It was a bit like the masked magician

They have him on Indian Telly too so I read we only watch Star Singer Season IV which I think maybe coming to a finale. So yeah I am glad I was discouraged from asking questions or comments. Who listens. He has too because otherwise I may repeat the question or anyone listening will think he didn't understand. And I am pretty sure that Roger would be able to tell me what is meant by le persicate est susceptible etc and whereas I know what it doesn't mean it spoils the trick for someone to show you how it's done, especially if you don't then take up the ethical. Apparently the answer is to set up political institutions humanized by la petite bonte. He'd be great to do a Levinas for Dummies book just needs a good illustrator. We got the lecture outline. A 15 page expanded lecture notes which don't have much bearing upon the lectures and a book published today of the lectures which are probably something different too but I got it 90 rupees for a book. Oliver should do all his publishing in India then ship them over to the US/EC there is probably some law against it but aint that what they do in the fashion industry. Does that mean poor little tykes are engaged in slave labour working in laser printing factories, or does it mean the poor tykes who were being abused at 18 hour days flogged to death at nights are now unemployed because it's all done by computers. This mornings sermon I quite liked. We all talk today about feminism, and we have seminars and symposia on women's rights and conscientization and we produce reports and set up commissions and yet for our women nothing changes. For whom do we make these reports and arrange these symposia. It was a pre-liturgy of the word reflection, just sat for a minute in place of the homily. The silence of Wittgenstein.

Yeah it's the tangents that appeal to me, but probably not to many others, though always one or two who come over to thank me for the question or point I raised never more than three. He had answered a point on the evil of terrorism, how evil is the shadow of good, that there is an essential violence within goodness. That's why Levinas argued for the need for institutions for a political ethical to reign in the violence inherent to goodness, and for la petite bonte to reign in totalitarianism from institutions to humanize them. He was a good intro. I was going to mention that woman in Manipur has been force fed for the past seven years tubes down the nose can't do that in Europe, she is on fast unto death to stop the violence against women.

Seems to me it depends on the State, the British are gentlemen say what you will about them. Thus Ghandi-ji could kick them out with ahimsa and satyagraha. The IRA could kick them out by bombing mainland pubs and Canary Wharf. I exaggerate but you need to bring terrorist violence home to the voters with money and power. But in Chechnya when their terrorists attacked Moscow they faced an evil greater than Hitler or Stalin. Putin committed genocide in Chechnya in response with the international community cheering him on as part of the war against terror. There is already terrorism in the North Eastern States continual constant vicious. I understand in theory there is a better way a more enlightened way that stems from the certain faith that the Other is closer to me than myself. I cannot kill the Other because I will wipe out all that is good and true. Substition: I am responsible for the ethical behaviour of the Other also. I am responsible for the Other more than anyone else. Until we all say that evil will always have the last word. So no the key is not to demand that the northern tribals and communists come south and bomb Delhi or Mumbhai Hyderabad and Bangalore. Or to ask the People's Republic of China to sort the mess out. So I typed Woman Hunger Strike Manipur and got her name, Irom Sharmila. A book has come out recently on her I read the review in the Times of India but it's one of the three I have now on order at the bookshop. They may cost 90 rupees to buy but they don't seem in any rush to sell them.

I shall write a strongly worded letter of protest to his Excellency Dr Manmohan Singh protesting Look don't laugh, ok I may a stupid old britisher fart though I object to the term britisher but it's either that or well I don't got anything else, I could raise my tapa I guess but that seems to be proving more ethereal and I am not convinced I will know if I have raised the tapa or not, Brahman raised tapa to create the world, it means exertion or ascetism or who knows, we may not understand Sanskrit terms but by the way the Lecture team members used the term final speech and final concluding speech they don't know what the simple English word Final means) against this basic human rights violation of a vulnerable citizen suggesting that if he spent more time trying to sort out the human rights violations he perpetuates in the forgotten northern states rather than boasting about having a nuclear submarine that may not have any nuclear second strike facility given the apparent failure of the test missiles subsequently covered up by corrupt officials and I suggest his campaign against human rights violations by his own security forces take precedence over anti-corruption measures this is India I am not going to be unrealistic in my demands, and yes this is a demand Human Rights are to be demanded than he would have a better claim for India being a first world nation. Having come from a first world nation I believe Dr Singh is setting his sights far too low. However as matters stand India is competing more in the league of barbaric nations unfit to assume a place in a modern civilized world. Only five rupees for national mail. Something like that I'll be lucky to get a reply they usually only reply if you use a recognizable letterhead so if I could get a DVK one but if I told them what I intended I doubt they'd let me have one. T'was different when I was in Ireland. I got a reply from the US Ambassador on treatment of Gulf War detainees which became Gitmo. I remember at the time the woman who would be honourable fiancee no 2 said she too would write a letter but would give false name and address because she thought she might end up on a no fly list and it has happened to friends of hers or some such. I figured that was something though I didn't offer to marry her there and then. What I have learnt is that our security forces are not that competent. Someone may end up being punished and since I have a portugese name let many a Brazilian engineer tremble with Greek Phrike over what letters I shall write next. He may soon learn what being responsible for my ethical behaviour means. Apparently that was what went wrong with Marxism/Communism. Instead of saying I am responsible for the Other, for the widow the orphan and the stranger, those without the basic relations, they took power and said we are the widow the orphan and the stranger and anyone who don't like what we do will die in a Gulag. If you put it like that why did anyone go along with it. Because within Goodness there is always violence and evil is it's shadow, and because they betrayed the Good, theirs is a greater fault. Woe to the one who betrays the Son of Man.

I will write to Manmohan to demand immediate action that isn't a violation of Irom's fundamental human rights and that does not denigrate and drag through the pig excrement India's miserable reputation for the treatment of its women dalits and tribals and I shall pray to Irom please do not die.