Category Archives: Current Events

Iraq War Propaganda Rubs Brit Teachers Wrong

Leave a reply


The Independent has a cover story today about a Ministry of Defence curriculum being fed to the British schools which has the teachers union up in arms (so to speak). It is what the union reads as a revisionist history of the Iraq war. Here is an excerpt from their story:

At the heart of the union’s concern is a lesson plan commissioned by an organisation called Kids Connections for the Ministry of Defence aimed at stimulating classroom debate about the Iraq war.

In a “Students’ Worksheet” which accompanies the lesson plan, it stresses the “reconstruction” of Iraq, noting that 5,000 schools and 20 hospitals have been rebuilt. But there is no mention of civilian casualties.

In the “Teacher Notes” section, it talks about how the “invasion was necessary to allow the opportunity to remove Saddam Hussein” but it fails to mention the lack of United Nations backing for the war. The notes also use the American spelling of “program”.
Iraq: teachers told to rewrite history – Education News, Education – Independent.co.uk

That last sentence has Pawn wondering if someone in the American administration had a hand in this little propaganda campaign.

London Journal – Day 27 – Sunday In The Park

Leave a reply

Lucas Cranach the Elder, Venus, 1532My last Sunday in London and I decided to spend it seeing some more art, some more crowds, some more parks and some more theatre.  First, the art.  The Royal Academy has two blockbuster shows on right now, From Russia, great works from Russian collections, and  Cranach, a medieval artist.

The image above was used in the RA promotions for the event, and generated quite the storm of press when Transport for London initially refused to allow its use in tube stations, bus stands, etc.  The public reaction was so universally against TfL that they ultimately relented and this image has joined the ranks of so many others to be vandalised on a regular basis by passengers.

I knew that these shows were already largely sold out, and that very long lines of people turned out for the limited number of same-day tickets which went for sale early each day.  So, like with so many other cultural attractions I passed on those exhibitions.  Call me a heathen, but to stand on line for an hour in the hope of getting a ticket only to then try to admire artwork from a thicket of fellow art lovers.  No thank you.  I opted instead to enjoy the permanent collection exhibits which occupied the rest of the galleries.  Many fewer people to contend with, which heightened my enjoyment.

Next I wandered down to St. James Park to enjoy what had become a very nice day.  I had brought with me a bag of pumpkin seeds which I purchased at Tesco weeks ago, but don’t really fancy.  I thought the birds would like them, and figured that might make for some fun photos.

It is a gorgeous day in the park, and there are large crowds everywhere.  I have gotten pretty good at figuring out the language in use by a gaggle of tourists and then using the proper “pardon”, “perdon”,  “scusi” or “entschuldigung” as appropriate (having consulted the web for tips).  That comes in handy with this navigational challenge.  Almost all of these gaggles are students on tour, and they hang together tightly, sometimes ignorant or oblivious of the other users of the pavement.

I find my way to the narrow pond which bisects the park east to west and then to a properly gravelled area in which to toss my pumpkin seeds.  There are signs along the railings around the water which admonish you not to feed the wildlife, but then explaining that to do so anywhere damages the grass, so please find a gravelled area.  I start to throw the seeds, and am soon surrounded by flocks of pigeons, geese, ducks and a curious (but aloof) swan or two.  And humans.  A flock of humans wielding camera also descend upon me.  In short order the birds have had all of the pumpkin seeds and then they just follow me as I resume my walk around the pond.  I feel like the pied piper.

I trudge on through the neighbourhoods below St. James.  I found a string of roads I particularly liked.  Along the southern edge of the park is Birdcage Walk (which is a roadway, not a walking path), a short jog off of Birdcage is Old Queen Street, which turns a sharp left to Cockpit Stairs (yes, they name those as well).  I kind of liked that set.

A bunch more photos later I wandered into Pimlico station and caught a train up to Oxford Circus, and found a nice little pub to get Sunday Roast.  Football was on, FA Cup action.  The BBC got themselves in a lot of trouble for committing 14 hours out of a 24 hour period to either FA Cup soccer or 6 Nations rugby this past weekend.  You can’t win for trying.  I saw the last 20 minutes or so  of Barnsley spanking Chelsea on Saturday, and managed to see the only goal scored in the match.  It was quite the upset.  Sunday I saw Cardiff score two goals against Middlesborough in another upset.  I have watched plenty of soccer in my life, but in this one 24 hour period I think I may have witnessed more goals than in the past 45 years.  And I saw two out of three of the upsets that will lead to the first FA Cup final in 106 years to have no “Premeirship” level teams competing. (Manchester United had been unceremoniously dispensed with earlier).

Back home to clean up my photo galleries before tonight’s theatre.  You can see photos from today’s travels here

Ta!

London Journal – Day 27 – Summer Time

Leave a reply

Daylight Savings Time has kicked in in the US a few hours ago. Not here. In the UK it is called Summer Time and does not start until the end of the month. That is a good thing as tonight is forecast the worst winter storm of the entire season. Winds of up to 80mph, high seasonal tides, an extreme low pressure system, all are expected to combine with snow and “wintry mix” to make late Sunday night and early Monday morning especially miserable. I think were Summer Time to start today there would be an insurection at the sheer absurdity.

The British public have a well honed sense of the absurd. Politics here is much more fluid and constant than in the states. It is somewhat ironic, the Brits marvel at how long our campaign season is, as they have a statutory one month period from the time an election is called until the voting. However, there is a constant state of political activity here as the parties jockey for strength in local councils and such, and keenly aware that an election could be called at any time by the ruling party, the parties have an interest in constantly pandering to the electorate.

This plays out daily in the papers and wireless broadcasts (and I assume on telly as well). There are no end of daft proposals to try to appeal to the common man or specific constituencies. Most often these are bald-face in their pandering appeal, and are seen straight through by the public, who roundly criticise them on frequent radio call-in shows.

An example was a recent proposal to expand capacity on the M24 motorway in the Midlands by allowing motorists to drive on the hard shoulder, in an effort to alleviate rush hour delays. This immediately led to hilarity on the airwaves. Tony Hawks, while a guest on a popular evening radio contest quipped that given the governments proposal to expand motorway capacity in this way we should perhaps think twice about how they intend to expand runway capacity at Heathrow, another hot topic right now.

PS – Some may have noticed that I have re-numbered the past few entries. I managed to get off by one day in my numbering, and have retroactively fixed it. This has nothing to do with daylight savings or Summer Time

Update: This storm, originally forecast for Sunday, has been slipping later and later, and the tail end of it now may straggle on into Tuesday, which could scramble my travel plans.  Grrr.

Promising Signs

Leave a reply

Most attention this campaign season in the US has been focused on the race for the top of the ticket, but some down ticket races are of great import.

Last night in Illinois the 14th Congressional district, predominately to the west of Chicago,  which went vacant with the early retirement of former Republican Speaker of the House J. Dennis Hastert, was won by Democrat Bill Foster, a physicist and business man from Geneva IL.  Foster defeated James D. Oberweis, a dairy man and financier.

Combined with the Democratic primary result earlier this season in Maryland, in which left winger and Move-On darling Donna Edwards unseated long time incumbent Albert Wynn by a walloping 60/36 margin.  Voters were especially concerned about Wynn’s record of support for the Iraq war.

Progressives can look towards the fall elections with some sense of promise given these recent results.

In Haste – An Apology

Leave a reply

In a post from Prague earlier today I referred to Florida Gov. Charlie Crist as “a fatuous moron.” This was in reference to his appearance on The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer on CNN which I had earlier seen. I was wrong, and for that I apologize.

My pique had been raised by Crist’s comments about holding a do-over Democratic primary in his state. I stated in that posting that Crists’s claims of his citizens being “disenfranchised” was fatuous since the leaders of the Democratic party in Florida had willfully broken the national party’s rules by holding their primary so early.

Again, I was wrong. I had forgotten, until Penn. Gov. Ed Rendell pointed out in a later broadcast segment that the Democratic party leaders in Florida had asked for their primary to be held on Feb. 5, Super Tuesday, but that Charlie Crist and his fellow Republicans in the state legislature overruled the Dems and voted to hold the primary earlier.

Fair enough. I’m a big man. I can admit when I’m wrong, and I will hereby post a correction. Charlie Crist is not a fatuous moron. Governor Charlie Crist is a fatuous duplicitous moron.

Oh, and Wolf Blitzer, who is actually paid to talk to people about this stuff is even more of a hack than I thought for not pointing this out to the duplicitous moron while he was on air.

Back to our regularly scheduled rants.

Wolf Blitzer Is A Hack

Leave a reply

And Charlie Crist is a fatuous moron.

Okay, now that we have the supposition stated, let’s proceed to examine the facts. Late last night, 01:00 CET, CNN International ran an episode of “Situation Room” with Wolf Blitzer which started with the most audacious display of hyperbolic palaver and partisan meddling I have ever witnessed.

The topic: Should the Democratic National Committee pay for Florida to have a “do over” primary election? The sole guest: Charlie Crist, Florida’s Republican governor. Charlie Crist is a self proclaimed messianic nut job, a man who ran for governor because Christ told him he would. And, he is a Republican — what could he possibly have to say about who should pay for the Democratic nominating elections? Well, what he had to say, over and over and over, unchallenged by Mr. Blitzer, is that the “only solution” was a primary election, if the “National Democratic Party” paid the $18 million or more that would cost.

He then went on to proclaim that the issue of the “disenfranchisement” of his citizens by the “National Democratic Party” was not a “partisan” issue, that his buddy Sen. Bill Menendez (R-FL), former head of the Republican National Committee agreed with him, as did Sen. Bob Nelson (D-FL) who has egg on his face (along with Michigan’s Sen. Carl Levin) for trying to perform an end run around the clearly stated, member supported and voted on, DNC rules which stated that no state could move their primary prior to February 5th or would face the loss of seating rights for their delegations at the party’s national nominating convention.

Where do we start with the monumental idiocy of that chain of reasoning? Let’s give it a try. First off, no one is disenfranchised here. There is no franchise, no right, which anyone has lost. The citizens of Florida have no franchise in the Democratic party other than to the extent to which they may be members in good standing of that party. If their state leaders decide to break the rules of the party, clearly stated and agreed to, then they are no longer in good standing and have no rights. The only affront to the Constitution would be if Florida stripped the Democratic Party of its right of free association by meddling in how it chooses and credentials its delegates.

One big problem with the state administering partisan primary elections is that this makes people think that they are state functions. They are not, they are partisan functions. In this case a partisan function of the highest order, as we are talking about the nominating process for the head of the party. You don’t get much more partisan than that. Simply because Crist and Menendez, (R), and Levin, Nelson and Michigan Gov. Granholm (D) agree that their states should have do overs does not mean that it is no longer a partisan issue. What possible reason, for example, could Crist and Menendez have to care about this? Well, for one their state stands to gain from a huge influx of campaign spending, on the order of tens of millions of dollars. Making this last point was the only demonstration of backbone in an otherwise jellyfish like appearance by Blitzer, by the way. The other reason, the other purely partisan reason that these two distinguished partisans would care? Well, because since their party has already locked in a nominee, their membership and supporters would feel free to go and meddle in the Democratic do-over.

Oh my, the blood boils at just how ridiculous this entire display was last night!

London Journal – Day 19 – Sleeping and Dreaming

Leave a reply

I almost forgot to mention my stop at the Wellcome Collection today. Their current exhibit is Sleeping and Dreaming, and quite good. I particularly enjoyed the Traces of Sleep section. One piece, The Sleepers by Nils Klinger, is a portrait of sleep achieved by means of a super-long exposure taken by the light of a single candle while the subject slept. The room was darkened, the candle lit, and the shutter opened. Once the candle had failed, the shutter was closed. The result is a sort of time-lapse photograph of the sleeper (note: this is not the exact piece displayed in the exhibit):

The Sleeper

The rest of the collection is captivating, and well captured in The Phantom Museum, by The Brothers Quay a stop action animation featured in the Museum.

I then wandered down through Tottenham Court to get some lunch and enjoy the scenery. Of particular interest was the scene outside a Scientology office. Scientology is treated here as a dangerous cult and roundly hated. In these two pictures you can see the protesters on the east side of the road and the offices on the west. There are more bobbies here than I have seen in any one place the entire time I have been here.

London Journal – Day 19 – Please Look After This Bear

1 Reply

It has been 50 years since A Bear Called Paddington first appeared, and the BBC are celebrating this anniversary by placing 50 Paddington Bear dolls in train stations across Great Britain with a tag which reads “Please look after this bear” and asking the finder to please call a toll free number and leave a birthday message for Paddington, and telling where they found their bear.

A special presentation on BBC4 just featured these messages, along with Paddington history, interviews with the author, etc. Quite good.

It has been over 30 years since the last Paddington book came out, but a new one is due this June. In a fitting example of art imitating life, in the new book, Paddington Bear is arrested and questioned as to his immigration status.

Alarming Numbers

Leave a reply

There was a lot of national stress here in the UK this past week when it was announced that the country has used up all 86 thousand prison beds.  MPs asked the judiciary not to send so many offenders to prison, but to look to alternative sentences instead.

Meanwhile, over in the US the headline today is that with a prison population of 1.6 million souls and another 700+ thousand in local jails, 1 of every 100 adults in the population of 230 million is now incarcerated.

Given that the adult population of the UK currently stands at about 50 million (according to CIA estimates) that means their percentage is 0.17% of the adult population incarcerated, or one in 581.

What a frightening set of statistics!

London Journal – Day 16 – The Earth Moves

Leave a reply

There are reports form Greenford to Marble Arch and Abbey Road that at precisely 01:00 a quake hit Great Britain. I felt nothing here, sitting on the futon pile. I guess I have something to be happy for.

Update: The earthquake, which at a 5.2 on the Richter scale was the most powerful trembler to hit the UK in 24 years, was centred in Lincolnshire and struck at 12:56 am. I really didn’t feel a thing, as I was sitting low to the floor on a folded up futon in a lower ground floor studio. People have reported feeling their beds move, and one chap in Lincolnshire awoke to find his chimney had tumbled into his bed chamber.