Tuesday, April 07, 2009

Omphaloskepsis over Obama...

"Obama: the right man at the wrong time", wonderful write-up by Gideon Rachman in the FT (link through image below)

"And so it was that Barack Hussein Obama visited Europe. In London, he rescued the world economy. In Strasbourg, he healed the Nato alliance. In Prague, he rid the world of nuclear weapons In Ankara, he reconciled Islam and the west. And on the seventh day, he got back on to Air Force One and disappeared into a cloudless sky."

Obama weightlifting!"Was it all a dream? I fear so"... ..."When Mr Obama won office, The Onion, a satirical magazine, greeted his victory with the headline “Black man given nation’s worst job”. Watching Mr Obama’s progress around Europe this week, this seemed a reasonable summary of the situation."

What we have just witnessed was a glorious tour when the whole world watched as all of Europe listened with bated breath, hanging on his every word, his every action. Crowds of cheering, clapping happy Europeans that, when all is said and done, and despite the Obamamania - even from Prime Ministers and Presidents - will do...nothing. They will navel-gaze though not from any purpose of meditation but to block out and ignore their inablity to act on what needs to be done.

omphaloskepsis n. - contemplation of the navel for the purpose of obtaining philosophic calm.

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

omphaloskepsis wotsit sounds like a much nastier disease!