Day: February 10, 2017

Churchill on Mohammedanism

Sir Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill (1874 – 1965) was no saint. The English should thank god for that. He was a patriot.

He served in the British army and was a writer before he entered politics and eventually became the prime minister of Britain in 1940. He was instrumental in the victory of the Allied Powers (UK, US and USSR) over the Axis Powers (Germany, Italy and Japan) in World War II. He suffered electoral defeat in 1945 but was re-elected prime minister in 1951.

All in all, a remarkable man. He hated Indians, particularly Hindus, with a white-hot passion. Not an uncommon affliction among the colonial rulers of India, past and present. He despised MK Gandhi and called him a “half-naked fakir” — in my opinion, a description that is more accurate than Churchill intended or realized. I suspect stooges however useful cannot possibly earn the respect of those they serve.
Continue reading “Churchill on Mohammedanism”

Of Prizes and People

Prize
First Prize

We humans instinctively categorize, especially people. We are amateur primitive set-theoreticians. There are infinite ways to categorize people since humans have a humongous number of characteristics.

Consider the categories of people who award prize and people who win prizes. In my view, people who institute prizes belong to the most prestigious set. I order the sets as:

  1. People who institute prizes.
  2. People who win prizes.
  3. People who don’t win prizes.
  4. People who award themselves prizes.

For example, Alfred Nobel belongs to the first set; Einstein to the second set; ordinary grunts like us, who never come within shouting distance of any prestigious award make up the majority of humanity, belong to the third set. We are mostly harmless and generally unimpressive. Continue reading “Of Prizes and People”

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