Portrait Of The Fat Chick As A Young Man

From way, way back:

Strangelovian mindset helps foster war

165 words
22 July 1988
The Toronto Star
FIN
A22
English
Copyright (c) 1988 The Toronto Star

Hugh Segal, in Conservative philosophy can build world peace (July 12), should toss out his collection of darned Ayn Rand books and join those of us who live in the real world.

Segal's conservatives love Dwight Eisenhower. But they conveniently forget that president's famous last words: "Beware the military-industrial complex . . ." Does that make Ike a Commie?

Richard Nixon did not end the Viet Nam war. The Berrigan brothers, who spilled their own blood on draft files; the Buddhist monks who set themselves on fire in protest; Walter Cronkite; the Kent State Four; and millions of other brave and noble war resisters really ended the war.

Segal says cruise missile testing is "under attack" while "Soviet adventurism" exists, without mentioning that the U.S. has intervened in more than 150 conflicts since the 19th century.Conservative philosophy fosters war.

It's the nature of that Strangelovian mindset that goes hand-in-hand with conservatism.

KATHY SHAIDLE
Toronto

Wow! Something must have really gone off in Shaidle's head after 9/11 that flipped her a total 180 degrees. Writers and artsy-types seem to have been particularly susceptible to this kind of thing. For example, Martin Amis went kind of nutty around the same time.

Although the decline in his writing was apparent much earlier. For example, Time's Arrow, from 1991, is a weird experimental novel that can be read back-to-front or front-to-back. It sucks in either direction.

Anyway, Shaidle and I have a lot in common as (wannabe) writers. For example, I've never won the Governor General's Award either!