David Cameron's Platitudes

Zara Phillips, Princess Anne’s daughter, one of the Queen’s eight grandchildren, has today given birth to a daughter. This is, I am sure, wonderful news to the family, but totally irrelevant to Britain. That is, unless you get excited by the 16^th in line to the throne.

Why does the British Prime Minister think it necessary to come out with a statement, and a banal one on top?

"It's wonderful news and I'm absolutely delighted for the couple. I know them a little and I know they'll be absolutely devoted and delighted parents, so happy news all round."

So Cameron knows them “a little” and judges that - unlike other parents - they will be “absolutely devoted and delighted parents”. Must be that blue – rather diluted by now – blood. 

Putin's Closet

We had Putin the diver, Putin the hunter, Putin the judo champion and now it is Putin the children’s savior.

According to press reports, Putin warned homosexuals to stay away from children. That is if they do not want to be subjected to harassment at the Winter Olympics in Sochi.

Russia is in safe hands: sweet uncle Putin is protecting its children. And yet, it is probably a good idea to keep one’s children away from Putin. Who knows what his next fad will be. 

Thank God

Kalashnikov, the man who invented the AK -47, has died at the ripe old age of 94. At the age of 91 he found god and got himself baptised. Just in time, as he wondered and wrote to Kirill I of Moscow, the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church:  “I keep having the same unsolved question: if my rifle claimed people's lives, then can it be that I... a Christian and an Orthodox believer, was to blame for their deaths?"

Fortunately, the Church came to his rescue with the following response: “The Church has a very definite position: when weapons serve to protect the Fatherland, the Church supports both its creators and the soldiers who use it."

Like his colleagues, be they priests, rabbis or imams, Kirill knows his role in society, which includes lending his support to the use of weapons.

The small problem is that everyone has a different fatherland and thus more than 100 million Kalashnikovs have been sold by Russia worldwide. 

Hypocrisy

Israel’s President, 90 year-old Shimon Peres, takes pleasure in pathos and speaks to the dead Sharon: “On your forehead, there were victories of steel and golden hope.” 

Let him be poetic if he so wishes. But why, when an 85 year-old man dies after lying in coma for 8 years, why does he speak of “Arik Sharon, today lost an heroic battle for his life. … We all loved him.” What exactly was heroic in his death? And by the way, Mr. Peres, we did not all love him.   

It is not hypocrisy, the man is in love with his own words and most likely, believes them. 

And one more thing: Arik Sharon was not a religious man. Shimon Peres is not a religious man and does not normally wear a skullcap. The area in front of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, is not a synagogue. So why is the man wearing a skullcap? Sucking up to the religious? It is sadly a creeping process that has enveloped Israel. 

Expertise

Am I the only person who is uncomfortable at the sight of this shop window in a small town in Germany?

This dealer in military antiquities (1800-1945) and precious metals offers cash for dental gold also… with teeth.

Trust the expert, the sign says.

Ariel Sharon is dead

Don’t believe the eulogies, which will now inundate us. The only thing one can say is that Israel would probably have been better off, had this charismatic, effective and amoral leader never been. One cannot exaggerate the damage Sharon has caused his own country and his important role in the decline of moral values in public life in Israel.  

It could have been prevented: his moral flaws were well known to his superiors from early on, in the days when he was still a young officer. However, they (Dayan and Ben-Gurion) considered him useful and – a bit like the sorcerer’s apprentice - thought that they would be able to control him. And, boy, were they wrong.

Perhaps the important lesson to be learned is: Do not be tempted to use gifted, ambitious operators for your dirty work. The day will come when they will do the dirty independently and the evil they will carry out will be out of your control.