Distance Equals Apathy

     The bombings in Brussels this week brought up an interesting "thing." A certain segment of the Turkish cyber-population put out the question of why the Western world was not as concerned about the bombings in Istanbul last week as it was about the bombings in Belgium. After all, the Turks reasoned, as many or more people were killed in Istanbul as were killed in Brussels. Not many people draped their Facebook photos with the colors of the Turkish flag, while, as is usual for the "caring" a bunch of people decided to "support" the Belgians by having their Facebook photos tinted red, yellow and black.
     Of course, as the aggrieved often do, the Turk cyber-army blamed the lack of concern about the Istanbul bombing on ethicism, racism, and anti-Islamism. The first charge is interesting because many Turks consider themselves Europeans while most Europeans, except for the economic and nattering class, do not consider Turkey a European nation in any way. It may have once been back in the days of the Ancient Greeks and Byzantines, but since those days Turkey has become a near East nation. In other words, the western-most part of Muslim Asia.
      But what the complaining Turks really don't realize that the reason that people don't gather outside the Turkish embassies in Paris, London, Washington, D.C. and other Western capitols is simply because of distance. Istanbul is far, far away in distance and culture. Erodogan is a man who wants to make Turkey into a wholly Muslim nation, a Muslim nation is culture and law. He wants to throw over the tradition of Ataturk and the Young Turks who wanted to Westernize and secularize Turkey. What the West sees in the bombing in Turkey is Muslims attacking Muslims. And, as secular and stupid culturally, why should the West care. It's a family battle. And any cop knows that the worst situation to find one's self in is a domestic dispute.
     And, after all, why should the West care? Turkey has done nothing for the world. It's contributed nothing culturally. It has tried it's best to squash the remnants and history of Christians in Turkey except for tourism. A bombing in Turkey means nothing more than a bombing in Baghdad means to the Turks.
     Regarding Brussels: Not many people are aware of it, but Brussels is the Western center of black market arms trading. The Belgians, in their greed, have turned a blind eye to the trading of massive numbers of assault weapons (real assault weapons that go full automatic and not the California definition of such), rocket launchers and such. Brussels is the Western version of what Istanbul was in the 1920s and 1930s. The Belgians made their bed by trying to atone for the guilt that they earned by the awful King Leopold. But in the atoning they have ruined their nation. The same with the French and English. They have forgotten that the firsdt job of a nation is to maintain that nation, and protect and promote that nation's culture.

Killing O'Reilly's Reputation

     It has always been a mystery to the denizens of Bloody Nib Manor that such a character and bloviator as Bill O'Reilly is so popular. We can only presume that the reason is because Mr. O'Reilly shares some of the same qualities as Foghorn Leghorn; loud, loud and loud. Much like Donald Trump.

     Let us consider Mr. O'Reilly. Now, please understand, this writer really doesn't know much about Mr. O'Reilly's personal life, but he does know that Mr. O'Reilly was, at one time, a public school teacher, is a Catholic, and has been caught up in a couple of personal scandals that made the news for about five minutes. He has hired ghost writers to write his "Killing..." series of books and has, apparently, done little of the research done in the books. Sometimes one wonders if he has even read the books to which his name is attached.

      Mr. O'Reilly, as a Catholic schoolboy of his time, would have been taught that the Jews killed Jesus. In the intervening years that particular view has become unpopular, and the blame has shifted from the Pharisees and the Jews of Jerusalem to Pontious Pilate and the Roman or we all did because of our sin nature. Having not read Mr. O'Reilly's book on the matter (after all, one only has so much time to read bad books, and that time is usually best used for old pulp novels and penny dreadfuls), but your faithful correspondent assumes that in the book Mr. O'Reilly blamed the Romans and/or us. If he could he probably would have named the man who thrust the spear into Christ's side so he have a "scoop." Can you imagine the headlines? "O'Reilly claims that Biggus Dopus killed Jesus! Jews worldwide breathe a sigh of relief!"

     The reality of the matter with Bill O'Reilly is that he is no more intelligent, informed or wise than the average man or woman. He's got the gift of gab and a loud voice. One gets more informed opinions from one's barmaid or barber simply because they live lives at the ground floor. And O'Reilly is one of the most condescending men on television. His constant use of the word "folks" instead of "people" or "the population" is a bad attempt to appear caring and folksy. Well, he is, in the New York sense. He's like a CUNY ethnic musicologist who puts up with by a sung version of Barbary Ellen sung by a 90 year old man in the Ozarks who has never heard another version of the song, but considers it nonsense because it doesn't line up with Jean Ritchie's version. The "folks" are supposed to line up with his version of what "folks" are. The man is a fake populist. He wants no more to do with a real Texas cattle rancher or aerospace worker or clerk at Wal-Mart than any of us do want to do with the crazy homeless guy at the corner befouling himself while waving away djinns and muttering about the Pythagorean theorem.

     The man is a clown of the August type (look it up). Just fool who pretends to be serious; in fact, super serious of almost Thomas Aquinas type. But it's easy for a fool to pretend to be wise. Politicians have done it for centuries. Serious men and women do serious things. They have serious thoughts. They write serious books (by themselves and not with ghostwriters). And they speak seriously. O'Reilly does none of these things. He's incapable of doing so. Peter Finley Dunn, in his Mr. Dooley articles from the early 20th century, wrote more seriously than does O'Reilly.

      And so, Mr. O'Reilly gives his twin, Donald Trump, a lot of air time. Trump, like O'Reilly, is a snob while pretending not to be one, not wise, not smart (except in money --- and that can be disputed), a fake populist, and very, very loud. And while Mr. O'Reilly may occasionally rail against Mr. Trump, he knows that his money is to be made from Trump. And that means that Mr. O'Reilly is no better than the people than Mr. Trump and he rail against simply because the two of them are the people they rail against. Neither one has been a stone mason like Socrates, a tinsmith like John Bunyan. They've been school boys, college boys and then professionals. The non-professionals are there to serve them and they are not loath to get what they want by pretending to kowtow to those they really think their lessers

     Trump is a modern Mussolini and O'Reilly is his D'Annunzio