On love and war
Wayne Robinson writes: Re. “Let slip the dongs of war” (Thursday)
“Love and War as opposites? I don’t think so, and neither did John Lyly, who saw in 1579 that they could be meaningfully compared.” It reminds me about a quote in Robert Sapolsky’s “Behave: the Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst”citing Eli Wiesel, Nobel Prize winner and concentration camp survivor: ‘the opposite of love is not hate; its opposite is indifference.’
And you have to hate to go to war.
On Marr versus Henderson round two
Bruce Hogan writes: Re. “Daily Tele’s dystopian future … how that Chris Christie snap happened … and everyone gets a correction …” (Wednesday)
Surely Mr Rundle means Marr and Henderson are like Statler and Waldorf, not Bert and Ernie. And as far as Tolkien characters go, “Wormtongue” is a much better fit for the single-personality Henderson than “Gollum”.
Bruce – agree that Grima Wormtongue would be appropriate for Gerontius’ twisting, manipulation and misrepresentation but I assumed Grundle dubbed him Gollum because of his unhealthy obsessiveness.