". . . a long interval of repose."

[vison]

Reading about one of my fave guys, Lord Castlereagh, who was Britain's foreign secretary at the time of the Congress of Vienna, I came across something he said that I had forgotten:

"The avowed and true policy of Great Britain in the existing State of the World is to secure, if possible, for all states a long interval of repose."

It was Castlereagh who got the Treaty of Ghent into the form it finallly took - and one result of that Treaty, of course, was to create the long and "undefended" border between Canada and the US. The treaty allowed the US to come away from the table with its head up, not crushed by British demands for territory or reparations from the War of 1812.

I wonder if Mr. Obama, or any other man of power in these days, would support a policy that would "secure, if possible, for all states a long interval of repose."

[narya]

I'm listening to lectures on non-violence from UC Berkeley (available free at iTunes U). One definition of non-violence is "a perpetual state of pre-hostility". I suppose that's better than nothing.

[axordil]

I'm listening to lectures on non-violence from UC Berkeley (available free at iTunes U). One definition of non-violence is "a perpetual state of pre-hostility".

Otherwise known as sitting in traffic.