While Russian forces invade Georgia...

[fpb]

...the silver and bronze medallists of one of the Olympic gun competitions not only shook hands, but hugged and did everything in their power to demonstrate the deepest love for each other. The silver medalist was Russian, the bronze Georgian. The BBC commentators were all over this like white on rice, calling it a wonderful display of the power of sports to bring people together.

I find it revolting.

The proper word for it is collaborationist. It is, traitorous. It is, quisling. Sorry, but if your troops have just invaded my country and killed hundreds if not thousands of my people, I will NOT shake your hand and I will NOT act as your friend. There are too many dead between us. I hope the Georgian woman is chased out of her country by popular rage.

Comments

[fpb.livejournal.com]

As for Modred, I have some information for you: you are talking to the man who knows more about dark age Britain than anyone alive. Google my name ("Fabio P.Barbieri") if you don't believe me, and see what comes up. Teaching ME about Mordred and Medraut is really like teaching your grandmother to suck eggs. And while I know tha the error you propagate is not your own, but rather a popular if mistaken scholarly view, the point is that it is grossly mistaken. "The earliest reference we have to him", namely the Annales Britanniae's entry for 937 AD, only mentions that, at the Battle of Camlann, Medraut and Arthur were both killed. This certainly covers the traditional account, and no later source has anything to say about Medraut, let alone the literary Mordred, being a friend of Arthur or fighting together with him. The problem is rather that some sources - Welsh rather than continental or North British - treat Medraut as a hero in and of himself, a model of chivalry. But then, Wales, as opposed to North Britain and to Brittany and the Continent, is the one place where one finds some very negative descriptions of Arthur's character, in the Lives of St.Padarn, St.Cadoc, St.Gildas, and in a poem called "The Dialogue of Arthur and the Eagle". Contrary to popular opinion, the view of Arthur in Wales was dubious and often negative until the influence of Continental Arthurian legend began to be felt; so there is nothing strange about his legendary slayer being seen as a man of mark. Besides, I was talking of the Mordred of legend, the traitor and rebel, not of any historical figure. And believe me, I know the difference.