The Gray Monk's Scriptorium

Awaiting the Winter ...

2012-01-30T21:06:00.000Z

We are in the path of some Siberian weather at present. It will arrive in the next day or two, but as things stand the temperatures are alreay falling. The forecast says there won't be any snow - the air is too dry apparently.

Be that as it may, we're expecting temperatures down to minus 10* in our area and Berlin is threatened with minus 25*C. For my part - they can have it! It is also said that the really cold air will move aside next week and may bring moist air - which will turn to snow. We haven't had much this year, so we can't really complain if we get a bit now.

The weekend was busy, today was busy, but hopefullynrmal service can be resumed tomorrow ...

Holocaust Day

2012-01-27T12:12:00.002Z

The horror of the Holocaust lives on. Six million Of Europe's Jewish people, some four hundred thousand gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses and others exterminated. Among those victims were many Christian priests and pastors who defied the regime, including Deitrich Bonhöffer, the Lutheran Theologian. Some five hundred thousand Russian PoWs also died of starvation, disease or in the attempt to escape. Nor should we forget the seventeen thousand Polish officers shot at Katyn by the Russians or the forty thousand Georgian soldiers exterminated by Stalin for fighting with the Germans to free themselves from the Communist yoke, or the many more millions who died under that regime before, during and after the war.

But today, we remember the concentration camp victims of 1939 - 1945 and remind ourselves of the dangers of any ideology based on hatred, greed or envy.

Lest we forget ...

European Court of Human Rights ...

2012-01-26T14:53:00.002Z

According to a report in the Frankfurter Algemeine, the daily newspaper Mausi reads and the Monk struggles through with dictionary in hand, carried an article today that claims Mr Cameron, the PM of the UK at present, is not alone in having serious reservations about this court's interference in "sovereign" affairs of member states. There are now a number of people becoming seriously concerned at the manner in which this court is being used to overturn matters which are reserved for EU Members sovereign Parliaments, or to interfere in the administration of justice.

Even, it is reported, the Bench of Judges in the ECHR are concerned and recognise that the problem lies in the constitution and remit of the court, not in the rulings, which, after all, must be framed within the parameters of their remit. It is now being seriously suggested that this court needs to be reconstituted and its remit made narrower so that conflicts cannot arise between the interests of the sovereign member states and the overall intent of the Convention on Human Rights.

Calls are being made from German, French, and other states for this to happen soon. All the member states are saddled, as is the UK, with people they know are criminals, but can't deport, because of rulings in the ECHR. There are other matters as well, like the "right" to vote being granted to prisoners serving sentences. This has caused more than a few Teutonic expletives in Germany. There are other examples as well, where a nation's legal system, or its right to govern in accordance with the wishes of the majority of that country, have been, and are being, challenged in the ECHR with the consequent loss of sovereignty for the nation concerned.

Mr Cameron was loudly mocked for his stance recently over Abu Qatada and the ECHR ruling, but it would seem he is not alone in Europe on this issue. Perhaps the Brussels Bureaucrats will get their act together and sort it out instead of meddling in other matters they have no right to.

New Neighbours?

2012-01-25T12:36:00.000Z

It appears that the State of Hessen is now home to a number of predators, animals moving in from the north and east. The country here is ideal for them since Hessen is the most forested State in Germany, a fact which surprises many people. Among the newcomers are Raccoons, known here as "Waschbären," one of which was photographed recently by one of Mausi's colleagues as it peered through his French Window and sized up his living room. It wasn't in the least bit phased by having its picture taken either.

According to today's newspaper though, we now have the European Lynx well established in the Aartal, the valley we overlook. And, if they're down there, they'll be up here as well ...

Around three times the size of a domestic cat, the lynx is a no nonsense predator and certainly not something to tangle with. It probably explains why most of the cats and dogs around here are staying indoors at night these days.

We already had wild boar, fallow deer and red deer, so why not a few members of the small large cat family? Oh, and just to cap things off, Hessen is also now home to a growing wolf population. Thus far, however, they haven't reached us!

Champagne Socialism ...

2012-01-24T11:27:00.002Z

A little item I spotted in the news feed yesterday had me almost speechless with fury. The news item concerned the revelation that a certain well known ex-Prime Minister and his good lady, a certain well known Human Rights campaigner and Barrister had paid their tax for 2010. A mere £315,000.

Now you may wonder why I saw red on this. Simples. The man earned a princely £12 million in the year ... Considering that he and his friends in Labour are constantly banging on about the Queen's income, or the Prince of Wales income and their voluntary tax arrangements (Either one pay considerably more voluntarily than he does on similar incomes!) his own tax evasion is a disgrace. How does he do it? Like most people who say one thing about the tax the rest of us must pay and do another - he uses "corporate" status to get away with a much lower tax rate and claim a plethora of "expenses" and "overheads" to wriggle out from under.

It must be said, so does that great organ of socialist propaganda, the Guardian. It's "Holding Company" is based offshore and pays token taxes in the UK. So next time the Guardian accuses one of the banks, or a wealthy individual of "tax evasion" let's just remember that the pot calling the saucepan black is only to distract us. One is as guilty as the other in this.

To add insult to injury, I have a small pension and a State Pension. Last year I earned an additional few hundred pounds - and got a tax bill from HMRC for a third of the extra money I'd earned. No allowance for the cost of the travel I had to do to get there to do the work, and no overnight expenses allowed either. I suppose someone has to pay off the national debt and for Mr Blair's handouts to the benefit dependents.

Obviously I have to earn in the same league as Mr Blair to qualify for a bit of tax relief ...

Aaaaaaargh!

2012-01-23T14:06:00.000Z

I hate bureaucracy and I particularly hate bureaucrats.

I have just wasted an entire morning trying to get someone in South Africa to see sense. They want documents from me that I cannot provide. Why do I need to beat these morons? Well, I suppose I could just throw in the towel and let the Old Mega Insurance keep the money, but the stubborn streak in me says I won't. I had a small pension plan there many years ago. I made it paid up when I left there 25 years ago. Now I want my money.

It's not as if I'm trying to take millions out. I'll leave that to the Zumas, Mugabes and Malemas of this world. What I have translates into about €2,000 - not a fortune by any manner of means. But I'd prefer it in my bank and not theirs!

The problem is they now have no record of my leaving SA or of my tax clearance. I provided an affidavit as instructed. Ah! Not good enough, the Commissioner of Oaths has only stamped the German side. You must have the English side stamped as well! Useless to point out that the said official is not likely to affix his stamp to the English version if he can't read it and be sure it says the same as the German version. Oh no! Ah, and you must provide proof you are not resident in SA! OK, so I provided, as instructed, proof of my tax status in the UK. No, not good enough, you must give us a letter from the HMRC to say you are registered there! What the blazes is a Tax Return and Statement of Tax then? Ah, but you could be secretly living in SA and just paying tax there. You must also provide us with a certificate from Germany that says you are permanently resident there.

No problem, here it is - in German. No! It must be in English! Go and get an English one ...

I struggle on. It's only taken 9 months to get this far ...

Collapse of the Middle Class?

2012-01-22T12:16:00.001Z

A discussion a few days ago, and some articles I have recently read, suggest that, while the wealthy continue to expand their wealth and their grip on the organs of power through their courting and funding of the political classes, the "middle income" group is rapidly being squeezed out of existence. They have been attacked in recent years by being priced out of the best schools and forced to accept the inadequate and often utterly incomprehensible "comprehensive" schooling imposed by the champagne socialist set of the political class. This means their kids are excluded from the networks developed at the best "fee paying" schools which are essential if they are ever going to get past the glass ceilings that exist in every business.

They are also excluded from the places at the top universities which they might once have gained, because the dice are now loaded in favour of "working class" children from lower income families. Once a Middle Class background meant stable home life, a home in a nice neighbourhood, a comfortable lifestyle, access to good education for your offspring and the expectation of a good standard of living for your kids. Not, it appears, any longer.

"Middle Income" earners have been treated for a long time now, as "rich" and there fore a target for milking through the tax system. That has eroded incomes and reduced, particularly at the lower end, the disposable income these folk enjoy. The reduction in "disposable income" has meant less to spend on helping the next generation, less to spend on leisure and an erosion of their lifestyles. At the same time many in the "Working Class" have found themselves earning incomes once considered "middle class" and some have even reached earnings levels well toward the upper end of that scale. They too find themselves caught in the income trap, of working ever harder just to hold their place or defend the lifestyle they aspire to. But there comes a point at which the strain begins to tell. The harder they work, the more hours they devote to earning enough to make up for the depradations of the tax system and the ever rising costs of housing, pension provision, health care, etc., the less time they have to actually enjoy it. The strains on marriages when two careers have to be catered for, increase the problems couples face in trying to build and maintain their relationships.

It used to be the case that "Middle Class" meant having a "white collar" career, someone in management, or one of the professions. This is no longer the case, now it is more a measure of income and even that is uncertain. The gap between those in the top earning bracket and those in the Middle Income group is rapidly becomeing a gulf. Very few Middle Income earners come anywhere near the upper end of the bracket and the vast bulk are struggling to stay where they are. As for their children - well, things don't look so good for them either, in fact they look depressingly as if these young people face having to accept a reduction in their living standard over their lifetimes.

Part of the problem is that the current economic system in western society rewards the very top of the organisations, the investors and those workers in the public sector protected by padded pensions (paid for out of taxes), job security that anyone outside of the civil service can only dream of, and those who know how to milk the benefit system. With the banks and the Boards of various supermarket chains paying their top management huge bonuses and six and seven figure salaries while paying minimum wages to everyone else, it becomes clear that there is a serious inequity developing. Professionals fare no better. A generation ago they would have expected to be earning more than their "administrators" but that has been eroded to the point where an engineer is often earning less than the office "manager" - yet the engineer is key to the trade of the organisation, while the "manager" is not. Teachers, health professionals and other "professional" workers are suffering a similar decay of their status and earnings.

Considering the situation carefully suggests that the "Middle Class" is shrinking. Incomes are being eroded, and overtaken by "labouring trades." As the Postulant remarked recently, one partner stopping working or not working, is not an option for most "Middle Class" couples, they need both incomes just to keep afloat. Pregnancy can spell disaster for their finances.

I'm not sure what the answer is, or if there is one. I do know that somewhere along the way there is going to have to be a serious reconsideration of the way wealth is distributed and the way governments constantly, and of all flavours, favour their chums. In the meantime the rich will continue to get ever richer, and the aspirations of those not able to access those high-flying careers will continue to feel the squeeze ...

Profit is a Human Right?

2012-01-21T16:32:00.000Z

The news today is rather full of the group of American Hedge Funds investors who are suing the EU or the European Central Bank in the European Court claiming that the "rescue package" thrashed out for Greece, Italy, Spain and Porugal - among others - infringes their human right to maximise their profits. The reason is that the banks, presumably in which they have invested - are required, in the settlement, to carry 50% of the unsecured debts, the taxpayers of the EU are picking up the rest.

According to the litigants, this reduces their profits and thus infringes their "right" to destroy national economies and cause untold suffering in pursuit of their profits. The "greed is good" creed, it seems, overrides all other considerations. The fact is that this maximum profit concept arises from a US Supreme Court decision in the 1930s. Henry Ford wanted to slash the cost of his cars in order to make them more widely available. To do so he had to cut the company profit margins and thus reduce the dividends paid to his shareholders. Several, some on his Board of Directors, promptly sued him. The court ruled for the litigants, declaring that the sole purpose of any corporation was to maximise the profits to be shared by its shareholders ...

That decision has set the tone of "capitalism" ever since. Employees are no more than costs in the balance sheets, to be discarded when they become unprofitable, and paid as little as legally possible at all others. Only the respective "boards" and their senior managers actually enjoy any real prospect of reward, and the shareholders do no more than put their money into shares - often for very short periods - yet expect their investment to earn the highest possible return at the expense of those actually working for the company.

Now that sounds as if I'm arguing the socialist cause, but I'm not. I do recognise that many of these "hedge funds" are investing money on behalf of folk like me, who draw a pension paid, hopefully, from the income from investments. A reduction in the return on that investment affects the ability to continue to pay me. But there has to be a balance. A link recently sent me by the Postulant flagged up a serious abuse arising out of this "profit maximising" activity. According to a recent survey, executive pay in all the major supermarket chains is sky high. So are the profits shared with the shareholders. What's wrong with that, you may well ask.

Just this, three of the largest are paying their full time staff, packing shelves, manning tills and doing the "shop front" jobs, less than is necessary to live in the cities they work in. In London alone, the majority of these workers are also drawing Labour's "Working Credits" - a benefit intended to help the unemployed switch back into full time work without their incomes falling below what they were receiving in benefits. It seems that the Boards of the supermarkets saw a fabulous way to maximise their profit margins at the expense of the taxpayer. After all, why pay a worker more than you have to if the same worker can pick up a 'benefit' that tops up their pay. Secondly, by giving them minimum working hours, the same person can take on a second job. Winner for the Board - bonuses for the executive and maximum profit for the shareholders ...

I am a lifelong believer in minimal regulation and freedom to choose how, where and what I do with my life. Socialism is anathema to me, since in practice it empowers a very few, and pigeon holes and restricts everyone else. But the present face of Capitalism has to change, it has to be made more responsible and it has to ensure that those who generate the wealth for the shareholders, directors and executives get a fairer share of the cake.

Unfortunately, I can't see it happening without some pain. All I can hope for at the moment is that the Court will reject this present claim and case. The banks maximised their profits and are still playing havoc with peoples' lives and nations economies. They gamble on everything, from food and fuel, and currencies. They think nothing of speculating on things that are a matter of life and death to a majority, but only another source of profit to the trader. They have been bailed out, not just in Europe, but in the US as well, by the taxpayer. They still insist on paying obscene "bonuses" to the people who think nothing of destroying national economies by speculating against a currency, or forcing food and fuel prices through the roof speculating on reserves and stocks in transit. (How many people know that each tanker loaded with oil leaves its port of origin with only a 'concept' destination and that the cargo can change ownership four or five times during a voyage?)

Now, as Frau Merkel has said, it's time they showed some responsibility. It's payback time.

Evacuation Drills and reality ...

2012-01-20T17:20:00.000Z

One thing that has struck me over the last few days, listening to the passangers and the various excited television and media "experts" pontificating on the Costa Concordia evacuation, is that, despite the complaints that it was "chaotic" - almost everyone got off. The Captain, his second and third officers seem to have managed it quite early, presumably leaving the crew and the First Officer, to cope with the rest. There is almost certainly a difference in perspective between those who are waiting to be evacuated, usually in a state of some anxiety, and those trying to manage the loading of boats and their successful launching. The difference in point of view can be a chasm, for from the point of view of those loading passengers as fast as they can into boats and making sure the unsteady, the panicky and the impatient don't fall, start a stampede or push someone overboard, it wasn't chaos, for those waiting, often unable to hear instructions, it was probably taking far too long.

What everyone forgets is that these evacuations are quite rare. Thankfully. The tests and drills are all done in harbour, usually with volunteers from the local University acting as the passengers. The ship is stable, the liferafts, escape chutes and boats are all behaving beautifully in the protected waters of the harbour. What nobody ever attempts to do in these trials is evacuate the full complement with the ship canted over and threatening to roll onto the lifeboats and rafts on one side, and making it extremely difficult to launch anything at all on the other. Add to that the fact that these passenger liners carry only enough boats and rafts for the number of people on board. There is no spare capacity, so if you lose a boat or raft, you already have a problem. Lose more than one and the problem starts to run away ...

I would suggest that, despite the Captain's dereliction of his duty, the remarkable thing is that they did actually achieve a near complete evacuation. Yes, there are a number of dead, but remember this ship was carrying 4,200 passengers and crew and all bar 37 were able to leave the ship safely. That in itself is quite an achievement. Had the weather beed bad, had they been unable to actually beach the vessel in her current position, the death toll would probably have been far higher than it is.

Josephus and I have, for more years than we care to admit, taught evacuation techniques and procedures for buildings. Josephus also trained people working on offshore platforms in evacuation drills. One thing we can both attest to is that evacuations seldom run perfectly and without a hitch - and that's on land. From an offshore platform, or a sinking ship in a seaway, and you are into a whole new ball game. On a ship, around one third of the people aboard are crew, but few of those are seamen, the largest proportion are Stewards, chefs, entertainers and 'housekeepers.' Though they have some training in emergency procedure, it hardly prepares them for the full impact of dealing with 3,000 very unhappy and excited passengers.

Those who have tried it will also know that clambering into an inflatable liferaft is not the easiest or the most comfortable thing to do in the sea. Think "Bouncy Castle" combined with it being erected on a lake and you begin to get the idea. These things behave a bit like a rollercoaster, crossed with a carousel.

I cannot escape the feeling that the passengers on this ship have been very, very lucky. Despite his other failures, the Captain did the most sensible thing - he rammed the ship onto the island as close as he could get to the shore. Then his crew seem to have managed, under circumstances I doubt any of them ever really expected to have to deal with, to get the vast majority of the passengers off. As I said in my previous post on this subject, and Josephus commented in another, these ships are only marginally stable. In a damaged state, they can quickly lose that margin. It's worth remembering that, had the ship been further out, there is a good chance far more people would have been lost.

Food for thought in a world driven by "cash flows" and "bottom lines." There are some costs you simply cannot ignore when it comes to choosing between safety and maximum profit ...

Cruise Ship Design

2012-01-19T11:21:00.000Z

When I was young, I thought of 'tender' as the description of a boat that serviced a ship. The last tender I owned for a while was used on the annual raft race on the river Dee each April. Those with experience of Aberdonian weather will realise that being in survival gear on the safety boat was preferable to riding a bed-frame and barrels in fancy dress! That tender was named the "cow-pat" for the simple reason that it serviced a 32 foot Albin Express racing yacht by the name of "Aberdeen Angus". In terms of the use of the names "ship" and "boat" this was the opposite end of the scale to HMS Nottingham's return home from Sydney in 2002 on board, and welded to the deck of, the heavy lifting vessel MV Swan.

It now transpires that a "tender ship" is actually a term for a design where the centre of mass is rather too close to the centre of bouyancy, resulting in a ship that is perfectly stable in good conditions, but is rather likely to respond to steering movements or heavy water with more roll that would be appreciated by passengers, especially those eating their soup! Nautilus International spokesman Tony Minns told New Scientist about this in response to the Costa Concordia disaster recently:

The height of cruise ships is a problem, too, says Minns. “It is known in sea trials that these vessels are what we call ‘tender’ in stability terms – they are very stable but have a quick rate of roll when the rudder is moved a few degrees.” In other words, they are quite sensitive to being upset.
source:
http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/thinking-tech/costa-concordia-disaster-was-faulty-ship-design-to-blame/9913?tag=nl.e660

Is there a fundamental issue here where the profit motive is leading to the commissioning of vessels that are, in the worst possible way "fair weather sailors"?

I would welcome the sage words of the Monk here as his knowledge of such things goes beyond my mere dabbling and desultory interest.

Economics?

2012-01-18T14:58:00.002Z

An article in the Economist had me amused, this paragraph in particular made me chuckle:

“A further reason to welcome them is that in many developed countries, as well as in China, falling birth rates have started to cause working populations to shrink and the number of elderly people to rise steeply, with ominous consequences for economies in general and pensions in particular. More working women could help offset the decline in the labour force.“

Methinks the economists have missed something in their calculations: more women working = even lower birth rates = more anxiety about a shrinking working population in another generation’s time… how’s that going to work? Short-termist thinking wins again!

People get upset when it is pointed out that the "Benefit Mums" are having more children than anyone else, so not only is there a falling birth rate overall, but fewer potential workers are being born. The problem being that the child typically, follows the pattern of life set by the parent, so a parent who lives on benefit and has never seriously considered getting into gainful employment is likely to produce a new generation of benefit dependents ...

What’s really needed is for maternity policies for working mothers to be better than for those who are on benefits. Yes, I do recognise that there are 'costs' and 'burdens on business' here, but sensible policies would actually reduce the impact, not increase it People generally complain about supplementing working parents (“they choose to have kids!”) while forgetting that the resultant sprogs will pay into everyone’s pensions – if they see their parents often enough to learn some kind of work ethic from them. As more and more couples are forced to work full-time and commute further and further, they have less and less influence over their childrens’ values.

As usual, the economists have studied the "bottom line" and reached a conclusion, but I think, in doing so, they've completely missed the larger picture. There's an elephant in the room here, and, probably because they're stood with their backs to it admiring the view from the window - they can't see it.

National Credit Ratings ...

2012-01-17T14:15:00.000Z

Does anyone else wonder about the politics behind the "Ratings" made by these Rating Agencies - all of them, I note, based in the US. Down rating Greece I can understand, but there is a serious side effect to this which I suspect most people miss. When a nation's credit rating falls, the interest its creditors charge for their loans to the national Treasury go up.

The rating is lowered because the country is struggling to pay its debts - so the bankers charge them more money on the loans, making it more difficult to pay. This is what is called Loan Sharking in the world inhabited by the individual. My bank refuses me credit, so I'm forced to go to a Loan Shark to get the money I need for some (Hopefully seriously important) expense I must meet and not just another luxury splurge. From the bank I might have had to pay a loan interest rate of - say - 10%, but the loan shark charges 30% per month. So my thousand pound loan will now cost me 3,600 plus the original 1,000 if I pay it back inside twelve months instead of a smaller 1,100 at the bank. Doesn't sound like much, until you ask the question, why was my rating low to begin with. Simple, I already had a number of large debts, so I had a poor credit rating, which in turns means I was already paying off a large amount of interest each month and now the Loan Shark doubles it ...

There is this thought about these National Ratings running through my head, that suggests the change may have both a political and a profit motive. First, all Western currencies are under pressure at the moment, and all for similar reasons, hand-outs exceed tax revenue, so they've borrowed to the hilt to meet their expenses. All ten of the nations now hit with lower ratings are in the €urozone, so this hits the €uro, driving its value down and presumably driving others up. That is further exacerbated by the down grading of the "Rescue Package" set up to underpin some of the economies now down graded. Who benefits? As the saying is, "Follow the money." Standard and Poor's are based in the US, managed by bankers in the US. Devaluing the €uro improves the value of the US$ without having to do much more than change a few numbers and letters in the international banking network of computers feeding the markets. That's the political aspect.

There is a more serious financial one. All these countries now face an increase in interest charges against their loans. Who wins on that one? Ah, the lenders of course, who also happen to be the same people who set up companies like Standard and Poor's in the first place. So now the countries face not only swinging loan redemption payments, but some pretty swinging increases in interest payments as well. If the austerity measures weren't hurting the populations of those countries before, watch them bite now!

As the spokesman for Standard and Poor's said, no one outside their organisation could possibly understand the manner in which they make the calculations which result in the ratings, but he then added that they were "100% accurate, no, make that 150%."

Is it just me, or does the spokesman really not understand that you cannot have 150% of anything? If he doesn't understand that small fact, how much reliance can we place on his "calculations?"

Responding to Josephus ...

2012-01-15T18:11:00.003Z

Josephus is right when he says I might wish to comment, I certainly do. Let me begin by saying that he is in a far better position to know the politics and the drivers which may or may not lead people in Scotland to vote "Yay" or "Nay" on this issue. I would also say that I think both nations will be the poorer for the break should Scotland decide to "go it alone." That said, I am of the camp that believes that Scotland is unlikely to survive as an "independent" economy. Denmark is a different case, one which possesses extensive overseas terrotories and assets, a fact often not visible in the UK. It is often forgotten that Greenland, the Faroes (and if you want to split hairs, the Shetlands) are Danish dependencies and the oil and gas fields off Greenland are huge. The country also possesses fields in the North Sea.

Contrary to the media misinformation, the Maritime Border between the England and Scotland does comply with international treaties and the fields lying to the East and South of it are in the English part. The revenues from these fields have been shared across the UK, but a division would see Scotland entitled only to those fields that lie in the Northern and Western areas.

Removing the RN and the RAF from Scotland (Faslane, Rosyth and Pitreavie) would remove between 15,000 and 18,000 jobs, but that is not the whole picture. At present several major warships are being built in Scottish Yards. These would also close and be moved and we can be certain that the Defence Establishment is already planning for this. As to how many jobs would be lost with those closures I can only guess.

Then there is the banking crisis, with the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Bank of Scotland (BoS or now HBOS), having been forced on English Banks to save them. Westminster owns shares in the part nationalised Banks Blair (a Scotsman posing as MP for an English constituency and Brown, a Scottish MP and Chancellor of the Exchequer responsible for the fiscal mess the UK economy is now in!) which raises the question of who would continue to bail out these banks? Tam Dalyel's "West Lothian Question" was one reason successive goverments refused to address the question of an Edinburgh Parliament. The mess Blair and his people created in tinkering with a Constitution they patently failed to understand at all, has raised some very tricky questions and is likely to result in some very acrymonious exhanges at the very least.

Josephus asks, why should Cameron demand the right to set the timetable, and as I understand it, the question, for this referendum ? I would answer that Mr Salmand does not have, under the current dispensation, the authority to refuse it. He is seeking to hold it on a date which is emotionally charged and favours his cause. In this he is trying to hold the rest of the UK to ransom. As Scotland is currently a part of the political and economic union that is the "United Kingdom" it is, whether it likes it or not, subject on constitutional matters, defence, economy and foreign affairs, subject to Westminster and not an independent entity in its own right.

Ironically, the demands from Scotland for independence are raising a reaction in England, one Blair could have avoided if he had not been intent on dividing England up into "Regions" which would have guaranteed a Labour control of large parts of it. Giving England a Parliament to deal with purely English matters, not controlled by Labour's Welsh and Scottish duplicates (Both nations now having their own "local" government) which allows some 75 Scottish MPs and around 30 Welsh ones to vote on law affecting England only has caused enormous resentment. So the West Lothian Question has now come home to bite.

Cromwell did enormous damage to relationships between England and Scotland and between England and Ireland as Josephus correctly points out. Ironic therefore that Blair, a Scot, thought he was the greatest Parliamentarian. One wonders exactly what he meant - or did he not know the real history? He was certainly ignorant of almost everything else of our history. As Josephus has said, it was a long time ago, but it is remembered. What is not remembered is the reason Scotland had to beg for Union in the first place. The "Darian Adventure" and one or two other "speculative ventures" embarked on with their Treasury had bankrupted the nation and the price England placed on bailing them out was Union. Blair and Co broke that Union, despite all the warnings, and now Cameron must deal with the result.

Alex Salmand may want to hang on for 2014 but I suspect he may not be allowed to. I am also suspicious of his motives. Josephus advances the idea that it is the 700th anniversary of the Bruce's victory over Edward II's army, but I suspect its so he can see who is in power after the next UK election, perhaps also seeking to run a campaign in conjunction with new elections for the Scottish Parliament.

As I said at the outset, I cannot see anything good for either nation in this. According to the financial papers I have read recently inward investment into Scotland is now stalling and a number of others are exploring what moving or relocation would involve. A large percentage of the Scottish Budget comes from Westminster with a higher per capita "tax spend allocation" in Scotland than in England, Wales or Northern Ireland, much of that is not raised in Scotland and will not be "made up" from the speculated "oil and gas revenue" the public think they will get by redrawing borders, primarily since the borders will not change.

We will have to wait and see.

"Scots Wha Hae"

2012-01-13T16:02:00.001Z

The West Lothian Question:

The question of Scottish MPs voting on purely English matters has a long history. It was brought up and named anew in 1977 by MP for West Lothian Tam Dalyell. Currently, the question is rather the opposite; should David Cameron, speaking as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom try to force the parliament and people of Scotland into compliance with his timescale in respect of a referendum for independence?

Firstly, the same Mr Cameron did not particularly like Frau Merkel and Monsieur Sarkozy telling the UK to bow to the whim of the EU, why then should he expect the First Minister of Scotland to bow to the voice of Westminster? The parallel appears quite obvious to my thinking. Secondly, as soon as the Scottish Nationalist Party gained an elected mandate as a majority government, this referendum was going to happen; win or lose, the SNP has always had a policy of striving for independence and a referendum has long been the tool of choice to be used when the time is right.

Can Scotland survive outwith the United Kingdom? (Notice a little Scots colloquialism there...) If Denmark can exist independently, then there is every expectation that Scotland can, however, it is almost certain that they would need to be part of the EU, that, in turn, raises the question of their currency; maintain Sterling, or join the Euro? Can the United Kingdom survive without Scotland? Well, I am certain that the Monk would wish to comment here, but my personal view is that the UK defence discussions would be, how shall I say, interesting. The Scots have traditionally provided much of the military personnel, which would in all probability suggest that Scotland could maintain a reasonable defence force for itself, but what of the hardware? How would (what is left of...) the Royal Navy fare without Faslane and Rosyth? How would Coastal Command of the Royal Air Force manage without Pitreavie? Lossiemouth is probably closing, so that is less of a loss. Oh, yes! I almost forgot, the Greenham Common protesters would have been much better picketing a certain ammunition dump just north of Carlisle, that is most probably where the cruise missiles are at this moment, and have been for most of their time. The weather isn't as nice as Berkshire though. Incidentally, when I said "north of Carlisle", did I omit to mention that Longtown is actually over the border in Scotland? Food for thought.

Will the Scots vote for independence? Well, there are just a shade over 5 million people in Scotland. Not all are native Scots and apparently birthright may be the qualifying requirement. Well, Glasgow has around 600,000 and Edinburgh 500,000, so there are about 4 million Scots who do not live in Glasgow or Edinburgh, although I will admit that the vast bulk of them are in the central belt between the two cities. The Urban Scots will largely support the Nationalist agenda, we cannot say if that will translate into votes, but in general, they will support it. It is estimated that the Gaeltach, for the most part, has hardly been part of the UK at any time, the ancient 'Highlands' still hold large populations that would regard remote rule from Edinburgh as worse than remote rule from Westminster. The good citizens of Aberdeen would be equally sceptical of remote rule by either Edinburgh or Glasgow, whereas the citizens of each and both of those great cities would declare civil war before agreeing to the power lying with either, unless it is their city, despite the presence of the Scottish parliament in E'burg. In short (tl;dr) I don't think it will happen, although I hope the vote takes place.

Now for the important question: what will the UK flag look like if Scotland leaves? The blue will, of course, disappear. The Welsh will get back the half of St David's cross that is overlain with half of St Andrew's white cross at the moment. But how will one either signal distress or moan at the ignorance of various people when the flag is flown inverted? It would be impossible to tell! there are additional Commonwealth issues; many of the flags of Commonwealth nations carry a quartered Union Flag, they will, or will they, be required to change.

The Braveheart tendency, "Scot's wha hae wi' Wallace bled" are probably not a majority, however, as a nation the Scots are justifiably proud of their land and heritage and it must be remembered that it was Cromwell's troops that finished off the job that centuries of conflict, Bishops, Kings and treaties had always managed to 'half do', and Cromwell had a habit of rather irritating people that he subdued, however, it was all a long time ago. That is why 2014 is Alex Salmond's ideal date, the 700th anniversary of the battle referred to in "Flower of Scotland". (written in 1968 by "The Corries".) It began in Lent, 1314 when The brother of the King, Edward Bruce, laid siege to Stirling Castle, held by an English garrison. King Edward II rather resented this and sent "a few chaps" to sort this little pesky jumped up Robert de Bruce so-called King, nothing but a jumped up tribal chieftan... However on 23rd and 24th of June, as the song says, the Scots army led by the Bruce "sent them homewards, tae think again." A well ordered defensive force was able to rout a much larger, but poorly led army. As Billy Connolly will always say if he recounts this great victory, "Aye, and they cam back and gi'ed us a right skelpin' later." However, the memory is strong, it will be 1314 for all of the right reasons, the Scots will not be pushed into a rush job.

2012-01-11T16:50:00.000Z

Introductions:
Allow me to introduce myself. The pseudonym Josephus was chosen carefully as the original man was something of an adapter, he shaped himself and his ideas to circumstances. I have been a friend and colleague of the Monk for nearly 20 years and have debated many of the issues written about here over the years. Often we agree, frequently we have different perspectives on a common theme and occasionally we vehemently disagree. That is how debate between intelligent people should be.

Some information on the original Josephus:

Josephus was a priest, a soldier, and a scholar. He is famous for being the most credible secular historian to record the existence of Jesus Christ outside of the New Testament.

He was born Joseph ben Mattathias in Jerusalem in 37 CE/AD, a few years after the time of Jesus, during the time of the Roman occupation of the Jewish homeland. In his early twenties he was sent to Rome to negotiate the release of several priests held hostage by Emperor Nero. When he returned home after completing his mission he found the nation beginning a revolution against the Romans.

Despite his foreboding that the cause was hopeless, he was drafted into becoming commander of the revolutionary forces in Galilee, where he spent more time controlling internal factions than fighting the Roman army. When the city of Jotapata he was defending fell to the Roman general Vespasian, Josephus and his supporters hid in a cave and entered into a suicide pact, which Josephus oddly survived.

Taken prisoner by Vespasian, Josephus presented himself as a prophet. Noting that the war had been propelled by an ancient oracle that foretold a world ruler would arise from Judaea, Josephus asserted that this referred to Vespasian, who was destined to become Emperor of Rome. Intrigued, Vespasian spared his life. When this prophecy came true, and Vespasian became Emperor, he rewarded Josephus handsomely, freeing him from his chains and eventually adopting him into his family, the Flavians. Josephus thus became Flavius Josephus.

During the remainder of the war, Josephus assisted the Roman commander Titus, Vespasian's son, with understanding the Jewish nation and in negotiating with the revolutionaries. Called a traitor, he was unable to persuade the defenders of Jerusalem to surrender to the Roman siege, and instead became a witness to the destruction of the city and the Holy Temple.

Living at the Flavian court in Rome, Josephus undertook to write a history of the war he had witnessed. The work, while apparently factually correct, also served to flatter his patron and to warn other provinces against the folly of opposing the Romans. He first wrote in his native language of Aramaic, then with assistance translated it into Greek (the most-used language of the Empire). It was published a few years after the end of the war, in about 78 CE. He was about 40 years old.

Josephus subsequently improved his language skills and undertook a massive work in Greek explaining the history of the Jews to the general non-Jewish audience. He emphasized that the Jewish culture and Bible were older than any other then existing, hence called his work the Jewish Antiquities. Approximately half the work is a rephrasing of the Hebrew Bible, while much of the rest draws on previous historians. This work was published in 93 or 94 CE, when he was about 56 years old.

In Rome, in the year 93, Josephus published his lengthy history of the Jews. While discussing the period in which the Jews of Judaea were governed by the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate, Josephus included the following account:
About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who performed surprising deeds and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Messiah. And when, upon the accusation of the principal men among us, Pilate had condemned him to a cross, those who had first come to love him did not cease. He appeared to them spending a third day restored to life, for the prophets of God had foretold these things and a thousand other marvels about him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared. - Jewish Antiquities, 18.3.3. 63 (Based on the translation of Louis H. Feldman, The Loeb Classical Library.)
(Thanks to the Reluctant-Messenger for details.)

Reflection:
I well remember the thrill when visiting the "Timmer Merkat" in the Castlegate, Aberdeen one Friday in the 1980s. I saw a thick, hand-bound book on a small folding book-press, pasting on my best poker face and breathing deeply I approached the stall and in a manner that would make David Barbie appear a soft touch beat the stall-holder down to £2.50. My excitement was palpable, if I had identified the volume from 25 yards away, it must have been quite a book. Clutching my new copy of Whiston's "Wars and Antiquities of the Jews" I took the bus home rather earlier than I would usually have done.

Technical Detail:
The reluctant messenger, the source for my biography above, chooses to use the time frame 'CE' i.e. current era. I chose, on first use, to add 'AD' i.e. Anno Domini; in the year of our Lord. I do not find these terms in any way antagonistic. I was brought up with 'AD' and it makes sense to me in the way that feet and inches do, however, as the Monk discussed recently, pinning the birth of Christ to a precise year is almost impossible, notwithstanding the Julian / Gregorian date changes of 1582, when at least we do know the date and author (Gregory XIII) almost the only certain statement we can make is that Christ was not born on Christmas day, year zero. The term CE is therefore technically an exact dating system using the generally acknowledged date of AD, but not being open to the frequent criticisms. If anyone feels uncomfortable about that, then I shall follow the lead of my mentor and do as Flavius Josephus would have done.

This post is dated; 16th Tevet, 5772

Welcome Josephus ...

2012-01-11T10:58:00.000Z

The Gray Monk and Mausi are joined at the Scriptorium by Josephus, a former colleague and friend of the Monk. Look out for posts from him in the future, the Monk can assure readers they will be extremely informative and interesting.

The Monk is away ...

2012-01-11T10:09:00.000Z

The Monk is in the UK for the next couple of days, so posting may be a little on the "light" side unless he can get connected ...

He's teaching on a course, in case anyone is interested and returns home on Friday evening.

So, now you know ...

NHS Reforms ...

2012-01-10T13:01:00.000Z

Right, I'll be straight up and honest. I'm not a fan of the NHS in its present form. It is, at best, the result of a series of ideological ambitions, with which I do have some sympathy, and a whole slew of compromises which have had to be made at various times to bring or keep people on board, to satisfy some vested interests and of course, the political meddlers who simply can't keep their noses out of things. Largely speaking, it works. It delivers health care and it does so reasonably well for the most part, though, here and there, it is a lottery when it comes to certain treatments and medications.

One of the reasons I do believe it needs root and branch reform is not because I want to see it broken up and privatised. What I want is less political interference, less spent on the massive administration and plethora of clerical posts that all detract from the delivery of medical care in one way or another, and far, far less central direction of the manner in which a doctor treats a patient.

The taxpayer puts in an enormous amount of money to the NHS, yet the hospitals are in a shocking state, cleaning being one "service" "contracted out" according to the bureaucrats to "free medical staff to deal with medical matters." And there lies the problem. The opinion of the medical staff - and often their wishes - are ignored by the "managers" who actually run the hospitals. As I have said many times, "management" is a function of every job, task and profession, and no one can "manage" a professional function if they are, themselves, not members of that profession.

All of that said, The Postulant has provided me with a very thought provoking article. It is on a blog called "A Better NHS" - something even I would wish to see. In a series of questions and answers regarding the current government's draft legislation for reform, the writer provides some very interesting and valuable arguments. Despite what I said in my opening paragraphs, I do believe this article is correct. The NHS can be improved, but David Cameron's plans are not the right way to do so. While this may satisfy the Treasury and its ambitions to sell off every service the government provides, and will certainly make the shareholders and the Boards of various companies such as Capita dance for joy, it probably won't make a better NHS.

Information disinformation ...

2012-01-09T11:59:00.000Z

Something said by a friend recently about the "Connected Generation" (Generation Z in education/social classifications) having an attention span of no more than 140 characters in reading length, got me thinking. A little digging around how some of the great myths of the late 20th early 21st Century have spread and become the new "truths" suggests that it is down to the use (or abuse) of modern electronic media to a large degree and to the lack of desire to check facts among a large part of the receiving population on the other.

The "tl;dr" (Too long; didn't read - for those not used to "txt spk") response kicks in as soon as someone does want to check facts and discovers that the reality is a lot more complex than the 'abridged' version they found on Twitter, FaceBook or one of the many newspaper feeds. The "big" story in the news here in Germany is the Bundes President's private financial arrangements. Listening to the various self-righteous politicians, media spokesmen and others you would think that having taken out a private loan from a friend to buy a house was a hanging offence. Yes, he shouldn't have gone that route, but there seems to have been 'lost' in the reporting of it, the fact that he needed a quick decision and the bank was dragging its feet. OK, there are other questions, such as holidays with friends and some arguments with various Media heads which also emerged, but again, we seem to hear only the self-righteous versions from those now squealing about how they were "abused" in this. There is always a great deal of filtering in any reportage in the Media, but when you add in the "secret" agenda of the reporter and the bias of the agency he/she works for, you get a very selective presentation of the facts.

Freedom of the information supply via the media is a vital part of any democracy, but so is accuracy of reporting and that flows across to all other information streams. Vast amounts of "disinformation" and blatant untruth is now swirling around the internet. Very few of those reading it on a daily basis actually check the veracity of it. I'm glad to say that The Postulant is one who regularly uses Snopes (and I have to thank her for pointing me at it) to verify material she gets forwarded to her. I wish others were as careful.

Sadly the disinformation-information becomes the new truth is also affecting academic circles. I have recently read several books which identify the origins of some of the anti-religion propaganda as 19th Century sources. When these are examined, they turn out to be "spin" - quite a bit of it refuted at the time, but which, because it is quoted by Bertrand Russel, Aldous Huxley or some other "thinker" of the 20th Century is now "fact" - yet a lot of this is pure invention. One particular example that annoys me is the statement that "the church" taught that the world was flat. This turns out to be based on a statement made by a "scientist" from the early 19th Century who based his assumption on his interpretation of the Mappa Mundi. The "Mappa" - a popular 14th -15th Century representation of the "Spiritual" connections of the places of pilgrimage and special holiness, was based on the known lands of the people making the map and placed Jerusalem at its centre - for the obvious reason that it is the heart of Christianity. Officially the church has always followed the Ptolemaic and Aristotelian understanding of the world as a sphere - the question for Europe was always what lay over the ocean in terms of lands and peoples. Columbus' journey ad route were chosen because his talking to fishermen who regularly ventured beyond the horizon, suggested that it might lead to the "East" from which Europe was cut off by the Muslim Empires in Turkey and Persia.

John Cabot set out from Bristol in the "Mathew" (A replica of his ship is to be seen and visited in the port there) armed with maps and information from the fishermen who regularly fished the Grand Banks and sometimes over wintered in Nova Scotia and the American East Coast. But all of this is swept aside by the repetition of the late Victorian anti-church factions who invented the flat earth story to promote their own "superior" reasoning.

Sadly the modern media and the speed of "information" transfer simply aids these and other myths in their spread and acceptance as "truth" by those to gullible or to ignorant to seek further and check.

Ah well, this post has already reached far beyond the limits of tl;dr ...

David the King?

2012-01-07T19:07:00.001Z

Picking up from my articles of the last couple of days, I was reminded of the new controversy surrounding King David and his successor, Solomon. This was covered in an article in the National Geographic in which they discussed the argument between a small group of atheist Jews (Yes, there are some) who are determinedly rewriting everything their predecessors and quite a number of the contemporaries have done to uncover Israels past and the history of the Jewish nation. This is a major challenge even without the "nay sayers" rewriting everything.

One reason is that much of the archeology which supports the Jewish accounts - most contained in the Old Testament - lie in land controlled by Muslim governments. A second reason is that, in the course of the history of this region, things have been torn down, rebuilt, destroyed, buried and built over during the last 2,500 years, starting with the Babylonians, the Assyrians and on through Alexander the Great, the Romans and eventually the Arabs, the Crusaders and the Turks. Nearly all of them intent on erasing everything about the Jews for one reason or another. All the Jewish records that survived the Hellenic invaders and the Maccabean revolt were finally destroyed by the Roman Army in 70 - 73AD.

So, one can understand the frustration of one of Israels leading archeologists when she is forced to confront one of her own students who is telling tourists that everything she has written or uncovered in her life's work - is rubbish. The problem is in the dating. The chief anti-Bible archeologist is a Dr Finkelstein who has redated everything his companions found, asserting it is all at least 100 years younger than David or Solomon. He is following the common tactic of so many in the anti-religion camp - cast doubt on the source book, and you undermine everything else. By calling into question the status of King David, he calls into question all claim Israel has to an illustrious history. All Jews look back to the Kingdom of David and Solomon as the Golden Age of their people and it is the fact that the only comprehensive record of this is in the Bible that annoys the likes of Finkelstein. He and his supporters want to pull the rug out from under the Orthodox Jewish community - so they attack the root of their faith. The encyclopedia gives the following on David ...

His life is conventionally dated to c. 1040–970 BC, his reign over Judah c. 1010–1003 BC, and his reign over the United Kingdom of Israel c. 1003–970 BC. The Books of Samuel, 1 Kings, and 1 Chronicles are the only sources of information on David, although the Tel Dan stele records the existence in the mid-9th century of a Judean royal dynasty called the "House of David". David's life is very important to Jewish, Christian and Islamic culture. In Judaism, David, or David HaMelekh, is the King of Israel, and the Jewish people. Jewish tradition maintains that a direct descendant of David will be the Messiah. In Islam, he is known as Dawud, considered to be a prophet and the king of a nation.

The dating is supported, but the argument revolves, as the article in the National Geographic suggests, around the status of the "king" - was he a jumped up hill tribe chief, or something more? Finkelstein and his faction can't get rid of the Stele, it is far too well known and far to authentic, so now they play with the dating.

One has to recognise, as any true Biblical scholar will tell you, that the books of Chronicles, Kings and Samuel are fragments reassembled after the Babylonian exile. The original Court Records of Israel and Judah having been destroyed by the conquerors as was the custom in those days. The books are the remembered records and may not be entirely accurate, but they are a record.

It can only be hoped that the Finkelsteins of this world will, eventually, be exposed and discredited. Until then the likes of Dr Mazar and her supporters must continue fighting. More than just some dusty ruins and shards of pottery depend upon it.

Twelfth Day of Christmas - Epiphany

2012-01-06T19:14:00.001Z

Today is the Feast of the Epiphany, the day the "Wise Men" arrived in Bethlehem after, presumably, a two year journey. There are, of course, some arguments about the date of Jesus' birth, but you need to remember that the monk who worked out the dating didn't use a scientific method, or even an archeological one. He worked some 600 - 700 years after the events and his method was, by modern standards, rather crude. It certainly wasn't helped by confusion over names and dates of reigns.

Herod the Great died in 4 BC. We know that now, but the monk didn't. Luke apparently got Herod the Great and Herod Agrippa mixed up and may even have got Herod Archelaus into the mix. Remember that Luke was Greek and used a different dating system to Matthew, a Jew using the traditional Jewish calendar. Luke was also collecting his information for his Gospel some 20 years after the crucifixion and we have all had experience of talking to our grandparents about family history. It goes along the lines of "now it would have been 1941 or maybe 1942 - it was the year that Grace fell out of the tree. That was 1937 dear ..." Matthew had the advantage of having lived and walked with Christ, so his dates are probably more reliable.

That said, if we accept the fact that it was Herod the Great that ordered the killing of children in Bethlehem , our calendar is out by about 6 years. In other words we are now living in 2018 if we really want to be that accurate. The old monk did a pretty good job working on the ages of people when they died who were known to have been taught by people, taught by people, taught etc., right back to the Apostles and Jesus himself. To get to within six years by that method was pretty good. Other items mentioned in the Gospel accounts also point to 6BC being the correct date, since there were a number of major astrological events in that and the years immediately following.

Tradition has it that the three "Magi" were one from Europe, one from "the East" and one from Africa and the names ascribed to them around 1000 AD reflect that. Their significance is that they represented people outside the Jewish nations and tribes. In other words, they were the first "sign" that Christ was for all peoples and nations and not just for Israel and Judea. Having called on Herod according to the accounts of their visit, they found their way to Bethlehem and there they found Jesus and his parents. They "returned home another way" after a warning that Herod planned skulduggery and then we hit the next question mark on the Gospel account.

Why would Herod order the slaughter of all boys between newborn and two? The simple answer is, of course, that he was "playing safe" but there is a further complication. There is no record of such a slaughter being ordered in Bethlehem and Herod himself died in 4 BC. The Holy Family would not have been living in the stable for two years and there is no suggestion in the Gospels that they were when the Magi arrived. So what actually happened?

A recent archeological find turned up a mass grave of children's skeletons. Could this be the result of the slaughter? Quite possibly, the skeletons and the grave are of the right age and period, though it is difficult to date children's skeletal remains after so long accurately. There is also a suggestion that a plague may have been the agency of death - but then why only children and only in this place? Just to throw in another wobbly, the Governor of Syria named by Luke actually held this office from 10 - 14AD, but he was present for the exile of Herod Archelaus in 4 BC and probably organised a census then as Judea was made a "Province" of Rome under the Governorship of Syria. Enter the Roman Governors and the progression that brought Pontius Pilatus to Jerusalem in the period covering the crucifixion.

Why would Herod have been afraid of a "carpenter's son" (especially one about whom rumour no doubt already questioned his parentage) unless there was a strong possibility of a legitimate claim to the throne Herod occupied? We know that Joseph was a descendent of David, but that, in itself, hardly made Jesus a legitimate possible heir. It is much more likely, and a careful consideration of later clues in the narrative, that Joseph was a man of means, well connected among the Jewish nobility and therefore a threat to the usurper Herod and his heirs. Herod certainly had no scruples in murdering his wife's (He had inherited the throne through her) relatives, getting rid of several far more legitimate claimants to his throne, including his wife's brothers, several cousins and an uncle. It's quite possible that the "slaughter of the innocents" in Bethlehem was limited to certain families standing a little too close for Herod's comfort to the throne.

The gospel writers are being careful, remember they are writing in an environment when making a statement that might offend someone powerful could get you crucified, so the allusion is broadened and the blame moved safely to the now long dead tyrant. One thing is clear. The birth had taken place within two years of the arrival of the Magi. Nor did Joseph hang about. And here we have another small clue to his connections - a "flight" into Egypt was an expensive trip, not something any mere peasant could even contemplate.

Does this change the way I see Jesus, the Magi or my faith? No, all it does do is underscore the need to understand the background and to enjoy the tradition, will seeking the reality. Faith, to be strong, needs to recognise reality and to see how the realities around those who wrote the Gospels, wrote the letters and compiled the Biblical canon shaped and directed their writing and their actions.

The Magi have been and are now on their way home - and Joseph has Mary and the child Jesus probably heading for Joppa and a ship to Egypt! Welcome the Magi, because they are you and I.

Life Choice?

2012-01-05T12:34:00.001Z

There are definitely times when I despair for Christianity and the debate surrounding some of the candidacy for the US Presidential race is raising that specter again. Once again it is idiots whipping up a storm about "Gays" and "gay Rights," and once again they are reaching for their Bibles and their narrow interpretations of it to support their crusades. Fundamentalists of all religions tend to do untold harm to both the message of a faith and to those who try to follow it honestly and prayerfully. The extremists, though, always manage to steal the limelight and cloak themselves in the fable - at least in many media reports - as "the one true interpreter" of that Faith.

I was reminded of this when I read this report in the Guardian (NOT my usual paper!) I find myself, once again, wishing I could take the book they so abuse and bash it into their heads until they get to understand it. It seems that once again, the focus of the "conservatives" (I've always considered myself to be one, but now I'm not so sure!) is on lifestyles, specifically, those now labelled "Gay." Yes, there are three clear references to this in the Old Testament and a possible one or two (If you really stretch the imagination!) in the New. Once more all the Fundamentalists - those who want to "interpret" everything literally in the Bible are up in arms and claiming, yet again, that the choice of lifestyle is - choice! They refuse to accept the plethora of medical evidence to the contrary and continue to shout and scream about people in this category being "evil." It makes me want to foam at the mouth and bite someone in the hope I'll give them rabies!

First of all, the Bible is NOT one book, it is a library all on its own. All of the books in it were written at different times and in many different languages. Not all of it is "history" and will someone please, please, please, tell the American Fundamentalist sects that it was not written in English! Nor was most of it written in Hebrew! The original books were written in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek and possible even in Persian in places. The modern Bible as we have it is a translation of, for the Old Testament, the Hebrew canon known as the Talmud for the King James Version (Which came from Babylon/Persia) and the Hellenic Greek version known as the Septuagint for the Vulgate version used by the Early Church and by the Roman Catholics and Lutherans. Until the invention of the printing press and movable type, it had to be copied by hand and, inevitably, mistakes were made by copyists. Eventually, in around 1500, it was agreed that there should be one "Authorised" text and hundreds of copies were examined to find the most reliable - and those became the text we have now.

The KJV (Published in 1611) drew on a completely new set of sources. The Talmud for the Old and the most reliable copies they could find of the originals for the New. This is why the KJV has fewer books in it than the Vulgate.

Right, that's the history out of the way, now to "interpretation."

You cannot interpret or understand the text of this collection without knowing what you are looking at and what it represents. Nor can you understand it outside of the setting of the book you are reading. In other words, the background is important. Why? Put simply, because the writers of the Biblical Books didn't write down all the background details, just the important bits - so they left out everything the reader was expected to "know." Why? Remember, paper wasn't easily come by, they wrote on papyrus which came from Egypt, or on hides, which had to be prepared and cost an arm and a leg. So you didn't waste space with details your reader should know. Except that they didn't consider the idiots who would read it 2,500 years later, insist that it should be read literally, in a different language and with a totally different understanding of the culture and events it is describing.

Modern readers also fail to understand that Genesis is an "Epic" rather like a Norse Saga, it has elements of fact in it but it is presented as a collection of folk memories and poetic explanations for an agrarian society. It is not a scientific treatise! Nor is it a "factual" "history." Daniel, Job, Ruth and Esther are "stories," and written to render theological argument and discussion accessible to the writers audience - again, probably never expecting it to be read and interpreted in a different culture 2,000 years on! The Psalms are poems and prayers, again, written at different times and in different places and circumstances - and certainly NOT all written by King David. Please people - learn the background history!

The Bible certainly does, in Leviticus, condemn same sex acts. But elsewhere there are suggestions that several of the characters in it were, if not actively engaging in those acts, at least in 'partnerships' with others of their sex. You cannot read these things literally. Christianity as a whole condemns the act, not the person, though, at the moment, with all the scandal of abuse in the Roman Church, there is a tendency toward both. This flags up another of the problems with the interpretation many fundamentalists place on certain texts from the Bible.

In the Middle Ages a tendency developed to seek texts which supported certain policies, doctrines and actions. In part the Reformation tried to sweep that away - but the allure for the newly free and self proclaimed "prophets" of various Protestant Factions soon brought it back, with a vengeance. In the process the whole Gospel message of love and redemption in and through Christ got buried beneath an avalanche of Old Testament fire and brimstone. And the Fundamentalists love that!

The Guardian article is concerned with homophobia, a dreadful word in my view, introduced amid a plethora of new "phobias" which we are now told are "institutionalized" in just about everyone and everything. I reject that, but I do accept that a very small minority of extreme fundamentalists in all religions are "institutionally" afraid of homosexuality. The associate it with a disease, and are afraid their children may be "corrupted" by catching it. Frankly that is best described by a word I can't use here.

In the 1960s a certain Dr Kinsey claimed 10% of the US male population was homosexual. That has since been debunked (And Kinsey and his wife exposed as sexual predators and voyeurs), though the number remains a significant portion of the population. It is also extremely likely to be the same proportion in every population. It is not a "disease" transmitted by contact or association, someone not inclined that way is most unlikely to even consider trying it. Why, therefore, can we not get past this and recognise that just as people are different colours, have different beliefs and cultures and lifestyles - they are still among God's children? They don't "choose" to be that way - I remember being asked by a Gay man once, "would you choose to be a member of a hated minority if it was up to you?"

So please, don't fall into the trap of seeking texts in the Bible to support your fear. Please, will somebody call a halt to the proliferation of Fundamentalist sects and interpretations of this really good and useful book? Please stop making ALL Christians look ridiculous! I don't mind your worshipping in your own way and even pondering on the meaning of scripture - I do, a lot - but I do mind very much being made to look like some hatefilled bigot by idiots who can't accept that, if they actually looked at what the stories say and what science tells us - there is no conflict and certainly nothing to fear!

Please will somebody stop the abuse of the message of the Gospel by the selection of out of context texts to fight their political battles and express their very unChristian ideas?

The Book of Jonah (Another of the allegorical "story" books) tells the story that Jonah, having gone to Nineveh after trying to evade the call to do so, is angry that, when the city repents and turns back to God, the Lord does not destroy it. He takes umbrage and goes into a monumental sulk. God challenges him with the words; "Have you any right to be angry?" Perhaps that is something those who parade their "faith" and throw about texts to "prove" their points should take time to consider. The Gospel challenges us to embrace those who are different and to show compassion - not to stand in the market place and shout condemnation!

I guess you can tell I am cross ...

Budget Deficits

2012-01-04T07:17:00.002Z

If the history I was taught is correct, "Deficit Budgeting" and "Income Tax" were invented in the late 1780s by Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger to fund Britain's war with Revolutionary France. I think we're still paying for that set of bank loans, never mind the one's successive government's have taken out since then. Thanks to One Happy Dog Speaks, I was reminded of this with her short YouTube clip ...

She gives a very good example based on household figures (by simply reducing the US National numbers to something approaching normality for a family) and I reproduce her summation here -

By simply removing the last eight zeros you get -

A household budget:
* Annual family income: $21,700
* Money the family spent: $38,200
* New debt on the credit card: $16,500
* Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710
* Total budget cuts: $385

Interestingly, Income Tax, at 1 penny in the pound, came to an end after 1815, but was reintroduced in 1914 and has been a millstone round our necks ever since. It was supposed to replace all the taxes on food and other "interesting" little government fund raisers, but, as you've probably realised, as the Bureaucracy and graft associated with the Civil Service grew, so did the need to increase the tax take. Income tax has shot up from the original 1% to a whopping 50% for top earners in the UK and the average is around 25% before taking into account the add on taxes from VAT, Road Tax and the share we all pay toward Corporate Tax, Employers Contributions and so on. The US Debt is $14 Trillion and rising and the UK debts racked up by Liebor and Brown are similarly frightening, yet the Left, Liebor and the Guardianistas, can't seem to grasp the fact that the kind of budgeting they love - tell us where you keep your money and we'll take it and spend it for you - can no longer work.

I do find it strange that so many don't seem to be able to grasp the fact that no government in the world actually "owns" the money supply. Everything they have comes out of the pockets of the tax payers. In the days of the "Gold Standard" the money governments printed and issued was actually underpinned by the value of the "Treasure" in their Treasury. That is no longer the case. Every government in the world would be bankrupt tomorrow if their citizenry simply refused to pay the rapacious taxes imposed upon them by the self serving, greedy and venal politicians and their chums in the Civil Services ...

Some taxes are necessary. We do need to ensure that pensions are provided and that those in genuine need are assisted, that roads are maintained and water, sewage and so on are dealt with. But why do we need 6 million civil servants and of the order of 2,000 MPs, MEPs, MSPs, MAs and all their associated hangers-on to govern a small island nation of 60 million inhabitants when we once ruled an Empire stretching round the globe with 460 MPs, 300,000 seamen and soldiers and 3,000 civil servants? There is something seriously wrong with a nation that needs so many bureaucrats - one 5th of the total workforce!

2012 and all that ...

2012-01-03T10:05:00.001Z

The Postulant recently sent me a link to a science blog which discusses, from a geologists perspective, all the hype about the date 21-12-2012, the supposed "end of the world" date as calculated - in some interpretations - in the Mayan Calendar. In the blog Highly Allochthonous (Yeah, I know, I had to look that one up! To save others the trouble - it means a geological deposit that originated somewhere else.) the author describes the geologists responses to some of the more "way out" theories about the "end of the world." Their predictions make music to my ears, the only one I don't agree with is the comment about "carbon balances" - and that only because I do believe humanity is changing aspects of our climate, but not the way Greenstrife and other eco-terrorists claim. Put simply, if you increase the human population beyond what the land and its resources can support you get increased run-off when it rains, you get crop failures, you get droughts and you get floods somewhere else. Focussing on CO2 is misleading and time (and money) wasting!

Highly Allochthonous predicts -

In 2012:
The Earth’s tectonic plates will continue to move across the mantle at a few centimetres a year. Earthquakes and volcanoes will result in the usual fashion.
Based on the last century of seismic activity
, there will be 10-20 earthquakes with a moment magnitude greater than 7.0, with a good chance that at least one will exceed magnitude 8. Most of the largest are likely to be associated with subduction zones, with the consequent risk of a tsunami if they rupture at shallow depths.
There will be more than a hundred earthquakes between magnitude 6 and 7, which have the potential to cause considerable damage if the rupture occurs close to a major city.
As Erik Klemetti will tell you, volcanic eruptions happen all the time, and in 2012 they will continue to do so. Some will fairly harmlessly ooze lava; others will behave more explosively, mimicing this year’s Pliny-winning Puyehue-Cordón Caulle in Chile. But unless something really spectacular happens, akin to Mount Pinatubo’s eruption in 1991, all of these eruptions will be eclipsed by breathless speculation about any slight seismic activity that occurs beneath Katla, the Yellowstone caldera, or any volcano in the Pacific Northwest.
In a number of places, too much rain will fall in too short a time, and flooding will result. When this occurs in a rich western country, there will be relatively low casualties, a large bill for damages, and lots of media coverage; when it happens in a poorer country, casualties will be higher and many more people will be displaced, but the media will pay far less attention.
The Earth’s magnetic poles will migrate a few tens of kilometres from their present position. This may lead to a few airports re-marking their runways, but is not a sign that the field is about to reverse. If you hear talk of the dipole field’s recent weakening and this being a sign of the field gearing up for a reversal – and in my opinion, it’s at least a few centuries to soon to tell – remember that the whole process takes 5,000 to 10,000 years. Come December 22, your compass will still point north.
Scientists will continue point to the serious consequences of climate change as a result of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions (which will continue to inexorably rise). The climate itself will continue to push up past the ‘normal’ range in which our civilisation developed and is tuned to flourish in. The resulting extreme weather events – be they heatwaves, floods, or unusually powerful storms – are far more likely to be attributed to mystical cosmic cycles than our disruption of the carbon cycle.

Read the whole of their enlightening post here. I've deliberately left the links in, even though some of what is said about the climate has now been amended and is being challenged - particularly the infamous and patently falsified "hockey stick" graph.

As I remarked in my previous post on all the Doomsday scenarios some folk just feel so utterly drawn to, there does seem to be something about our current society that simply thrives on dreaming up these dire events and outcomes! At least these geologists point up the realities behind some of the more exciting ones. Personally I can't wait to see the excuses that will have to be dreamed up when 21 December rolls past just as it always has.

Postscript: This is why the Hockey Stick is, in my opinion, fraudulent.

A Bishop who stands for Faith ...

2012-01-02T08:10:00.001Z

Bishop +Michael Nazir-Ali, former Bishop of Rochester, is a main of conviction. He doesn't mince his words and speaks from the heart. His background is interesting, because he converted to Christianity, specifically the Anglican version of the Catholic Faith as a teenager. He stands out as an intellectual and, as you would expect, is an expert on both Muslim and Christian theology. That he is an outstanding scholar of both the Bible and the Quran goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway! He is now Director of the Oxford Centre for Training, Research, Advocacy and Dialogue.

I take the liberty of reproducing his response to David Cameron's New Year message in it's entireity -

In his recent speech on the place of the Bible and Christianity in our national life, David Cameron showed how the political development of the nation is inextricably bound up with Christian ideas. He challenged the Church, and specifically the Church of England, to provide moral and spiritual leadership. Such a challenge is long overdue, but the role of the Judaeo-Christian tradition in national life is more important than the status of any particular church. Whether or not this or that church provides what the Prime Minister is asking for, this tradition must remain central to our public life.

Much of what Mr Cameron said is music to my ears. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Many obstacles will confront him if he tries to give effect in legislation to things he has said in his speech.

One issue is religious literacy in the Civil Service, Parliament and local authorities. What Mr Cameron said about Christian ideas being embedded in our constitutional arrangements is no longer understood in the corridors of power. A disconnected view of history and the fog of multiculturalism have all but erased such memory from official consciousness. A concerted programme is needed if this literacy is to be recovered. Church leaders can help with remedial action, but this has to do with the place of Christianity in schools, and the teaching of history. Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, knows that history cannot just be about dates and personalities, but must be a narrative of a nation’s emergence from the mists of time. For such a project, the place of Christianity is absolutely central. Education on citizenship cannot ignore the fact that our cherished values have biblical roots.

The proper relation of religion to science is also vital. Young people must be taught to appreciate both the experimental methods of science and the ultimate values which religion offers. Such a conversation must take place in the classroom if we are not to continue being divided by “scientistic” and religious fundamentalists.

Mr Cameron reminded us that inalienable human dignity is founded on the biblical idea that we are made in the image of God. But to whom does this extend? And are there circumstances when a person might lose such dignity?

It was for these reasons that the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act recognised the special nature of the human embryo and established an authority to regulate scientific work involving embryos. I support the Coalition’s desire to trim the quangos, and the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority is not perfect. But we need a body, perhaps modelled on the US President’s Council, that can consider the moral implications of developments in bioethics.

As Mr Cameron reminded us, the value of equality comes from the biblical teaching, confirmed by science, of the common origin of all humans. This has to do with the equality of persons, not necessarily the equal value of all behaviour or relationships. Equality of all before the law is a development from the Judaeo-Christian influence on the law, but so is respect for conscience. I would hope that legislation initiated by this Government will, increasingly, respect the consciences of believers. Legislation in America provides for the “reasonable accommodation” of religious belief at work. If such a doctrine had been in place in Britain, we would not have seen the absurd dismissals – and absurd judicial decisions that upheld them – of Christians and others because they could not do certain tasks on account of their faith.

The Prime Minister is aware of the vast scale of social service, prison work, relief of poverty and the like that churches and their agencies undertake. He is right to expect their help with his vision of citizens working for the common good. Churches will welcome greater participation in building up communities. But they cannot simply be surrogate service-providers. What they do springs from their beliefs; the authorities must respect these, if there is to be genuine collaboration. Let us hope and pray that the Prime Minister’s recognition of the importance of Christianity in public life provides a springboard for such co-operation in this New Year.

The highlight of the final paragraph is my emphasis. Herein lies a major problem, in the mishmash of bad and anti-church legislation Blair and his vile party left us, Local Authorities are already demanding that services provided by church groups must not include any religious element. Until that is addressed and the anti-church bureaucrats are weeded out, no proper service can be provided on the lines Mr Cameron wants. The solution is in his hands.

Resolutions ...

2012-01-01T16:26:00.001Z

Are not something I generally subscribe to, but I was very amused by a comic strip called "The Grizzwells" in which the lead character, Gunther Grizzwell (A Grizzly bear if you don't know the strip) makes a resolution that he's going to take up unicycling. When asked why he replies, "because he has no intention of keeping it ..."

I guess that's one way of looking at these "New Year Resolutions" - make one you know you won't keep. Then you won't feel guilty about not keeping it.

Another friend presented a list of ten things he wanted to achieve this year, with a list of ten things he didn't do last year. No. 6 on the second list caught my eye and my sympathy. "Ripping into some idiot who doesn't know the first thing about the subject he's talking about," is certainly one I can chalk up as a resolution to keep this year. I really do have to learn to walk away from those who make statements about climate, religion/faith and historical events with little more than the Daily Mail or the Guardian slanted abridged, edited and twisted version of any of them as a basis for their "knowledge" of the subject. People like that don't want to know the truth, they operate entirely with closed minds on the premise that "facts confuse me; my mind is made up and I don't want to know the facts."

OK, there's my resolution. I'm going to have to work hard on it ...

Last Post?

2011-12-31T19:33:00.000Z

Happy New Year to my readers.

May 2012 bring everything we all hope for.

A different approach to company ownership ...

2011-12-30T11:38:00.002Z

A report in today's newspaper got me thinking. The report itself concerned the change of Chairmanship of a large German company which produces a wide range of frozen foods, packaged food, baking materials and considerably more in related goods. The firm started out as an Apothecary business in the 1890's and was founded by one Dr. August Oetker. The remarkable thing is this, that it survived two world wars - after the second having to be almost rebuilt from scratch - and is now one of Germany's largest manufacturers and suppliers of food, but it is not a "public company" and doesn't trade on the stock exchanges. It is family owned and run ...

This seems to me to be one of the major differences between the UK and US approach to business. Where the German's start one they start out small and grow it. They keep control of it and develop it for their own and their workers benefit. Germany requires worker representation at Board level so the workers also have a stake in the business and the decisions. Where a company does sell shares, it is never more than 40% of the capital and that is monitored carefully. A "Trust" usually manages a small 'share' holding for the employees where one is set up and the 'family' own and run the majority of holdings. Another good example is BMW, but others include Ziegler Fire Equipment, Steiff (the Teddy Bear makers) and the Aldi chains.

As various founders have discovered, the UK and US models are very different and a company is very unlikely to remain under the control of the founder and his or her family. Examples include Body Shop and Eddie Stobart, both taken over in Boardroom coups after going public and finding themselves the target of asset strippers and the money men. Eddie Stobart in particular was a nasty affair, the founder having built a large haulage company, run on tight lines with hands on from the man himself. His drivers were hand picked, always neatly dressed and treated extremely well. Post being persuaded to sell a stake in his company, Mr. Stobart found himself being told how to manage and what he could do by a bunch of smart 'suits' with no knowledge of the trucking business. Eventually he was pushed out and off the Board - and died of heart problems shortly after. The company name survives, but it isn't the same efficient and caring organisation it was - and its had several changes of ownership and board members since. Eddie must be rolling in his grave since the "new" owners are an "offshore" holding company and Eddie was nothing if not patriotic.

While the US and UK seem to think that selling off everything including their staff and families is perfectly acceptable, the German view is very different. Here there is a deep pride in the part these companies play in the economic health of the nation. Suggesting to Dr Oetker's family that they should sell their controlling stake in the company would be likely to get you shown the door assisted by a pair of burly security men. They'd rather sell the family silver!

Does this system work? I'd have to say that in my view it certainly does. These family owned and run businesses don't have the staff turnover or industrial relations problems their "multi-national" competitors experience. That alone has to be saying something. There are industrial problems of course, it would be totally misleading to suggest there were not, but they tend to get resolved much more speedily and much more amicably than those I encountered in the UK. For one thing there is far less of the "them" and "us" at work here in trade union activity and again, it tends to be strongest in those industries where the "shareholders" are remote and have only a financial interest in the business.

I can't escape the feeling that if the UK and the US want to survive as major economic powers they need to rethink both management and ownership of their assets. Speculative buying and selling of commodities is one thing, but when it comes to speculating with hard assets such as jobs, manufacturing premises and the like, it becomes a very different ball game. It is this sort of speculation - encouraged by Whitehall and Westminster to a very large degree - that has seen almost all of Britain's major industries exported to "developing nations" and of course, the jobs went with the hardware - but not the workers.

Dare one, in the face of the hysterical reporting of the Daily Mail and others of the purported "recreation of Charlemagne's Empire" or "the Fourth Reich," suggest that a little less hysteria, a lot more calm thought and a good hard look at the manner in which the nations assets are traded, stripped and exported might be in order? Certainly the German model may not be perfect, but it certainly has a great deal to commend it!

Movies

2011-12-29T11:42:00.001Z

Last night Mausi and the Monk treated themselves to a visit to the cinema in Mainz. Probably contrary to expectations, we chose to see the new Dreamworks film "Puss in Boots" in 3-D. I think I shall confine myself to saying it was spectacularly well done and very funny. There are a few fairy stories and nursery rhyme characters who will simply never again have quite the same image in my mind at least.

While the old fashioned 3-D was pretty good, the new digitised version is spectacular. You simply can't help yourself as things come straight at you out of the screen. You know its the movie, you know it's not 'real' but your reflexes move you anyway.

With 'Puss' based on the Shrek character you know he simply isn't going to be the version you know and love from Pantomimes. He certainly doesn't disappoint. He's sassy, he's bold as brass and does that thing with the big eyes and drooping ears every cat 'carer' knows and can't resist when he needs to. The ending is a bit of a surprise, but has a nice moral to it as a good fairy story/nursery rhyme should.

If you haven't seen it, you should.

Freight traffic ...

2011-12-28T14:27:00.000Z

Found some interesting figures today which I will have to explore a bit further. It appears that the rivers and canals in Germany carry far more freight than any other form of transport here. Everything from raw materials to finished goods is carried on the rivers with dangerous cargoes forming quite the largest part. I found myself wondering what all those so-called "Greens" will say if their "bunker fuel tax" for all these nasty polluting ships does come into force? I suspect they will not be happy with the resultant rise in the prices of everything, or with the move to put more of this freight on the roads.

As I said I need to look at this a bit more, but the figures I ran across in the newspaper suggest that over 100 million tons of goods is transported around and across Germany on the rivers and canals. One hundred million tons of freight would mean 25 MILLION more trucks on the roads ... OK, stop there for a moment. Now consider, most of those would be carrying oil, processed fuels, chemicals and other nasties currently carried in safety on the rivers.

Thinking a little laterally, this may be why the UK has such congested Motorways. The freight that used to travel by canal and river is now on the roads ... All of it in 40 ton juggernauts probably blocking two lanes of any given Motorway as I type.

Perhaps one day someone can tell me how they plan to keep our economies going when they keep shutting down or penalising the most efficient transport systems and replacing them with inefficiency and waste? Perhaps they can then also explain how our economies can continue to produce the money they keep demanding from us to pay for their beanos and jamborees and all the useless windfarms?

Christmas Day 3

2011-12-27T17:03:00.001Z

Christmas being a feast of 12 days this is technically the third day ... Many "major" feasts in the Christian calendar have an "Octave" - in other words they last for eight days - and Christmas is no exception. So how did it get twelve days?

That's an easy one. There are four "saints" days between Christmas and Epiphany, the day the "Wise Men" arrived in Bethlehem. The four additional feasts are a bit dependent on which calendar one is following, but St Stephen, The Holy Innocents, The Circumcision of Christ are three everyone agrees to. Anglicans also celebrate Thomas Beckett and other calendars include either him or another martyr.

Traditionlly St Stephen's Day, called Boxing Day in English speaking countries, is the day on which servants had a day off ad received "Boxes" from their employers. Sadly, these days, Messrs Sainsbury, Tesco, et al tend to follow the Scrooge line of thought when it comes to employees.

Christmas fun ...

2011-12-24T12:09:00.000Z

One of the more fun bits of silliness at Christmas is the annual "NORAD Tracks Santa ..." fun and games usually reported on TV and Radio and sometimes even in the printed media. The Postulant sent me a link to the Wikipedia page that gives the background to this and that set me thinking...

The whole "NORAD Tracks Santa" event has its origins in a misprint in an advert inserted in a Colorado newspaper by the Sears department store. The intention was to let children talk directly to Santa (Their version of course, who could then encourage the kids to visit the stores Grotto ...). The accidental misprint gave the number instead for the Continental Air Defence System HQ - which found itself swamped with calls from children hoping top speak to Santa. The operators referred to their Commanding Officer, a Colonel in the USAF, who instructed the operators to "give the kids updates on where Santa is in the world distributing gifts ..." and so began the annual tradition of NORAD issuing minute by minute bulletins on Santa's whereabouts on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

I would like to think that the Colonel's response to the mistake was typical of the military attitude when dealing with children in particular. A Bureaucrat probably would have told the operators to respond with "Sorry, you have a wrong number." By contrast the Colonel figured out what had happened, realised there were a lot of bitterly disappointed children calling - and took a decision which resolved the potential for tears.

Interestingly the whole operation is now run by volunteers on the NORAD staff. Sophisticated software is used to analyse the volume and type of calls each year and to determine how many and when the volunteers will be needed. Long may it continue.

Freedom of Speech?

2011-12-23T08:08:00.004Z

I recently found an interesting article on "Freedom of Speech" on the Ludwig von Mises Institute blog. The article raises a number of very interesting pints with which I find myself in heart agreement. All to often in our present age, the term "Freedom of Speech" has come to mean exactly the opposite. "You may speak as long as what you say is politically correct and everyone else agrees with you" has become the apparently accepted norm. It has also been taken to mean being able to deny anyone you disagree with the right to say what they think or present their views, but this is emphatically NOT what real "Freedom of Speech" is.

The Occupy Wall Street protesters were allowed to remain in New York's Zuccotti Park for two months, against the will of its private owners. They were clearly trespassers, indeed, much worse than garden variety trespassers, who almost always quickly leave. They were there prepared to stay indefinitely. In effect, they were literally attempting to steal the park from its lawful owners.

Nevertheless, they were allowed to remain, in the belief that to eject them would somehow constitute a violation of their freedom of speech. They had seized the park in order to denounce capitalism. Ejecting them, would have ended their use of the park for that purpose and thus, according to virtually everyone with a public voice, from New York's Mayor to the lowliest media reporter, would have violated their freedom of speech.

This concept of "the right to prevent or obstruct someone else in the exercise of their rights" is a recent one. It began in the 1960s with the student "sit-ins" and sometimes forcible ejections of lecurers they didn't like from classes and even from their posts. It is now a very useful tool of the Left in obstructing the promulgation of anything they don't want made public or given any space anywhere. The classic example has to be the vilification of Enoch Powell and the manner he was branded and hounded throughout the remainder of his life.

A major lesson to be learned from the occupation is that hardly anyone nowadays understands the meaning of freedom of speech. Contrary to the prevailing view, freedom of speech is not the ability to say anything, anywhere, at any time. Actual freedom of speech is consistent withrespect for property rights. It presupposes that the speaker has the consent of the owners of any property he uses in speaking, such as the land, sound system, or lecture hall or radio or television studio that he uses.

The various "Occupy ...." movements have adopted the tactic of denying the rightful owners of various things their right to the use of their property and argue that preventing them from carrying out what amounts to a breach of the law of property use as well as denying the other side the right to speak is a "breach of their 'Freedom of Speech.'"

Nevertheless, by the logic of the prevailing view of freedom of speech, protesters in the future will be able to storm into lecture halls and/or seize radio and television stations in order to deliver their message and then claim that their freedom of speech is violated when the police come to eject them, even though the police in such cases would in fact be acting precisely in order to uphold the freedom of speech. Indeed, since the days of the so-called Free Speech Movement at Berkeley, back in the 1960s, disruptions of speeches delivered by invited guests have occurred repeatedly on college campuses, in the name of the alleged freedom of speech of the disrupters. No attention has been paid to the actual violation of the freedom of speech of the invited speakers.

There is a fundamental problem with this view. Protesters have a right to express their views, but this does NOT include preventing anyone else from expressing theirs.

The prevailing view of freedom of speech is a major threat to freedom of speech. Not only does it provide justification for actual violations of freedom of speech of the kinds just mentioned, but it also makes freedom of speech appear to be a fundamental enemy of rational communication. Speakers cannot address audiences, professors cannot lecture to students if disrupters are permitted to drown them out and then hide behind the claim that they do so in the name of freedom of speech. If the prevailing view of freedom of speech were correct, the ability of speakers to speak and professors to lecture would require accepting the principle of the need to violate freedom of speech.

I find myself in complete agreement with the final paragraph of the von Mises article.

Upholding freedom of speech and rational communication requires a policy of no tolerance for the occupation of property against the will of its owners. Any such occupation is in violation of the owners' freedom, including their freedom of speech. Protester-occupiers are enemies of freedom, including, above all, freedom of speech.

Christmas Cards ...

2011-12-22T17:15:00.000Z

This year the Monk is feeling a little guilty. He hasn't bought and sent his usual selection of cards. This is, in part due to the expense of posting "non-standard" items from Germany and in part to his having missed the order deadline for his usual supplier. He has, however, made a donation to that charity and hopes his many friends will accept his apologies and his wishes for a very blessed Christmas and a year ahead that brings everything they hope for.

Argentinian hopes?

2011-12-21T18:00:00.000Z

So now the Argentinains have some allies in their attempt to seize the Falkland Islands. It is, I suppose, to be expected as Britain is now seen as defenceless and unable to enforce any sort of control in the waters around the islands. The stupidity of the swinging cuts in ships, manpower and the scrapping of our pitifully small aircraft carriers - with the premature scrapping of all their aircraft must now be apparent even among the completely self interested and self serving denizens of Westminster and Whitehall.

The decision of the three major powers in South America, one of them an ally in the 1982 war, is a serious warning of things to come in this area. Royal Naval ships are already routinely refused bunkering or landing permission in any of the ports in that region and it is merely a matter of time before some overzealous patriot decides to seize either a ship wearing the British flag or attacks one. After all, the last invasion was sparked by the hoisting of an Argentinian flag by a bunch of soldiers disguised as "scrap merchants." It will not take a genius to figure out how to pull some similar and equally inflammatory stunt.

One of the things which frequently surprises me among the denizens of the Left is the eagerness with which they are prepared to hand over territories like these to anyone who wants to claim them on "historic" grounds, completely ignoring the wishes of the people living there as often as not, to remain within the arrangements they have at present. The Falkland Islanders are the descendents of those who first settled there over 200 years ago and wish to remain British. They have never been Spanish or Argentinian and don't wish to be. Argentina's claim is at best tenuous and at worst simply opportunist. Until indications of oil were found there, they weren't particularly bothered ...

Spain's claim to Gibraltar has a great deal more validity, but those living in Gibraltar don't want to be governed by Spain. Thank you very much, they like being British and have no wish to be anything else, Liebor Party/Guardianista ambitions or not. There does seem to be an element of blindness or perhaps bias in this. An example os the attitude to Israel. There is no acknowledgement of its right to exist or to have some secure borders. It is acknowledged that the 1967 borders were a bureaucratic joke. Totally indefensible and an invitation to invade - yet the left insists that these are the only "legitimate" boundaries and labels Israel a "rogue" state because it refuses to surrender its sovereignty to a bunch of murderous terrorists.

This attitude shows in the petulant manner in which the Falklanders are dismissed as "obstructionist" in some quarters, primarily because they refused to accept Blair's ill-conceived and thankfully short-lived plan to "share" administration of the islands with Argentina. To the left, the Falklanders are an embarrassing reminder of the "evil Empire" that made Britain a leading power and gave it the wealth it is so busy squandering.

As a descendent of yet another group of "colonials" sold down the river by the UK's self serving and self interested political classe, I find myself in sympathy with the Falklanders as they face the growing threat. Even the most hopeful of them must, by now, know that Westminster and Whitehall will sell them out at the first opportunity - largely because in their eagerness to "save" money to squander on their own perks and inflated ambitions, they have removed any hope of defending them when the Argentinians once more stake their claim with force.

The End of the World is Nigh!

2011-12-20T07:44:00.001Z

Does anyone else wonder about the seemingly endless stream of films and books, rumours, stories, news reports (sometimes) that keep proclaiming the ultimate doomsday scenario?

I can remember reading my first one's in this vein back in the 1960s. Then it was The Bomb that was going to blow us all away and render the planet uninhabitable. There were also the "natural" disaster tales, usually involving an event triggered by some scientific experiment going wrong. We had genetically engineered plants turning vicious in "The Day of the Triffids" and "On the Beach," "The Wind from Nowhere" and "The Kraken Wakes." We've seen all the endless CND campaigns, most of them based on fear and a passionate embracing of press release summaries of scientific reports which cherry picked the doomsday results rather then presenting a balanced picture of what was reported.

I confess I have often been surprised by just how badly spun some reports, even in supposedly "scientific" magazines and journals can be. Perhaps I shouldn't be. After all a report which says that scientists have evidence which suggests that, if you aren't killed in the initial blast of a nuclear attack and survive the initial radiation sickness plus any infection caught because your system was fighting radiation poisoning, you would probably live to ripe old age. Yes, it is in fact born out by many Japanese survivors of Hiroshima, some of whom were evacuated to Nagasaki and hit a second time! There does seem to be a large element of the population that enjoys being scared witless over things that are on the very extreme edges of liklihood. Once the fear of "The Bomb" abated in the late 1970s we began to see the advent of more and more "natural" disaster stories. These included in more recent years "Deep Impact,""The Day after Tomorrow" and several more including the one based on the super volcano under Yellowstone National Park blowing its top, the spectacle of using nukes to blow an asteroid off course and others. Another favourite scenario - one seized on by Al Gore and NASA's Hansen, is that rising CO2 levels will turn the planet into another Venus, choked by a toxic, superhot atmosphere so acidic it eats metal ...

The real trouble is that many of those watching these movies seem to think they are based on fact. "The Day after Tomorrow" went down the road of combining a new Ice Age caused by the sudden formation of massive "hurricanes" in the upper atmosphere which dragged super cold air downward, with a massive rise in sea levels, flooding New York's 5th Avenue with enough depth to float a super tanker along it. Sorry, but that is about as likely as Arnie Schwartzneger giving birth ... Oh, I forgot, he did in another Hollywood improbable. Unfortunately far to many think the science they see in them is real science and not Hollywood abuse of science and fact. It is these folk who respond to the Greenpeace, Fiends of the Earth, Oxfam and the plethora of other "advocacy NGOs" propaganda with the knee jerk "Oh my God! Here, take all my money - but get out there and save the ..."

It is also this kind of insidious doomsday messaging which feeds into the sort of "activist" psyche that many otherwise intelligent people in the West seem to develop once they begin to fixate on the drip feed of doomsday news that the UK media in particular seems to revel in. It is fed by the constant mantra that we can all live in some sort of non-industrial Utopia with the abolition of poverty and a wonderful agrarian and tolerant society enjoying an eternally unchanging climate, if only we ban all private transport, and flying is reserved only for those who need to attend a Jamboree to save us all from some new doomsday scenario somewhere (preferably somewhere exotic) and everyone else is restricted to within walking distance of their normal domicile.

And let us not forget that we, in the "developed" nations, must give all our money to fund these same "Green Elite" so that they can "redistribute" it to those we have supposedly "disadvantaged" in accumulating it.

Failure to do so will, of course, result in our cities being submerged beneath the threatened rise in the sea level as all the planets ice is melted down... Greenpeace in particular seems to like that image. I've seen a map which showed what bits of the UK would be above water "when all the Arctic and Antarctic ice vanishes by the end of the century. Considering that we are talking about literally millions of cubic kilometers of ice - much of it already in the water in the Northern Hemisphere and therefore not likely to affect sealevels at all - there is a possibility it would submerge us to the depth they predict. Except for one small point.

The timescale is off by several thousand years. One scientist actually calculated that, at present rate of melt, and assuming no new ice forms, it would require 15,000 years just to melt all the ice in Greenland.

International Suicide?

2011-12-19T17:27:00.001Z

One of the many great tragedies in South Africa occured during the 1850s and was known as the "National Suicide of the AmaXhosa." At that time, the British ruled the territory occupied by the AmaXhosa, the area between the Great Fish River and Pondoland, the latter now a part of KwaZulu Natal. There had been numerous clashes between the British and Dutch settlers and the AmaXhosa (In reality three major groups with a shared language.) who were being driven south westward along the fertile coastal area by the expansion of the AmaZulu peoples to their north east. All these tribes were, at that time, primarily herdsmen who moved frequently, had little in the way of "settled" territory or "towns" as a European would recognise them and depended on gathered fruit and small crop planting for food.

The "National Suicide" arose because, following yet another clash with British Army units over cattle raids into the "White" territory, a young woman had a "vision" that the ancestors were angry, but would help the tribe if they all destroyed all their cattle and planted no crops. The Sangomas, perhaps to cover their bets, backed up her story. It was believed that the slaughtered cattle would be restored and multiplied, that the warriors would be made invincible and immune to the bullets of the whiteman and so the scene was set for a tragedy. The missionaries desperately attempted to intervene. The Cape Governor was petitioned and sent troops laden with supplies - but it was all to late. No one really knows, even now, how many died in this folly, after all, much of it happened in areas the white man had not reached, not even as a missionary.

So why does this story come up in my memory at this time? I guess it's the combination of having watched and read to much on the subject of the latest "Climate Change" Jamboree in Durban and the constant witterings of the likes of Greenpeace, Fiends of the Earth, Oxfam et al about how the "developed nations" must slash their power usage or change economical and sensible generation - which, thanks to innovation and improvements, has been getting cleaner and greener for the last 40 years - to inefficient, expensive and noisy windmills, solar panels that use only 13% of the energy they absorb and pay a massive "tax" into a redistribution "fund" to "help" "developing nations" take over the nasty business of manufacturing all these nice "green" technologies. The final straw for me was listening to a Greenpeace "expert" wittering on about how "shipping is the most polluting form of transport available" and should pay a tax to "mitigate" the "damage" moving the world's goods from manufacturer to buyer or from raw material supplier to manufacturer.

Her reasoning sounded to me exactly like the fairy tale vision of the young Xhosa woman. Destroy the devloped economies, move their industries and their jobs to "devloping" countries and you'll be "rewarded" with clean countrysides, clear skies and the Anthropomorphic Climate Utopia that exists only in the minds of those who believe all the propaganda and spin put out by Greenpeace et al on the subject of the climate and the natural cycles.

The trouble is, if we are not careful, we will go the way of the tribesmen who fell for the "vision" and did as they were told. Western economies are in trouble already. We cannot afford to throw moeny into a nebulous "vision" dreamed up by a bunch of well intentioned idiots raised on the diet of "we're all gonna die unless we unilaterally disarm." Now that threat has receded, they've found another. Equally nebulous, equally preposterous and equally self destructive.

Let's hope the politicians currently pandering to this can be brought to see sense before it's too late.

Nine Lessons and Carols ...

2011-12-18T15:55:00.000Z

Last night attended a Nine Lessons and Carols Service in the Augustinian Convent Church in Mainz. It was terrific, great choir and terrific setting, but very different from what I am used to. The lessons and most of the carols were in English (the previous evening they'd done it in Hocheim in German) and the printed Order of Service gave both languages. The music mixed ancient and modern and included some of the really great Advent Carols.

It was good fun all round and there were a surprising number of English speaking people present. One elderly lady behind us held forth at some length about how "churches were desperate for members these days" and then complained that the church was packed. In fact they were frantically adding chairs in the aisles in the seconds before the organ began the introduction to "Once in royal David's city." OK, so my twisted sense of humour did have me chortling away at the obvious refutation of her earlier statement.

After the service it was a journey back through the Weinachtsmarkt - with a small detour through a toy store where we browsed the model ships, LEGO Technik, board games, etc. - and back home to a late supper, wine and some warmth. These Baroque churches look fabulous - but they didn't go much on heating!

Holiday Directive from Whitehall

2011-12-17T12:02:00.000Z

Pinched the following from a friend ...

New Holiday directives.

All employees planning to dash through the snow in a one horse open sleigh, going over the fields and laughing all the way are advised that a Risk Assessment will be required addressing the safety of an open sleigh for members of the public. This assessment must also consider whether it is appropriate to use only one horse for such a venture, particularly where there are multiple passengers. Please note that permission must also be obtained in writing from landowners before their fields may be entered. To avoid offending those not participating in celebrations, we would request that laughter is moderate only and not loud enough to be considered a noise nuisance.

Benches, stools and orthopaedic chairs are now available for collection by any shepherds planning or required to watch their flocks at night. While provision has also been made for remote monitoring of flocks by CCTV cameras from a centrally heated shepherd observation hut, all users of this facility are reminded that an emergency response plan must be submitted to account for known risks to the flocks. The angel of the Lord is additionally reminded that, prior to shining his/her glory all around, s/he must confirm that all shepherds are wearing appropriate Personal Protective Equipment to account for the harmful effects of UVA, UVB and the overwhelming effects of Glory.

Following last years well-publicised case, everyone is advised that Equal Opportunities legislation prohibits any comment with regard to the redness of any part of Mr R Reindeer. Further to this, exclusion of Mr R Reindeer from reindeer games will be considered discriminatory and disciplinary action will be taken against those found guilty of this offence.

While it is acknowledged that gift bearing is a common practice in various parts of the world, particularly the Orient, everyone is reminded that the bearing of gifts is subject to Hospitality Guidelines and all gifts must be registered. This applies regardless of the individual, even royal personages. It is particularly noted that direct gifts of currency or gold are specifically precluded, while caution is advised regarding other common gifts such as aromatic resins that may evoke allergic reactions.

Finally, in the recent instance of the infant found tucked up in a manger without any crib for a bed, Social Services have been advised and will be arriving shortly.

Just about sums up everything you need to know about how the killjoys are taking over the world ...

Draft Book Trailer for ON the RUN

2011-12-16T07:03:00.003Z

I'll confess that I love it ...

But then I would, wouldn't I?

Prayers Please ...

2011-12-15T08:28:00.001Z

An online friend has asked for our prayers for his wife. She is being treated for cancer and is having some severe setbacks. He has commended to us all this prayer, usually used at Vespers ...

O GOD, who are the strength of all them that put their trust in you,
without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy, we commend to your
goodness your daughter Julia Prosser who is in sickness and is
suffering that as far as may be expedient for her,

she may be restored to bodily health and happiness,

through your Divine Love and Light,AMEN

Whatchamucallit season ...

2011-12-14T11:48:00.002Z

The last few years I've been finding myself more and more annoyed by the attempts to banalise everything in Britain, but particularly to secularise anything that might suggest Christianity. Christmas has been an early casualty, the banal "Winterval" title being imposed by at least one City Council alongside bans on Nativity Plays in schools, Christmas decorations in offices, because they might offend people of "other faiths" and even attempts to remove any religious significance from Christmas Cards. I'm afraid cards that read "Happy Holidays" arriving in my mail don't get acknowledged or displayed.

Ironically, my many Muslim and Jewish friends have expressed real distress and horror at this assault on Christianity, perhaps aware that their faiths will be next if this succeeds.

When members of these faiths actually stood up and declared that they found nothing whatever offensive in the celebration of Christmas, the usual 'elf an' Safe'y reasons were trotted out - they're a fire hazard it was declared in one Civil Service office. The truth is somewhat less altruistic. This is really about trying to impose official atheism on everyone. In recent years there have been numerous attempts to re-pagainse Christmas. I have read tracts by supposedly educated people declaring that the "Christians merely took over the Saturnalia" or "imposed their fairy stories on the Druid's winter solstice" and the usual run of blather about how these festivals were 'celebrated' by this or that non-Christian group in the past.

In fact, Christianity did "Christianise" a number of festivals. After all, if people were used to celebrating something at a particular time in the calendar, why not continue it? I was reminded of this by an article by Neil Gaiman in The Independent. Growing up in South Africa (Somehow Christmas associated with snow still hasn't quite sunk into my psyche!) we had friends of different faiths as well, and some of them Jewish and at least one Hindu, all celebrated Christmas enthusiastically. In fact it was usual for Jewish organisations and at least one Muslim one, to arrange for their members to undertake essential services in hospitals, fire and rescue services and so on so that their "Christian" employees could take time off to celebrate with their families. All of that seems to have been submerged now in the UK at least by the tide of anti-religious garbage spewed out in the name of "equality and fairness."

The odd thing is that when you start to investigate the origins of the claims that these festivals - mainly Christmas and Easter - are "Pagan" in their origins you soon discover that the authority for this lies in the inventiveness of some of the more strange "secret societies" that grew up in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. Like a lot of other things, these sources are deeply suspect, rely on pure invention and a lot of forgery and really don't stand a lot of scrutiny. Sadly though, like most propaganda, once it has entered the ears of those to idle to look at things for themselves, it becomes the accepted truth - especially when it is woven into the fantasies of Dan Brown's work and others.

Christmas is Christmas, even in Muslim countries. The problem in the West is that we've taken the reason for marking it out of the equation and turned it into a purely commercial event designed only to relieve as many as possible from their savings and to make everyone who can't afford to do so feel guilty about it. But it's not the con-artists in marketing and advertising who are to blame according to our secularisers - its the Churches who want to keep God in it who are responsible for the "guilt."

We won't have a Christmas tree this year, we haven't a place for it, but we will celebrate the feast with church, a great meal with family and possibly a glass or two with our neighbours. There is a star displayed in our window and there will be other decorations once Advent draws to a close.

I live in hope that one day Britain will wake up and realise that those who wish to denigrate everything on the grounds that it "may" be offensive to someone need to be treated with the contempt they deserve and ejected from office and from any public forum. They are nothing but parasites who debilitate our society and will, if allowed to, destroy everything of any value in our culture. It is time to call a halt to their activities.

It is the season of Christmas, and the joy is in the sharing of that celebration, with or without the assault on a credit card.

What is the agenda?

2011-12-13T15:46:00.001Z

I am amazed at the backslapping and self-congratulation that concluded the Durban "Climate Summit." For one thing, these events seem to be little more than a fresh attempt to sell the whole "the sky is falling we're all gonna die unless the evil west stops using hydro-carbons, reverts to agrarian and hunter-gatherer lifestyles and trashes its entire economic wealth." For another, I really do think that there is a complete absence of common sense among the devotees attending them. The Media have been full of the news that there were 11,000 people attending this jamboree. Did they all walk there? If not, why are they able to tell the rest of us we should ride bicycles, walk or "live locally" and not travel?

A charming and very earnest young woman was on television last night, against the backdrop of the super container ships in Hamburg harbour, explaining why Greenpeace and Oxfam among others, think it is a good idea to impose a 10% tax on all bunker fuel for ships. Parroting the usual Greenpeace line that "shipping accounts for a 'huge' amount of "carbon" emissions she failed to address the fact that such a tax will impact on a very competitive market which is already around five times less polluting than transport by road, rail or air. Fuel efficiency has been improving in ships for years, but the loons in Greenpeace, Fiends of the Earth, WWF, Oxfam and the rest look only at consumption and emissions - not at the quantities each ship carries. Nor do they seem to grasp the fact that increasing the cost of operating the ship increases the cost of the goods carried which impacts on the trader and the user. End result, inflation of costs, which feeds into wages ...

They continue to argue for the replacement of nuclear and coal fired generating stations with more windmills - yet the latest statistics show that even at their best these damned eyesores generate less than 30% of the energy required. Even the great "solar" drive is a fraud, the panels convert only about 13% of the total energy they absorb into heating or electricty - the rest, you've guessed - is radiated back into the atmosphere, no doubt contributing to the "Anthropomorphic Global Warming" they are supposedly combating!

Then there are the demands for the west to hand over huge amounts of money to "developing nations" to build factories to replace ones in the western nations paying to ship their jobs and wealth to someone else. They seem to be unable to make the connection that the public who donate to their "causes" are the very same people they are now trying to put out of work and demanding that they give even more of their hard earned wealth to their replacements.

Oxfam, Christian Aid, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and WWF are all causes and organisations I used to donate to. No longer. I will no longer give one bent brass washer to any of them. Why, put simply they are no longer serving the purpose they were originally set up to do. Now they are massively wealthy "advocacy" organisations who spend vast amounts on publicity and generous salaries for their employees. Greenpeace makes a big thing about not accepting donations from "corporations damaging the earth" but has vast amounts of money invested in companies producing windmills (subsidised by governments) and in the manufacture of solar panels.

As pointed out in this post on Watts up with That, these organisations have been taken over by ideologues who are now using them to achieve their ideological aims which, from where I sit, seem to include the destruction of all Western Economies. No, I'm not signing up to that and I will not be making any further contribution to any of these organisations under any circumstances.

Two Europes?

2011-12-12T15:51:00.000Z

It seems that the veto on Friday has sparked quite a reaction among the other members of the EU. It has to be said that the UK does need to decide which way it wants to go, certainly, in some sections of the press and media, the only way is 'out.' One is left with the distinct impression that Whitehall/Westminster is playing their usual game when they want to make something fail - brief against it in private while publicly declaring you're 100% behind it.

The real problem here seems to me to be the fact that none of the political parties actually want to admit that they have now tied so much of the UK's economy to Europe they can't simply walk away. For one thing, the cuts in Defence have been made, I'm now very convinced, on the back of a deal pre-Lisbon, to 'share' defence across the EU, thus each country only needs to maintain a proportion of the overall defence need. Take a look at who has what equipment and forces deployed in what areas and you will see what I mean. Britain has now cut Defence to the point of no return. Even if they did rebuild the Fleet and the RAF to an 'independent' force level it would take between 10 and 20 years to do so since we've also closed down and sold off all our ship building facilities bar a small handful. As for building our own aircraft - forget it, all we can now build in the UK are bits for assembly in France or Italy.

I rather think that the lies to the British Public by successive governments are starting to come home to roost. They either have to come clean or put their money on the table now. It was interesting listening to the German Finance Minister, who was genuinely saddened as he acknowledged that it looked as if Britain might leave the EU. He stated the UK had always been reliable, had fought its corner well and fairly, but now seemed to have embarked on a self interested and self serving course to the detriment of everyone including themselves. Equally interesting was the debate later in which political analysts from the full spectrum were essentially saying the same thing, that the banks had abused peoples trust and hard earned money. The profits of their shareholders had become the only focus and the losers were the small depositors and customers who had no other options.

Will there be "two Europes" as Mr Sarkozy says? I doubt it as I think the UK may not entirely withdraw, but assume the same status as Norway. Will that 'repatriate the money' as so many seem to think it will? Again, I doubt it, since the whole thing is extremely complex and may be even further bedeviled if Scotland makes a bid for full independence - and opts to remain in the EU as well ...

I can't escape the feeling that the cost of withdrawal from the EU will far outweigh any supposed benefit even in the long term. As Herr Schauble put it last night, Europe will not shut the door on Britain. One thing the UK does need to do is to put behind it the propaganda of the two World Wars. It is time we found a way forward instead of looking back on a glorious past now well and truly spent.

€uroskeptic, or €urodestructive?

2011-12-10T07:04:00.001Z

The current round of rejoicing evidenced in some anti-EU sections of the media, politics and blogosphere should concern the various governments involved. As ever, the problem arises because the public are not told the whole truth by the politicians and now that some of their 'omissions' are becoming all to public, they don't really know how to handle the problem.

A part of the problem is that there is a huge amount of anti-French (I know - I'm prejudiced on that one!), anti-German, anti-Italian and general anti-anyone not 'British' swilling around in the UK mindset. It has to be said that there are similar mindsets in other parts of the EU as well. I regularly read comments to reports on various EU matters by, one hopes, intelligent people, saying things like "you can't trust the Germans, they're still trying to rule the world" or the even better one "the Germans are doing secret deals with the Vatican to ..." That last is priceless as the Vatican has a problem with Germany where their congregations are dwindling fast and the remainder are at odds with the bishops and clergy and want more liberalisation, woman priests, married clergy and so on. Yes, I can see the Vatican cuddlying up to the Germans - not.

Again, in various sections of the press and blogosphere one now regularly reads the statement that "the Franco-German ambition is to recreate Charlemagne's Empire..." The authority for this is, apparently, the fact that Napoleon, Louis XIV, Hitler and presumably others have all held this "ambition." I'll concede that certainly Napoleon and the last named dictator may have entertained this ambition, but is this really what has driven the creation of the EU? Somehow I doubt it. I may have missed some tricks somewhere in the debate (Its been going long enough!), but I seem to recall that the whole thing has its origins in Holland, Belgium and Luxemburg, the former "Benelux" countries who had a nice little economic thing going and which others thought they'd like a piece of. Again, from memory, France managed to join and then the European Economic Community grew out of the experiment. Again, it seemed such a good idea, others wanted in and for a while Germany wasn't allowed to join at all if memory serves.

The EEC is what Britain, rather tentatively joined in 1974-75, at a time when Labour overspending, Union militancy and a few other little problems - like massive unemployment, benefit fraud and the like - had brought the Pound to its knees. The price for joining was high, the UK promptly ditched preferred trade agreements with its Commonwealth which certainly didn't win them any friends there and drove those they had even further beyond the proverbial pale. Right from the start the UK has been the "awkward" squad at the table, often to the despair of others who have had to make all the compromises only to have the UK throw further spanners in the works.

What I now find interesting about all this is that with the €uro in deep trouble, the British, who are not part of it and probably never will be, want a say in its management. In fact, they want it to fail. The reason? It is claimed that surrendering the national budgets of the member currencies to a central "treasury" is "undemocratic." And this is where the propaganda really is running wild. The whole scheme is now proclaimed to be a German "plot" to seize control of Europe by the back door. I read on one report the statement that "until the €uro, the Deutschmark was sinking fast, the German economy was in ruins, moribund and stagnating ..." I presume that would be the DM that was valued at DM3 to the Pound Sterling, then strengthened dramatically thanks to speculators against the Pound and the US Dollar, forcing the UK out of the ERM. That would also be the Deutschmark and the economy it served that provided the bulk of the underpinning capital that launched the €uro.

I have to confess that I am not a fan of the EU in its present form. I do not like the unelected Commission or the vast, expensive and probably utterly incompetent bureaucracy that has grown up around it and seems to be Belgium's only industry. I do not like having an unelected EU President and I particularly don't like the fact that it seems to be neither fish nor fowl when it comes to being any sort of state or power.

I don't want to see the €uro fail. Why? Simply because it will cause enormous hardship for everyone, and not just for the nations using it. It will cost enormous numbers of jobs right across Europe and even in Britain. It will hit the poorest, not those currently screaming for it to be killed off by any means possible, and it will damage trade for and in Europe very badly indeed. It will have a terrible impact on a wide range of things, from European stability, defence, aid to developing nations and on social security for the elderly, the sick and the disabled. An entire raft of subsidies currently rebuilding various depressed areas and countries recovering from the years of communist "socialist" misrule will vanish. Those in the UK who think the money currently paid to Europe will come home to be "redistributed" delude themselves, it will simply vanish into even less productive uses, such as an increase in our own bureaucracy.

Once away from the very parochial and partisan UK media, one quickly realises that there are many other players in this game, one of the largest being the UN and all its "agencies." The "Treaties" signed in the UN should get the same sort of scrutiny the UK currently gives to Europe. They would quickly discover that while Brussels is bad, the UN is a far greater threat to self determination and government. The UN is not at all democratic and is, more and more, run to agendas set by NGOs such as Greenpeace, Oxfam and others.

I never thought I would admit that Napoleon had actually done something good, but I have to confess that his reform and harmonisation of Europe's myriad legal and justice systems was, in the words of 1066 and all that, a "Good Thing." Its a great pity that the UK's wasn't reformed then and its an even greater pity that it is now in the hands of bureaucrats who have little legal training who make use of the ignorance of the politicians to gold plate, duplicate and over burden Britain with laws and regulations they claim "Brussels has imposed."

I suspect that the EU is stood on the edge of a precipice. It isn't a nice place to be for a group of peoples who, for the most part, get along fine, when they are not being mislead, misdirected and threatened. It is not a safe place to be when some of the members are so busy playing to the "home audience" they fail to see the danger for themselves of falling off the edge.

I'm pretty sure that the EU will survive, possibly shedding some of its members and reducing in size. I'm also sure that once it actually decides whether it is a "State" or wants to remain a loose collection of trading blocs it will have a clearer idea of direction. Frankly, in this day and age, a United States of Europe has a certain appeal, but to achieve that there has to be consensus on the role of the "nation states"and how they manage their internal affairs. I was recently reminded that the USA didn't have that easy a start up either. The Dollar went through some spectacular ups and downs and there were, and I think still are, arguments about the authority and power of individual state legislatures and the Federal Government.

The €uro is ten years old, I think it may well be around for at least another ten and probably longer. I certainly hope so, I have no desire to see Europe and the western world plunged, as it will be, into the sort of economic abyss they faced in the 1920s and 30s.

Buzz Phrases that irk ...

2011-12-09T09:08:00.002Z

A thought for today! Those who claim to be "Blue skies thinkers" should consider this definition….

"The most important feature of a clear blue sky is that it is clear; in fact it is totally lacking in any interest or feature which distinguishes it. A cloudy sky or a sky which has scattered clouds, now that has features, ever changing, ever moving, growing and developing clouds change the skyscape and move the eye and the mind from one pattern to another. Likening thought patterns to clear skies or blue skies is just another way of saying that the mind is empty, devoid of discernible thought and totally lacking in originality."

Now that is a definition I can live with. In my experience those who claim to be "Blue Sky Thinkers" are generally people without a clue about anything they are supposedly dealing with, call endless meetings they call "Brain storming sessions" and then steal, repackage and promote the ideas of those they have gulled into offering them.

Earth shaking ...

2011-12-08T08:14:00.000Z

Yesterday there was a tremendous double bang over a large area of the Rhinelands. Given the drama in Koblenz on Sunday, most people here were understandably very edgy. The ground shook, windows rattled and the horses in the paddock behind the Monk and Mausi's home were startled enough to get very nervous and fidgety from some time afterward. Police, Fire and news switchboards were jammed by people calling to know what had happened.

To give some idea of how big the bangs were, it was heard in Köln and in Mainz and everywhere in between - a distance of nearly 200 kilometers. Here in the Taunus it felt like a small earthquake. So what was it?

It was caused by a pair of Belgian F-16s breaking the sound barrier over Rüdesheim, about 15 km from where we live. They were flying at 11,000 metres, roughly 34,000 feet in pursuit of an Oman Air airliner that had broken radio contact in Belgian airspace. Under NATO rules this means the immediate launch of fighters to find the aircraft, make contact, and find out what it is up to. As the incident began in Belgium, it was their aircraft launched to intercept.

It is reported today that the flight was intercepted somewhere over Frankfurt/Darmstadt, the fighter pilots making 'visual contact' with the airliners Captain and then re-establishing radio contact. We are not told what the passengers thought when they looked out of the windows and saw two fully armed F-16's on the wingtips ... I suspect the cleaning crews at their destination may have had to work overtime.

Since the end of the Cold War, the sound of 'sonic booms' has become very rare over Europe, so this event was a sharp reminder of what could happen all to easily. It is reassuring to know that the NATO alert system works and that nothing like this goes unnoticed. There are, apparently, around 30 cases a year where airliners lose radio contact with air traffic control. It is usually due to a 'pilot error' such as setting the wrong frequency or to weather which affects the transmission and reception of VHF and UHF radio signals.

The double bang yesterday was a sharp reminder of the vigilance needed in these uncertain times ...

Socialism versus conservative values ...

2011-12-07T09:19:00.002Z

WISE WORDS FROM FATHER TO DAUGHTER

A young woman was about to finish her first year of university. Like so many others her age, she considered herself to be Labour Party minded, and she was very much in favour of higher taxes to support her education and for more government programs – in other words, the redistribution of wealth. (Much like a Carbon Tax?)

She was deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch blue-ribbon Conservative, a feeling she openly expressed. Based on the lectures that she had attended and the occasional chat with a professor, she felt that her father had for years harboured a selfish
desire to keep what he thought should be his.

One day she was challenging her father on his opposition to higher taxes on the rich and the need for more government programs.

The self-professed objectivity proclaimed by her professors must be the truth, and she indicated so to her father. He responded by asking how she was doing at university.

Taken aback, she answered rather haughtily that she had a 90% average, and let him know that it was tough to maintain, insisting that she was taking a very difficult course load and was constantly studying, which left her no time to go out and party like other people she knew. She didn't even have time for a boyfriend, and didn't really have many university friends because she spent all her time studying.

Her father listened and then asked, “How is your friend Audrey doing?”

She replied, “Audrey is barely getting by. All she takes are easy classes, she never studies and she barely has a 50% average. She is
so popular on campus; university for her is a blast. She's always invited to all the parties, and lots of times she doesn't even show up
for classes because she's too hungover.”

Her wise father asked his daughter, “Why don't you go to the Dean's office and ask him to deduct 20% off your average and give it to your friend who only has 50%. That way you will both have a 70% average, it would be fair and you would both be equal.”

The daughter, visibly shocked by her father's suggestion, angrily fired back, “That's a crazy idea; how would that be fair! I've worked really hard for my grades! I've invested a lot of time, and a lot of hard work! Audrey has done next to nothing toward her degree. She played while I worked my tail off!”

The father slowly smiled, winked and said gently, “Welcome to the Conservative side of the fence.”

If anyone has a better explanation of the difference between Conservative and Labour/Greens, I'm all ears.

If you ever wondered what side of the fence you sit on, this is a great test!

If a Conservative supporter doesn't like guns, he doesn't buy one.

If a Labour/Green doesn't like guns, he’llwant all guns outlawed.

If a Conservative is a vegetarian, he doesn't eat meat.

If a Labour/Green is a vegetarian, he wants all meat products banned for everyone.

If a Conservative is gay, he quietly leads his life.

If a Labour/Green is gay, he demands legislated respect.

If a Conservative is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation.

A Labour/Green wonders who is going to take care of him.

If a Conservative doesn't like a talk show host, he switches channels.

Labour/Greens demand that those they don't like should be banned.

If a Conservative is a non-believer, he doesn't go to church.

A Labour/Green non-believer wants any mention of God and religion silenced. (Unless it's a foreign religion, of course!)

If a Conservative reads this, he'll forward it so his friends can have a good laugh.

A Labour/Green will delete it because he's "offended."

Argentine Interventions

2011-12-06T09:18:00.001Z

In recent days the Argentinian Navy has stopped, seized and searched a number of Spanish fishing trawlers operating in the waters around the Falkland Islands on the grounds that the licences issued by the Falkland Government are "not valid." They further claim that the islands and the waters around them are "sovereign Argentinian Territory."

As the Royal Navy now has only 31 ships, none of them aircraft carriers and most of the new Type 45 destroyers either incomplete or still working up, our ability to defend the UK sovereign rights of possession and the will of the Falkland Islanders themselves to remain British is likely to be "nil." There is almost no "Fleet Train" to support a Task Force any longer, the Army has been cut to the bone and is committed elsewhere, the RAF is reduced to a rump, mainly engaged in Transport and our Allies in the US have a Secretary of State who never refers to the Falkland Islands by their English title, only by the Argentinian one.

Methinks Mr Cameron and his implementation of the John Nott cuts to the Fleet may come to regret his precipitous "savings." Scrapping our mini carriers, the aircraft they could operate and putting on hold buying any aircraft for the new ones was stupid, short sighted and little short of suicidal. If I were a Falklander, I'd start considering relocation or learning to like being an Argentinian. The only thing the Argentinians will ever understand is a permanent Naval Force based on Stanley with orders to sink any invading warship that attempts to stop any vessel in the sovereign territory or the waters around them.

The Argentinians have seen their opportunity and I have no doubt at all will seize it with both hands before to much longer. Protests to the UN will be worthless, an utter waste of time, but probably an exercise in face saving to be engaged in by the charlatans in Westminster and Whitehall.

All the UK Parties are guilty here. Blair attempted to "negotiate" a "shared administration" and only gave up when he realised the Argentinians will settle for nothing less than total control. Just as he discovered that he couldn't give away the national sovereignty of Gibraltar, so he discovered the Falklanders - who have the disadvantage of being far enough away the UK Media don't notice them much - weren't prepared to change their government and nationality either. So he made it easy for the Argentinians - and reduced our defences, committed what was left elsewhere. Cameron and Clegg have simply carried on the process giving the Argentinians even better opportunities.

But, who cares. It will be just another sell out of a bunch of colonists who dare to want to remain British. I'm willing to bet that Hague the Vague hasn't even called in the Ambassador and told him off ... Nah, probably gave him a nice cup of tea and a chat, with the assurance our Forces will be ordered to surrender and withdraw quietly.

Snow and dentists ...

2011-12-05T10:27:00.000Z

Don't normally go together, but when Mausi and the Monk left for their annual dental check-up this morning, winter decided to make a start. At first it couldn't decide if it was just going to produce sleet, maybe rain, but then it settled for snow and sleet...

So now we have a layer of icy snow on the ground, the snow ploughs are scattering grit and the first accidents are reported on the Autobahns. This could be the start of some exercise of the Monk, the path and driveway need to be kept clear again, our neighbours are very elderly and a slip could be fatal.

Ah well, wrap up warm and get down to it ...

No Bang ....

2011-12-04T17:39:00.001Z

It was announced as we motored home along the Autobahn this evening that the aerial mine at Koblenz has successfully been made safe. In an operation lasting over two and ahalf hours in appalling weather the bomb team managed to access and remove the trigger mechanisms and pistols which would have fired the main charge. It has been described as being remarkably well preserved and the mechanisms as 'operable.'

In the last two hours the 45,000 people they evacuated have begun returning home. As for the bomb itself, the main cahrge is now being stripped out so the it can be taken to a safe place for destruction.

The collective sigh of relief along the Rhine can probably be heard in the UK ...

Their Lordships Request reviewed ...

2011-12-03T09:36:00.000Z

Got a great book review on the website The Fyddeye Guide, by an American Maritime historian. His comments are very flattering, especially given his interest and knowledge of the subject.

It does give an author a great boost to see something like this, not least because it justifies the attention to detail, the research and the effort you put into creating the story. I hope that the review will be read by many and that will translate into people actually reading the book. It was fun to write, fascinating to research and it will be even nicer to see it reaching a wide audience.

After all, that is what every author hopes to achieve.

Problems in the Rhine ...

2011-12-02T10:27:00.003Z

Attention in Germany, certainly along the Rhine at the moment, is not on the crisis over the €uro, it is focussed on Koblenz. We have had a very dry Autumn here and the Rhine is at it's lowest recorded level since the 1920s. This has, in turn, meant that a lot of things are now exposed to view, which brings me back to Koblenz.

The low water level has exposed a lot of unexploded ordnance from 1939 - 45, most of it unexploded bombs. These have had to be made safe, detonated or recovered and removed to a safe location, and the German Ordnance teams have been busy. Just as everyone thought they'd found everything they were going to, they've found a real lulu of a bomb. An aerial "mine" weighing in at around 1.8 metric tonnes (4,000lbs of explosive charge in 'Imperial' weights, around 5,000lbs all told) and it is very close to the heart of Koblenz. Worse, it is still very much alive despite 60 years in the mud and water of the Rhine.

It is now planned to attempt to defuse it and make it safe on Sunday. So, what's the big deal?

If things go wrong during this operation, just about everything in a 300 yard radius will be flattened, windows up to 2,000 yards away will be smashed, roofs will be damaged or torn off and as for the people ... The trouble is that there are some 45,000 people living within the area that could be affected, so they all have to be evacuated for the duration. This includes the residents of seven Old Age Homes, two Hospitals an enormous number of blocks of flats, umpteen hotels and so on. Even the Intercity Train services (IC and ICE super trains) are stopping at Köln and Mainz and the Koblenz Bahnhof is closed to all traffic. All shipping will be held at points above and below the city as well.

Just to complicate things, the rains have begun. It may be a day or two before the river begins to rise again, but a dam has had to be constructed around the bomb so it can be accessed in safety - if standing next to it can be considered 'safe' - and not submerged while they work on the thing. It is definitely going to be a very tricky operation.

These bombs were dropped on a parachute and designed to detonate about 30 metres (100 feet) above the ground. This smashed down everything in a radius of 300 metres, tore roofs off up to 2,000 metres and opened the way for the incendiary bombs the Allies followed one up with. Even sat in the mud and shingle of the Rhine, this bomb has the potential to wreck the heart of Koblenz, a city that has withstood the French invasions of the 17th - 18th Centuries and various other upheavals including the bombardment of WW2. It has been rebuilt and recovered from each of these events painfully. Let's hope this latest threat can be averted.

All I can say is that I'm glad I'm not one of those in the Emergency Services having to plan and execute an evacuation of this size - and even more glad we're not among those being evacuated. My thoughts and prayers will be with everyone involved in the coming days.

ON the RUN available on Amazon

2011-12-01T14:17:00.000Z

I'm not used to such speedy availability, but I suppose I should be. Abbott Press has wasted no time in getting ON the RUN into the catalogues at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. I expect it will soon also appear on Waterstones, W H Smith and others. I'm pleased as punch, especially since previous experience suggested it might not get onto the lists before Christmas.

Some thoughts from the next generation ...

2011-11-30T09:01:00.011Z

The Postulant responded to an email from the Monk with the following rather perceptive observations in her reply. In my opinion she makes some extremely valid points. Perhaps some politician - one of that class she mentions below - might take some time out of their busy schedule to answer her on some of these points ...
I won't hold my breath though. She begins by answering my question regarding a "national strike" I had heard a passing reference to ...

Yes to the strike - I have no idea what it's about. It could be solidarity with teachers etc, whose pensions are being rewritten to match the private sector. There was a documentary last night on BBC Four I think, which asked where all of the taxpayers' money has really gone over the last few decades - PFI featured heavily. Some of the banks that we've bailed out have also been sold off recently - and mysteriously the debt has stayed on the government's books, rather than been sold off with the banks in question. I saw a wry comment from a nurse friend on twitter last night - she asked what the world would be like if the banks' remuneration packages had been monitored as closely or discussed as openly as public sector workers' pay is.

At the risk of sounding as grumpy as you often do on your blog :P ...basically every government we've had since the introduction of stock market trading has ensured that they're alright and to hell with everyone else - when the stock markets have done well, they've taken credit for it and when the stock markets go bad, they blame the previous government. The colour of their ties makes no difference. The stock markets are cyclical because most things involving humanity are cyclical. There's no great mystery to the way that bubbles boost stock prices and then burst - it's easy to see them building up, much like seismologists can see a potential volcanic eruption. Nobody looks because it's not in their best interest to do anything other than play along. At some point we might have to find another way of trading or creating value - what form it would take is anybody's guess, but I'm not in the camp that thinks we should return to bartering or living in caves! I just think we are on the cusp of another phase - yes, stock markets serve a useful purpose in capitalising new companies, but the artificial growth in value of shares, which then slump, has been a millstone around our collective necks since the South Sea Bubble. Now that computers can trade for us, faster than any human trader and with even less judgement, the problem is getting worse. All of our pensions rely on this model working - and it isn't working - and the booms and busts are getting closer together...

When my brother and I wandered around IKEA in October, we wondered how much longer the consumer society that we've grown up with will last - it isn't sustainable for much longer. We saw items in there that were being sold for less than the cost of the fuel to manufacture and transport them across Europe to the store. And I totally agree with you about the Gegeners - they're totally clueless about the position we're in. Or if they do realise how unsustainable the population is, they probably think it's justifiable to cull other human beings, or dictate how who's allowed children and in what quantities. They have that sort of nasty mindset that comes with thinking you're right all the time. I will be interested to see where we end up - I don't think our retirement will look anything like previous generations' did!

Er... I should stop there, shouldn't I?

No, my dear, someone has to see through the charade and the lies that is the daily fare of the news media, the politics and the stock in trade of the self serving "civil" service.

A sad day for the Fire Services ...

2011-11-29T06:10:00.010Z

I have received the following from the Friends of the London Fire Brigade Museum.

Friends of the London Fire Brigade Museum FLFBM.com
The Committee along with several members of the Friends attended the Fire Authority meeting on Thursday 24^th November. At this meeting the Authority finalised its proposed budget before submitting it to the Mayor for his approval.
The budget once again included the closure of the present museum and this was agreed. However we were heartened to hear that unanimously members from all parties were keen to both retain the collection intact and to explore ways of creating a long term solution that retains this vital piece of our heritage and we are keen to build on this.
We will be taking up the deputy Commissioners offer of discussions to help in this process and look forward to having a role in the current, interim and medium term storage arrangements and in developing suitable a suitable governance model for a new museum.
The requirements for closure will need to be in accordance to the requirements set down by the national bodies for accredited museums and this includes offering those who have donated items to reclaim them. We intend to keep these individuals informed and to notify them when the new museum is safely secured.

This is a very bad decision by the politicians. It will save very little money, it loses them a great deal of goodwill and possibly worst of all, it breaks up one of the finest and most comprehensive collections of fire service history in the world. All to save what amounts, in the LFEPA budgets, to pennies. As someone who donated several items to the museum some years ago, I shall await developments.

One thing politicians of all stripes seem to be ignorant of, is the fact that once you destroy something like this, it is impossible to rebuild or replace it. The third verse of Kipling's magnificent, and precient, poem "Recessional," -

Far-called our navies melt away—

On dune and headland sinks the fire—

Lo, all our pomp of yesterday

Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!

Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,

Lest we forget—lest we forget!

Once something is gone, it is gone for good.

Available at last ...

2011-11-28T10:49:00.001Z

ON THE RUN has been released. Currently available from the publisher, Abbott Press it will shortly also be on the Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other book seller listsings. It is in Hard Cover, Paperback and eBook formats. This one has had a long gestation, I completed it a little over a year ago and have done several revisions, then the publisher wanted some more tweeks ...

I hope readers will enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed creating the story.

Looks may be deceptive ...

2011-11-27T09:23:00.000Z

From Forbes Magazine ...

Gingham Dress And Threadbare suit
A lady in a faded gingham dress and her husband, dressed in a homespun threadbare suit, stepped off the train in Boston, and walked timidly without an appointment into the Harvard University President's outer office.

The secretary could tell in a moment that such backwoods, country hicks had no business at Harvard & probably didn't even deserve to be in Cambridge.
"We'd like to see the president," the man said softly. "He'll be busy all day," the secretary snapped "We'll wait," the lady replied.

For hours the secretary ignored them, hoping that the couple would finally become discouraged and go away. They didn't, and the secretary grew frustrated and finally decided to disturb the president, even though it was a chore she always regretted.

"Maybe if you see them for a few minutes, they'll leave," she said to him!
He sighed in exasperation and nodded. Someone of his importance obviously didn't have the time to spend with them, and he detested gingham dresses and homespun suits cluttering up his outer office.

The president, stern faced and with dignity, strutted toward the couple.The lady told him, "We had a son who attended Harvard for one year. He loved Harvard He was happy here. But about a year ago, he was accidentally killed. My husband and I would like to erect a memorial to him, somewhere on campus."
The president wasn't touched. He was shocked.

"Madam," he said, gruffly, "we can't put up a statue for every person who attended Harvard and died. If we did, this place would look like a cemetery.""Oh, no," the lady explained quickly. "We don't want to erect a statue. We thought we would like to give a building to Harvard."

The president rolled his eyes. He glanced at the gingham dress and homespun suit, then exclaimed, "A building! Do you have any earthly idea how much a building costs? We have over seven and a half million dollars in the physical buildings here at Harvard."

For a moment the lady was silent.

The President was pleased. Maybe he could get rid of them now.

The lady turned to her husband and said quietly, "Is that all it costs to start a university? Why don't we just start our own?"

Her husband nodded.

The President's face wilted in confusion and bewilderment.

Mr. and Mrs. Leland Stanford got up and walked away, traveling to Palo Alto, California where they established the university that bears their name, Stanford University, a memorial to a son that Harvard no longer cared about.

You can easily judge the character of others by how they treat those who they think can do nothing for them.

A TRUE STORY By Malcolm Forbes, publisher of Forbes MagazineNote : Stanford made his fortune in railways

"People will forget what you said, People will forget what you did.But people will never forget how you made them FEEL".

"Gegeners ..."

2011-11-26T09:30:00.011Z

In German, the word means to be "against" something, and it covers a range of "protest" activities from anti-atomic power through the full spectrum of "anti-anything" campaigning. I find it a very interesting mindset in a rather frustrated manner, since those who lead these campaigns show a similar tendency toward being able to see only their own campaign, rights, facts, arguments and points of view as being valid. I have previously noted this approach among other groups, both the extreme religious types and the atheist/secularist converts who seem to spend an inordinate amount of time recycling their own often very selective arguments for their particular position.

This thought was prompted recently by the reports on the latest bout of campaigning against the Stuttgart 21 Project, a scheme intended to improve the railway access and connections to the city of Stuttgart. It is a huge project and as with all major projects, it has both its merits and its demerits and not a few highly technical problems to overcome. Stuttgart is the capital of Baden-Wurtemburg and it is also the home of the Mercedes Benz manufacturing empire. Its railway connection was conceived and built in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries and rebuilt to the same plan after WW2. So why does it need redesigning?

Put simply, the initial design made the city a terminus. Trains can enter and leave, but there is no "through" service. Anything going into Stuttgart must first back out again and then join the mainline to everywhere else. The Stuttgart 21 Project is intended to fix that, increase rail traffic to the city and improve the whole scheme by putting most of the new work below ground. It will cost an enormous amount to do it, but it is seen by Deutchebahn and both the Federal Government and the State Government as an investment which will ensure the city continues to be attractive for commerce and for tourism. So, what's not to like?

The "S21 Gegeners" maintain the whole project is too big, to costly and too disruptive. They seem to fall into two main camps, those who don't want anything to change at all and those who will accept a smaller and less ambitious project. The latter seem to be in a minority from what I read. The Rail company, the designers, the politicians and even the technical experts have held consultations, briefings, enquiries and even been hauled through the courts. Concessions have been made, some of the "Gegeners" biggest objections have been taken on board and changes made to the scheme - but still they keep hammering away, now complaining about the cost of the project which is escalating with each delay they are causing ...

It is evident that for the hardcore "Gegener" the campaign has become a case of no compromise. They accept nothing anybody from the pro side says, everything is immediately called into question or brushed aside as "inadequate" or "irrelevant" or even simply flatly denied. There is, for these folk, no "middle ground" no matter how detailed the report or the technical assessments, they always know someone who can refute, challenge or raise more questions. I watched in amazement this morning as the spokesperson for this campaign to stop S 21 blithely argued that the costs were "running out of control" but then denied that his campaign and the delays they were causing had anything to do with it.

What fascinates me - and frustrates me - with this mindset is that it is evident in a whole bunch of "campaigning" activities. Greenpeace, Fiends of the Earth, "Stop the Cuts," secularisation - they all know all the faults with the "other" side, they can chant their own sides demands and they know their arguments for their standpoint the way someone of deep religious conviction knows their credo - but there is a blanket refusal to consider the impact of their demands or the costs and consequences.

My question, I guess, is what causes it? Is it that people are unable, despite their much vaunted and often vigorously asserted, "rationalisation"of major events and ideas to actually consider things from an objective point of view and not from a predetermined standpoint? Or is it that they are afraid to? That they just don't like change and are determined to hold it back at all cost no matter the consequences? Is it that, having taken a particular position on something they are afraid to change their thinking when presented with new and perhaps more reliable information? Could it be that, for some at least, "the campaign" becomes their sole raison detre for existing? There are certainly many of that ilk among the "Green" campaigners I have encountered. Likewise among those who campaign over safety, rights, freedom and a host of other matters. One gets a distinct impression that the mindset is governed by the tenet, "Don't confuse me with facts. My mind is made up."

An interesting challenge I suspect for some psychological researcher at some point. There is probably some very good explanation for this refusal to weigh and consider both sides of an argument, but I confess it eludes me ...

Oh dear ....

Headlines

2011-11-25T08:13:00.000Z

Currently three topics are dominating the German headlines - the exposure and capture of a neo-Nazi terror gang; the €uro crisis; and the ongoing protests over the Stuttgart Bahnhof restructuring and the atomic waste storage facility in Gorleben.

The arrest of members of the neo-Nazi group (two committed suicide when trapped after robbing a bank) has started a tremendous debate over the issue of "right-extremists" and there is a great deal of soul searching being done over this group which has, it transpires, been active for over 10 years. The Secret Service (Ferfassungsdienst) in several of the Federal States apparently knew of their activities and were monitoring them, but failed to share this with the relevant State Police forces. Justifiably there is anger over this in all quarters and now there are calls for the parent political party, the NPD (National Socialist Party) to be banned outright. As ever, the Left are the most vocal in demanding a ban, conveniently ignoring the fact that Germany also has a problem with "Links extremismus"groups, the most notorious of which was the Red Army Faction (Bader-Meinhof Gang), but there are still others at large, though not as active and there is also the threat of Al Qaeda groups and members. Bans usually mean driving groups like these deeper underground and making it even more difficult to track, monitor and deal with them. This seems to have been realised here, though the debate continues.

The €uro crisis concerns everyone, probably the Germans more than anyone else. Older people here remember their parents talking about the collapse of the Mark in the Weimar Republic and the consequences. They also remember clearly the struggle in the post-war years as the country and the economy was slowly rebuilt. They entered the €uro cautiously and their economic rectitude has been worthwhile. Their banks, on the whole, survived the scandal of 2008 very nicely, the majority without any bailouts. Currently, the Chancellor is fighting her corner with the usual Keynesian economists who got us into this mess in the first place and who now want to sell €urobonds and print more money. Germany knows all to well what happens to a currency once the presses start printing more banknotes than the economy can sustain in value. Currently, Germany has a 1.8% interest on borrowing rate on the world exchange as opposed to something akin to 34% for Greece. The €urobond idea would see Germany paying a higher rate for their loans so that France, Spain, Greece et al pay the same as Germany - and Mrs Merkel knows the German people won't be happy bunnies if that happens!

The third item is worthy of a post on its own as anyone watching these protest groups soon comes to realise that for many it is almost a religious dogma. "We are against (insert activity of choice)" and no amount of debate, exchange of information, even inspection of facilities will change that stance. We are against it and it doesn't matter what you say, we will not change or position. This seems to be a human condition, one that is visible in many different things and in many different societies. For those of this mindset there is no "middle ground" and no compromise. For them it is their way or nothing.

On which note I will stop for the moment. Perhaps tomorrow will provide the inspiration to ponder that a little more.

Investing in the Future

2011-11-24T07:29:00.002Z

My old school is Selborne College, East London, South Africa. It was and is, one of the top public schools (as opposed to a fee paying "Private" school which is what Eton, Harrow or any of the "Public" Schools in the UK would be called in SA) in the country, and I'm not just saying that because I went there. I will also confess that I was never one of their star pupils or sportsmen. I sort of muddled all the way through - to the frustration of most of the Masters I think - and finally wandered off with some "education" and no idea what to do with it. Years later one of my favourite Masters (he taught me history and drama and his wife taught English) told me that I was one of his most frustrating pupils. In his words, he and the other teachers could "see an intelligence lurking in there, but couldn't seem to get it to switch on" - and yet I always somehow scrapeda passing grade despite their being convinced I wouldn't...

Sort of explained all those reports that said "can do better, if he applied himself to the studies." OK, so they did actually manage to at least teach me to listen, observe and think, all of which have stood me in very good stead through my subsequent career.

So why am I rambling on about all this? The school has launched an appeal. It needs to raise ZAR25 million to secure its future. The money is needed to upgrade facilities, extend some buildings to provide new facilities and buy new equipment such as computers. The Old "Boys" Association has kick-started the Appeal with a donation of ZAR500,000 and will, no doubt, be contributing more over the next three years. Under the title of "Selborne Legacy Project" the money will be managed by Trustees as it is collected and I would like to add my own appeal to anyone reading this. Please support them if you can. Follow the link on their website to the donations page and make a donation.

It doesn't matter how small, every Rand, Pound, Dollar or whatever counts!

Electronic Filing

2011-11-23T16:55:00.000Z

Would be wonderful if you could easily access them. Would be even better if you could find the discs you originally stored them on, and then, once you've found the device that allows you to 'read' the old 3.25 inch 'floppy' (which isn't), if the Word version you are currently using, could open them ...

There is a large degree of frustration in constantly getting an "error' message that says the file is 'blocked.' There is an even greater degree of frustration when the Microslosh provided advice on dealing with the problem, doesn't actually solve it. The problem, of course, is Microsloshes habit of changing the Operating System every time they bring out a new version of something. These files were originally created on my very first laptop running on Windows 95. Since then there have been several new versions of the Word for Windows system, though, to be fair, I could still read these files on the last version of that I had on my Windblows operated PC. But not, it seems on Word for Mac ...

Fortunately, the information is not a matter of life or death, just a favour for a friend, so I will now have to dig out my last laptop using Windblows and see what I can do on that to access and convert the files to a format everthing else can read.

So much for "Electronic Backup."

Interesting History ...

2011-11-22T13:47:00.000Z

Today is the 48th anniversary of the shooting of President John F Kennedy, the first Roman Catholic President of the US of A whose election, as I recall, was greeted with almost as much hype as that of the present incumbent. It is often said that his assassination is one of the world events that remain firmly in a person's mind and I can certainly say, in this case, it is true. I was at school. It was a maths class and it was interrupted with the announcement.

A teacher came in, told our class master, who told us, then returned to the lesson. That was it. As we weren't in the US it was shocking to hear that a head of state had been deliberately killed, but it apparently didn't affect us - so we just went on with our school work.

I remember it was on the news that night on the radio (South Africa didn't get television until the mid 1970s) and it was a week or more before any of us saw it on the Movietone News in the cinema. By then, of course, a great deal more had happened, including the killing of the accused gunman. I was astonished recently to learn that, at the time of this assassination, killing a US President wasn't a "Federal Crime" and the whole affair was, technically, the jurisdiction of the Dallas Police Department and no one else.

One can only wonder whether anything would have been different if JFK had not died. Would Vietnam have escalated the way it did? Perhaps not, since L B Johnson appears to have made that his "Cuba crisis" stand. On the other hand, there are a whole slew of very good social programmes that the US owes to LBJ and not to Kennedy. JFK made the promises, LBJ delivered them.

History certainly has a number of interesting "what ifs" attached ...

Dealing with Bureaucracy ...

2011-11-21T13:45:00.000Z

Aargh! Or, as another blogger has titled her blog - Ack! Thbbbbbt!

In order to get the money from a small "paid up" policy now maturing in South Africa I am having to leap through more flaming bureaucratic hoops than I ever imagined possible. Even if I succeed in getting all the "proof" they demand to show that I did, in fact, emigrate more than twenty years ago, they will still only allow the money to be paid into an account in South Africa...

OK, that's one way of making sure you don't have a currency haemorrhage I guess, but as they don't have or are not able to supply me with copies of some of the certificates I had to file to leave SA in the first place, how the heck am I supposed to do it twenty-three years on?

I love bureaucrats. I do. I really do. I just want to see them all dangling from lamp posts or swimming with over excited sharks ...

An uncomfortable truth ...

2011-11-20T19:39:00.000Z

I have seen this before,but, as we stand at the beginning of the Christian Year (First Sunday in Advent is the start of the Liturgical Calendar) it is worth considering what this says. Whether you are a church goer, or not, atheist or something else, the point being made is that if you take discipline and morality out of society, you really should't be surprised when bad things start to happen around you ...

Apparently the White House referred to Christmas Trees as Holiday Trees for the first time this year which prompted CBS presenter, Ben Stein, to present this piece which I would like to share with you. I think it applies just as much to many countries as it does to America ..
The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary.

My confession:

I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees, Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are, Christmas trees.

It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, 'Merry Christmas' to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house inMalibu . If people want a creche, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from, that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat.
Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship celebrities and we aren't allowed to worship God ? I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where these celebrities came from and where the America we knew went to.

In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it's not funny, it's intended to get you thinking.
Billy Graham's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her 'How could God let something like this happen?' (regarding Hurricane Katrina).. Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said, 'I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?'

In light of recent events... terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found a few years ago) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK. Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The Bible says thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.
Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave, because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock's son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he's talking about. And we said okay.

Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.

Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out.. I think it has a great deal to do with 'WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.'

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says. Funny how you can send 'jokes' through e-mail and they spread like wildfire, but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.

Are you laughing yet?

Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you're not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it.

Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.

Pass it on if you think it has merit.

If not, then just discard it.... no one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don't sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in.

My Best Regards, Honestly and respectfully,
Ben Stein

Feel free to copy it and paste it into an email if you think it should be shared.

In or out?

2011-11-19T16:51:00.000Z

As I noted the other day in this post, democracy is perceived in different ways by different people and at different times. Thus, for the anti-EU factions in the UK, the changes of government in the countries at the heart of the €uro crisis is "undemocratic" and one is given the impression that the democratically elected parliaments have been overthrown and unelected governors imposed. Yet, all that has happened is the unpopular and incompetent minority governments have been replaced, in Greece by a new coalition of sitting (elected!) MPs and in the other, by a new coalition, again composed of elected members already 'sitting' in the legislature. No different in fact to what happened when Mr Blair "retired" and handed over the reigns of power to Mr Brown without "consulting" the electorate.

I find myself amazed at some of the statments being made by presumably intelligent people. I have read in some blogs the assertion that "German Militarism" is once more a threat to the "freedom of Europe," that the whole EU is a "German plan to seize control of Europe" and many other similar, equally silly statements. For one thing present day Germany is far from "militaristic." In fact it is probably less "militaristic" than France or the UK. It has just slashed its Armed Forces, scrapping an entire class of modern frigates in the navy, entire regiments in the army and entire squadrons in the airforce. Having scrapped National Service, they are now struggling to recruit people for the services and, quite frankly, their focus is on protecting their own economy.

As for wishing to deprive anyone of their "democracy" I'd suggest that those making the charge should get a reality check. The German government operates and has done for as long as I can remember, on a coalition system. Everything the Chancellor does has first been fought over, argued and eventually voted on by the Bundestag. Then, sometimes, things still have to get the approval of the Landestags. There are 17 of those and they don't always do as the Bundestag recommends - far from it.

Yes, the proposals on the table at the moment is for a central committee which would determine the spending and borrowing levels for the member states. Yes, that takes control away from the member governments of their economies, but, frankly, if the peoples of those states want the stability of a solid currency, they have to surrender that control. No one is compelling them - if they want out, they probably still have the printing plates for their original currencies. The problem they would face, of course, is the value of that currency when they re-issue it. It could be just so much monopoly money ...

Does anyone accuse the USA of having "robbed" its constituent States of their democracy because Washington DC determines the spending and borrowing limits? No, and it is worth remembering that the US Dollar also went through a tramatic start up.

Frankly I think the UK news media, the vociferous anti-EU-ers and and the government of the UK have to step back, stop throwing their toys out of the pram and decide whether they want to be a part of a larger Europe, or vanish into obscurity all on their own. I rather think Scotland will take its own route in that event and remain a part of the EU and other parts may take the same decision. The UK is a Great Power because it has a nuclear deterent, it no longer has the armed forces that could fight a major war, in fact I suspect that the Falklands, if invaded now, would be left to the invaders with no more than some "diplomatic exchanges" in the UN.

The real problem for the UK media and others, as I see it, is that the rest of Europe has made plain that they will not be dictated to by a single member which consistently refuses to follow the same rules they demand everyone else should. There is a LOT wrong in the EU, not least the unelected Commission appointed by the Council of Ministers - who claim this is legitimate because THEY are elected. By some measures that is democratic...

It does seem to me to come down to a single issue. The UK has to make a decision, to stay in the EU or to withdraw. Personally I will be sad to see the latter because I do believe that the UKs best interests lie in being a part of Europe, but that certainly isn't helped by the utter lack of understanding of so much of Europe's history, or of the manner in which so many government's function.

It is a very complex issue, but it isn't helped by the likes of Nigel Farage slinging mud and refusing to work with people to achieve what we would all like to see, a strong Europe, democratic, and able to show the world a fair dispensation for all its people. That won't happen if the mudslinging and wrecking continues.

Cool Cat ...

2011-11-18T13:10:00.000Z

We have a new "cat" in our garden. He looks slightly appealing to me, probably wondering why he's been left outside in all the cold and damp. Seriously though, he's there to protect our rose bush which didn't really appreciate the heavy snow last year. Bet we don't get any this year - and "Cool Cat" will wonder why we did this to him after all ...

Actually he makes me feel quite guilty ...

Uncollected tax...

2011-11-18T09:11:00.001Z

It has emerged that the Greek taxpayers owe their government €60 billion in unpaid tax... That is just unbelievable in itself, but even more amazing is the fact that the Greek government has made no effort to collect it.

No wonder they are an economic basket case. €60 billion uncollected tax, with the most generous social security handouts in Europe - paid for it seems by massive borrowing and the taxpayers of every other EU country. The new government of "national unity" (Contrary to some of the reportage I have seen from UK based news sources, consisting of sitting MPs elected to the Greek Parliament and not unelected apparatchiks from Brussels as the media have implied) would do well to collect the outstanding tax immediately and pay off some of their debt.

Frankly, the more I think about this the more I need to go and lie down with a damp towel on my forehead. Even the German news services seem to be stunned by this revelation ...

Memorials

2011-11-17T08:44:00.009Z

While Remembrance Sunday tends to be very high profile and well marked in the UK, as you would expect it is a very much lower key affair in Germany. Understandably I think, but we should not lose sight of the fact that both the wars fought in the first half of the 20th Century began with a political assassination in Sarajevo. Then it escalated because a whole slew of family alliances, political alliances and ambitions all came together to drag Europe and then the world into a war. Even though he is often accused of being a warmonger, it is worth noting that the Kaiser sent a batch of urgent telegrams to King George V, the French and to the Tsar inviting them to stay out of "the Austrian/Serb squabble." If they would refrain from mobilising, he would not mobilise his forces.

Unfortunately the Tsar, possibly because he hadn't thought through the implications, ignored the plea and told his generals to mobilise. As a result the dominoes began to tumble, one after another, setting in train the mobilisations which became the mud of the various battlefield theaters, and slaughter of the flower of European youth. For some it was certainly about patriotism, for others it was simply duty and for many it was a way to escape menial and degrading lives and futures.

Given that the first war ended without a clear winner, despite the propaganda from the winning side, the second was made inevitable by the draconian conditions imposed in the 'peace.' As Churchill has written, the terms imposed at the end of the first war, made the second inevitable. It paved the way for the spread and growth of ideologies that have left a terrible legacy. Russia alone lost almost 15 million men, and the German nation bled almost to death with the loss of over 8 million in 1939 - 45 and the losses in WW1 were much higher on all sides.

I am reminded of this regularly as I take a walk past the little Friedhof in Watzhahn. It is a small village now, it was even smaller in 1914 and not much bigger in 1939. The Albus family and the Debus families still live here, others have gone, their sons and fathers remembered only on the memorial below.

The fresh wreath is laid every year, quietly and without fuss, by the Village committee chairman and the families whose uncles, fathers and grandfathers names are recorded. Propaganda is a wonderful thing, it enables us to avoid looking to closely at how these things happen, what gives rise to the ideologies that drive them and at the suffering that arises on all sides.

Certainly I think, as I look at the names on this memorial for 1939 - 1945, I find myself thinking that D-Day also represented the liberation of the German people from the clutches of a tyrant. Sadly, it left others, almost as bad, in power for another 50 years.

Something a little different ...

2011-11-16T11:21:00.000Z

I'm fed up with politics, politicians and political commentators, so here is something totally different for a change -

Democracy - a question of meaning ...

2011-11-15T08:20:00.003Z

From Wikipedia:

Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal (and more or less direct) participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law.^[1] It can also encompass social, economic and cultural conditions that enable the free and equal practice of political self-determination.

To most of us, the above is what we think is the way things work in any "democracy" but, is it?

In most "democratic" countries (and quite a few the "West" consider undemocratic) this generally means we get to vote every few years to determine who sits in a parliament, council chamber or some other "house" of representation and run a country, city, province or county on our behalf. If you live in a country where it is "one man; one vote" and a "first past the post is elected" system there is a complication if your candidate isn't elected. It also means that a "tribal" vote for a particular party can make it impossible to change a government. This was the case in South Africa from 1948 to 1994, the distribution of constituencies meant that there was a permanent majority for the Nationalist Party, the architects of Apartheid. If you lived in a Nationalist Constituency and didn't vote for them, your vote scarcely mattered.

The big question has to be, is this really democracy? Was the "democracy" practiced by communist dictatorships any better? Did the voter really have an "equal say in the decisions that affect their lives?" Simplistically - no. The ruling party usually has enough seats to overrule any objection from anyone in opposition. OK, so this is called "majority" rule, but it is a bit of steamroller as far as anyone dissenting is concerned, especially if you have no hope of reversing whatever the decision was because you can't change the government. It gets worse where the elected "Members" of the legislature claim that their "House" is also "sovereign" and that this means they don't have to consult the electorate on anything, no matter how large an issue it might be, between elections.

Personally I don't believe that any of these systems is really democratic. Why? Because most of them contain the single flaw - the electorate really only have a say over who "represents" them and not over what the collected "representatives" can and can't enact which impacts on their electorate.

As I remarked yesterday, much fuss has been made in certain quarters about the fact that the Greek and Italian governments have been changed without an election. It is claimed that this is undemocratic, but my impression from the news channels in those two countries is that the people are overjoyed at the change. Berlusconi owned almost all the newspapers and TV stations and, as the media invariably exert a huge influence in any election, could, conceivably, have swung enough voters to hang on in power - despite having almost single-handedly destroyed the Italian economy. The Italians are quite happy that, at last, he has been forced from office.

The Greeks present another side of the coin. They elected the Papandreou government and its predecessor, both in thrall to the communist controlled Trade Unions and both far left socialist in their policies. Cue very generous social welfare, health care, civil service pay and a free spending programme for everyone - plus a lack of tax policing and collection leading to massive tax evasion. The Unions are against the cuts, the government has little choice since their loans are now due for payment and those who do pay their taxes are now feeling the pinch. A change of government is welcomed by most there as well, but, yes, there is a price to pay.

It is interesting to note that there is no universally accepted definition of democracy, which was invented in Greece, not as a means of "electing representatives" but as a way of getting people removed from office and even exiled from the city states. Perhaps that is a concept we should explore again!

"Majority" rule has, in recent times, been declared by various liberal thinkers as the only acceptable form of democracy, yet the same group are quite happy to impose "minority rights" giving minorities power to frustrate a majority wish expressed in a "democratic" manner. Personally I find it disturbing that a system that was totally unacceptable in Africa, is now imposed in the name of "fairness and justice" to "protect ethnic minorities" in a sort of reverse apartheid. "Minority rights" are important, but should they be able to overturn the rights of a majority? Those who argue they should are, ironically the same people who fought to have the apartheid regime isolated and driven from government.

The EU is promoted as a "democratic" institution, but how much influence do the individual voters actually have? The answer is very little, certainly in terms of the definition with which I started. We "elect" the Strasbourg Parliament, but that's about it. The Council of Ministers appoints the Commissioners who actually make the laws - and it is claimed that this is a "democratic" process because the Ministers are "elected" by the voters and therefore empowered to make these appointments ...

Democratic? In my view, marginally. Very marginally. Frankly, its corrupt.

Is Britain's much vaunted system any better? Roughly a third of the seats at present can be described as "tribal" (The correct term is "Safe" meaning one Party enjoys an unasailable majority in that constituency) and in reality only the "marginal" seats ever change hands. Add to that the "Whips" who enforce "Party Discipline" and make sure all their MPs vote as they are told to by "The Leader" and you have to wonder if your voice is ever heard at all.

The explanation (excuse) is that we live in a "Parliamentary Democracy" and that "Parliament is Sovereign" and therefore free to do as it pleases once elected. You, the voter, have given them your approval and proxy to rule you as they see fit. Is it really democratic? It is argued that we can change the government, but the UK system (and most of those modelled on it) really only offer a choice of two Parties and, if neither happens to represent your ideals or views - well, tough.

I suppose we are left with Sir Winston Churchill's famous line - "Democracy: The worst of all systems of government. Except for all the others."

Different points of view ...

2011-11-14T14:11:00.000Z

I have watched and read with interest a number of different blogs, news items and newspapers in recent days all with different points of view on the €uro and the efforts to save it and prevent the debt crises in Greece, Italy and other southern European countries, from getting out of hand. Many of the British blogs and newspapers seem to be following the theme of "good riddance to the €uro, no body wants it," or "EU/Brussels/France/Germany have removed the democratic rights of Greece and Italy" or "Germany is trying to takeover Europe ..."

It is very interesting to note that there is a strong anti-German theme in many of these posts, most of which focus on the attempt to bail out the various governments whose profligate spending has precipitated the crisis. All the old propaganda is being paraded again. Germany wants to suppress democracy, Germany wants to control Europe, Germany wants ... Living in Germany I can only say that the Germans are themselves utterly bemused by all this.

As for those claiming that the Italians have been denied a "democratic right" that certainly isn't the impression one gets watching them celebrating Berlusconi's departure. Anyone would think, watching Italian, Swiss and German newscasts, that the Italians felt that his being forced to resign by the EU rescue deal was a good thing. Interestingly, this is not what is being reported (I can't watch BBC or UK Channels because they don't allow people outside the UK to do so!) in the UK according to the online newspapers. Is this just a different perspective, or is it a deliberate attempt to put a different spin on things?

An interesting question. But what is the motive behind it?

As far as I can see from the news reports and blogs I follow, it is all about forcing the UK Government to hold a Referendum on membership of the EU. It seems the bloggers and the media want to see the UK out of Europe, many with the fond idea that the former colonial and Dominion members of the Empire that form the Commonwealth will welcome them back with open arms and help form an anti-Europe trading bloc. Some might, but I suspect that a majority won't.

I also find the glee with which many of these reports contemplate the "failure of the €uro" disturbing. They seem to have no concept of how the money values work or what and who is likely to suffer most if it does - and it certainly won't be any of the political classes or the really wealthy. No, it will be the ordinary people, the workers, the Middle Classes who will suddenly find that everything they have worked for has collapsed around them. Do these reporters and "experts" ("x" is an unknown factor and a "spurt" is a drip under pressure) really want to see this happen?

Much was made last week of warnings from Germany that allowing the collapse of the €uro might see wars break out in Europe again. This was trumpeted by some as "proof" that "German militarism" was rising and a "threat" to stability. In fact, Germany has cut its armed forces even more drastically than the UK at the moment, scrapping all seven of an entire class of frigates in its Navy and slashing the number of soldiers, sailors and airmen to less than half the figure they were. Reading the full German text of the speech so badly reported in the UK presents a slightly different picture. The reference was to a rise in civil strife which could overspill borders once the economies of some of the states just emerging from the Communist desert collapse. It was not a reference to the sort of wholesale conquests attempted in the last century at all.

Much is made in some quarters about the "lack of democracy" in Europe, yet almost all of Europe uses Alternative Voting or some variant of Proportional Representation. In the UK, if you don't vote according to the "tribal preference" of your local constituency, you might as well not bother - and many don't. I would agree that the Commission should be directly elected and perhaps certain other key posts as well, but here comes the difficulty. It would have to be done on some sort of "Collegiate" system such as that used in the US for presidential elections and we all know the problems that can arise from that! The UK population is currently 62 million, Germany some 85 million, France about the same. It figures that if you get "bloc" voting, your population counts, but is a Collegiate system going to equilise or further disadvantage member states and their voters? Interestingly the German population is declining by about 0.1% per year, while the UKs is rising by 1% per year. Changing demographics can change the voting patterns as well as the economics of a situation. And, how democratic is democratic? Or better still, how do we define it? Let us not forget that all the Communist regimes did, and some still do, claim to be the only democratic states in the world ...

This leads on to one of the things so exercising the UK media and blogs at the moment. As Mr Cameron discovered in his very own "West Lothian" moment - the seventeen €uro States in the EU are not about to take any advice from him or anyone else who isn't in the €uro about how to save it, manage it or work with it. And why should they? After all, the UK has made it clear it is staying out, the Pound is a rival currency and the UK hopes in some quarters, that the failure of the €uro will somehow strengthen the Pound isn't likely to endear then to it or him. In fact the consensus among economists seems to be that the failure of the €uro will damage everyone, perhaps bringing a total failure of the economies of a large number of struggling states.

Sometimes I have the very clear impression that some commentators live on a planet where the view is very confined, so confined that it could almost be unrealistic. There is a larger picture here, one that is slowly becoming clearer. No one seems to have asked why the UK is running its armed forces to such a low ebb. Despite the government's protestations that they are as big and strong as they need be to meet the UK Defence needs, the truth is that they are not. Numerous defence experts have pointed this out and so have the armed forces themselves. But across Europe Defence forces are being reduced and the only conclusion one can draw is that somewhere in this are a bunch of bureaucrats beavering away and planning for a single European Army, Navy and Airforce. Similar activity is affecting police services and many other services - so just how "independent" is anyone these days.

The same applies to may EU member economies, they are now so intertwined that the events in Greece threaten everyone, not just the Eurozone members. Ah well, as a small player and a single vote in a very big pond of voters, I guess I, like everybody else, will just have to wait and see. I just hope the more vociferous among the anti-€uro, anti-EU lobbies are wrong ...

Perspectives ...

2011-11-12T08:30:00.003Z

Earlier this week the Postulant copied me into a link for a brochure the Metropolitan Police were distributing to the "Occupy London" rent-a-mob. It was a great piece of PR and advice, it contained such gems as -

... if an officer is wearing his riot helmet with the visor down he may not be able to hear you unless he is facing you. He may also shout at you to make sure you hear him ...

As they had gone to some trouble to make clear that the policemen and women would not be wearing these helmets unless faced with a situation that called for it - as in someone has started throwing things or attempted something naughty - I rather thought the gentle hint was "don't even attempt to talk to him - just do as you're told. NOW!"

The Postulant was also engaged with a chat forum and following a clash with some young person whose ignorance obviously exceeds his personality she sent me the following comment -

I really enjoyed seeing an example of the police still managing to do their job well and in a creative way, despite all of the obstacles that get put in their way. We are fortunate that there are still people who are prepared to wear uniform and fight bureacracy to keep us safe - and I would be happy to be quoted on that, at any time and however publicly it needs to be said. I also pointed out to an anonymous little twerp who insulted a copper on a large online forum with the usual "I pay your wages" garbage that the police and other emergency services are remarkably good value for money. I reminded him that before Robert Peel, the only people who could afford to have someone go after a thief who stole their treasured possessions were the extremely rich (I omitted criminals with heavies - but the price of having a gang of heavies is that sooner or later they get you, so I don't count that as equal protection). Considering the relatively small amount that we all pay in tax (and probably tiny percentage of our tax that goes to fire, police and health services), we should be extremely grateful to have the kind of protection that used to require a personal army. Any prat who mocks the emergency services deserves the experience of needing them - and then feeling the worst kind of shame over being helped by people who are far better than them. And before you say they wouldn't feel shame, they do in their shrivelled little souls - they just don't always know what the feeling's called ;)

That's my girl all right.

Remembrance Day

2011-11-11T11:00:00.012Z

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We shall remember them.

They shall not grow old

As we that are left grow old.

Age shall not weary them

Nor the years condemn.

They gave their today

So that we might enjoy our tomorrow.

My grandfather, A/Sgt Henry Nelson Heron (18yrs), Royal Garrison Artillery, 36th Ulster Division, recalled that the silence which descended on the Front at 11 o'clock on the 11th November, 1918 was the most eerie thing he had ever experienced. He never forgot the friends, most of them school boys like himself, he left behind on Flanders fields.

On Flander's fields, where poppies grow,

Between the crosses, row on row ...

The flower of Europe's youth lies beneath those and all the other battle fields from that war and the subsequent one. We should never forget the sacrifice they made. Even those who survived carried the scars to their graves and some of those scars were not visible to the eye, but were indelibly etched on the hearts and minds of the men who fought them.

A sensible rejection ...

2011-11-10T08:26:00.000Z

As usual there are all the "free lunch" socialist types demanding a "tax on wealth" to pay for, International AID, Climate Change, Wealth Redistribution and Job Creation. The Chancellor of the UK, the number 2 man in the government if you count the incumbent of No. 10 Downing Street as No.1 (I don't, to me the Sovereign is always No. 1 so George Osborne is No. 3) may not be everyone's favourite person, but in this videoed session of the EU Ministers, he is making a damned sight more sense than most of his detractors ...

Good and bad thinking ...

2011-11-09T07:08:00.007Z

Came across the following on Climate etc., a blog run by Dr Judith Curry, a noted climate scientist.

Unfortunately, there is not simply good and bad thinking in the world, both easily recognized as such. There is also bad thinking that appears to be good and therefore wrongfully, sometimes disastrously, used as the basis of very important decisions. Very often this “bad thinking” is defended and “rationalized” in a highly sophisticated fashion. However flawed, it successfully counterfeits good thinking, and otherwise intelligent people are taken in. Such thinking is found in every dimension of human life and in every dimension it does harm; in every dimension it works against human well-being.

While she is addressing some of the name calling and arguing in the climate science/Anthropomorphic Global Warming debate that black is white and vice versa, it struck me, reading her article, that this is what has gone wrong in so many aspects of our present society. In my view the entire Politically Correct agenda is a result of "Bad Thinking" in that it has taken perfectly reasonable and logical issues and created a monster out of them. Morality is turned on it's head in this process and becomes a draconian beast, the ally of bullies and misogynists who spend all their time examining every statement and every action in others in an effort to find and " - ismist" intention.

This is what has spawned such oxymorons as "institutional racism, sexism, homophobia" and so many more. This is what spawns the sort of idiot who can take a light-hearted comment and turn it into a racist slur, or see a father taking a photograph of his child and turn it into an act of paedophilia.

How does it arise? I suspect it begins innocently enough, as something one can identify with as a "cause" to be supported. Gradually it grows as more and more misinformation is added or misdirection is received until someone, who probably has a tendency toward obsession anyway, becomes so convinced of the "justice" of their cause, they start a crusade. This is the sort of thing that begins with, for example, the perfectly reasonable desire of those who find themselves drawn to a same-sex relationship, to be able to enjoy that relationship openly and without censure. Then it becomes a campaign to demand that everyone must acknowledge that right and finally, as in Sparta, it must be made the "norm" in the eyes of the campaigner. In this drive to compel everyone to accept everything, all sense of balance and "reasonableness" is lost. If you disagree with someone's views, you risk being labeled fascist, if you think Islam isn't the same as Christianity, you are an Islamophobe. If you are uncomfortable with homosexuality, you are a homophobe. Normal, everyday behaviour is now regarded with suspicion by the advocates of PC ideology because it might mask some "-ism" they are against. Using an ordinary figure of speech can get you branded as a racist ...

Another example of how this kind of thinking can be used is to study the case of the fundamentalist in any religion. They will consider no argument around their belief. The reasoning is usually circular and closed. This is clearly manifest in both sides of the climate change debate. Neither side will actually 'hear' what the other side is saying - hence Dr Curry's "bad thinking" label.

But "bad thinking" seems to pervade almost every aspect of our lives at present. I have already mentioned the religious fundamentalist, but they are joined by the anti-religion faction who have arrived, by some rather interesting manipulations of facts, at the conclusion that all wars are started by religions and all sexual abuse is committed by Roman Catholic priests... Again, if the actual crime statistics are examined, less than 2% of all clergy commit any sort of offence and this accounts, across the world, for under 10% of the actual crimes of sexual abuse. What one must not do, is try to discuss this with anyone who is convinced of the mantra: religion = war; clergy = abusers.

I find myself asking what is it in some people that prevents them from critically examining their reasoning or their cause? Is it actually a form of mental illness?

Maybe there's a doctorate and vast amount of research funding to be had in examining it!

The €uro debacle ...

2011-11-08T13:52:00.001Z

Seems to be taking up a huge amount of everyone's time at present. Reading some of the UK reports you could be forgiven that the €uro experiment was designed by the Devil himself with the express purpose of impoverishing the member nations and depriving them of their "democratic rights." President Sarkozy and the Chancellor of the German Federation, Angela Merkel seem to be in the firing line over it as well. Primarily they are accused of "stripping the Greeks of the democratic rights" and of trying to recreate the Carolingian Empire.

I have to confess that I find the latter accusation amusing to say the least. Charlemagne (Karl der Grosse in German) was crowned Holy Roman Emperor and managed to bring peace to Europe after subduing all the Germanic, Slavonic and Gaelic tribes who invaded Europe after 410 AD. On his death his empire was divided between his sons and then, in the ensuing 1,000 years, fragmented further. The boundaries we recognise today in Europe are those created after 1945 and I doubt Charlemagne would recognise them - or the supposed "European Empire" the present crop of politicians are accused of creating.

As for the Greek plebiscite - or lack of - I fail to see what they could have voted for or against. Their nation is bankrupt. A large majority evade all forms of tax and the state budget hands out freely against loans from the IMF, EU, and various private financial institutions. Sarkozy and Merkel managed to stitch together a package of funding and reforms with the approval of a number of other €uro members who all stand to lose heavily if Greece does go under and take the €uro down and then, at the 11th hour the man who got Greece into this mess decides to hold a Referendum. On what? Accept or reject the bail out? You can be sure he wouldn't have got anything better by trying to renegotiate it. And if they rejected it? What then? Resurrect the Drachma? With what? Backed by what?

The truth is that Greece probably can't leave the €uro unless they wish to adopt the same tactic Mugabe used when the Zim$ crashed to the point of having so many noughts after the first number there weren't enough printing presses to keep up. What point would a Referendum serve then? Sure "the People" might have had a say in it, but since they voted for Papandreou in the first place, what does it prove? Then they didn't pay the taxes and embarked on social welfare handout programmes and the like that made this situation inevitable. Would it have solved anything?

The simple answer is, no.

The truth is that the €uro is in fact the victim of politics of the handout cultures in far too many of its constituent economies. One of the accusations hurled at Merkel and Sarkozy is that they are "depriving" the member nations of the "right" to set their own budgets and taxes, interest rates etc. But that isn't entirely true either. Germany and France are the principle power-houses in the European economy, with Holland, Sweden and Finland providing the bulk of the economic stability and productivity. Italy is a tale of two halves with the south largely soaking up the economy generated in the north, Spain and Portugal, alongside Greece are examples of Socialist misrule and abuse of economics and then there is Greece.

Merkel, Sarkozy and the other "Northern" nations powering the EU economy would be negligent if they allowed the rogue states like Greece to destroy their countries economies as well. And here lies a major part of the conundrum. If a plebiscite were held and the voters said "yes," the anti-lobby would scream that it had been rigged or the voters "mislead" or "bullied" and if it went their way and the nation's economy collapsed, they would scream that it was the fault of the "rich" who had "robbed" the Treasury. As Churchill once remarked, democracy is the worst of all systems of government - except for all the others. This is, perhaps, where we have taken "democracy" to be something the Ancient Greeks never envisaged. After all, their original system was about REMOVING politicians and banishing them from office!

Western economies are generally declining on the world stage. The rising economic powerhouses are India, China and Brazil and this century will, I think, see them gain centre stage in the leadership of the world, probably with a renewed, restored and economically stable Russia as a fourth. Those who rage about the "democratic rights" that have supposedly been denied the Greeks should consider this carefully. If the €uro is allowed to fail it will seriously damage both the US$ and the British Pound and quite possibly stall or even reverse their economic recovery from the 2008 Crash.

We may not like the €uro, we may even wish to see a reversion to the "old currencies" but I doubt it can happen at this point without causing serious economic chaos. The truth is that today a currency is worth only what a country produces in real terms of the "Balance of Trade." As a trading bloc, Europe has a strong Balance, as individual nations, some are strong others are so weak their currencies would not have even the value of the paper they are printed on. Which is better?

I know one thing, I have a drawer full of currencies from countries who tried to buck the market. I have some banknotes from one former European currency. I hold close to a million in notes. Value? About €2. Would I like to see this happen across the EU? No.

There are many things about the EU I do not like. I don't like the Council of Ministers having the power to appoint the Commission and the President. I want those posts elected. I don't like the way Brussels is running a socialising agenda. I want more freedom and less regulation. I don't like the manner in which the Brussels bureaucrats are able to run rings round national governments, or the way many national civil servants are quick to Gold Plate anything from Brussels which increases their power. I don't like the fact that the EU Parliament is an almost irrelevant institution. What is the point of electing the clowns who feed in it if they can't call the shots to Brussels and the Bureaucrats? But I don't want to see the €uro fail.

The damage it will do will plunge Western democracy into a real crisis, one I don't think we can recover from.

Time, like an ever rolling stream ...

2011-11-07T08:15:00.000Z

A line from the old funeral and Remembrance Sunday hymn, Abide with me, sprang to mind this morning when I got a message telling me that the wife of the priest who prepared me for confirmation and mother of my first real girlfriend, had died on All Saints Day.

These last few years she has suffered from dementia and been very infirm as well, she was, after all, over 80 years of age. Mrs Moore as we kids knew her, was the epitome of a Vicar's wife. Always engaged in the work of the Parish, always supportive of her husband's ministry and always welcoming to their home. My thoughts are with Val and Penny, her daughters, and with their families at this time. She will be buried alongside her husband, the Rev Mervyn Moore, in Fernie, BC, Canada where the family now live.

It has been a long road for all of them. They came originally from Yorkshire, where Rev Moore had served at the great Cathedral Minster, then moved to South Africa, where he developed his ministry further. Finally, they followed Val and her husband to Canada where they enjoyed their retirement.

May they both rest in peace, and rise with all the saints in glory.

A new threat to the LFB Museum.

2011-11-04T08:34:00.001Z

Below is the Press Release issued by the Friends of the museum who are trying to save it, yet again, from the politicians who have no appreciation of any heritage which isn't part of their current ideological "vision."

Friends of the London Fire Brigade Museum PRESS RELEASE
The London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority, (LFEPA) is expected to propose closing the London Fire Brigade museum, in Winchester House, part of the brigade’s Southwark Training Centre.
The LFEPA will meet on 24^th November to consider a recommendation to close the museum as part of its annual budget review. This will save the cost of two staff, which we estimate to be £81,000 along with income from admissions and sales from a small shop. To date this income has never been re-invested in the museum.
The museum provides many outstanding services…
·      It is a fantastic educational resource, and will severely inhibit the LFB’s ability to communicate its fire safety message
·      It is home to nearly 20,000 exhibits, and a fantastic collection of archives including books, and historic service records
·      The museum allows family of former firefighters to conduct searches, at a time when there is a growing interest in genealogy and history.
·      The museum is presently located in the grounds of the historic Grade II Listed Winchester House, once home to the founding father of modern-day firefighting techniques, Captain Sir Eyre Massey Shaw
If the museum closes, it will deprive Londoner’s young and old of a valuable link to the capital’s heritage.
Crucially, the museum plays a part in contributing to the Department for Communities and Local Government’s fire safety Message. See: http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/fire/Firekillsreport201011 The Friends of the London Fire Brigade MuseumIs a small independent body formed in 2008 and successfully campaigned to prevent a previous attempt to close it which was vetoed both by the Committee and led to the Mayor supporting it continuation.
The meeting on 24November is the means by which the Fire Authority formulates is budget prior to submitting it to the Mayor for his formal approval.
Our aim is to keep what is an important part of London’s cultural heritage and especially on the eve of the cultural Olympiad, available to the people of London and the wider world. This collection represents one of the best example’s of fire related memorabilia in the world and shows the key role the Fire Brigade has played in the development of our city.
Follow us on http://www.petitionbuzz.com/petitions/lfbmuseum http://twitter.com/#!/FLFBM https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=26317448196 http://flfbm.co.uk/ CONTACT: For tv, radio and newspaper interview, call: Tony Sweeney 07876598199 Dave Rogers 07946403864

If you feel you can support and help us save the museum, please contact the two people listed in the release, sign up to the petition, or, perhaps better, contact the LFEPA and express your feelings, preferably by letter or e-mail.

Seven Billion and climbing ...

2011-11-03T07:37:00.000Z

Ever wondered about the manner in which the population has grown in recent years? I know I have and it began when I did a demographic survey for my employer in the early 1980s. So, with the BBC having a neat little calculator, I thought I'd see what it said about the world population on the day I was born.

Turns out that I was somewhere around the 2,442,591,916th person to be born on this earth. In that year, the world population was just 2,300,000,000 (2.3 billion) which I assume means that deaths sort of balanced the births somewhere down the line. What is really interesting is the 1950 was the beginning of a runaway increase in the population - mainly in the "Developing" nations. The 1953 population hit 2.6 billion, in 1960 it had jumped to 3.1 billion and the year I finished school it hit 3.26 billion. By 1980 it was 4.4 billion and in 1990 5.3 billion and at the millennium it stood at 6.1 billion.

One country which interests me greatly and provides an excellent example of what I mean is South Africa. In 1987 the population was around 34 million, it now stands at 50,295,089 with 123 births, 85 deaths and 16 immigrants daily. The population is expanding at a rate of more than 1% per annum. The big question is, of course, can the country feed, water and employ all these people? In all honesty, no. And the same goes for many more countries around the globe.

What caused this massive explosion? According to one of the people I consulted back in the 1980s it was the availability of modern medicine which raised the life expectancy of all population groups and lowered the infant mortality figures. One small advance in medicine and it has caused a population explosion. Interesting stuff indeed.

But there is another small point to this which is perhaps going unnoticed by most of us. In 1900 Europe accounted for 21% of the world population. In 2000 it was just below 10% and in 2030 will be just 6% of the world population. Not only does this have a huge impact on our influence in the world, but it impacts directly on our economic power as well. Helpfully the site also gives a calculator for the population of your country. So a quick look tells me that the UK currently has 62,161,592 people with 85 births, 66 deaths and 23 immigrants every day ... Which tells me that there is a nett growth there and that, as many of the births are to immigrants, the population in Britain is undergoing a large growth and a profound change.

Definitely something to ponder carefully...

All Souls Day ...

2011-11-02T08:01:00.002Z

Today is the feast of All Souls, the day that Christians remember and celebrate the lives of those who have "gone before" us from this life to the next. There are possibly many different understandings surrounding what, precisely, the "next life" is or is like. Early Christians tended to follow the Jewish understanding which is that "the soul" descends into a place of waiting from which it will be recalled to return to a new and perfect body in a restored earth. In the Christian understanding, this will be a perfect world in which there is no more birth or death and an absence of pain and suffering.

Of course, the early church expected this "renewal" to happen within their or the next generation's life span, so theologians have wrestled with the question ever since. Interestingly, the Christian teaching remains that, ultimately, in God's time, all will be resurrected in flesh and blood form to populate the new earth and there will be a restoration of Eden with no further death or suffering. Various alternative visions are also taught, many believing that the resurrection is a spiritual one rather than a physical - but now we roam into the realms of "Dualism" which is pre-Christian and was, in fact, refined by Aristotle. The big question at this point is, "What precisely is the 'soul'?" To that we might add - "What is it?"

In fact, at this point, no one really has a definitive answer. But, having attended a number of deaths and watched, helplessly as someone makes that transition from living to dead, I can say that there is a very subtle something that changes at the moment of "death." What is more it is something far more subtle than the absence of breathing, heart beat or any other "vital" sign. Something is definitely "absent" once that border is crossed, something intangible to our crude senses. It is one of the reasons I continue to hold to my faith.

All Souls Day is when we remember all those who have had an impact or an influence on our lives and are no longer among us in physical form. So today I will be keeping in my prayers the following -

Neville Gray Cox
Grace Eleanor Frances Cox
Hector Mary Heron
Henry Nelson Heron
Roland Cox
Louise Cox
Mabel Ferson
Rheinhard Löffler
Diana Matlock
Ron Rayner
Doug Schwikkardt
Gil Wright
Ashley Batten
Mervyn Moore
Dennis Knighton

May they rest in Peace and rise with the saints in Glory.

All Saints

2011-11-01T08:03:00.001Z

Today is the Feast of All Saints, all those who, living and departed, worship, praise and live out the Gospel as far as they are able. It has nothing to do with devils, witches, warlocks, vampires, ghoulies, ghosties or long-leggedy beasties. It is a celebration of faith and the faithful.

In recent years it has become fashionable to claim that it was originally a pagan festival and that the Church somehow "stole" it. Frankly that is nonsense. It is not a part of the Roman Saturnalia, nor is it Lughnasad in a new guise. It actually falls between these, the modern Harvest Festival is more closely linked to Lughnasad, the Druidic Harvest Feast.

Today is for remembering and celebrating the lives of all those who, through their faith, have kept the gospel and the Church alive.

Something to bring a smile ...

2011-10-31T14:30:00.000Z

Mondays can be depressing, but I found this on YouTube by accident ...

Les Chats, by Rossini.

For anyone who doesn't know it, this is a comic duet usually sung by two Sopranos. It will never be the same for me again after watching these performers sing it.

Just wish Madam Paddy Cat was as harmonious...

Music and feasts ...

2011-10-30T15:15:00.000Z

Yesterday we had a great treat. Carleton Etherington playing at the Marktkirche in Wiesbaden. Carleton is the organist and Master of the Choristers at Tewkesbury Abbey and was invited to provide this Saturday's lunchtime recital in the Marktkirche, Wiesbaden. He produced a fantastic concert of three pieces by "modern" English composers for our listening pleasure and certainly wowed the large audience that packed the church.

Afterward Mausi and I had the pleasure of showing him and Katie round a part of the Rheingau and then taking them to dinner at the family run hotel and restuarant in Frauenstein. The Hotel Sinz is one part of a family operation which includes a vineyard and winery. The food was superb, the wines excellent and the company perfect.

Today the clocks went back, but Madam Paddy Cat does not acknowledge this purely human foible - her "I want my breakfast yowl" was still on the Summer Time schedule. Oh well, we had to get going early anyway as our church was host to the local Anglican congregation today and we needed to get there in time to help prepare for it. In the end it was a lovely service and great fun.

Fun

2011-10-28T09:59:00.000+01:00

I'm just about to set out for Frankfurt Airport to meet two of my friends from Tewkesbury. They're here for a concert in the Marktkirche tomorrow and we plan to show them a bit of the Rheingau afterward.

I have to say I'm looking forward to both the music and their company!

Mythology ...

2011-10-27T15:53:00.001+01:00

Myths often have power way beyond truth, which tends not to serve the ends of those who create myths. As an infamous 20th Century propagandist once remarked "a lie has gone half way round the world before the truth has its boots on."

More and more frequently we hear how "Christianity is responsible for millions of deaths in South America" or "Christianity provoked the Crusades" or "Christians are opposed to science." The usual charge in regard to the first is that it was the "Church" which demanded more and more gold from the Indians and tortured and burned them to get it. The truth, sadly, is that it was the Church which begged and pleaded - yes, the letters to the King of Spain, the Pope and various other authorities still exist - for the Conquistadors to be stopped in their rape of the resources and peoples of the New World. As ever, however, the greed and avarice of the secular authorities overrode the servants of the gospel - and saw to it that the "history" they promulgated told a different story. How easy to cover your outright asset stripping by claiming it was "The Church" made me do it ... Funny thing that, take a look at who benefited from the fortunes made in these "holy" wars and who now shouts loudest about "The Church's" being behind it all.

The Inquisition is now frequently accused of burning "thousands" at the stake for heresy, but the meticulous records of these trials show that, in fact it was a far lesser number who actually suffered this fate. The Inquisition's rules of evidence were extremely strict. Similarly, they are blamed for the "Witch Trials" and so are a number of Protestant Churches, but when you go to the court records you find that the charges were invariably brought by secular authorities and the "evidence" was very flimsy - so flimsy that wherever the Inquisition got to hear of it the trials were usually stopped on the grounds that the evidence was flawed. It is a sad fact that where the churches were actually involved - and I don't include Cromwell's Puritans as Christian - the numbers of people condemned for this "offence" are very small indeed. The same cannot be said of those areas where the secular authorities held complete power. Again, a close look at the circumstances of the victims and the accusers and a pattern emerges - greed, envy and covetousness. Often the victim occupied or possessed something the accuser wanted... How comfortable to be able to blame "The Church" for the legalised theft.

Islam was spread by two means, first by trade and coercion, then by force of arms - though its founder used force of arms to establish it and to obtain control of Mecca and Medina in the first instance. Gradually infiltrating the Byzantine Provinces in what is now Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine and Sinai, they resorted to war when the civil and Christian authorities refused to accede to the same demands now being heard in the UK and elsewhere for the imposition of Sharia Law, and the recognition of the "supremacy" of Islam in all matters religious. The Crusades were initially sparked by appeals for help from the Byzantine governors of the remaining Asian Province - the bit closest to modern Istanbul and by reports from the Holy Land of Christians being ejected from churches and homes because the authorities demanded they change faith. The church on the site of the Temple in Jerusalem was demolished at this time and replaced by a mosque. The present Mosque on that site is also a former church, though a later one built by the Knights Templar as their "Mother Church."

The rationale used by the Muslim Princes was simple - Jews and Christians, though "People of the Book" were "Dhimmi" - believers in a false religion and therefore not entitled to hold possessions or to use sacred sites. The early campaigns were infused with religious fervour, but the leaders quickly realised there was land, treasure and power to be had - and suddenly the purpose of the exercise lost, for them, its Christian ethics, and became a land and power grab. That became very evident when they sacked Byzantium itself in 1326 and left it open for the Arab Muslim invaders. But, of course, when it all went sour, they were quick to turn it around - "The Church" made them do it.

The persecution of the Jews in Europe followed a similar pattern. The Jews tended to be the Bankers of Kings (Something similar seems to be happening today in Wall Street ...) and when the Kings had borrowed to the hilt and couldn't meet their payments - oh what a convenient way to get rid of the debts. "The Jews killed Jesus!" Stir up the mobs, kill the Jews and seize their assets. Debt crisis solved! And again, the history books record that the perpetrators were "Christians" and "The Church" - the Kings get away with genocide and blame that convenient scapegoat. Again, there are a lot of letters and petitions from Bishops, Abbots and Priests, begging the civil authorities to stop the purges, all ignored then and now conveniently hidden in dusty archives none of the modern generation bother to access...

When you look closely at history some very interesting facts tend to emerge. Religion is often used as a cloak to conceal a real motive for some atrocity. This is as true today of the actions of the Taliban or the Mujahedin as it was of the Conquistadores and Crusaders. Look, in each case, at who gained the most from the atrocities and excesses - almost always the faith and the people of the faith got no benefit at all. But the 'leaders' walked away with vast estates and fortunes. So it is today, the difference, of course, is that now it is a case of "redressing the balances" and "countering the evils of organised religion" as the rich and powerful shift their allegiances to suit the "modern" interpretation of morality, justice or whatever. Anyone who reads the prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah or any of the others can see the same pattern. The rich, famous and powerful use religion to cloak their avarice and their activities as long as it suits them - then when there is some advantage to be gained by denying one religion - they quickly convert to another. That is what is happening at present in our society.

Reading the newspapers you could be forgiven for thinking that ALL sexual and physical abuse of children and young people is committed and always has been committed exclusively by clergy. In fact, the statistics of the US Criminal Bureau and those of the UK show that the rogue clergy have been responsible for single figure percentages of the abuse, by far the bulk is carried out by parents, friends of parents or strangers, none of whom have any connection with "The Church." As Dr Goebbels proved - it's all in how the "facts" are presented.

It is a travesty, of course, it may even be self-defeating in the end, one can only hope that the consequences will be visited on those who choose to live that way, and not on those they so revile and denigrate for holding to their faith.

New Cover Art for On The Run

2011-10-26T13:55:00.000+01:00

Today received the cover painting done by my brother for the latest Harry Heron story ...

I must say I'm pretty pleased with what he has done. He's captured the alien nature of the planet a large part of the story is set on and some of the action. So what is the story about ...

Harry Nelson-Heron is, to all intents, an ordinary young man with some special talents. He’s also possibly the only man beside his friend Ferghal O’Connor, from the same age and background, who can stop the Consortium’s plan to ruin the democratic Confederation’s economy and impose their own oligarchy. Sub-lieutenant Heron and his men find themselves in a desperate race to survive on an alien world – until they find shelter with an alien people and their even stranger ‘Provider’ who helps them create their own weapons and mayhem for the Consortium … Their intervention in the Consortium's campaign leads to the frustration of a serious threat to democracy and an explosive climax. A fast paced adventure that takes Harry, Ferghal and their younger companion, Daniel Gunn on a chase across the galaxy.

No Referendum Please, We're British ...

2011-10-25T19:16:00.000+01:00

Seems to be the attitude of the political classes in the UK at present. I suspect the reason every major party has reneged on promises to hold one on continued membership of the EU is that they know that they will probably get an answer they don't want. In a large part this is their own fault. The EU is a dirty word in the UK, primarily because government after government has used it as the excuse for passing ever more unpopular regulations and laws, but also because, no matter what the people of Britain want or vote for, Brussels - unelected and unelectable - always overrules it.

I happen to believe that, in general, the EU could be a good thing for all European nations, but not in its present form and certainly not with unelected "Commissioners" and bureaucrats having the power to flout the laws of member nations, overrule courts (or ignore judgements which don't suit their agenda) and intervene in the lawful business of traders and manufacturers. Nor is the EU made any more acceptable when Parliament refuses to acknowledge that their electorate has some very legitimate concerns about the direction the EU has taken and refuses to give them a voice. The EU tore the last Conservative government apart, it is now threatening to tear the present one apart, but it is not a uniquely Conservative problem. Liebor has equal divisions, but, as Socialists with an "Inetrnationalist" agenda, it is perhaps less obvious.

Blair promised a Referendum over the Lisbon Treaty, having already surrendered all the reservations and opt-outs the country had from the Maastricht Treaty (Over which there was supposed to have been a referendum as well). He then reneged, claiming that the Lisbon Treaty had "no major impact" on the UK's position or constitution. When truly pressed, he claimed it changed nothing, but, either he hadn't understood it or didn't want to admit he'd surrendered everything. Either way, no referendum from him and now no referendum from Cameron.

The real problem at the heart of this is a reluctance in Parliament to admit that their much vaunted "sovereignty" rests on the consent of the people. They claim that to consult the electorate on these issues would "undermine" the "sovereignty of Parliament." The truth is that this twisting and turning simply deepens the distrust of the people in both the institution of Parliament and in the EU.

Someone needs to ram this through the heads of the political classes and perhaps more importantly, through the unelected bureaucrats who really run the country.

Autumn...

2011-10-24T15:44:00.000+01:00

The weather here is certainly not very mild at present. After the heat in Tehran, a bit of a shock, but it is Autumn and wind, cold and potentially rain should not be a surprise!

Oh well, time to get the woolies out methinks...

Literary Prizes ...

2011-10-23T12:04:00.000+01:00

I have often seen books advertised as "Winner of the XXX Prize" or "Nominated for the XXX-Prize" and wondered how they were selected and by whom. Since I began publishing my own work in fiction I have learned that publishers nominate books from their catalogues and, in theory, any publisher can nominate a book. Whether it actually gets accepted is another matter and whether it gets a mention depends on the rules for that prize, the selection committee's preferences and tastes and frequently whether or not the author is "known" and successful - or has the right connections.

I recently watched the pre-Booker Prize Dinner interviews on the BBC. It was eye-opening to say the very least and made me very aware that some of the Traditional Publishers - and perhaps the Book critics as well - have no interest in generating a wider audience. The statement that really got my attention was from one of the Judges, who is a senior member of the Prize committee and if I heard it right, a Commissioning Editor for one of the major publishers. In response to the interviewers comment that the "favourite" for the prize was a thick tome which was "barely readable" he stated "Readability is irrelevant. What matters is its literary value."

I confess I almost choked on my coffee. Surely for something to be a "literary contribution" it must be readable? Or has my editor got that wrong? No wonder I haven't been nominated for these awards ...

Listening to the rest of the interviews it emerged that many of the judges are looking for "social commentary" or "presenting a view of society" or even "a critical re-examining of history and institutions." Evidently the main criteria are that the book must, in some way, promote some view of society or the world which the judges and selectors wish to promote. That is interesting, since my editors have commented on this aspect as well, one remarking that my Harry Heron stories made some interesting comments on aspects of current and possibly future society.

Of one thing I think I may be very certain, I'm unlikely to see any of my efforts listed in the nominations!

Unique collection under threat ...

2011-10-22T09:40:00.001+01:00

Once again the politicians in charge of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority are trying to destroy the Brigade's valuable and, quite possibly, unique museum. The museum occupies space in the building which was once the home and headquarters of Sir Eyre Massey Shaw, London's second professional Chief fire Officer. The collection contains valuable and irreplaceable photographs, paintings and equipment.

The problem is that the LFEPA wants to save money - so it chooses to break up, destroy and disperse this astonishing collection of equipment and memorablilia, some of which predates the formation of the London Fire Engine Establishment (Forerunner of the modern London Fire Brigade) by a couple of centuries.

This post is an appeal for help in saving the museum and the collection. I would appeal to all readers to at least read the petition and, if possible, to sign it. If you are in the UK, please consider writing to the MPs and Assembly Members named in the petition. This collection is far to valuable to be left to the annual whims of a bunch of politicians who have no understanding of what they stand to destroy. This is the second time in two years that they are attempting to do this. They will save very little in closing the museum, it amounts to a single salary for the curator - all the other staffing comes from volunteers. Retired fire fighters and their friends who know the true value of the collection.

The problem is that not many people know where it is or how to gain access. To get some idea of where it is and what it offers, look at London Fire Brigade: Our Museum. The museum even has a Wikipedia entry, albeit a brief one. Surely a measure of the value of retaining it at all cost!

Even if you do not live in London but wish to help save the museum, please show your support and help this cause by writing to :

Boris Johnson
Mayor of London
Greater London Authority
City Hall
The Queen's walk
More LondonSE1 2AA

Brian Coleman and Navin Shah and Ed Butcher and David Cartwright
London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority ( LFEPA)169 Union Street
London SE10LL

Please send your letters to all four politicians. The more letters they get, the more likely we are to see them reconsider this stupidity.

Absence makes the heart ...

2011-10-17T13:31:00.001+01:00

Hopefully, grow fonder. The Monk is away in Iran for a conference for the rest of the week. Provided no one goes on strike, no volcanoes blow their tubes inconveniently and Lufthansa maintains its schedules, he will be home again on Friday with lots to tell.

As we say in German then - Bis Freitag!

Migration ...

2011-10-16T07:50:00.003+01:00

This late flock of Common Cranes passed overhead yesterday afternoon and Mausi managed to get a picture of them. Yesterday a flight of this size passed overhead at intervals of about 5 - 10 minutes, all heading in the same direction and all following the same flight path. As we are on the Approach Path for Frankfurt am Main airport, I hope Air Traffic is able to track them ...

Close-up images of the birds can be found at Photographers Direct.

Autumn is now definitely here. Temperatures have plunged in the last couple of days and it only barely got to 10*C today - though in the wind it fely colder. The birds obviously plan a much warmer winter location!

Good causes ...

2011-10-15T07:21:00.000+01:00

I'd like to draw attention to a bit of a challenge raised in a comment yesterday and on a blog about a month ago. Check this post at "Not the six word novel" and then check out her other blog at "The hundred poem challenge."

Jen suffers from a genetic disease likely to destroy her sight in the next few years. There is no treatment and no cure - at present. She has launched a challenge and an appeal to support the research into EEC Syndrome, which despite the initials, is nothing to do with the European Economic Community. It is in fact a genetic malfunction in a gene which controls the regeneration and renewal of the cornea. Transplants don't work, because the transplanted tissue is destroyed fairly rapidly by the malfunction.

An explanatory video can be found on The Hundred Poem Challenge along with a Donation Page. I would urge anyone reading this to at least visit the site and listen to the video. If you can, please support the appeal.

Migrants ...

2011-10-14T15:52:00.000+01:00

Mausi and I have just watched the passing of several thousand migrating cranes. They make quite a racket "talking" to each other as they fly and the fascinating thing is how they all seem to be following a very narrow "flight path" and making use of updrafts off the mountain slopes around us at intervals to gain altitude.

From the direction they are taking I'm guessing their route will skirt the French Alpine region, then cross France into Spain and across the Strait of Gibraltar into Africa. I'd post a picture, but couldn't get one - as ever the camera was not handy and I didn't want to miss the show. The swallows vanished in early September, the geese flocks passed over us last Tuesday and now the cranes...

Guess that means we should prepare for winter ourselves - which is what Mausi and I have been doing in the garden.

Birthday

2011-10-13T15:37:00.000+01:00

Today is the birthday of the Postulant, the Monk's eldest daughter. She arrived on Friday the 13th a while ago and makes her father very proud indeed. Tomorrow she collects the keys for her new home and will move house on Saturday.

Two significant milestones to celebrate!

Kudos for the Archbishop of Canterbury...

2011-10-11T10:51:00.000+01:00

According to the news he has defied Mugabe's despotic forces and held a very well received Communion in a sports stadium. Even if it could have been held in the national cathedral, there would have been far to many people for the space. The cathedral is, unfortunately, in the hands of Mugabe's crony, the self-styled "Archbishop of Harare" who was excommunicated by his brother Bishops in the Central African Convocation of Bishops for his extremist views, support of Mugabe and frankly un-Christian behaviour.

Mugabe has sent in his troops and police, seized all Anglican Churches and his crony is now attempting to do the same in neighbouring countries, claiming that the "church" has abandoned the Bible. I doubt he can even read it quite frankly and it is certainly a long time since he or his mentor followed any part of it. This clown turned up at the GAFCON meeting chaired by the Sydney Archbishop and Mugabe, a Roman Catholic in name at least, turned up in the Vatican for the funeral of Pope John Paul II. Neither of them should have been allowed to get of the aircraft - unless it was in handcuffs for trial. Mugabe for mass murder (In his first 5 years in power 40,000 Ndebele men aged 16 - 50 vanished. Their bodies have been located - in a disused mineshaft.) and genocide and the his pal, the unChristian 'Bishop', for Grand Larceny, accessory to murder and inciting murder.

It is reported that +Rowan will meet the despot and attempt to persuade him to stop the persecutions. The Archbishop will be under no illusions as to the response and knows the response will be bluster, accusations and more lies and falsehoods, but the attempt has to be made. I have equally no doubt that +Rowan, a most Christian man of deep conviction and very profound faith will find the confrontation deeply unpleasant and a severe trial of his Christian ethics. I pray that he will be strengthened and that his detractors will take note that he has done far more than the spineless occupants of the House across the river from Lambeth Palace...

The Archbishop deserves the accolade of the nation, but I have no doubt it will be met with the usual sneers of the self-righteous and godless media.

An evening concert.

2011-10-10T12:11:00.000+01:00

Last night we went to a concert in the Lutherkirch in Wiesbaden. The concert was to celebrate the completion of the restoration of the 100 year old Walcker Organ and for the occasion it was joined by the Weisbaden Bachorchester. We were treated to a programme that included two concertos for Organ and Orchestra, the first being one by Josef Gabriel Rheinberger (1839 - 1901) (Concerto no. 2 in G) and the second to end the programme Francis Poulenc's Concerto for Organ, String Orchestra and kettle drums. In between we had the organ strut its stuff with Lizt's Prelude and Fuge on B-A-C-H, Widor's Allegro from the Organ Symphony No 5 in F and Durufle's Choral Variations on a theme from Veni Creator.

It was grand, to say the least.

The church itself is an interesting building, being built in the early 20th Century to a very grand design and decorated in the Art Nouveau ideas of Medieval painted walls. The Walcker organ sits above the choir gallery at the East end of the church with the console located behind the sounding board for the central pulpit. Galleries run around both sides of the church and a larger one spans the rear of the nave and part of the narthax or entrance. It was not until we stood to leave that we realised there is a second large organ, a modern one, sat on the rear gallery!

I guess one day we'll have to go and find out what that can do!