Introduction by Simon Sebag Montefiore Many of these speeches contain eternal truths, particularly a classic such as the Gettysburg Address, or less well known orations by those such as Vaclav Havel, dissident and future Czech President, or Chaim Herzog, Israeli President. For me, the best speech is one that marks no great event but merely …
Introduction Years ago, I never would have written this. That’s because years ago I would have been dead. Struck by what was then called intestinal tuberculosis, my Great-aunt, Catherine Kiss, suffered all the manifestations of the disease I now have and one that is known to travel genetic lines, Crohn’s disease. At the age of …
The Five Gifts of Illness: A Reconsideration (Jill Sklay Marlowe & Company 2007) Read More »
Speeches that Changed the World is a collection of inspiring speeches that had a major impact. Elie Wiesel’s speech ‘The perils of indifference’ made a big impact on me. “On the threshold of a new millennium, what will the legacy of the vanishing century be? Surely it will be judged severely. Two world wars, countless …
The fall has been unusually mild with plenty of rain. Now we are having a cold snap. Farmers in the area have been planting peas and spinach in recent weeks. I have been doing some planting, a thousand little things preparing for the spring, and planning. Book review This week I am posting my first …
Our biggest problem today is information overload. Someone somewhere has the answer to everything we need to know, but finding it can be a time consuming process. There are a number of topics that I have researched and have kept notes in the form of book reviews which I am happy to share. It is …
There are two forces at work in the world today: those that turned the 20th century into humanity’s low point and those voices that are rapidly increasing in numbers that say there must be a better way to run the planet. The response that Christine and I have chosen is to adopt Abraham Lincoln’s words, …
