A Letter from SAK

SAK and I met online over 20 years ago and have friends ever since, even though our only context is online. He lives in Europe and did his graduate and post graduate education in the United States, and we met when he was checking out a Mother Teresa comment related to pacifism, an interest of mine.   His friendship all these years is a great gift.  His comments below relate to recent posts.  Thank you, SAK.

Dear Mr Bernard,

I had already visited that part of your web as well as other pages & as so often I found links to things I have been interested in! For example, having studied at Austin, Tx, I am familiar with the fact that Lyndon B. Johnson’s library is in that town. In fact it has this huge inscription/quote by the 36th President of the United States: 1963 ‐ 1969 taken from an

Annual Message to the Congress on the State of the Union:

“The Great Society asks not how much, but how good; not only how to create wealth but how to use it; not only how fast we are going, but where we are headed.”

10 presidents later – has it been so long! – we have a president at whose inauguration the front row was taken up by billionaires who create wealth & we are not at all sure how that wealth will be used. For example, Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical Magnifica Humanitas released a few days ago warns against the abuse of Artificial Intelligence. A long subject which a bunch of friends have been discussing . . .

A quick search reveals that the Blondeau family lives on in France & elsewhere:

Thylane Blondeau  a pretty model!

House of Blondeau – musicians

Sasha Blondeau composer . . .

As someone commented already what a family history & what a history the young USA has witnessed already – with the involvement of so many known & lesser known people as Heather Cox Richardson’s project shows. I so admire the last paragraph of George Eliot’s novel Middlemarch:

“But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”

Since you added a part on Napoleon Bonaparte, coincidentally I have watched recently a film, titled Desirée, about Napoleon’s love for a young woman that he soon abandons for the much better connected Joséphine. It stars Marlon Brando as Napoleon & Jean Simmons as Desirée! There is a theory so-called the Great Man Theory penned by the Scot Thomas Carlyle (one day someone will write a huge volume on the influence of little Scotland on the world, no I don’t have Scottish roots that I know of 😊):

“Universal History, the history of what man has accomplished in this world, is at bottom the History of the Great Men who have worked here.”

I have doubts about this theory – see George Eliot above – whose real name was Mary Ann Evans of course. Furthermore the theory does not credit these great men with purely good motives or results. If one pulls up the Wiki page on that theory the first picture there is of Napoleon. There are stations, streets & avenues in Paris named after his battles: Austerlitz, Jena-Auerstädt, Marengo . . . One battle I don’t recall seeing much in Paris is Waterloo which he lost. Initially the Eurostar train linking Paris to London arrived in London at Waterloo which some French found less than friendly! An Avenue is named after his great army Avenue de La Grand-Armée. It is reported that he took 500,000 with him while invading Russia & returned to Paris with 50,000.

I came to your website years ago because of an attachment to pacifism so here are two quotes, one from Napoleon who lost at Waterloo & the other from Wellington who won:

Wellington: “Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won.”

Napoleon: “The sight of a battlefield, after the fight, is enough to inspire princes with a love of peace and a horror of war.”

When will they ever learn, oh when will they ever learn . . .

(song: Peter, Paul and Mary: Where Have All the Flowers Gone)

P.S. talking of pacifism & Jean Simmons, a few days ago I again watched a pacifist western The Big Country. It stars Gregory Peck, Jean Simmons, Carroll Baker, Charlton Heston, Charles Bickford, Burl Ives and Chuck Connors no less! It deals with how personal animosity & prejudice can lead to death & destruction. Gregory Peck is the voice of reason & tolerance in the film. Incidentally, Peck was a lifelong Democrat & was on Nixon’s “enemies list”. He spoke against the Vietnam war but supported his son Stephen who fought there as a Marine officer.