"Let us not listen to those who think we ought to be angry with our enemies, and who believe this to be great and manly. Nothing is so praiseworthy, nothing so clearly shows a great and noble soul, as clemency and readiness to forgive." - Marcus Tullius Cicero

I haven't read all the posts, so someone may well have already said something similar. I agree with Cicero, if the offender has asked for forgiveness. But if not, and the offender carries on offending, and believing in their right to do so, I don't think forgiveness is appropriate, or even wanted.

And Nik, that article brought tears to my eyes. What a wonderful act.

A befitting quote, Titian! Many folks grow and change their thinking and hearts. Some even attempt to do penance for their wrong deeds. I believe in forgiveness and second chances for those who for lack of a better term... evolve.

I have a sort of personal decision tree about separation of artist from work.

It branches firstly on whether the artist is alive to profit from the work or not, and then whether there is any specific moral harm to the continued existence/popularity of their work or things associated with them.

If dead, does the offensive bleed through into the work; i.e. can I see that opinion in the work when I know it's there - like Lovecraft and his horrifying rascism - I can't read a lot of his work anymore. If not, I will read/buy etc things related to them.

If alive, I first decide on the type of discomfort I feel; am I offended or horrified; i.e. is it eyerolling 'Jeremy Renner mild sexist level remarks' or 'Oh ICK supports Roman Polanski'.

If ICK: nope not ever getting my money.

If offended: does it bleed into the work? Do I feel morally wrong putting money in this person's pockets?

Public personalities like actors etc this operates more strongly on, largely due to the fact that their 'public persona' is part of their business so as to speak - I don't reward companies that behave unethically, and I won't reward 'personalities' that do the same - it feels like a form of moral suasion - the "standard we walk by is the standard we accept" principle, qt Lt General David Morrison.

Obviously, everyone is going to have different levels of comfort and perhaps sometimes people we like have comfort levels that we cannot reconcile easily with our liking. I try to ascribe that to varying levels of detachment - my experience of the world is such that detachment in this way feels like a denial of reality to me, but I accept that lived experience is different for everyone and consequently, personal boundaries are different. I don't have to understand that to accept it.

In my longwinded way: Roald Dahl is long dead. Buying or not buying the rose does not benefit him. He is so well known that I don't feel that buying this rose would significantly enhance sales of his works, however, even in light of a possible slight bump in sales (wider potential exposure) anti-semitism is not obviously apparent in his general works, and this is not therefore going to be promulgating anti semitic views. If it was, I might have a different view. I very much doubt that DA is susceptible to this kind of pressure in re their naming schemes either, so boycotting from that angle is unproductive.

Overall, I'm pretty neutral on the moral imperatives attached to buying/not buying this rose. HOWEVER, I can see other people have strong personal associations and those are perfectly reasonable - and I can see that they might not want to have anything to do with it.

Forgiveness is a funny concept. Not in its intent, just by whom it is being asked to dispense.

One hears the phrase (in various word constructions) "forgive the perpetrator/sinner" or, "don't let it bother you, it's not worth it," or "let it go and forget about it." These are asked by well-meaning folks to victims or relatives of victims regarding various perpetrators: the elementary school bully, the mean boss, the racist, the thief, the rapist, the murderer, etc.

The idea is commendable: to suggest to the person who was wronged to rise above the visceral response to the deed done to them and find peace of mind and heart, to end the hatred that consumes the victim. All fine and good.

But only if the victim is alive.

When the person against whom the crime was committed is no longer alive, no living person can forgive the perpetrator. Why? Because the crime was not committed against them. The victim is the one - and the only one - who can forgive the perpetrator. But since the victim is dead, there is no forgiveness possible.

No one should have the audacity to forgive a criminal for a crime that was not committed against them, weather the victim is alive or not. Only the victim can forgive. If the victim is not alive, the crime is, therefore, "unforgiveable."

This, to me, is the true meaning of "Unforgiveable Sin." The idea is to caution one from committing a crime that, because of intended or unintended consequences, a permanent stain on the perpetrator's reputation is, as a result, very possible.

When a person such as Dahl harbored anti-Semitic feelings, publicly espoused such views for many years and never once retracted them or asked forgiveness because of, say, "youthful foolishness" or some such excuse, the conclusion is made that he believed in his views to his grave.

Therefore, if David Austin KNEW about Dahl's views - or SHOULD HAVE known about them - his naming of the rose can be discerned by others as a form of "forgiveness" of Dahl's racist views; something that Mr. Austin had no right to do, since Mr. Austin, not being Jewish, was not the object of Dahl's racist vitriol. That Austin wanted to honor the author, and not the man, cannot be bifurcated, in my view.

I understand that the elder Austin is the one who still selects names for new rose introductions. His son, David, should have over-ridden his dad's decision. And, if the younger Austin didn't know about Dahl, he should have had someone in the company vet the name first.

DavidBeck, I do-sort of-understand where you are coming from. I have a neighbor growing the Laura Bush rose, a perfectly decent looking rose.. but I wouldn't want to grow it because of the name, my enjoyment would be undermined and there are so many other roses to choose from. I know my neighbor is growing it because of the name: We don't get along very well....

I do see a difference between prejudice and bigotry. To me, prejudice is something that is voiced and not acted upon. If we believe in free speech, we have to accept that everyone has that right, even if we vehemently disagree with what is being said. Bigotry is prejudice turned into a hateful, reprehensible action, and that is criminal and vicious, and as immoral as anything can be. For me the one is so much worse than the other.

The roses you choose to grow are obviously a person choice. However, I think it is too easy for someone growing up now to look back and judge people of the past with a set of modern morals. Dahl grew up in a very different time; and while I don't agree with his believes that doesn't change that he was a magical story-teller and fantastic author. He constantly writes about how kindness matters:

Here is a quote from the Twits:

“If a person has ugly thoughts, it begins to show
on the face. And when that person has ugly thoughts every day, every
week, every year, the face gets uglier and uglier until you can hardly
bear to look at it.

A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be
ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin
and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts it will shine out of
your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.”

Comparing Dahl to Hitler is absurd. He wrote children's books, he didn't hurt people. Lets have a little perspective. He may hold outdated and incorrect beliefs and prejudices but your grandchildren will undoubtedly look back at you and say the same thing. Society changes every day.

There are people who have been kind and decent to all people in times past as well. "Outdated beliefs" is one way to excuse bad behavior. "Everyone was doing it." Actually everyone wasn't doing it, and those people who behaved better deserve better regard.

" I think it is too easy for someone growing up now to look back and
judge people of the past with a set of modern morals. Dahl grew up in a
very different time"

I grew up in the 1960s, at a time when certain enlightenments had yet to be introduced and embraced. My own mother used language and terminology that would startle most of us today (nothing too outrageous, of course - the N Word wasn't as politically loaded in 1964 as it has come to be). Is it reasonable to judge my mother for such things, given the era and its naivete? I think not.

On the other hand, if one is looking for a literary figure to name a rose after, one might reconsider choosing someone who spoke as boldly as Dahl did, with his anti-Semitic opinions, lest the public perceive that as an endorsement of those beliefs.

A rose is a rose.

Being up in arms over whom it's named for is ridiculous.

Virtue signaling of these types is just stupid to me.

I've owned a Volkswagen before and certainly didn't refuse due to the company's history.

How many people are honestly upset that VW was founded with Nazi party money in Germany under Hitler and today refuse to buy the cars (or any from the VW Group- Audi, Bugatti, Porsche, Bentley, Skoda, Seat, Lamborghini, Ducati, VW, etc.)? Not many.

Chill out.

Steven

"Being up in arms over whom it's named for is ridiculous. Chill out."

Being told to "chill out" is only slightly less offensive than being told to "STFU". Nobody here needs to be told what they can think and what opinions they may express.

I agree - everybody has the right to express their opinions! So here's mine, which is more like a bunch of questions ...Over 10 years ago, I bought the Austin rose Mortimer Sackler. I had no idea who MS was, I just sort of assumed he was some guy. A few months ago, the New Yorker ran a big story about the Sacklers, and the awful way that they essentially caused the opioid crisis and profited hugely from the misery of millions. I love my MS rose, its beautiful and a great performer but ... if I'd known who it was named after, I don't think I would have bought it. Of course its not the rose's fault but I don't understand why DA, who could name his roses after anyone, would choose these questionable characters (there's still hundreds of Shakespearean characters he could pay tribute to, and from real life, well, for crying out loud why won't somebody name a rose after Rosa Parks!!?? I mean, her name is ROSA!) Of course, this all opens up bigger issues. The Sacklers are huge patrons of the arts, and as somebody who makes her living, such as it is, in the music world, I'm well aware that since there is almost no public funding for the arts in this country, the bulk of the support comes from robber barons of various kinds. We have all, in my field, profited more or less from the largesse of the likes of Guggenheim, Carnegie, etc etc and they are all pretty horrifying. I suppose you could make the case that at least some of their ill-gotten gains are going to support something good, but still, its pretty uncomfortable. Yet without this, most artists and musicians, other than the tiny minority who make it big, would have no source of income. (And academia is not a "clean" alternative: not only does a lot of their funding come from pretty questionable sources, but also there's the issue of how student debt is destroying so many young lives - and don't get me started on the shameful treatment of adjuncts, for I have been one!) As for Dahl, and separating the artist from the art, I think people have always kind of danced around this issue, but contemporary events are forcing more careful scrutiny. I don't have the answer - I mean, on the one hand, Wagner was an anti-semite, and its disingenuous to try to pretend that the ego that held those views isn't in some ways reflected in his music. BUT .... its really great music, and I believe is of value to humanity. But then, there's also another way of looking at it, which is that the "great man" (and I do mean "man") narrative has run its course. Take for instance James Levine who was just fired from the Met for his horrifying abuses (which, btw, were pretty much an open secret for years, the Met surely must have known, so its pretty disgraceful they are only dealing with it now, because they are forced to). You could say, "well, but he's such a great musician" which is certainly true, but the world is full of incredibly talented people, probably many just as talented as he, who didn't have the connections, the personality, and/or the luck that he did in order to make it to the big time. And of course we'll never know how many incredibly talented musicians and actors and etc. had their spirits broken and their hopes destroyed by the likes of Levine and Harvey Weinstein and all the others - voices that might be every bit as great as Levine's, but that we'll now never hear. As I said, I sure don't have the answers, but there's a lot to be thought about in relation to all of this!

Oh wow, Steven, I didn't know that about VW. I have a '69 VW bus (project vehicle) but I'm keeping it cuz its cute!! :D

The bug/beetle-like - "peoples' car"/ Volkswagon, was the auto designed during Hitler's Reich that he thought every good Nazi should be able to purchase. ( Steven may have written that??)

This is similar to ideas behind the Model T by Henry Ford, another anti-Semite.

I think when people evolve, they should be forgiven or depending on the situation; their past should not be held against them for all of eternity. I know that signs of evolution of thought did not occur for some of these people, but the Civil War had a profound impact upon Lincoln. This became clear during the Gettysburg address when he spoke of EVERYONE having a chance at life, not just a specific group of people. If it did not bleach out to a horrid color in my garden, I would grow this rose... but really... if there was a Adolf Hitler rose, I would not care how beautiful it was, that rose would never be grown in my garden. Hitler, however, is more extreme of an example as compared to some of these other people...

My advice -- if you really like a new-ish rose but hate its name, call it by its registration name. In the case of the rose that started this thread, call it AUSowlish formally, perhaps nicknaming it 'Owlish'. If that's still not good enough, then just look for something similar but with a different name.

As an aside, there's a general tendency I've come to find to be true about people that may fit with this thread. Generally, about 80% of people tend to follow the "norms" their cultures/societies have set, regardless of how we, as outsiders, may view those norms. To those 80%, being a "good person" simply means staying within those norms, since what is perceived to be "bad" would fall outside those norms. Then we have about 10% of people who become the leaders or trend-setters of those norms, guiding the flock. The last 10% "see the man behind the curtain" and live independent of the norms, following their own moralities and criticizing the rest for "blindly" following the norms set by the other 10%.

With that in mind, viewing people from the past requires a set of lenses. Does that which we now consider repugnant fall outside of the 80% of the culture/society at that time? If so, then I'll judge it as good or bad. If not, then it's really not fair to criticize the one person whose ideas you're reading. Rather, you should be criticizing the culture/society during the time which produced it.

:-)

~Christopher

I needed a good laugh tonight. I read this post from top to bottom. I feel better now.

That does make sense Christopher. I do prefer the 10% who see behind the curtain.

There were MANY President Herbert Hoover plants grown for decades under other names. Dislike for Hoover was so great and the rose was so good for its time, many chose to keep the rose but call it something else. When I worked at the beach, Billy Graham was a current J&P offering. It performed quite well there, but the name was a definite non starter. But, cut the tag off it and offer it as an unknown and it sold quite well. Beloved also performed and sold very well, yet I couldn't give it away under its original introduction name of Caesar Chavez.

Historical context may provide some benefit when considering some for whom plants have been named. A person's moral code is pretty well set (in many cases) by their 21st birthday. When and where they turned 21 can often make a great deal of difference. Ford was not a "nice person" by most accepted definitions. He turned 21 in 1884. Were his ugly beliefs out of step with much of this country of that time? Not to excuse it, but it was not out of the norm for the time and place. Of course it is each of our choice whether to accept the good and temper the bad. Considering the other factors may help. Playing the devil's advocate... would you have the same reaction to buying a Ford automobile as you might to growing the rose named for the same man? (sort of like the VW issue) I won't buy any Ford car, even though I was raised with them and learned to drive in one. Not because of Henry Ford's horrible beliefs and acts, but for the corporation's horrible acts. When the Pinto's exploding gas tank finally made it into court and it was revealed the corporate officers literally did a cost-benefit analysis to determine whether it was cheaper to recall the cars and repair them, or pay for potential wrongful deaths, then CHOSE to pay the potential wrongful death verdicts, even creating a slush fund to finance them, that was enough for me. Thankfully, an internal corporate memo was introduced in court, documenting the fund and how the company valued possible customers burned to death or otherwise injured by their design defect, LESS than their profits, the jury awarded the entire fund amount to the first plaintiff.

Personally, I think naming a rose after a person is chancy . Like poor old Caesar Chavez.

Particularly if that person is a politician or a celebrity with a strong personality. They will either be loved or loathed and either one greatly affects royalties. For a very long time, the "rule" was, if you named a rose for a popular person, it should be one of the "also ran" varieties and not one of the best. If the person was popular, the name would sell it. If that person did something to destroy the sales, better to have that rose be one which otherwise probably wouldn't have been a good seller anyway. Keep the good ones for the good commercial names. A really good commercial name can make even a so-so type a best seller.

I think it's reasonable to say that, in my country, the overall tendency veers away from religion these days, and anything with a strong religious connection that enters the commercial environment, is frowned upon... which is why, I suspect, the much favoured rose on these forums called 'Pope John Paul' is not offered here by any of the main rose vendors, but only from a seed and bedding plant supplier, not the sort of places you go to buy roses. I've never seen it for sale anywhere on public display.

As neither a Catholic nor religious, it wouldn't find a place in my garden, but more because of my liberal persuasions, which sit uncomfortably with religious orthodoxy, that so often expresses opinions that I find...well, abhorrent if I'm honest, but I accept that so many people will take a different view... ''ne'er the twain shall meet'', on that one..

Saying that, and a touch contradictory, there is another rose I'm liking the looks of, that anywhere else goes by the name of 'Gospel'... over here it's been changed to something silly but chirpy, which emphasises my earlier point I think..

I don't object to the name 'Gospel'... in fact I rather like it... 'Proper Job'.. really, no...

I vote with my feet. Only last week I decided to never again buy anything from a well-known Swedish clothes designer, hugely popular also in Germany and five other countries. She said in an interview that women who complain of their low incomes and low pensions have only themselves to blame for being lazy and working part time to take care of their children. Most women with low incomes work in care, badly paid jobs, no matter how hard they work or how long hours. I mark the company's ads in my inbox as spam.

I wouldn't buy a rose with an offensive name but in most cases I probably wouldn't know whom they were named for. I once grew the red clematis Kardynal Wyszynski, a personage quite unknown to me, but my Polish friend made faces at it. It died a natural death and was replaced by another Polish clematis, Błękitny Anioł or Blue Angel, probably also with a religious connotation but I don't mind. It looks good with Etoile Violette:

I buy roses for the flowers. I can see not seeing a movie of someone I disliked, but not boycotting a flower.

I'm not buying a Donald Trump rose.

Not buying a rose because you dislike its name, to me, is ridiculous. I buy a rose based on its visual appearance and performance. A name is just that.... a name. Just my opinion. :)

lol Sheila! Hmm Donald Trump rose...a huge orange thing? Some loud color. Trying to figure out what one would look like.

You do remember Cliff Orent's sport of Rosie O'Donnell? He called it "Trump Card". There is a Kordes florist rose, "Trump", and another German florist rose, "Trumpf". I'm with Sheila. There are certain things I don't invite into my home nor garden. They are my sanctuary. I may have to live with those elements in society, but I don't have to share my home nor garden with them.

"There are certain things I don't invite into my home nor garden. They
are my sanctuary. I may have to live with those elements in society, but
I don't have to share my home nor garden with them."

Absolutely right. Healthy boundaries, I say!

Anyone who boldly declares they don't care what name a rose bears, would surely decline garden space for an 'Adolf Hitler' rose. How about a 'Harvey Weinstein' rose? Would you grow 'Aileen Wuornos' if such a rose existed? I suspect there are more than one or two of you who have declined to give 'Golden Showers' a place in your yard. No matter how good a rose it may be, there's no way I would buy the 'Benson and Hedges' rose. What a dreadful idea that was. I am quite certain everyone could identify at least one rose they would refuse to own based on its name.

I can wholeheartedly recommend a very interesting book by Jennet Conan, The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington. ˆDahl, who was actually Norwegian, was a very interesting figure and the model, or one of them, for James Bond. He was certainly no Nazi. As far as his racism and anti-Semitism, that was par for the course in pre-World-War 2 England and the USA, as well. British colonialism was based on unashamed racism, and the no. 1 priority of British spies was to preserve the empire. But we are to close to these events (still) to judge them objectively, I guess.

That said, Dahl was by no means a nice guy, a blatant womanizer who liked to shock people. He was also in continual pain because of breaking his back in an air crash and he medicated himself by drinking, which hardly improved his temper. But I digress. Anyway, he is a historical figure -- and one can't erase what actually happened. It's better to face it with one's eyes open.

As a parent, I was aways personally repelled by Dahl's children's books, myself. I prefer books which don't divide people up in to black and white stereotypes of good and evil. This means I don't like Lord of the Rings or the Narnia books much either. This makes me feel like sort of a pariah among parents other and teachers because I have to bite my tongue about how I feel (yet I wouldn't object to a rose named after C.S. Lewis or Tolkien, who were a pretty important literary scholars, whether one agrees with their world views or not). But what can you do? Such stories are very popular, in fact a mainstay of our culture. My own daughter liked them -- though not my son.

I would prefer a rose to be named for someone who really benefitted humanity or an evocative character in literature, myself. Or even "Belle sans flatterie" or Cardinal Richelieu (there's someone controversial). And I think David Austin was on the right track in choosing this approach when he started out. I regard this as a misfire, but agree with the person who said "C'est n'est pas une pipe." If you like the rose you can always change its name when it resides in your garden, can't you?

Absolutely ridiculous. I see you’re easily offended Paul. Each to their own.

Marlorena,

If the tendency today is to veer away from religion, why be hostile to it, like rejecting a rose because it is named after a deceased Catholic patriarch? I see the tendency flowing away from belief in the Supreme Being, and placing man or personages in that worshipful state, and hostility shown towards believers in the Supreme Being, by those caught in that flow.

Take the deific status Barak Obama gained while president of the USA. Any criticism of him, and you were labeled a racist if not black, and an 'Uncle Tom,' if you were black.

Moses

I think the only roses that should be named after people are the roses that you propagate. Then name away.

We have been choosing paint colors. Now there is a plethora of great names. Most, very unoffensive.

Here here, Roseseek, I agree 100%!

I see Christopher's point about taking the times into consideration, but still, I think individuals have to be responsible for their choices. If the norm is evil and you go along with it, well, maybe its not as bad as being the one who started the evil norm, but it still is hardly admirable. I mean, lots of Germans supported Hitler, who created the "norm" of that society - but some resisted, and many lost their lives because of it. And I sure hope history holds those who go along with all the evil that is going on right now in our country responsible! I think we as a society have a choice to make as to who we are going to honor with statues, and with having things named after them like buildings and yes, roses, and I think it matters who we choose to honor in this way. This has been a huge controversy at Princeton over the Woodrow Wilson issue. I remember reading somebody saying "well, we can't name everything after Mother Teresa" and I found myself thinking, "well, why not?" Its the same as the confederate statues issue - yes, they were people of their time, and maybe the zeitgeist of the day was at least as "responsible" for their evil as they were as individuals (a very, very debatable point, however, and one that I personally don't agree with) but that sure as heck doesn't mean we should honor them.

I like your idea of calling the rose by its registration name, and will do that with MS! I have actually done something like that myself - last year, against my better judgement, I tried those "Laura Bush" petunias from Wildseed Farms, even though, as a card-carrying left-wing wacko I hated the idea of having a "Bush" plant in my garden! (Though admittedly, Laura Bush herself was certainly not on the same level of awful as her husband, but then she did marry him ...) Well, they were fantastic - bloomed like crazy, no dead-heading needed, laughed at heat and humidity - I'm growing them again this year, but in my garden they are called "Michelle Obama Petunias" (Now there's somebody who needs to have a rose named after her!!!)

You can always call it "The Outhouse Rose". There is a nice sort of coneflower called "The Outhouse Plant." It's a very respectable name.

I liked reading about Mr. Dahl, because his story shed life on an important aspect of history, even though I didn't much like him as a person, nor his books. But to read that he said, in his cantankerous and alcohol-befuddled old age, that he disagreed with Israel's policies and had "become antisemitic" - is distasteful, but to be fair, it doesn't represent his words or actions throughout his life (he was a war hero). It strikes me as basically trolling. Nixon said far worse, and he gets a pass.

@Darren,

If you don't want me replying to any of your messages, then kindly refrain from replying to mine.

How I wish GW had a Block option.

Moses,

Thank you for your response.

I am not the arbiter of rose offerings in this country, and I was merely suggesting a reason why this particular rose isn't generally seen. I really have no idea otherwise, and I've no doubt there are many religious people here who buy roses, including Catholics.

However, I think it's fair to say, many of us here like to keep religion very much at arms length, and roses named after people with strong religious affiliations as this one obviously does, is too overt. There's a rather lovely rose called rosa 'Sancta' which I certainly wouldn't mind having in my garden..

It's not a question of being anti-Catholic, nor even anti-religion but more a case of not wanting it encroaching on our lives in general, especially in my case, as I would no more have a rose called Pope John Paul in my garden, than I would one called Archbishop of Canterbury, or Prophet Mohammed..

Goodness, my husband is from a Catholic family, rather conservative too, if they lived in the States most likely they would be Republicans I should think... although he doesn't regard himself as Catholic..

No one, here or where you are is stopping anyone from worshipping their Supreme Being, as you call it, but as this doesn't affect me, I can tell you that my own supreme being is my husband, because anyone who can put up with me, and my gardening for all these years, deserves the epithet..

Mortimer Sackler? Oh, dear.

It's not the rose's fault what some stupid human named it.

And PJP is probably not sold in the UK because it would ball all the time.

A specific aversion to Pope John Paul the person -- and the Catholic church itself -- may be more at play than an aversion to religious belief in general. Nobody is without critics, and nobody is purely perfect.

:-)

~Christopher

Dear David Beck, I am afraid that your cause is losing support, as witness the fact that DA Ltd. feels comfortable naming a rose after a person whom your faction does not like. As an American, I don't really have a dog in this fight, but I would point out that you apparently have no problem with the icky cutesy pie names coming from American breeders, or none that you have mentioned, and mention of other (clearly in my view) offensive names gets no reaction from you, so if one is going to be questioning people's motives....

RD itself does not attract me and I shan't be buying it. At this point I am only buying alba hybrids from DA.

Just poked my nose in for a good chuckle tonight. Keep it going gang.

Speaking of alba hybrids, someone has to get more of Rolf Sievers' alba hybrids over to this side of the Atlantic. The only ones we have are a few of his first-generation hybrids of 'Maiden's Blush', all once-blooming. He's since gotten some nice repeat-blooming roses from further generations, yet they still keep some of that alba foliage.

Perhaps that needs another thread.

:-)

~Christopher

'AUSowlish' sounds too much like Auschwitz.

Thank you for the insight. In the same way I will never plant Charles Darwin in my garden.

I never liked Dahl or his books, although my daughter did like them, to my surprise.

I read a very interesting biography of Dahl a few years ago The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington by Jennet Conant. Dahl was not a nice person, but he did volunteer to fight the Nazis, and while doing so was in a wartime plane crash that injured his back and left him in constant pain for the rest of his life. As a British spy, Dahl would do anything to support British colonialism, which was based on a racist ideology that put British people on top of the world hierarchy. As such, he could well have been a casual anti-Semite, though many Jews, including Israeli Jews, also have criticized some of Israel's policies. He was an incorrigible womanizer and not a good husband.

He did always have life-long Jewish friends, some of them close ones, though, as I recall. Dahl liked to say scandalous, outrageous things, probably as a result of drinking. He liked to provoke and needle people, but he didn't sink to the level of being a mass murderer or criminal. He was a flawed human being. Many people in history have been worse. For myself, I don't have too much a problem with rose names that commemorate historical people -- because at a certain point, history is just what happened and should be remembered.

To tell the truth, however, I was slightly put off by the name, myself, but if it was a great rose, I could forgive and forget it. After all it is just a plant, growing in the garden.

I forgot I had written something similar two years ago -- didn't look at the date of OP. : )

An interesting thread, although I have no idea where I stand on this. I always found what little I read of Dahl's children's books to be rather disturbing. I do think people's prejudices in regard to certain names should be honored, especially if there is a very painful personal history behind that dislike. And even Mother Teresa seems not so saintly when one reads about her more deeply, so perhaps it would be nice to find non-confrontational names without however resorting to the saccharine sweet (actually nauseating in some instances) ones that some American breeders have chosen. I do agree with Marlorena about naming roses after religious figures simply because so many people feel uncomfortable with putting religion into the public realm, and that ought to be respected. As a life-long agnostic (since about the age of 12) I always disliked the fundamentalist rhetoric that bashed you over the head, especially when spouted by "ministers" who were then found to be pedophiles, but I've found that an old dog can learn new tricks. I came across the large body of near-death experiences first made known by Raymond Moody and since added to by many other reputable scientists which seems to show almost irrefutable proof that there is life after death, in spite of which materialist scientists continue to ignore it. Lately quantum physics and the string theory have made a little headway, however. So I was finally forced to confront the fact that there very well may be a universal entity that "guides" the universe, although it's a far cry from a biblical, paternalistic God figure. Forgive me for straying so far from the subject, but this forum is where I feel most at home so I'll ask for your understanding. What I now take away from every thought and action is that we ought to support and not hurt each other, because we are all a part of that universal force, even though some unenlightened public personas make me shudder to think that might be true. At any rate, I'm convinced that people who love roses and their pets are all perfect and perfectly wonderful!

Wonderful thoughts, Ingrid. I seem to agree with you on most everything.

You may find this interesting. https://getpocket.com/explore/item/big-gods-came-after-the-rise-of-civilisations-not-before-finds-study-using-huge-historical-database?utm_source=pocket-newtab&fbclid=IwAR1Nea4Wjg9jmr3HVEcKx75bqWQM8tmfoq_xewhp82pGHU7VPXJO-uP92ls