea and the sky. Iris links the gods to humanity. She travels with the speed of wind from one end of the world to the other, and into the depths of the sea and the underworld…
