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JANUARY 2014
MONDAY 27thJANUARY 2014
NOW THE LIBDEMS ARE BEING UTTERLY IRRESPONSIBLE
Once more the LibDems are determined to show their total unfitness for government. We cannnot take in any more refugees and we are the second leading country to make serious massive efforts in terms of monetary outlay. To add further to our economic contribution is plain foolhardiness.
RELIGION STILL BURBLING TWADDLE
On Channel 4 this evening we have a Russian, Vitaly Milonov, clearly highlighting how the land of Communism (another failure in that great country's history) has suddenly turned right wing Christian. Vitaly is a purported lawmaker, who is clearly appallingly ignorant on medical reality, judging by his ideas on homosexuality. Even one transvestite, with both parents doctors of medicine, do not have the medical competence to understand homosexuality. Never mind insurance, for God's sake, simply do NOT be ill when visiting Russia. Their state of medical knowledge seems the pits and extraordinarily warped versions of Christianity are plunging the depths of unChristian views. Aother example of claiming God the Creator of all but presuming to deny some of that which He has created! It seems Russia is still a very backward undeveloped country.
REVIEWING GB
Utter twaddle being burbled about further developing London. We need London to be spread out across the country! This discussion does raise the question as to whether HS2 is right. We perhaps need the north staying in the north, not able to have people rush so eaasily to London. We need to stop this headlong rush south.
HOUSING MINISTER FLOUNDERING
On BBC's Politics there seems a load of waffle and no factual reality of substance. Clearly things are NOT happening under this government. However, while there is much controversy over HS2 there does not seem to be the same national awareness over housing. Ignoring the finance aspect, the reality of HS2 makes putting housing further north, away from London or simply the "South-East" a practical prospect. We need to match costs with job salaries to pay for them and travel availability, otherwise we will end up in a built conurbation throughout the South-East. Have we reached the point when we need a national review of all houseing/living conditions? Surely that is supposed to be gained from the censuses?
THE SEXUAL REVOLUTION
An exciting debate by three highly intellegent and well educated women. Very interesting point about women being thrown on the defensive: why are men not being expected to change THEIR attitudes to life generally, as well as to women.
SOMERSET PROBLEMS: FLOODING
The government ministers and local MPs seem still to be floundering. I personally suspect the Environment Agency has had its attention diverted elsewhere, hence lack of control. Have they simply been following the wrong procedures?
Once more planning is under debate and rightly. We concrete over far too much, stopping too much ground from absorbing water, causing water to simply run off. What are the statistics on rainfall, are we having more totally or more spasmodically in this area?
THE SNOWDEN APPEAL
The Snowden appeal is still going the rounds to have him exonerated for liability for his criminal activity against his own country and the western, arguably whole, world. Were he remotely interested in others than simply promoting his own ego, he would return home of his own accord and face the music, arguing the validity of his case. He doesn't, because he knows he is wrong and knows he has done us all a serious offence contrary to our own safety. The statement in the latest appeal for him states: " This is about much more than one man. If Snowden's act of truth-telling leads to crippling punishment, it sends the wrong signal to abusive governments and whistle blowers everywhere. If 1 million of us take action now, we can send President Dilma [offering him refuge from the consequences of his act] the largest citizen-supported asylum bid in history -- sign to safeguard Snowden and defend democracy everywhere."
This is totally incorrect. The message sent will be exoneration of irresponsible country presidents wanting cheapskate answers for their own lack of ability and a clear message to all that criminality, properly managed by equally corrupt, or at least immoral, entities will get you let off. That is the real message that is being sent around appealing for Snowden's support.
Snowden had plenty of opportunities inside his country to put forth his concerns and failed to do so. Let's hear his explanation, in court in his own country that he has so wilfully betrayed NOT exalted. What he is raising, is the extent to which one man may choose to command an opinion above that of his people who has chosen NOT to put his opinions (as I have done in my home town, as most people do, save terrorists) to the test of public opinion and seeing truth and value of those opinions in fellow citizens' minds. Those are the correct procedures. In World War Two, Churchill was faced with the same situation. The person advising him, like Snowden, was exceedingly concerned and in great personal turmoil, that he was infringing "due procedures". He proceeded in a responsible manner to a man he could trust and who later delivered for us our fine war prime minister. That is blowing secrets in a responsible manner for the benefit of the greater good.
SUNDAY 26thJANUARY 2014
THE POPE FORCED TO BE DIPLOMATIC
The Times showed the pope looking po-faced as he met President Hollande. I suppose he had no choice but to grant him a meeting just as the Queen has suffered the indignity of being treated like an honourable man because the heads of state she meets have warped ideas of women's place in the real world outside their religious dreams. In that, they have a point. As Galatians [3:28}states "...there will be no ...male or female... all will be one in Christ", effectively telling us that the need for sex is the procreational need of this physical plain of existence rather than the perpetual reality of spirit." The only problem is that such contexts bias thinking to a predomination of male supremacy, rather than a bisexual equality and would therefore seem to contradict the spiritual message, rather than accepting the reality of this "plain/plane/mode of existence". Odd.
EGO AT THE LOWEST LEVEL
The Times also reported a man shot in the leg over something to do with money while a mother (Emma Wilson, 25) was sentenced to a minimum of fourteen years for battering her eleven month old son to death. No reports of medical insanity, therefore the assumption must be the manifestation of pure evil. Neatly bringing religion back into the equation. Whether or not one holds religious views and assuming medical science is trustworthy on its knowledge of clinical psychiatry, then the nonreligious must give serious consideration to accepting the fact there is such a state of being as pure evil. If one accepts that, then there is a valid argument for religion and if there is a valid argument for religion, there is a valid argument for a concept of God. The problem then becomes one of defining God. Therein, we need to agree to live properly as nearly all religions command their supporters, WITH one another and not against them
EGO AT THE LOWEST LEVEL
The Times also reported the value of mysticism as Goldie Hawn expounded on mindfulness at the world Economic Forum in Davos. Apparently this is well practised by business executives and Olympic athletes. Since most of the Middle East problems are to do with differences upon the interpretation of the nature of God, why on eaarth are these leaders not practising it?
Yet on the next page we have a British woman doctor comolaining that fellow doctors do not report genital mutilation. It appears that those people most excited and enthusiastic about their religion and belief consier it necessary to mutilate female genitalia. Yet another statement of the absolute twaddle that is religion generally... or is reigion being confused with cultural values? In that case the burkha and niquab are confirmable as cultural matters and having nothing whatever to do with reigion. In which case we may reasonably question the concept that the woman must be regarded as subjective to the male. That too is a cultual factor that has got confused with religious mores. The triuth is that it is all wrapped up in purely male ego that is being massaged under the guise of religion, because bullyboy men lack the manhood to actually stand up for themselves on their own account: thereby admitting they have no moral case for their argument of domination?
Such mutilation is a direct contradiction of their religious beliefs. If God created all as religionists claim to believe, then they are wilfully in contravention of their concept of God, who created what they have determined they will abuse. Where, precisely is the logic of tis stance? Logic is a fact of creation and therefore is of God. How then can any religion justify not being rational and logical?
WHO'S GOING NUTS FIRST: NOT FARAGE OR UKIP BUT PERHAPS PRINCESS MICHAEL OF KENT?
Fortunately madness is not a trait of the Royal Family (King George's problem was physiological (biochemical)) and Princess Michael is a foreign import. What lies behind her utterly irrational and totally unsubstantiated outburst was the simple matter of common little money-grabbing, she's trying to sell a book she has written and could only get a dead duck person to interview her for that publicity. For example, from the Express this morning, we learn: In an astonishing outburst: "'...she also described Princess Diana as uneducated and said she could not cope with fame because she did not have a strict mother.' Princess Michael, who recently celebrated her 69th birthday, made her comments during a bizarre chat with disgraced media tycoon Conrad Black on Canadian TV." Some people regard him as a common criminal in this country. That says a lot about Princess Michael.
BALLS TALKING ABOUT BALLS AGAIN!
Ed Balls once more waffling (on this occasion the BBC's the Andrew Marr Show) but much more impressive than when he delivered a speech yesterday to the Fabian Society. 'Just don't incur debt in the first place, other than for expansion, based on the ability to pay' now apppears to be Labour's philosophy.
I had thought it was everyone's policy who had any practical understanding of business affairs. Is Balls now admitting Labour does not have much understanding of business, which is why they support union irrationality? Am I being as stupid as Princess Michael?. He is still not acknowledging it was his party that put us in the mess out of which we are trying to climb and is now looking to bring down a deficit his party created? Why then create it in the first place? If he believes in getting the deficit down why did the Labour party create it? If he believes in reducing welfare, why did his party create the welfare deficit? He is now eager to work oppositely to the way his party worked last time they were in government. What we want is explanations as to why we are in the state of debt we are, created by his party, out of which we are trying to get. I still think that Labour still doesn't get it. I admit, I've never got it! Am I now as nuts as Princess Michael?
Rt Hon Patrick McLoughlin MP
McCloughlin making a complete pig's ear of presenting his case on railway costs. His department seems generally to be in one hell of a mess. Apparently it recently lost a computer stick. Civil servants seem to do this regularly, i think a few years ago they lost two or three laptops, leaving thm on the train! On those occasions I think Labour was purportedly running the country... downhill.
FARAGE PREPARING TO LOSE IN 2015
On the BBC's The Sunday Politics Farage made a superb weather forecast. Clearly he is expecting to lose in 2015 and is preparing for his Music Hall act as a means of earning some money when he is no longer relevant. For now, UKIP is quite practical for the EU elections this year. EU is as daft as he is and seeing them in Europe will give us a chance to see how they actually hold together as a party. Interesting.
IS WAR EVER JUST? The BBC's 'The Big Question'.
Meeting very well managed. We have a Muslim now saying that we need an international 'police force' to manage impartially. Arguably 'correct' Islam is NOT in conflict with fundamental Christian moral principles. Take the macrocosm to the microcosm, when a married couple are unable to agree the best benefit of their children and one of them insists on thrusting their own inflated juxtaposed issues, they then divorce but are expected to remain civil and in communication with one another without upsetting each other. We need an international equivalent for the macrocosm.
SATURDAY 25thJANUARY 2014
WHO'S GOING NUTS FIRST: FARAGE OR UKIP?
It is difficult to know if Farage is simply panicking over a loss of publicity or whether he is simply nuts. He thinks we should all carry guns on the basis that only criminals carry guns, illegally, while decent people are required to have a licence and are restricted as to where and how they should keep them. My personal guess is that it is purely a publicity line since America is a clear example of why we have realistic gun laws in this country. I suspect the truth is he has cause to think he is losing ground and I cannot think why he should be so defeatist.
BALLS AT THE FABIAN
In the light of the LibDems' excitement over proper respect for women, why did Ed Balls kiss the woman who introduced him to the platform? Surely that was inappropriate, however well he /she may know him? He complaisn the Tories are giving us the slowest recovery in a hunded years. Is he really that witless? Clearly it matches the worst deficit in one hundred years left by Labour, so what did he expect?! Rather floundering in his delivery. Seems to lack assurance. So far extraordinarily flat and trite. He wants fairness. This is the sort of twaddle you would expect from your local representativeon on your doorstep at a local election. This is not the quality of presentation one expects of a supposed major speech at so prestigious an event as the Fabian Society. Labour now disowning Communism, have they really woken up to that extent, with the trade unions still controlling them?
Again floundering. Has he been writing this to the very last minute? Was that why he was late on?
He links BNP with UKIP in negativity to our interests but there is no dispute about our need for WORLD trade not EU biased agianst the world. It is the politics of the EU that are the cause of our problem NOT world trade.
Talking a lot of spending. Nothing yet on the source of the money, other than to borrow again! The deficit is the balance of what they left in the first place but he forgets to mention Labour caused the deficit! I wonder why.
Fiscal policy: agree with cuts; again he ignores the fact they created the deficit in the first place! Now wanting to be economical in management. Why not previously? Now they are looking to achieve a surplus. Long term recovery to acquire longer investment but special borrowing needs won't be part of overall intent not to borrow! Double speak here!
They now want iron discipline on finance! Why then so vast a deficit when they left? Now talking of following Tory initiatives, some of them! Want lower tax rates. Will bring back fifty per cent taxation on earned income over £150,000. Can Labour change Britain? Well they didn't when they were last in power, other than for the worse and so far we have had a lot of talk about... but no deliverance of facts.
Interesting they will work with business when it is the unions that finance Labour and cause business so many of its problems. Interesting, they are going to change the trade unions! So they acknowledge the unions are a disaster.(?)
Now it is question time and platform manager (a woman) wants to be biased towards women! Is that proper?
Ed Balls seems simply to be sticking to taking half your wage over £150,000, how dispiriting for those we want to involve in moving the country forward? HMRC said fifty pence tax wasn't financially cost-effective. Labour saying HMRC got it wrong.
We need table comaprison. Overall, Ed Balls seems to be saying, "Hi! We're over here but nothing much has yet changed... we're thinking it over still." Interesting.
FRIDAY 24thJANUARY 2014
GOD OH GOD! & THE REDUCED SHAKESPEARE COMPANY
In Northern Ireland of all places they are arguing over God, just when Christians are beginning to talk sensibly with one another. Let's face it, it is only in the lead up to Christmas, Epiphany, the start of the new Christian Year that the Church of England, having ben started by a woman and having a woman as its supreme governor, accepted they could have women bishops. There has never been a problem over women bishops other than damned fool stupidity.
Now, I have not seen nor read the text of The Bible which the reduced Shakespeare company is intending to tour round the UK but Northern Ireland is a classic example of how unChristian Christians can be. More over, the Unionists have been most insistent in declaring how unpatriotic, as well as unChristian, they can be in their deliberate denial of the Queen's peace. It is they who have taken exception to The Bible.
Suddenly, in our home country, we are plunged into Syria and the Middle East. We are no different! We are still arguing over God; interpretations of God; and demanding God exists in preference and with greater authority than nonGod concepts. By a senior court judge (Sir James Munby) it has been stated the English courts cannot operate on the assumption that Christian values predominate in a pluralist society.
What the Northern Ireland Protestant Unionists have done is to affirm Munby's correctness: bring to a head the reality that even in the United Kingdom, Protestant Christianity must be subject to the objectivity of a pluralist society, thus allowing for nonGod concepts of opinion, OR that the Blasphemy laws have to be reviewed, either to remove them completely, or embrace other religious aspects of devotion. Did they really mean to do all that? Or were they, as so often is the case, simply not thinking through, simply thrusting their individual egos and panicked with having to take into account views other than their own. Arrogant, enthused egos once more rearing their heads! Quite frankly, other than acting in or on behalf of en masse, so elected to be there, they are no different from Snowden. Interesting comparaison.
AND NOW ITS THE MUSLIMS!
Six sisters sentenced today
for assaulting and attempting to kidnap one of their own in a gay relationship. What this highlights is that the naturalism of gay relationships is not confined to ethnicity but is universal across the human spectrum. Secondly, what would have happened to the girl had they managed to force her into a car? The implication is that they might have murdered her. Regardless, mercifully, they failed on their evil intent and had the audacity to show lack of penitence when sentenced.
Once again, in different sectors and different ethnicities, the arrogance, in direct defiance of the very faith they proclaim, religionists are totally careless of basic common decency and respect for society. With such blatant examples we have to be realistic and say that nonGod philosophies are paramount and religiosity must be a solely private matter and not promoted in any way. Have we really come down to this, that religion must be moved out of a mainstay of life?
BURBLED TWADDLE FROM THE SUN
Not a paper that normally crosses my desk let alone is bought in the first place but I am interested in
news per se and even twaddle is about worldly awareness. In the October 31 2013 edition (I am still clearing out!) The Sun's editorial complained that three centuries of press freedom had been signed away in secret. What The Sun most specifically made a point of NOT observing was: that this had come about through wilful press irresponsibility; wilful denial of any sense of accountability; wilful abuse of freedom of the press that allows arrogant, egotistical authoritarian editors, of self-inflated, bombastic self-importance to abuse their unique privilege as a result of over-rich, equally self-important investors, happy for their particular views to be predominant in society, beyond their personal actual wealth and real value to society.
Had The Sun acted remotely like a competent newspaper (as so many press organs have been at pains NOT to act of late) it would have briefly related the history of how we came to be one the
most admired nations we have become, aspects of which the European Union in so many guises is keen to eliminate, or reduce, precisely because of the fine examples we have set and created. European concepts are frightened of us! It is a tragedy that the press generally has sunk so low, when its story boldly declares of The Times of London, 'The Thunderer". Now that IS a newspaper!
LIBDEMS ONCE MORE IN A MESS
The have now started jumping around over-excitedly as usual. Apparently there has been an upset about a cartoon referring to Mohammed. Moslems describe Christ as a prophet in direct, wilfully provocative intent against Christians, to whom he is without question of doubt the son of God. Christians, perhaps because Christianity has existed far longer than Islam and are following the example of Christ, take such "insults" with a shrug of the shoulder. The inability of Islamists to respond likewise is one of the many failings of that religion.
BBC's Daily Politics has just taken up some time on this and raises another question: to what extent should a prospective parliamentary candidate adapt his presentation to the electorate within a prescribed formulation, or be openly honest and present himself as he is, for surely, it is as himself his party have accepted him? Are they trying to present a false image to the electorate?
Once more Nick Clegg wants the world to believe he is in charge of the LibDems. Why then has he decided to put Hanncock in purdur through the party not acting properly in 2012! Exactly the same mistake they made over Rennard. Will the LibDems ever get managing their party properly? For only from that can they possibly go into an election claiming they are fit for government!
THURSDAY 23rd JANUARY 2014
THE VALUE OF A STANDING ARMY
In effect we are talking about insurance. We cannot afford the insurance we should have as a result of having experienced a socialist government that does not understand basic economics and left us outrageously in debt. That is the true damage Labour has done to this country. Yet Labour would like to further spend our resources on bringing in Syrian affected people, when we have already led from the front on what should be done in terms of effective help. We cannot complain about asylum seekers if we then invite others to come forward when we have already paid hundreds of thousands of pounds helping them in situ.
Now we have It confirmed that even in the modern day, face coverings like the niquab and seventeenth century highwaymen ARE DESIGNED TO HIDE CRIMINAL INTENT. Honest people do NOT walk covered up, they proudly, without arrogance, look the world in the eye and let the world look at them. This comment refers to a girl who used a niquab style covering over her face in order to pour acid over a friend. Some friend! More over, those liking the niquab claim it is a statement of humility before God. Codswallop. Even those unfortunate enough to have been born disfigured, or are disfigured through their misfortunes of medically necessary drug treatment make the best of their condition and show the world a brave face. That which God has created, if God is your philosophy, has no cause to hide from the rest of His creation.
The tragedy of forced troop reduction brings greater challenges to those made redundant than to those likewise suffering in civilian life. In civilian life employment is "just" a job. Ex servicemen have to relive everything. This is a great emotional upheaval and we must do all we can for them. One way, would be for all of us to pull better together. It used to be said that socially we lost the benefit of two tears enforced military training. The times have changed but that concept in principle is not bad and should be reconsidered in terms of social activity for perhaps six months or so but be flexible so people can fit in university in the right environment or take a drop out year as so many do.
In
America a young man of nineteen who can apparently sing quite well, has just been busted for driving a Lamborghini a twice the speed limit while drunk and on drugs. Now that is the sort of personality that does need two years of down-to-earth square bashing, while those who have much to give their country still, are dispensed with.
Yet
Labour still does not get it. They are trying to rubbish the reports wages are rising. "Oh no! You have to take into account the amount job benefits have been reduced. What arrant twaddle. Benefits are fort those in need can't get a job, not for those seeking out a living because they haven't the talent to do a more responsible job, assuming they have made the best they can of the education they have been freely given. If of such low intellect that they are unemployable upon a living wage then clearly social benefit is properly paid out. How typical of socialism that it sees benefits not as emergency payouts but as a right to exist!
WEDNESDAY 22nd JANUARY 2014
BOTH OF THEM FLOUNDERING AS USUAL—LABOUR
Ed Miliband moaning that the Conservelpatives are sorting out the mess Labout left the country in, as a consequence he reduces the House of Commons to a corner of Hyde Park and uses his front bench seat as a soap box, just to make a headline and have people notice he and the Labour Party do actually still exist. Mercifully, so does the country still exist—because of the Conservative Party!
BOTH OF THEM FLOUNDERING AS USUAL—THE LIBDEMS
Typical of the LibDems this has descended into empty banality. If it is party official agreed that there is no argument that would stand up in court. It was damn fool mismanagement that manipulated the situation into requiring Lord Rennard to apologise for in so doing he would be acknowledging something happened that he does not believe happened, which immediately knocks out any defence should this (as one woman has stated she will do) end up in court That very party statement made it IMPOSSIBLE for him to respond, however willingly he might want to do so, whether he believes it necessary or not. It is party management that has fouled up and LibDem women who have declalmed they are not up to it after all because they would have complained AT THE TIME. That's why they are in politics. To stand up for other people and... they are incapable of standing up for themselves! The party IS a laughing stock and it is LibDem women and party management that have made it so NOT Lord Rennard.
TUESDAY 21st JANUARY 2014
CAN CHURCHES BRING SENSE WHERE POLITICIANS JUST RUN MAD?
The São Paulo Statement: International Financial Transformation for the Economy of Life is hardly an inspiring title for a publication that wallows in its own self-importance but at least some aspect of a faith (actually faiths) is trying to be relevant in today's reality. Having spent so long immersed, in their various ways, with what once was and pig-headedly denying the facts of what they purported to believe, something tangible is to be welcomed. Certainly, with the British LibDems scratching one another's eyes out to show their ingratitude for one of their own achieving something on their behalf, maybe it is time to re-look at philosophy, rather than those trying to deal with reality in as muddled a way as religion has persistently dealt with life's realities!
The first
six pages elaborate on what they reject. Only on the last paragraph of page 7 do we learn the purpose of the document. That purpose is to find a new way forward. They then list where everyone else on the planet has gone wrong (mostly already stated by the environmentalists) over the previous half a millennium but not a single observation on religions' own failure to pay heed to the scientific discoveries of the actual nature of God's creation which they have steadfastly ignored until the last fifty years. Effectively, the churches are saying "we have woken up to reality as it actually is, not how we have always believed it to be." Well done for that.
They then contradict themselves by claiming anthropology is distorted, probably unaware they are leaning towards invalidating forensic science evidence at post mortems. In a very muddled way they seem to believe in gender equality but are not sure. "The world economy and the international financial system have become globalised but democratic governments have not followed in any appropriate way." It would have been honest if that sentence had been followed with an observation on their own failings to respond to gained scientific knowledge at a far earlier time than now. Effectively, they observe that power without moral values is a menace but refrain from noting the disaster of religion having power and abusing it, as religions have done. The section on "Regulating the Financial Sector" more or less repeats what we collectively in the UK believe and are trying to do something about but no suggestions on how this might be brought about.
They believe in supporting the less able contrary to economic realities and in the following paragraph agree with maintaining due prudence! They believe taxation should be on the basis of ability to pay that encourages further investment. They agree with the need to open up tax status worldwide so we know who is fiddling whose account through which country's "convenience"
measures.
I had hoped this paper would mark an exciting new initiative which is why I commented as I read. Disappointingly it turns out to have been first published October 2013 by The World Council of Churches, republished with acknowledgement by the Ekklesia Think Tank. Other than to dissemniate, I can't think why. There is not a shred of practical suggestion throughout the entire paper, other than to advise that religion/faith/churches are trying to make out they have at last got 'with it'. Very disappointing.
Meanwhile, the LibDems have decided to prove the validity of Lord Rennard's reticence. One of the women accusing him has threatened to go to court: precisely the reason Lord Rennard declined to be manipulated by the LibDems into not doing what they requested. Can they possible show themselves to be any more stupid?
APPALLING DISASTER
I had thought that the proclivity of councils to squander money on translation services for foreigners unable to speak English was an EU requirement. It now seems it is simple bone-idleness on the part of the claimants. Only now is it being considered that if they are in this country seeking state benefit they should be expected to understand the language at their expense. I am astounded. One wittering EU fool (Germany's Foreign Minister one Frank-Walter Steinmeier) said Cameron's view was damaging Europe. Codswallop. It is only because most people speak English as their second language that the EU wants children educated in two foreign languages as most would choose English as their first choice. It is elementary common sense that if you wish to draw benefit from the country in which you choose to live that you should speak that country's language and understand its procedures. If they cannot, clearly they are unable to work here so they can only be here on holiday. What on earth are they doing claiming benefits for heaven's sake? Has the whole civil service gone raving mad?
QUENELLE GESTURE
Nip in the bud, stamp it out, or ignore? How can you rationally and responsibly respond to perceived provocation? I thought the gesture of Nikolas Anelka (apparently a well known footballer) was simply that he was scratching his arm. He apparently confessed to supporting his friend Dieudonné M'bala M'bala, apparently an actor in France and his rubbing his arm was intended as supporting his friend in an anti-establishment mode. Others have interpreted the gesture as an inverted Nazi salute (which i personally simply do not comprehend) or as a specific anti-Semitism gesture.
In acknowledging he was not simply scratching his arm
he is confessing to having made a specific gesture, rather as Lord Rennard has specifically not apologised for an alleged incident because to do so would be to acknowledge the charge against him. A legal basic apparently beyond Nick Clegg's understanding. Anelka would therefore appear to have acknowledged guilt for a gesture intended to have meaning. In his position he had no business making gestures of any sort other than to graciously acknowledge the support of the crowd.
MONDAY 20th JANUARY 2014
LIBDEMS PLUNGE INTO DISASTER
Not only is Nick Clegg not up to the job, neither it seems are any of the women and that is of great concern because I have always been pushing for the female input. The key is that we are now learning why the LibDems believe in Europe and not asking us if we want to be run by Europe. Europe is its own disaster and two failures simply love to reassure one another.
Only the LibDems could possibly vote out the man who put so many LibDems into parliament and who achieved getting them into government. Only the LibDems would ride roughshod over someone so capable and the reason is solely because the LibDems cannot cope with competence and ability—they themselves simply don't have it, they are embarrassed at being competent—so declare themselves incompetent!
It is elementary common sense that if the evidence against you would not stand up in court, then there is no valid charge. To therefore give an apology for an event that is denied promptly gives the accusers the very proof for which they were lacking! Lord Rennard therefore cannot apologise and the present confrontation has been specifically and deliberately created by Nick Clegg. What the hell is the fool upto? If he cannot understand the basis of legal argument when he is not in a court room how the hell can he seriously and judiciously comment on laws he is contributing to creating?
SUNDAY 19th JANUARY 2014
GENERAL DISSEMBLEMENT INTO MEDIOCRITY
I nearly wrote in angst last night, following a simple trip to the grocer's, on people's increasing indolence but held back, as I knew I would not publish until I had checked it in the cold light of day. The cold light of day is in the process of dawning and I am more enangered upon a related matter than earlier but I think I have a clearer head, so I will proceed.
A news item on BBC Breakfast TV advises that Cambridge Council is dropping apostrophes on all its signs. Unfortunately, I am not one of those who was ever likely to obain a degree from either of them, because neither of them of were likely to accept me in the first place—the "either" referring to Oxford, from whose scholars Cambridge was founded, through having upset Oxford tradespeople.
One might therefore argue that as Cambridge is only the secondary tier it does not really matter. However, Great Berkhamsted, under the directions of the Borough council of the 'new town' of Hemel Hempstead (technically not a New Town, simply an enlarged old hamlet), under which administration Great Berkhamsted has been subsumed, suddenly found apostrophes missing off new road signs.
I took issue but may have been too clever for my own good. The classic example from Borough, "Well, where would you put the apostrophe in 'Ravens Lane'?" I was astounded that a Borough official should be so ignorant of our history that he did not realise it was named after John Raven, squire to Edward Woodstock, otherwise known as the Black Prince, who owned the castle. I wrote back advising that as 'raven' was a flocking bird it would be "s apostrophe", expecting him to write back triumphantly advising it should be "apostrophe s', in which case I should have been delighted to correct him and further emphasise the need to maitain the town's dignity and respect for its history. He didn't. Either because he did not know and accepted my 'reasoning', or because he suddenly realised he would be giving himself away and highlighting he was just being bone idle. He could have googled the church but while Google is very useful if you just want a memory jog, it is erratically unreliable if you want to write with authority. One should always check its references.
The net result is that I have now added The Apostrophe Society's web address to my options on my main index. The site is approaching the point of a reshuffle but for the moment, sorry, fingers to keyboard, let's get ideas out, then I'll worry about reshaping their presentation.
The original dissemblement to which I referred on opening, having carried out some basic shopping and having walked to force essential exercise upon me, was that nine vehicles had decided to half park on my pavement. Had I a pram I think I would have got through but the presence of the cars forced pedestrians to walk on a less comfortable part of the pavement.
This pavement is particularly dodgy since it is on a slope because the last time the road was seriously repaired they simply added surface rather than digging and lowering. The balance is that... there isn't! The area is on an icline, the road higher than the pavement and the pavement at the level of the doorstep (except that in many cases there isn't) of the property alongside the road. Reviewing the collective whole it was one almighty mess, requiring an unrealistic small fortune to attempt to put right.
Perhaps inconsiderately I did publish a letter in the local paper, pointing out the planners' interesting manner of reducing hospital costs—by creating sloping pavements, so that when we had ice more people were more likely to break a leg, thus loading the local hospital with leg breaks. The increased inident of such accidents would therefore reduce the indiviual cost of mending a broken leg and that it was nice to see planners working ahead with cost contro firmly in their minds. The result? We received an article in response fully explaining the horrenous problems of managing Great Berkhamsted's High Street, so that we all at least understood the problem.
Regardless, these cars were all taking up pavement space; were parked on a yellow line which was still within its time frame and for which historic inattention of traffic wardens had clearly indicated "safe to park". The cars were facing the right way but one was parked with its headlights fully on, so it eas easy to cause a pedestrian to stumble on the sloping and uneven surface. Further on, another car was also parked, also with its headlights on but facing the wrong way, blinding car drivers driving correctly, obscuring their clarity of view as they negotiated the obstruction, while bearing in mind the unlit side of any particularly wide vehicle approaching them. This car too was parked on a yellow line.
Is it bone idleness, "Sod you I don't ive a damn" or "I'm alright Jack"?
Or incompetent driving and unfit to be on the road? It is no different but no less important than not putting appostrophes on signs, or anywhere else for that matter. Is it simply that people are caring less? Or i it becoming more and more obvious how badly educated people are and is a further indication of the failing of our education system?
On the BBC's The Big Questions this morning we had a debate about the poor. Educated vested interests cavalierly over-rode the less articulate and the moerator frequently lost control of the audience. That Channel 4 is intending to provide a forum for discussion should square the circle. Essentially, Benefits Street has served its purpose: it has opened up the debate.
On
matters relating to revealing a child's sex was an horrific revelation. Apparently there is a proclivity amongst (mostly) Asian-orientated people, to bully a woman into aborting a female child. There are three issues. Religion (and or culture) is poking its nose into matters not of its concern. So many religions arrogantly presume a male dominated world and such concepts are utter codswallop and MUST be addressed worl-wide.
The second issue is culture. Through again male pig-headed arrogance there is a perception that only men can work and therefore a female child is a financial burden. Codswallop. Ensure women are as well ediucated as men. NO PROBLEM. End of argumemt. World government must ovre-ride such prejudices.
The third, is the immediate family issue where in some cultures mothers-in-law are allowed to presume too much and immediate family may physically over-ride the bride's health and personal wishes. This presumption of male supremacy is wilfully provocative and totally out of order.
The medical duty of any operative is to ensure the patient has as much knowledge of their condition as they do. That is without question. Withholding such knowledge because it may be detrimental to their health would certainly apply to those of uncertain mental condition and could be argued would be justified in those religious/cultural conditions where arrogance of the predominant family member might over-ride nature or God's determination but that only further determines such situations must be removed. I recall when a much loved aunt was dying.The tradition then was "we don't tell", so everyone was on the tentehooks that they must not talk openly and honestly. TWADDLE! Mercifully, the hospice movement has put an end to that arrogant pig-headed rubbish.
The third question was, does Satan exist?
Like the term 'God', it is all to do with definition. Despite diverse opinions being uttered, somewhat muddled in their presentation, They all missed the point. That there is right and wrong. That there are moral codes; that there are mental disorders; that the body is but a bag of biochemsitry acting to the laws of biochemistry; that there are are wilful acts one way or the other that determine life experience. If one is not religious, clearly these are but facts of biochemistry. If one accepts a
concept of God then that which is not God is nonGod being called satan. One simply chooses (barring accidents previously listed). What's in a name, a rose would smell as sweet...
SATURDAY 18th JANUARY 2014
THE LIBDEMS EVER ANXIOUS TO PROVE THEMSELVES UNFIT FOR GOVERNMENT
It is a matter of elementary common sense that if Lord Rennard has denied involvement (most people plead innocence until proven guilty) then were he to apologise he is immediately admitting guilt and where the LibDems have currently agreed there is no case in law to answer, he would thereby immediately create that case against himself for them. The the head of the LibDems and immediate past head are so inept on basic legal procedure they do not understand that there is NO WAY the LibDems could possibly be considered fit for government.
ON RELIGIOUS MATTERS, HONESTY, THE NEED FOR ONLY ENGLISH LAW & GENERAL COMPETENCE IN MANAGEMENT
The excitement of Islamists to maintain their religious beliefs is well shown in the statistic provided by The Sunday Telegraph (20130929) that 11,248 Muslims were at that time in prison, making up 13.1% of the jail population. If they are so devoted to their religion, how come so many of them are in prison? Apparently, for what can only be described as the sheer utter incompetence of meat suppliers, some of the suppliers of meat to the prisons can't tell the difference between one animal and another. Some prisoners have apparently got upset at eating pork without realising they were eating pork! For which insult (since they themselves apparently can't tell the difference between animal meats) they expect to receive compensation through the European Court of Human Rights. Apparently, it has never occurred to them that if only they had obeyed the law and been true to their own religion (unless it specifically directs them to break the law, in which case Islam needs to be banished) their discomfort would never have been enacted.
In the same paper, on the same page, there is a report of a Lithuanian wanted for trial in Eastern Europe for 22 serious crimes but who keeps wasting British courts time continually appealing against extradition on human rights grounds.
That is one European we have allowed ourselves to be over-run by. Yes, over-run because the same paper quoted a camp of Roma living in Park Lane of whom two had just returned from having been sent home at the expense of the British tax payer!
It
is then revealed in The Daily Mail (20131128) by Michael Burleigh that the witless EU Employment Commissioner who criticised Cameron for his sagacity, by calling
GB a "nasty" country because it was objectively rational, is a Hungarian. He is also an entrenched socialist. So why is his own country, Hungary, tolerating anti-Semitism; is likewise against the Roma and Hungary's government is reported as the worst in Europe on human rights? Talk about forked tongue duplicitous diplomacy! Criticised by the US as being an authoritarian government, wouldn't a citizen of such a country be more keen to bring his own country to heel before presuming to criticise Great Britain for its straight forward open honesty in endeavouring to respond realistically to the irresponsibilities of the EU? Perhaps, like so many EU Commissioners, he is simply not up to his job!
Dealing with the simple reality of this fool's utterances, Great Britain hands out a quarter of all new EU citizenships, especially since our own socialist government chose to embrace immigration as an essential economic tool... well, why else would they have let so many in, unless they are re going to admit they did not actually know what they were doing?
Lying, the simple word describing anyone who is not telling the facts as they actually are (the whys and wherefores are always irrelevant) is an inherent fault of business people, according to an article in Professional Manager. By quoting this, I do not mean to imply that anyone employed by the EU (as reported generally) could possibly claim to be a professional manager, but there we are. The extraordinary ability NOT to comment, brilliantly tells a lie, without technically lying: that is indeed lying! Avoidance, by talking about anything but the actual matter in hand. Actually lying, not being found until so much later, because you lied so incredibly well, they offer you a commission to reveal all for the benefit of the whole as with the cyclist Lance Armstrong. The more senior the manager the more likely he/she will lie, apparently 10% more than more junior staff. Lying, like all sinning (religion bouncing in again!) if you get away with it once you will more easily lie the next time... then you find facing the truth is even worse.
BORIS ON SOCIETY
At the end of 2013, Boris had something to say in line with my previous paragraphs. The Daily Mail 920131128) reported a speech in which he claimed equality was impossible: 16% of our species have an IQ below 85. 2% have an Q above 130. The able do have a duty of care for the less fortunate but some measure of inequality is essential to inspire the spirit of envy to drive forward economic activity. The rich need to be recognised for what they give to society, generally speaking. Boris remembered attending a Tory meeting in which they all agreed it was not right to bring back the grammar schools. Probably because most of the people there were going to send their children to some of the most viciously selective Independents. "We claim to have capped immigration when we reduce New Zealanders by 60% but don't equally loudly acknowledge we could not stop the entire population of Transylvania from coming here."
OUR OWN CIVIL SERVANTS AREN'T COMPETENT
Apparently there is an inadequacy of financial management and general management nous in the civil service which is failing to regain student loans amounting to several millions of pounds, according to Andrew Levy of The Daily Mail. Basic protocols appear not to have been implemented or followed through.
However, matters get singularly complicated when management roles are unquestionably in the public view and politicians feel the need to see themselves in a quasi most senior management position. This was the case with Sharon Shoesmith in the Baby Peter child abuse scandal, finally ending with a reputed £600,000 award for wrongful dismissal. An example of caving in to pubic sensitivities in total disregard to appropriate and proper managerial conduct. The involved minister being Labour's Ed Balls. It really bears out the gloomy
forecast of philosopher John Gray. While institutions may evolve, human nature did not and remained nasty and vengeful. An indirect reference to the reality of man's biological evolution and re-raising (from which one can deduce, although he did not say so) the failure of religion to render service and envisage what was likely to come, which is how we all fall down.
ISLAM AS CONTRADICTORY AS THE EU
In The Times (20131214) we have two contradictory articles, back-to-back. The universities back down on sexual segregation, while Muslims protest against shops selling alcohol in Brick Lane (East London). The women are dressed as nuns and wearing the niquab, while pushing babies in prams, their heads so covered against the cold there is no vestige of a face.
Apparently organised by the Sharia Project whose opening paragraph reads: "As the British government continues in its implementation of oppressive man-made laws it is clear that there will be repercussions for such blatant aggression against the commands of Allah (God). In fact, when one looks to the nations of the past who similarly transgressed the limits set by Allah (God) you will see how, ultimately, it led to their destruction." Obviously referring to the seniority of British government amongst the other former empirical states in Europe.
The sheer witlessness of such rubbish invites the most obvious response: "Go back home". They feel it necessary to tell us their word for 'God' is 'Allah' and fail to understand that being a Christian country, wine is an integral part of the Communion with God in this country. That Munby (President of the Family Division) has chosen to state we are a multicultural nation and can no longer think unilaterally in Christian terms does not in any way licence such wilfully inflammatory twaddle. Apparently, this "demonstration" was aimed against shop owners who were Muslim. The inability of Mizanur Rahman, the organiser of the demonstration, to understand that such matters were none of his business is incredible. Here is a clear statement by people living legitimately (presumably) in the land who clearly do not understand the country in which they have chosen to make their money and bring up their family.
There is sense and sensibility in Islam. Usama Hasan, of the anti-extremist think-tank The Quilliam Foundation, a spokesperson for one of the largest mosques in Britain condemned the rally as a publicity stunt which could only antagonise local people and business owners. Precisely why anyone, presumed to be a devout Muslim, would wish to antagonise people against them and their beliefs i do not understand. The fact the women in the press photograph were wearing the niquab seemed a clear statement that they felt ashamed of themselves and their conduct. Was this another example of Muslim male domination, scaring their women into submission? When people are afraid to exhibit themselves openly and claim accountability, there is indeed something seriously wrong with that aspect of society.
More to the point, apparently the demonstration threatened to impose forty lashes on such shop owners. Now hang on a minute, what are Islamists (so called) doing indulging in sado-sexual practices, or immitating early Christian (though originally Roman) concepts? Apart from the contradiction of the EU, that allows Islam to defy Human Rights with its attitude to women and Islam's opposition to certain attitudes to sex, how can its claimants legitimately indulge in such sado-sexual practices? Such activity at the least is a wilful parody of the Christian faith. It is an aspect of Christianity with which i have never been happy: the agony and the ecstasy of the crucifixion. Through Opus Dei the self-indulgence of pain remains a dominant aspect of the Roman Catholic Church. It remained a central part of Catholic teaching until they were finally "caught at it" and even now there are difficulties in bringing such sado-masochistic practices to heel. As with Christianity, it seems Islam is getting all hot under the collar on sexual matters—which might well turn out to be the Christian's concept of hell—as if they did not already have their own sexual hangups—the Opus Dei are onanists, they just self-flagellate.
In Central Africa we have a reverse scenario in a more despicable state of affairs! Damned religion again getting in the way of down to earth common sense. There, It seems that Christians are being nasty to the Islamists: just forget all religions and simply be down to earth practical... and secularist!
FRIDAY 17th JANUARY 2014
LORDS PROVING THEIR WORTH
Campaigners won a significant vote at Westminster in the Lobbying Bill's Report Stage on 15 January 2014, thanks to the votes of crossbenchers, Labour peers, two rebel Conservatives and four rebel Lib Dems, two English Anglican bishops and an Independent. The coalition's substantial defeat was 237 votes to 194. It secured a compromise that limits the range of controlled activities by NGOs that staff costs will apply to, though it does not remove them. The amendment, along with several others, was tabled by Lord Harries of Pentregarth, the former Bishop of Oxford, on behalf of the Commission on Civil Society and Democratic Engagement (CCSDE), of which Ekklesia is an active supporter.
It is this superb mix of life that is why the uniqueness of our system of government, the mother of parliaments as the world has described the Palace of Westminster, MUST NOT be interfered with. The ability to filibuster a legitimate government by such diversity of opinion, in full public gaze, while in no way reducing that government's general authority and credibility is unique, rendering an assuredness with which we may turn the tables upon an instant, while retaining lawful order. It is what democracy and government is all about. It is why we should be unashamed in standing firm to our traditions and most particularly OUR authority over that which IS OURS. All other entities MUST acknowledge OUR supremacy in all matters ENGLISH. There can and must not be exceptions.
"Ann Pettifor, the wonderful economist who first said that ‘Britain is living in an Alice in Wongaland economy’, a line that on its own is worthy of a Nobel economics prize, points journalists to George Osborne's pontification. He was then a model of fiscal rectitude. Britain had to move away from ‘unsustainable private and public finance,’ he said, to ‘a new model of economic growth that is rooted in more investment, more savings and higher exports’." Quoted by Nick Cohen.
In 121 pages Just Money explains its compact argument. Just Money is a digital book at only £2.99 in Britain downloadable from Prime Economics. Main information source: Ekklesia.
ON GOD
Still relevant today, In the highest of engineering skills! Crossrail workers will not enter the tunnels they are digging out unless they have been blessed. A statute of St Barbara, patron saint of tunnelling, has been set outside every tunnel entrance.
Meanwhile, in the UN, the Catholic church is answering questions on why it has enabled so much child abuse to take place on its premises and under its authority. Humanity WILL and MUST control religion, not religion control humanity
OH GOD!
The LibDems still floundering around on internal party indiscipline involving Lord Rennard. We must remember that Lord Rennard is chiefly responsible for the present coalition government, so it is both unfortunate that he should so be involved but also unfortunate that the LibDems, by so stating in effect, their inability to manage their own party, declare themselves unfit to be a government in their own right. They need to be controlled by a more experienced major party and that clearly, should it be necessary in 2015, must be Conservative, despite the shambles they will inevitably make in holding back that party on meaningful matters. Clegg persists in failing to understand the inaequcy of his party's management. It really is extraordinary and apparently women are leaving in droves—we need women involved and running away from the party's stupidities, rather than addressing their problems head on. This is plain stupidity!
TAKES AWHlLE TO SINK IN!
It is now being perceived, what I thought had been known (certainly by me) at least twenty years ago, that if you drain upland and concrete over lowland, floods will result in the excess speed with which water will flow into the rivers causing them to overflow. It is now being announced that this has just been discovered!
CONTRASTS IN CHURCHMEN & CHURCH MATTERS
It is useful to remember that some time back the former Archbishop of Canterbury,Rowan Williams wrote, in an article for the Rowntree Foundation, that our society was corrupt in governance and accountability. Philosophy is fine but needs to be relevant to the day. Hopefully the present archbishop will actually get the Church of England moving in a practical manner that makes it pro-actively relevant. Too much religion has stood steadfast for too long pontificating, not actually rolling up its sleeves and being practically involved. While the Church of England has insisted in wasting half a century arguing over the validity of women (for which there was never invalidity other than crass stupidity) Islamists persist in declaring the principle of any religion completely invalid, through the dumbed down image the UK universities have just presented. Their accepting seriously of the opinions of the IER (Islamic Education and Research Academy). This seems more related to Islam's social etiquettes than having the remotest unerstanding of modern day relevance.
CHURCH AND STATE
I have just noticed a headline that more than 148,000 prisoners have a least fifteen previous convictions. How? Clearly the church (of whatsoever belief) is not having any effect but neither, then, is secular society! It used to be said that it is the poor whom you can trust, despite the provocation of their state. We know we can't trust those who are rich: banker, stockbroker, co-operative movement. That last encapsulates the whole and puts the poor to shame, such is the depth of modern depravity.
LAW, ORDER & RELIGION
Where then are we actually? "Reliance upon religious belief, however conscientious the belief and however ancient and respectable the religion, can never of itself immunise the believer from the reach of the secular law." That was Sir James Munby, President of the Family Division, which would seem to put the former Archbishop in his place with his ideas we need to accept Sharia Law in this country! The key answer is the old established tradition, "When in Rome..." In the secular world deal secularly. Although much of our foundation of law and moral values are Christian-influenced it is but a religion. Religion is an aspect of philosophy while secularity is dealing practicality with the realities of the day.
LABOUR IN A SHAMBLES AGAIN
When Santander acquired three building societies, Labour let them. Lloyds was coerced into acquiring branches they didn't want and the EU (fully supported by Labour) ordered them to offload them. Labour thinks we sould have more energy suppllers but has made no suggestion on how we should acquire more energy to supply. Now Labour (apparently) want to reduce the size of the banks in order to have more banks; having done nothing what ever about the banks' disaster in their keeness to broadcast their unsuitability in basic management; nor stopping Santander absorbing three perfectly good (until Santander got hold of them) building societies!
RETAIL IN A SHAMBLES
It is now accknowledged that the little corner shop was the right way to sell convenience food: an incresing number of convenience stores are now being opened by the supermarkets!
THURSDAY 16th JANUARY 2014
CONTRASTS & NASTY JOLTS ARE JUST LIFE
I think I was woken by my mobile, there was a message there telling me my current balance. Why O2 want ant to reduce teh size of reh banksto tell me that at 04:00 in the morning, I cannot imagine. I suppose the problem is with 24/7 availability. As i wanted to cover the possibility of an emergency call coning in, I could not have switched off sound but even then I might have been wanting an early morning alarm call!
A dull grey morning but I had clearing up and out to do, so battled on. A reasonable morning until i decided i should renew my home insurance. I had gone through all the bumpf yesterday and made my decision and now it was time to ring and renew. It's John Lewis, so should have been simple and straight forward: except they had not got the figures right! Nor had they paid any attention to what I have been doing with them for years. We were in fact changing covering company, as John Lewis have obviously entered into a different deal with Royal and Sun Alliance
but some of the figures were not correct and it was quite clear they had borne no proper assessment of my past history. Irritated!
Also, the fellow at the other end seemed more concerned at going through his routine rather than listening to me, let alone paying attention. Perhaps for different unrelated reasons we were both slightly irritated at not receiving the straight forward simplicity we each had initially expected. Unusual, I usually rate John Lewis highly and can't speak too highly of them and my interactions with them have been of a regular, long-term and diverse nature: stores, Waitrose, online shopping. The whole, collectively very good, in my view.
Then on to clearing accumulated rubbish, including putting out rubbish for weekly collection. There will come a time when I may not be up to that and that will raise all sorts of problems. There will come a time when these matters must be addressed but without being morbid, precisely what do I try to cover in advance? The need to organise someone has to be prepared for. In the mean time, simply soldier on. What is frightening is the speed time moves forward. We are nearly half way through January. HMRC has to be dealt with but at least my preferred software has now made itself available on a Mac, so in future I can perhaps maintain equanimity with all on an ongoing basis as I used to do, without the need to swap in and out of Mac/Windows operating systems as i have had to do for the last three or four years. The update arrives most conveniently before i have finalised the specification I need for my new Mac, so that at least is helpful.
LOOKING AHEAD
Healthwise I start the year optimistically, despite not being able to get medical insurance for a trip to America (had thought not) and not being able to get annual cover for Europe but no panic, for the latter there is time to move, yet on single trip specifics only and were I wiling to pay I could probably cover America and Canada as well, somehow, yet to be found!
THE NATURE OF SELF, THE STATE & PERSONAL ACCOUNTABILITY
What lies behind any entrenched view? Is it right to blame religion, that settles itself upon then known knowledge and refuses to adapt? In the Christian world we have the specific examples of Christ. While The Bible may be in conflict with itself, the collective whole of Christ's example is preparedness to change. Simplicity led to complexity, was that necessary? Complexity led to authoritarian arrogance and the thrusting of egos, in the mode of earthly kings and emperors. How did the idea arrive that a changing world must stay chained to a bastion of moral law increasingly unfit to handle the changes taking place, through natural progression of man's knowledge, purportedly a knowledge gained and inspired by God's own Creation?
What lies behind our unsettled state today?
Perceptions of how things might and could be, if only they weren't as they are, seems to form the bedrock of those claiming Islamic beliefs, while believers are not able to agree amongst themselves their particular differences of interpretation. Christianity is in exactly the same pot!
While using modern equipment and methods in pro-active confrontation, Islamic believers seem determined to put the clock back: for them, but a century or so; for the western world, half a millennium at least. For all of us collectively, we need to address reducing resources; major climate change, for which our society seems responsible and must therefore counteract; increasing populations with educing labour demands (requiring a major re-assessment of economics); an organised world debate is needed on how we collectively agree a future that best protects our planet and prepares us for the collective future.
In the microcosm, we have the European issues which may serve as a guide plan to what will not work on a global scale. If, on the European scale, we have difficulty in reconciling conflicts of interest in a seriously unbalanced diversity of countries, then clearly, flexibility, adaptability, malleability must be the hallmarks for all. Those are the simplest base rules to make the whole work rationally.
Part of that equation has to be the self-balance of ego with the rendering of service to the collective whole. What is, has to be understood for what it is, in itself and its underlying purpose, then accepted 'as is'. Then, in the context of the whole, we can see who and what needs to change, adapt, meld so that we can all go forward seeing ourselves as we are, in the context of the reality as it is, and desiring the inevitable improvements that we must make.
CONFLICTS ARE INEVITABLE: PATIENCE ETERNALLY TRYING!
In
my sorting out I came across this: "Jane, 28, has terminal cancer and is expected to live for 18 months. She receives £94.25 per week in ESA [Employment and Support Allowance], which she could lose if she refuses to take an unpaid work placement." [Daily Mirror, Feb 18, 2012]
Clearly there are going to be many headlines like this one. We are going through major change. We have to go through major change because we have consistently ignored reality and not looked to the future far enough ahead; not reviewed our changing times within their time but belatedly looked back to see how we are, in relation to how times were. Only then have we realised how out of kilter we are. In The Observer of 20131124, Miranda Sawyet had this to write. "We live, we are told, in an age of austerity. There are many people struggling to pay bills, fund food, access the necessaries to buy a weekly bus pass. I don't doubt this is true. The gap between rich and poor in the UK is great and growing and money attracts money. If you're rich, you get given stuff for nothing: smiles, frocks, paid positions on important trustee boards. If you're skint, society says to you, 'You know what, it's probably for the best. You wouldn't be able to handle any more cash.' This is why one God-fearing drug user is left to shout at litter swirling across the street while another one is handed a bank to play with. I think that's the reasoning, anyway."
She was recommending Andrew Dilnot's radio programme A History of Britain in Numbers on Radio 4. He thinks we've never had it so good... she must be very young, I can recall Harold MacMillan saying that... I don't want to remember when!
She went on to recommend a book by Stephen Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature, promoting his view that life was much better than it used to be... and digressed further to highlight how bad things once indeed had been. In our present time, what might be more relevant would be for us to look ahead and realise how disastrous things could once be again if we do not try and organise our societies better than we are. Therein lies the fundamental truth of sorting it: whose version is to prevail and God willing, are they ilkely to be considerate of the poor and needy rather than the rich and powerful... and in whose interests?
WEDNESDAY 15th JANUARY 2014
OOOH LA LA, LA FRANCAIS!! ET LE MONDE
What a world indeed. France has a president who doesn't know with whom he will be sleeping on his visit to America. Will America care? They are wrapped up in working out if Snowden showed Khalid Sheikh Mohammed how to rig things or if it was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed who showed Snowden how to betray his country. The questions raised: are Mohammed's lawyers just playing around (and presumably the American citizenry is paying their costs?) hence the tortuous objections raised (but then, it is not just grist to the mill in proving the robustness of the legal system?); the fact that a former American president and the sister of a pilot brought down over 9/11 are both happy with water-boarding (Ch4 news 20:00 20140114) Guantanamo Bay insiders, why should anyone else get excited?
Of course Mohammed is happy to be water-boarded, he has another two volumes of his novel (purportedly the reasons for 9/11 and what really lies behind the "war of terror") from which he is expecting to receive royalties, either in kind or notoriety for posterity. If the authorities simply released him, he would freely publish all the information they want, if in fact anything he writes is remotely believable. This and his ilk are nothing more than sensational publicists seeking self-gratification. Its all publicity for the ego and pure perversity he doesn't simply have a wank.
It's all old hat to the Brits. In the early days of Empire we simply locked them up and forgot them. If they didn't get bored and talked, they died, much more cost-effective. There is a certain mental attitude in such circumstances which says, "Ah well, interesting, let's see how they play it," and you just string them along in their own time. Its an old prep school trick, although in that scenario it never had to last very long. That is why the Brits are some times slow to react. The Public schools (now called Independents) (fed from Prep schools) were geared to educate empire administrators who simply took all things in their stride: never hurry; by the time you get there the only ones standing are just ready to collapse, or think they've won so are happy to co-operate and come quietly, they think they are in charge. The others, you just pick up and dump in a truck when you get round to it. Classic Military Police response. Steady as she goes boys... just to give the senior service a look in!
THAT FAITH THING AGAIN
Incredibly 32 countries around the world insist that you believe in something yet do not accept that not believing is a belief! Extraordinary, so it is not just religionists who are nuts? It should make us realise just how damned clever we Brits are simply by being so down to earth with basic common sense!
BANKING
Momentarily in passing but seemingly not yet developed is a Labour suggestion the banks should be broken up. The obvious bank, Santander, was not mentioned. Why? It formed during the last days of Labour, absorbing three perfectly decent but small building societies. Why was this allowed? Is this why Santander is being excluded? My family had accounts with all three, since when sheer chaos has resulted. That would be the sensible thing to do: cut Santander down to size.
TUESDAY 14th JANUARY 2014
NHS
Andy Burnham wittering uselessly on A&E who wants to put everything back to how it was under Labour. Without saying so, he wants us back in debt again! Now a woman has come on to say that temporary doctors might not be so interested in the department if not there full time. Lady, a doctor is a doctor, a professional, not an intermittent involver as most politicians are, which is why they witter as uselessly as she just has
L' AFFAIRE FRANCAIS
With the straight forward panache of everyday living, the French seem bewildered as to why the English are so concerned as to which woman their president is currently sharing his bed. What the English should be concerned with is that (as usual!) the French are wanting to follow them, or at least their president who seeems interested in reducing his country's annual costs. That is what our news reporters should be reporting.
CATHOLIC RELIGION
Upworthy is getting excited about the pope excommunicating those who support abortion, such as Senator John Kerry. There is no change, other than that which is standard Catholic response has been activated instead of lying supine in the face of evidence. There is no acceptance of the reality of contraception. If the church opposes responsible relationships by denying contraception so that women bear children they cannot afford, then clearly, other than abstention, which puts a totally contradictory strain upon a marriage whose purpose is to enable natural conduct between agreeing adults, abortion is the only option. This is an option the church deliberately and irresponsibly imposes since, very noticeably, it is not coming forth with the funds to support additional unwanted children; while at the same time the church presumes to criticise those who are financially solvent and supporting the less fortunate in terms of creating businesses and employing people. There is sound cause to criticise excess but no call what ever for this pope's pronouncements which are completely irrational and irresponsible.
MONDAY 13th JANUARY 2014
PRACTICALITY, RELIGION AND GOD: UNITED IN TWADDLE!
From yesterday's BBC programme The Big Questions, which contented itself with but one question effectively, 'who should be in charge, religion or humanity?', concluding effectively it was humanity that must manage religion, not religion be allowed to manage humanity; we lead into this morning's news that there is to be a major enquiry into systemic child abuse over more than half a century in Northern Ireland, across a diversity of institutions, including religious ones. Once more raising the spectre that presumptions of religion having the remotest fitness to manage humanity being completely delusional.
Following quickly on such heels, we learn there is total confusion on an entirely human level
on fracking. The French do not wish to frack in France because they have had the wit to install nuclear power in an organised manner and at an early enough time to provide a cost-efficient fuel. The UK has lacked that wit and decisiveness so is having to adopt panic measures in a pragmatic way. That there should be objections to investigatory tests as to suitability is ridiculous. Let's get the information and try and undo the damage caused by dithering.
Let us therefore get things simple and straight forward. If we are in a God created universe, rationality is part of God's Creation. There is, therefore, no problem with being rational on human matters. Let's get on with fracking and find out where we stand in our desperate fuel needs. Yesterday highlighted the disaster that is religion. Christianity remains the most logical of all religions of which I have any acquaintance and has proven to be singularly illogical in its execution, despite logicality being a part of His Creation. This has been due to its proponents refuting His objectivity and its believers failing to apply it logically to the humanity He gave us; hence, as others previously, the current investigation into child abuse, encompassing a perverseness against women and the deliberate denial and ridicule of the rationality of Darwin.
The tragedy is that there is sufficient clear evidence down the ages that all life has spiritual aspects, yet religion prefers to latch on to only tiny aspects of that reality, rather than embrace the collective whole of reality around it. Odd: but then, that's life!
SUNDAY 12th JANUARY 2014
WEEKLY REVIEW
The BBC's The Big Questions devoted itself to one question today, "Should human rights always outweigh religious rights"?
I was astounded at the extraordinary openness of seemingly religiously-orientated people having such an open dialogue and agreeing to differ between themselves. I was relieved to find the consensus agreeing humanity over-rode by default and that religious views were primarily interpreted as a cultural overcoat. Human rights automatically over-riding religious opinion.
Comments made by me in response to paragraphs flashed up on Facebook give an impression. "Religion is an aspect of humanity: humanity is the collective whole. The Christian Bible is NOT relevant to human rights it is merely an aspect of them. The Dutch Reform Church was a classic example of the appalling irresponsibility of being culture influenced and why religion must always be kept in control by humanity. [We are after all in this present reality: heaven or what after is yet to be proven and our role here is to deal with the here and now.] What utter incredibility/incredulity. Homosexuality is not a choice: it is the result of biological determination at birth. In other words it is an example of God's inadequacy in his own Creation OR it was His intention that homosexuality should exist. If one puts a pea in one's nostril, one is not "eating the pea!". Codswallop, one simply is not swallowing it, until swallowed it is not eaten by mouth or nostril. My response to Pinch of Salt's opinion includes oral sex! The Dutch Reform Church was a classic example of the appalling irresponsibility of religion and why religion must always be kept in control of humanity by humanity.
A very interesting personal example was published from a bus driver."I was driving a bus where a woman got on my bus wearing a burka. On her bus pass she was not wearing it and had glasses, [undefined as then or on photo]. I could not tell if it was the same women as on her pass, so I required her to reveal her face. Other women on the bus went crazy calling me a racist but all I was trying to do is my job, and it is my job to make sure people had the right pass for the trip and that it belonged to that person using the pass. The women start to kick the driver's door and verbally abusing me. I called the police and my office, who sent out a ticket inspector. In the end, this pass did not belong to this women but to a friend of hers and she was trying to gain a fraudulent ride hiding behind the burka [I think the writer actually meant 'niquab']. This should be banned as how can we do a job when people are covering their faces? This not an isolated incident, when you go to another country you abide by their rules/laws and culture, so bide by ours."
This is why EU's failure to fully implement legal precedent is so undermining. We know that historically the only people who wish to hide their identity from public view (such as the niquab or its equivalent) is to cause, or because they just have caused, a criminal event, such as seventeenth century highwaymen or IRA activists in the twentieth century, including bank robbers hiding from CTV.
In the studio it was interesting to see some Islamists wearing niquabs and some not; some demanding their right to it while others denied it was a problem to be asked to remove it on security, or other social grounds, such as attending an intervie; or in relation to accompanying children and being required to clarify authority to have custody of them, etc.
Essentially, dress in any form is a matter of personal choice and if people want to go around attracting attention, looking like an ancient coven of nuns, seventeenth century highwaymen or just punks, then why not, as long as they respect the circumstances when face coverings enable misinterpretations and need to be countered for such sensible reasons as security? What on earth is all the fuss about?
More particularly, although we do have to be careful about the size of the numbers, although purportedly widely selected to include as diverse a range of views as possible, the general concensus was that humanity runs religion not religion running humanity: especially when religion simply cannot make up its mind as to which one of them is right, since clearly they all can't be right. They are but interpretations of their original time. Nonetheless, it still seems to me that the Christian religion holds a lead above all of them.
Conveniently following on my thoughts here, Songs of Praise visited Lindisfarne, presenting a superb simplicity of expressions of the soul and the straight forwardness of simply being with Him. This was something I first discovered with my grandfather. I used to lose myself in the long grass at the edge of the allotment field while he hoed and tilled, seemingly in a period of all time that I later learned to express better when, in later life, I began to understood T S Eliot's poetry.
By contrast, yesterday saw the vigil for Mark Duggan, which apparently was conducted peacefully without disturbance, as had been specifically requested. There appears to have been a stupefied inability to comprehend a basic simplicity: the jury's verdict on the policeman who had fired the fatal shot. That was as one would have expected but the inability to understand a straight forward matter of procedure is bewildering. There are obviously, as the jury clearly thought, certain details that are complexing but the fundamental issue is perfectly straight forward. Obviously this family has experienced much and is having difficulties in coping, for which full understanding and compassion are due but other than their grief, there is no rationality about their inability to accept the verdict. Much of this same irrationality seems to be part of the religious sensitivities that continually arise and I put the confusion down to the mismatch of English law with European law, which simply lacks the simplicity of basic precedence that is the key to legal understanding.
FRIDAY 10th JANUARY 2014
MARK HILLTOP RESIDENT ABUSE: SENTENCES
Darren Smith, 35, from Lancaster, had pleaded guilty and was jailed for eight months at Preston Crown Court. Katie Cairns, 27, was jailed for five months, Carol Moore, 54, was sentenced to four months and Gemma Pearson, 28, was given a 12-month community order. The abuse took place from May 2010 to September 2011 at Hillcroft nursing hoe in Slyne-with-Hest near Lancaster. They were charged with ill-treatment and wilful neglect of a person with lack of capacity under the Mental Capacity Act 2005.
What
I find so appalling aout this is how on earth did such people ever get selected as being remoteley competent in the roles allotted to them. I've never seen any staff in any care home (and 'no', my experience is only on the level of a diverse social visitor) who have looked so totally unsuitable for such roles. Something seems to be going very wrong in our care facilities.
THURSDAY 9th JANUARY 2014
MARK DUGGAN: VERY WORRYING STATE OF AFFAIRS & IT RELATES TO THE MITCHELL AFFAIR!
The
formal court papers state quite clearly the jury were convinced he had the gun with him. Nine concluded he had thrown the gun and one observed no witness had borne such evidence.
As I have commented previously, it is the duty of all citizens to conduct themselves at all times in a manner which does not unsettle the police. That Duggan had given police cause to be concerned and his failure to act in a manner indicating their suspicions were unfounded automatically justify police acting in any manner they consider appropriate for the preservation of life. That is a completely separate issue from all other purportedly related issues now being drawn out.
There
appears to have been an appallingly bad public relations issue in this area and there appears to have been an appalling failure on the part of persons labelled as "community leaders". Precisely who these people are and how they were elected to their role to represent who or what by whom, has not been made clear. Certainly not in their relations to local councillors and through them, the immediate council. If there is a failing of councillors then this should have been brought to the attention of the political party for which they stand or the council directly. Why has this not happened?
There has been comment that race/colour has something to do with this incident. This is nonsense. At the beginning, the responsibility of every citizen is to allay police concerns during any enquiry by appropriate conduct, according to the circumstances. Duggan's race or colour is not relevant to the appropriateness or inappropriateness of his conduct. That he had acquired an association with criminal sympathisers through his own actions, even though his interaction was deemed as minimal at that stage, "catching developments in 'the bud'" is an essential part of crime prevention.
There are two outstanding issues here. One: the seeming contradictions or lack of clarity surrounding the movements of the gun. The second is the plurality of our society. That openness for which we, as a country, have received much admiration across the world, relates to an acceptance of diverse cultures but is NOT a statement that our inherent culture should be dominated or abused and most certainly not be over-ridden. It is the duty of citizens dealing with the police to do so upon the terms and expectations of the country historically, not according to the concepts of individual groupings of people.
This explanation is further emphasised by the Andrew Mitchell affair [today, 10th January], where it now appears a police officer has pleaded guilty that in stating he saw the No.10 incident when it is alleged Mr Mitchell called a policeman a "pleb", he was lying.
As this remains a messy affair, it would only be proper for me to observe: a policeman has admitted he lied in a witness statement he made. This is not the first occasion of such an event, known, proven or simply implied, or alleged but it is the most recent occasion, clearly establishing there is potential for the failure of credence within the police force. This is relevant to the location of the hand gun in the Duggan affair.
There is already excited chatter about Mitchell gaining another government appointment. This is nonsense. Why did Mitchell want to ride or push his bicycle through security gates intended for a car
when there was a perfectly good walkway gate through which he could and did push his bicycle? The expectation that two car gates should be opened so he could push out is little bicycle reads to me as such asinine nonsense, how could such a man be remotely thought of as a potential government minister? In a national security situation you simply do not behave in that manner!
That there was any interchange beyond civil acceptance of the situation is likewise extraordinary.
No one, let alone a government minister should have contemplated such a reaction but to apologise decently for his own damned stupidity!
If, as I believe was the case in the earliest press reports of the original incident, this officer or other officers involved were members of the Police Federation, then speaking from my own industrial experience in the printing industry, this immediately should have thrown a cloak of caution over all personnel involved. Too often active union members are there because they are of the second grade standard of requirement and their association adds a further element of protecting themselves from their potential inadequacies.
If so, then it was clear from the outset to any experienced officer on the gate of No10 that all proceedings should be with great caution. It appears that no great caution was exercised anywhere at any time, until too late!
WEDNESDAY 8th JANUARY 2014
MARK DUGGAN: VERY WORRYING STATE OF AFFAIRS
I currently possess a great confidence in the quality of Channel 4 News' reporting. That the Jury were split does not help. That there are two clear separate incidents is without question. The key is that a jury determined a policeman had sound cause to be concerned of being a victim and used his weapon in lawful self-defence. There is no need here to question that legitimacy; on that fact is a fundamental basis of law: the moment one acts in a manner that attracts the attention of the police, it is the responsibility of the suspect to act in a manner to dissuade the officer of his concern. On that aspect the matter is open and shut: justifiable homicide.
It was foolish of the family's lawyer [Marcia Willis Stewart] to take into account local opinion and that it is agitated; or in any other way to allow her attention to be drawn away from the essence at the kernel: not relevant to the issue. The problems arise from the second allegation as to whether Mark Duggan was actually carrying a weapon in the first place and if so what happened to it? Therein lies the problem.
On that issue there does appear to be a conflict of factual probability. We have too many past occasions when evidence may have been manipulated for the politics of obtaining a "right" social answer. That is precisely how we end up having exactly the wrong social answer.
The
riots following Duggan's initial death were never justified. That was merely an excuse to express simmering general social discontent. At the same time, as exemplified by an assistant commissioner, the police appear totally disrelated to the public they are supposed to be serving. That an Assistant Commisioner should have the stupidity to persist in making a public statement before a public clearly not in the mood to receive him raises serious questions as to the relatioship of the police with the public, full stop. An officer of his seniority should have realised the stupidity in doing what he was doing and to have refrained. He persevered totally ineffectually, to no purpose what so ever. If this is an example of police sensitivity to their community than the whole edifice is in serious trouble, lacking competence and believability. There can be no question that something is seriously wrong. That something, includes a failure of education and social services over the past twenty years: precisely where money and resources are supposed to have been invested, to prevent this type of problem. As regards Duggan, his incident is no more than a diversion of an underlying problem which is steadfastly not being addressed. Perhaps following the seeming contradiction over what happened to the unfound gun, may highlight an aspect of social failure where still too many are concerned: finding conclusions, according to expectation, not to the realties of fact.
ALSO ON CHANNEL 4 THE BENEFITS SCANDAL
I was astounded to find a campaign wanting to silence Channel 4's excellent exposé of benefit abuse. This is the sort of programme that requires serious promotion and support and trying to seek support to silence it is one of the worst examples of internet interference into serious social interest and concern.
MONDAY 6th JANUARY 2014
OLD & NEW, CONFLICT & CONTRADICTION: NEW YEAR, NO CHANGE!
I intended clearing away and embarking upon a slow, rational but earnest, spring clean throughout: in my home and my life. Regarding 'life', that is both leisure and business; it also encompasses the physical, emotional and the spiritual. I am already diverted from my intentions by BBC Breakfast being diversely stimulating in its news. It is now noon. I had it in mind that I would walk at the height of the day to gain the best of the sun. The sun has now gone behind a cloud and the after-noon looks like dipping into a light grey day. Since I perceive the energy to exercise, I shall walk and then have lunch (just soup). Back soon.
Back sooner than expected. Plans flown out of the window. Deetv just phoned wanting a camera crew to Tring school for educational purposes. Fine, come back via Ashridge and walk around there. Must take my camera [which I then forgot!], which reminds me of need to check over all my electronic aparratus, an adjunct of spring cleaning. I have such diverse technology on different platforms, none coherently co-ordinated, that I frequently have to relearn what i thought I knew. No matter. Today's soup was Waitrose's 'essential' tomato with my added sprinklings of Thyme, Rosemary and Basil, leaving me an hour to while away here, except that exhaustion has suddenly grabbed me and I need to lie down to esnure I am fit to drive, quite apart from suddenly not having energy to walk! Fortunately, only a passing moment.
Moving into a new year the first item to distract my attenion is on Facebook, where it is reported that Noah's Ark Zoo in Bristol, despite exhibitng a diversity of animals, does not accept evolution. Apparently they are creationists who use the zoo to promote their Creationist view on life. According to a well respected scientist and BBC broadcaster, Noah's Ark proprietors are so confused as to get their educational panels, intended for children not discearning adults, muddled up as to what is scientific fact and what is mythical mumbo-jumbo. Exploring further in this vein I am astoiunded to find it reported that an extraordinarily large number of people think Gensis in The Bible is a factual statement of history! Extraordinary!
This reminds me of the misquotation attributed to the Jesuits: "Give me a child until the age of seven and I care not who has him therafter". The perceived actual quotation is "Give me the child and I will mould the man." The implications ascribed to the first are Catholic indoctrination. The second could still be indoctrination but is usually interpreted as an open-minded education, dependent upon how one defines the nature and expectation of what is 'manhood'. The ability to be open-minded, percetive to argument, unafraid to question and the ability for objective reasoning are chosen to be implied. Too much religion expects indoctrination, so no counter will later deflect. This is a requireemnt of the Catholic church, that a child is always assumed to be brought up Catholic in mixed marriages.
What this misses is the insecurity exhibited by those adopting such attitudes. If such religionists were truly assured of their faith they would have no problem knowing that their argument will hold water against all and any onslaught, provided they educate with objective rationality. That they are clearly frightened of external influences is a clear statement they do not actually believe what it is they are endeavouring to indoctrinate. Their concept of a created universe includes reason, so why attempt to erradicate it? Religionists' persistence in looking back two thousand years for their knowledge denies the acquired reality since, so they are in fact denying the very universe in which they claim to believe! The BBC's The Big Quesion on 12th January discusses the issue of human rights versus religionists' rights.
The Church of England is classic in how religion has failed its own interests. The church has spent the last fifty years arguing as to whether women should be priests and then accepting they should but then arguing whether they should be bishops! The Church of England was started by a woman! Its present supreme governor is a woman! How could there possibly be any valid argument against a woman holding any other authoritative post in the church? It has been a nonargument over which the Church of England has been wasting time arguing for fifty years!
Almost as soon as the Reformation created it, the Church of England has followed steadfast on the heels of Rome; "no change!". As a result the 'Free' churches broke away. Had the Church of England recognised the reality in which it claimed to believe, a God created universe not stuck in a time warp but a Universe that was in a continuing state of change, there might have been no need for the 'Free' churches to break away. Instead of the straggled state of the Anglican community we would have a vibrant, exciting, divergent Church of England as one entity. How much richer would we all be.
In Great Berkhamsted we have the opportunity for a revolutionary change, will the new rector be a woman? A very significant decision for a town outside of which William was offered the crown of England a thousand years ago and which for many years was the second royal residence after Windsor!
SATURDAY 4th JANUARY 2014
IS THE UK GOING DOWNHILL OR SIMPLY DEPRESSED?
I still retain the excitement of our 2012 Olympiad and there does seem healthy positive news in the air, although there are many disappointments. Considering the situation in Turkey it could be argued that we have nothing to worry about. Worry is not a definable state, it is simply an aura of being: a state of mind affecting attitude and progress forward. It can lead to depression. Are we depressed?
I ask this following this after-noon's "stroll" to Waitrose. I am glad that I forced myself to walk for beneficial exercise when really I wasn't up to it.
Cars were queuing at both entrances and it was crowded. On that walk I made a variety of little observations. The proclivity of people passing one another the wrong way on the pavement. Is it not logical that when walking along the sidewalk of a major high street (even one with traffic reduced to 20 miles per hour) one passes with the person facing the traffic taking the outside of the pavement, as only they can see potential danger from a large vehicle progressing closer than usual to the kerb, or about to encounter a puddle that might splash up? Yet so many not only declined to take this obvious and immediate course but actually looked affronted that I persisted on the inside of the pavement, as my back was to the oncoming traffic. A small observation of how irresponsible parents so recklessly risk their children's lives, as that major fool on one paper's front page was shown nearly being swept out to sea with his son, due to walking deliberately too close to the heaving waters. The attitude in the microcosm being translated to the macrosom.
My path encountered a Waitrose trolley out of position on the footpath. Clearly someone had been collected by taxi and rather than return the trolley to an appropriate space had just left it there with a casual "Sod the rest of you" attitude. [They would doubtless counter they were paying for the taxi and it would have cost them money to put the trolley away. There is however a taxi stand with a seat in Waitrose's car park, by their main door with a free phone to call. They would counter argue that there can be a queue to get out which can further add to their bill. I will come back to that point.]
I collected the trolley, which was larger than I needed, so placed it in its appropriate rack to collect the size I wanted... which I found right there, having been parked in the wrong place.
I swapped trolleys and proceeded.
On emerging, I found a taxi trying to get into the exit queue. There are inevitable delays, when very busy, caused by people reversing out of their spaces. Would it take as long to reverse into them, so that driving out was simpler, reducing the delays? There is a fast exit (if you have had your ticket punched to allow free parking with a shopping bill) but the delay here, which was the cause of the whole pile up, was that someone had chosen to drive in the opposite direction to the one-way system, because they could not be bothered to follow round the car park and tag on to the end of the queue. Consequently, they were approaching the fast exit from the wrong direction and not only had difficulty in negotiating the turn but required three attempts at it, in order to line up their vehicle close enough to the post to allow them to insert their ticket. Not only had they queue jumped but they had taken the time for four cars to have exited who had approached the exit in the correct manner, enabling easy insertion of their ticket and immediate driving away. Doubtless, this is a regular occurrence, which is why the person had left the trolley I first encountered when mounting their taxi in the wrong area.
In this little one hour shop I encountered incident after incident of a "Sod the lot of you" attitude, indicating a "Me, me, me, all the way..." and we have not yet reached Twelfth Night!
THURSDAY 2nd JANUARY 2014
REDEMP TION
Prompted out of sequence by a web petition that following Turin's pardoning, all persons criminalised for being gay should be pardoned, I have pointed out that the anti-gay legislation was only ever against men, despite its original intention of including lesbianism. This was because Queen Victoria loved sex and could not understand how women could possibly do without men and therefore believed women "wouldn't do such things", so the Bill had to be rephrased so that she would agree to signing it.
Harping back to my article yesterday, it would seem reasonable to argue with Eliot that if all time is eternally present, then all time IS redeemable, since the ever-lasting raison d'être of Christianity is compassion and forgiveness: the sole purpose of Christ's birth and crucifixion. Yet time is the essence. For only in time and through time can the necessary awareness and penitence evolve, to arrive at a true state of contrition, to justify compassion, forgiveness and absolution.
It is my perception there is a sea-change in the stirrings of the eternal wind that flutters the crisp pages of crackly dried tomes, to re-awaken ideas that have always been amongst us but whose true meaning was lost through misinterpretations. Misinterpretations driven, sometimes by accident, sometimes by self-interested manipulation, of the fads and fashions of the times through which these original concepts were transported to our present day.
As
I wrote yesterday, it is possible to enter different time frames across the world, depending upon where you are and in whose society you are: you can connect with all the diversities of the last two thousand years of civilisation, all playing out their roles in their own time frames, yet all an inherent part of this Time of Our lord, two thousand and fourteen. Even the United Kingdom is highlighted as being tribal, with the debates in Ireland and Scotland; aspects of its relationship with Europe. Europe itself is confused about personal freedom; uniformity across natural diversity and undermining itself by contradicting its equality of gender, in preference to male domination of women in certain cultures. Are we in the dawn of that "time of times" when all things will be reconciled and all things known? Could compassion and a desire to agree to differ finally evolve so that the practical and spiritual worlds live in harmony?
WEDNESDAY 1st JANUARY 2014
WORLDLY SENSE FROM A SPIRITUAL ENTITY
The Archbishop of Canterbury's New Year's chat on the BBC showed there is no conflict between spiritual values and the reality of the modern world AS IT IS, not as so many religionists' pontifications credit it as being—an interpretation of their own mind sets, divorced from any concept of fact. Now that the church, under Justin Welby's management, has finally got itself sorted out about women holding any meaningful position within the church, the Church of England has great potential ahead, to be really relevant in a fast changing world.
There is no question that England once more holds the prime position of example in the Christian world. Rome may at last have a pope who has some idea at least as to what he is supposed to be doing and where he should be guiding the church but the witless incumbency of the Vatican will see him out, in his natural time or by their shortening it, before he gets anywhere close to having women cardinals; and making his endeavours remotely meaningful to God's Creation as He created it, not as so many of His supposed churchmen have been determined to interpret it for far too long.
The church of Rome, centred on discipline, has itself been so indisciplined in interpreting His reality, His patience remains a shining clear example to all of us in the way we should regard others, in their determination, or perhaps fear, of leaving ingrained traditions steadfastly rooted, in defiance of the obvious need for their replacement, to meet His Creation's requirements through the natural evolution He constructed.
The practicality of the message is clear, in the meetings in Northern Ireland. In that place, we have been no different than the claimants of Islam in their wilful self-indulgent murders; cavalier disregard for law and order and any morally rational sense of personal accountability, other than to rage the arrogance of their individualist interpretations of how things should be and with whom.
We may be called nations but that is only on the count of numbers. In reality, we are as simplistically tribal as the Middle East and Africa. The EU was supposed to bring unity, yet undermined its own intentions by allowing any irrational excuse called 'religion' to counter its universal appeal of gender equality. Yet, in pursuit of uniformity, the EU over-rides the diversity of the historical and cultural values across the countries that make Europe, giving Europe its richness and greatness. Flexibility, adaptability, malleability are all anathema to tribal cultures: the same qualities essential to interpreting the world of continual change that is our reality, regardless as to how our world was factually started.
May be it is 'that time of year' but being 'that time of year' remains the best time
to review religious beliefs in their meaningfulness with factual reality. We are all the children of one God, so why not follow Mandela's example in forgiveness, compassion? He was a God believer but also a tribal man, highlighting that ancestral spirits are an inherent part of man's culture from the earliest evolutionary times.
Remove God from the equation and sociological evolution has shown the inherent desire to work together but also to war. Cold, unemotional objectivity of psychology and sociology run exact parallels with concepts of God. They are all matters of egocentric power manipulation. In the practical world, co-operation is an essential reality: without it, most of society would die off within a few years. In the spiritual world the diversity of opinion on the nature of God is entirely irrelevant. One first must come to an understanding that spirit exists at all. If one accepts that it does, then one is exploring the nature of spirit through quiet contemplation and the way one chooses to live one's life. There is no need to leave that quietude and take up arms other than damn fool stupidity or enforcement for basic self-preservation, or rational precautions against such threats.
in the same way, dismiss God concepts and practical reality tells us we are consuming the exhaustible, living our lives recklessly and cannot go on expanding our demands beyond our planet's ability to provide. Economies develop, awareness grows and the contented few find themselves outnumbered by the many who, in practical terms, we rich have enslaved and as Biblical history shows, slaves will rebel. The realities of each version of the collective whole: spiritual and factual are not only compatible but paralleled and intertwined. Each demands a harmony of agreeing to be different while rationally accepting the reality of working together: simply, agreeing to differ but getting on with living.
Guided by the realities of practical leadership, as Welby appears intent on providing, religion, especially Protestant Christianity, is relevant to modern living in providing an essential moral framework that adds authority to the practicalities of the secular power base.
However, religion is not a 'be all and end all' but mere guidance to life's realities as Catholic Ireland is demonstrating by at last clarifying its laws on abortion. That doctors would wilfully murder a mother (and I use my language deliberately) rather than abort a foetus which they knew would not live because of adherence to religious codswallop that secular authority had the stupidity to heed, is a clear example of the irrationality and evil that dedicated religionists will inflict. In many such similar situations secular authority over-rides religious presumptions... and religion too easily does presume too much.
This is the value of Protestant Christianity. It is not a culture-based religion, arguably it is not a religion, it is a way of life, the way of Christ's life; the rendering of service to the collective whole. How can even the blindest of the rich be comfortable with their riches in the knowledge of so many, physically, biologically, secularly, no different from them but needing so much? Only evil can allow this to happen.
Does the word 'evil' separate religion from the secular world? Assuming one accepts the 'secular' world as being the collective whole of humanity, by what 'moral' basis would one not say there are different percentages of worth within that collective whole and of that 'worth' there is good/bad; relevant/irrelevant; essential/nonessential; of use/of uselessness; of ability/inability; willing/unwilling; adherents/opposers; powerful/feeble; intellectual/manual; responsible/irresponsible; natural/nurtured? What drives such a society: physically powerful or the intellectually astute? What drives the desire to improve and by what classification does one measure improvement?
At the opening of this new year all of humanity is before us. In Four Quartets Eliot expressed the sentiment: "Time present and time past/ Are both perhaps present in time future,/ And time future contained in time past./ If all time is eternally present/ All time is unredeemable.
Without plunging into deep analysis, Eliot is essentially writing about redemption. As I implied at the outset, however sophisticated our society, we remain tribal. Why else the politics of Northern Ireland (and I think we can more or less dispense with the religious excuse, one advantage of advancing secularist attitudes). Why else the consideration for Scotland to break away from the United Kingdom? Why is the UK arguing against the EU? In my case I consider it is rational. As the greatest of all the most recent European empires, the British have learned much. Why then dispense with the experience we have learned in preference for a second-rate also-ran state of affairs? It is not rational. The EU undermines itself on one basic principle: allows asinine religious/cultural concepts to counter the fundamental basis or moral integrity: gender equality. That alone makes EU irrational and irrelevant. That is caused by the stupidity of bringing in politics to what rationally needs to be only an economic relationship, as had once been achieved.
Back to Eliot and redemption. Although the UK's law and moral values are steeped in precedence and Christian influence, redemption is an integral part of secular authority's law and order, crime and punishment. Why then should spiritual and secular redemption not be entwined? Is not their intention geared to the same outcome and conclusion? All of civilisation's history shares this new year time frame: tribalism/universalism; aggression/humility; caring/carelessness; loving/indifference; self-interest/magnanimity; sacrifice/self-indulgence; tolerance/intolerance; suffering/caring; economy/wastefulness... .
While many aspects of Christian belief have understood the need to move with the evolution of His Creation, rather than steadfastly adhere to outdated understandings of past known and now irrelevant facts, The Church of England's decision to grow up and regain relevance in the world is most important. It melds moral authority with the authority of rational secularism. As a country, the United Kingdom can once more speak on moral values in a manner that speaks sense; contains reason through rationality; and is once more meaningful to society and the world it inhabits. Now lets get on with the job.
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