May 9, 2013

DESPATCH BOX: FINEST HOUR 144, AUTUMN 2009

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LITERARY CHURCHILL

I appreciated FH 141’s book recommendations for Churchill as orator, and “Admiring Shakespeare” (page 29). I was familiar with the Olivier and Burton incidents, but reading them in context was a delight. The literary Churchill is no less fascinating than his war whoops.

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BRENDA ROSSINI, WINNETKA, ILL.

Michael Dobbs’s Churchill novels are fun while insightful, as are his views of the players of the era. His stories about the impact of the war on ordinary people usually end up intersecting with WSC. His speculations on events move the narrative along. He is pro-Churchill, but not doctrinaire. Many of my libertarian fellow-travelers are not as enamored of WSC, so I mention that here.

TODD ZYWICKI (agrrtig @aol.com)

B.C. BUST-OUT

The attempt by my favourite magazine to justify and then to be amused by the return of the Epstein Churchill bust from the Oval Office (FH 142: 7-8) says a lot about The Churchill Centre and Mr. Obama, none of which is favourable.

It is not convincing to say the White House has more Churchilliana now that the bust is replaced by the official biography. If the bust was loaned, Bush should have returned it, failing which Obama should have delivered it to Bush. Failing to offer any creditable reason (not embarrassing to Obama) for the return, FH professes to be amused and to make fun of the incident.

The leadership of Churchill and Roosevelt saved the world from Nazism. While Mr. Obama may choose whatever busts he wishes to adorn the Oval Office, surely the return of the bust of such a great man requires an explanation.

VIC BURSTALL, PAST PRESIDENT SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL SOCIETY OF VANCOUVER ISLAND, B.C.

It is disappointing to read in Finest Hour, of all places, your “amusement” over President Obama’s churlish ejection of the Churchill bust without explanation. Astonished readers can only assume that your partisanship in U.S. domestic politics takes precedence over respect for the memory of Sir Winston Churchill.

SIDNEY ALLINSON, PRESIDENT SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL SOCIETY OF VANCOUVER ISLAND, B.C.

Editor’s response: Sorry to be a bust in B.C. The Epstein was loaned for Bush’s term of office; but you’re equating a news story (Datelines) with a signed opinion (in the box). My views of Mr. Obama and his policies are unrepresented in these pages, but likening me to a Barackophile is also an amusement.

The media hoped Churchillians would snap over this, and that’s just what Newsweek wanted when they phoned me for an opinion. As my colleagues in Britain agree, we would have looked like fools to take the bait. Reductio ad absurdum was by far the better response.

POLES APART

While I have great respect for Prof. David Freeman, I could “bearly” control myself after reading his review of Winston of Churchill: One Bear’s Battle Against Global Warming (FH 142: 56). Clearly we are at “polar opposites” in this matter. Besides his highly debatable comment that animals are the main cause of global warming, he seems to have missed the point that the book is for “ages 6 and up.” Suffice it for the little ones to know that global warming is a serious problem and that Winston the bear “is named for a real person, one of the greatest leaders in history….the courageous Prime Minister of England [sic] during World War II [who] inspired the people to never give up….When Winston the polar bear is trying to lead the bears to protest global warming, he uses some of the famous words of Sir Winston Churchill.”

TERRY REARDON, TORONTO, ONT.

Professor Freeman replies: The London Daily Telegraph reports that a Canadian scientist who has studied polar bears for thirty years was banned from a global warming conference because he had concluded that bears are multiplying and that global warming is mainly due to natural phenomena.

In 2008 the Los Angeles Times (not a right-wing bugle) ran a full page editorial (itself unusual) acknowledging that ruminants produced more greenhouse gas emissions than all carbon-burning fuel sources combined. If the aim is to educate the little ones, then why not present them with all the facts and let them decide for themselves?

Gen. George S. Patton once said: “If everyone is thinking the same, then no one is thinking at all.”