Apparently 51% of Americans think of Christmas as Christian. I'm really surprised. But then away from the coastal cities America is quite an oldfashioned place and still very dominated by Christianity.
Quite simply there's nothing Christian about Christmas except the name. The date, the birth of the Son, the maiden Mother, the Star, the Magi, shepherds, angels, stable/ cave, the animals ... all of it is Pagan. So are Tree, gifts and feasting.
It's fine for Christians to share though. there's plenty for everyone.
It always amuses me the fuss every year about Christmas being "commercial."
This is the Earth quarter of the year. It's all about material survival. So we eat, drink, and are merry because very soon the death rate will peak. Some of those faces around the jolly table won't be there when Spring comes. Making a big display of how strong, vigorous, rich and well fed we are is a great way to reassure ourselves against the coming strain on our bodies.
Gift giving is also an exchange of bonds, about survival. Those we exchange gifts with now are those who we hope to call upon if things go badly wrong in the coming months.
So raise a glass. Smell the piney aroma of the Tree. Eat a treat ... and another. Let the shiny wrappings litter the floor for the cats to chase and crackle.
For tomorrow is another day.
......................
Ignore READ MORE link.
Showing posts with label History. Show all posts
Showing posts with label History. Show all posts
Thursday, 23 December 2010
Saturday, 8 May 2010
Hanged Man
Britain has (thankfully) got into a hung parliament. I have prayed for this for months. Single party rule has created the mess we're in over two parties regimes. They just cannot be trusted to do what they want alone. They will have to be curbed by cooperative working.
Now people are talking about a "moral right to govern" or pointing at a simple majority of numbers, as if Cameron Tory should form a government. Neither are allowed under constitutional law.
Brown is being vilified as he he is wrongfully "clinging on to power." But Brown is not doing anything except his duty according to the law.
My notes record what I have learned of the options.
A simple majority CANNOT be enough to govern. If it were we could have 5 or 6 parties with their numbers clustering together and the one getting 5 more than the others forming a government. Senseless.
Nor can we have a small majority such as Cameron's. The other two parties would band together and block whatever he wanted to do. Again not a runner.
Legally Cameron has no right to form a Government. A simple majority is not an overall majority, otherwise known as a parliamentary majority. That is a majority of over half the total of MPs - that is, 326.
Cameron got less than that so he has no mandate to govern, and no legal position to do so.
He can only do it under an agreement with another party.
Legally Brown has the right to form a Government right now. He doesn't have to wait while Cameron talks to Clegg. He could talk to Clegg himself right now as he has a legally superior right to govern over Cameron. Constitutional rules give him that right as the existing PM.
That's because, if no party gets an overall majority (326 MPs or more) the EXISTING Prime Minister has the right to form a government however s/he can.
That Brown has not forced the issue is very much to his credit. He can have a much needed break while Cameron tries to win Clegg over. Which is vanishingly unlikely as
a) the Tories will not permit a PR referendum.
Unless they felt confident they could rig it by heavy advertising, manipulation of the media (which they could do) they face suicide as a party if PR goes through. Under current voting rules it's twisted to give a Tory majority which they would lose forever under PR.
b) there is a vast gap between Tory and Liberal financial policy. Liberals will never accept hitting the poor and helping the rich. Their policies are the reverse which Tories will never accept either.
Also Cable wont accept less than the Chancellor's job. (Sec to the Treasury as offered by Cable is a powerless place which would simply gag him.)
Now people are talking about a "moral right to govern" or pointing at a simple majority of numbers, as if Cameron Tory should form a government. Neither are allowed under constitutional law.
Brown is being vilified as he he is wrongfully "clinging on to power." But Brown is not doing anything except his duty according to the law.
My notes record what I have learned of the options.
A simple majority CANNOT be enough to govern. If it were we could have 5 or 6 parties with their numbers clustering together and the one getting 5 more than the others forming a government. Senseless.
Nor can we have a small majority such as Cameron's. The other two parties would band together and block whatever he wanted to do. Again not a runner.
Legally Cameron has no right to form a Government. A simple majority is not an overall majority, otherwise known as a parliamentary majority. That is a majority of over half the total of MPs - that is, 326.
Cameron got less than that so he has no mandate to govern, and no legal position to do so.
He can only do it under an agreement with another party.
Legally Brown has the right to form a Government right now. He doesn't have to wait while Cameron talks to Clegg. He could talk to Clegg himself right now as he has a legally superior right to govern over Cameron. Constitutional rules give him that right as the existing PM.
That's because, if no party gets an overall majority (326 MPs or more) the EXISTING Prime Minister has the right to form a government however s/he can.
That Brown has not forced the issue is very much to his credit. He can have a much needed break while Cameron tries to win Clegg over. Which is vanishingly unlikely as
a) the Tories will not permit a PR referendum.
Unless they felt confident they could rig it by heavy advertising, manipulation of the media (which they could do) they face suicide as a party if PR goes through. Under current voting rules it's twisted to give a Tory majority which they would lose forever under PR.
b) there is a vast gap between Tory and Liberal financial policy. Liberals will never accept hitting the poor and helping the rich. Their policies are the reverse which Tories will never accept either.
Also Cable wont accept less than the Chancellor's job. (Sec to the Treasury as offered by Cable is a powerless place which would simply gag him.)
Sunday, 21 February 2010
Romeo and Juliet: Zeffirelli's passion
I adored Romeo and Juliet (Zeffirelli 1968) when I saw it all those years ago.
In fact when I watched it last night (2010) on DVD I realised I must have seen it several times as many of the scenes were so familiar. But I hadn't seen it again for at least 30 years so I came to it with fresh eyes.
When I first saw it I was young and passionately swept up in the two lovers, so beautiful, so sexual, so irresistible.
This time I still reverberated to their love, but the most powerful impact was the gangs of idle, dangerous young noblemen. They spread across the screen. They appeared very soon as the film opened, and recurred with mounting violence.
Discussing it afterwards with my husband this problem of young male violence was, we agreed, central to the purpose of the play. It was also clear to a critical eye, that the Prince was weak. For all his pomp, his curvetting about on his lordly horse, his blaring voice making threats, he does nothing effective to control the violence.
This we thought was partly because the English view of Renaissance Italy at the time was just that: violent, colourful and treacherous.
But Shakespeare was also a Tudor writer and the Tudor dynasty derived their stability from the people's deep aversion to any return to civil war, feuding or internal violence. Shakespeare was at the time of writing Romeo and Juliet, the Queen's loyal man. So his play supported the conservative view that a strong "prince" (monarch) was better than the dangers of violent division. Better Elizabeth's strength, even though it meant a near-dictatorship – secret police, torture and disappearances. The alternative was riot in the streets, and widespread bloodshed as in the Wars of the Roses.
So I do not agree with this reviewer Dennis Grunes that the theme of anti-violence is not sustained by Zeffirelli. It was to me overwhelmingly clear.
http://grunes.wordpress.com/2007/03/05/romeo-and-juliet-franco-zeffirelli-1968/#comment-5385
The review has more justice in accusing Zeffirelli of sugarcoating Romeo. Yes he is a flowerchild but I see this as the natural view in 1968, not necessarily a crass exploitation of youth culture by Zeffirelli. That WAS the icon of our times back then.
I was interested that Romeo's killing of Juliet's other suitor was excised. But the adjustment to Romeo's conflict with Thibault more than balances this out, as Romeo's savagery is quite obvious.
Like this reviewer Dennis Grunes I do not share the dominant view that Zeffirelli portrayed his youngsters as in rebellion against "the establisment" or "the system." Certainly they were horrified at the arranged marriage proposal, but Juliet before falling in love with Romeo is not averse to it in her family’s plans for her future. It is not the adults' arrangement as a custom the lovers’ reject, but simply Juliet's marriage to anyone else but Romeo.
In this they stand centrally in the tradition of Romance which opposes arranged marriage in the individual case of a heroine and hero, but not necessarily as an institution. (If an arrangement is carefully made and allows the pair to meet and be attracted, Romance would not object.)
But there is nonetheless some exploitation in the film. Lawrence Whiting has spoken on record as objecting to the dawn bed scene. I recall Olivia Hussay at the time speaking unhappily about it too which sounded to me as if Zeffirelli pushed them into it. Certainly the quick flash of Olivia's nipples seems crude and unnecessary, actually startling and distracting; as does the camera focus on Leonard's bottom. But if these items had been left out I think a scene of sexuality and nakedness, enfolded in a soft linen draped sanctuary bed, fits very well with the passionate innocence of the lovers.
As a detail I liked the Capulet parental marriage strain. It was a deft use of cinema imagery to amplify the text. It enriched the drama without overloading it with subplot.
Another detail I liked was the excellent costumes together with the actors' seeming habitual comfort in them. That is quite rare in a historical film where actors often look most uncomfortable! Olivia Hussay has mentioned that she was tightly laced and very hot in the Italian summer.
Yet another praiseworthy item was a graceful and believable interpretation of mediaeval dances. Thee whole atmosphere of the ball was well realised with very human anxiety by Lady Capulet as organiser, the excitement of the marraccas handed out etc.
The reviewer says things "just happen" such as the Friar's message arriving too slowly to tell Romeo what is going on so he will know Juliet is not really dead. But the written play, preferred by the reviewer, has a plague intervene to prevent the message arriving. I do not see how a plague is less random than a slow donkey. Both act as the accidental but natural agencies of a merciless Fate.
Mercutio curses "both your houses" - with plague and the link to what pivots the tragedy is therefore lost. It was Zeffirelli's choice to leave out any supernatural consequences but I think this works well. Mercutio's curse is a distraction and a muddling of the doom that develops from the violence of those dangerously feuding, idle young men. This is the dire warning of the play which a curse would obscure, as if the ultimate tragedy of the lovers’ death happened only because Mercutio drew down magic on them. Instead Zeffirelly leaves the purity of violence as the cause of doom.
Over all I found the key theme to be a beautification AND a strong warning against passionate impulse. Again and again the young people react without thoughtfulness, with abandon and passion.
Boys set up a fight for the hell of it then feel, significantly, horrified to see that they have caused a death. They play, and playtime turns lethal, still a theme today.
The lovers yearn together, embracing as they explicitly throw aside the danger they run if found together.
Romeo bounds off to hunt Thibault down in an excess of fury, never thinking what this might do to his chances with Juliet.
Juliet, though slightly more controlled than Romeo as she holds out for marriage, pushes him to arrange a secret marriage with no thought for how this could work out.
Later when the Friar offers her a dangerous drug she instantly reaches for it in urgent passion for an impulsive solution.
I did like the reviewer’s point very much that the Friar too is impulsively childlike. He takes almost no time to reflect: he glances at his herbs and in seconds plunges the child Juliet into a harebrained scheme. Later when it has gione wrong he runs away like a small child, wailing.
Shakespeare was perhaps plugging into the Elizabethan ideology of Catholics as no fit priestly guides.
In sum Zeffirelli offers us both the beauty of passion and its ugliness.
The film is lush, vivid with throbbing reds and golds within and luxuriant gardens without. Olivia's sweeping hair and rich curves beside Leonard's winsome body evoke the beauty of passionate sexuality. The young men fight in the streets with faces alight with excited playfulness, alive in the moment, and nothing else.
But young men die of their delight. Sso do the lovers. Agony as the price of passion is shown as a warning. The Prince, symbolic as the head/ Head of State, is weak, unable to control the passions at war in the body politic.
Nonetheless although this is all there, where Romeo and Juliet is flawed is in the absence of a rational voice to contrast a cooler point of view. The portrait of passion is too finely balanced in its light and dark, so much so that it is easy to be swept up, as I once was, in the glory of it, and even include the death scenes in that glory. They died young but lived fully is a poisonous creed. Why not live longer and live even more fully?
Shakespeare might have written within the Greek tradition that honoured restraint and self control. The Symposium, examining Love, held romantic love up to ridicule.
But if so, if passion is to be seen as the exquisitely bottled poison it can be, the play, and the much later film, needed a commentary or cautionary character to put the other point of view: that caution, sober judgement, is as necessary to the good life as waves of passion.
Living without either reduces us to being less than human.
In fact when I watched it last night (2010) on DVD I realised I must have seen it several times as many of the scenes were so familiar. But I hadn't seen it again for at least 30 years so I came to it with fresh eyes.
When I first saw it I was young and passionately swept up in the two lovers, so beautiful, so sexual, so irresistible.
This time I still reverberated to their love, but the most powerful impact was the gangs of idle, dangerous young noblemen. They spread across the screen. They appeared very soon as the film opened, and recurred with mounting violence.
Discussing it afterwards with my husband this problem of young male violence was, we agreed, central to the purpose of the play. It was also clear to a critical eye, that the Prince was weak. For all his pomp, his curvetting about on his lordly horse, his blaring voice making threats, he does nothing effective to control the violence.
This we thought was partly because the English view of Renaissance Italy at the time was just that: violent, colourful and treacherous.
But Shakespeare was also a Tudor writer and the Tudor dynasty derived their stability from the people's deep aversion to any return to civil war, feuding or internal violence. Shakespeare was at the time of writing Romeo and Juliet, the Queen's loyal man. So his play supported the conservative view that a strong "prince" (monarch) was better than the dangers of violent division. Better Elizabeth's strength, even though it meant a near-dictatorship – secret police, torture and disappearances. The alternative was riot in the streets, and widespread bloodshed as in the Wars of the Roses.
So I do not agree with this reviewer Dennis Grunes that the theme of anti-violence is not sustained by Zeffirelli. It was to me overwhelmingly clear.
http://grunes.wordpress.com/2007/03/05/romeo-and-juliet-franco-zeffirelli-1968/#comment-5385
The review has more justice in accusing Zeffirelli of sugarcoating Romeo. Yes he is a flowerchild but I see this as the natural view in 1968, not necessarily a crass exploitation of youth culture by Zeffirelli. That WAS the icon of our times back then.
I was interested that Romeo's killing of Juliet's other suitor was excised. But the adjustment to Romeo's conflict with Thibault more than balances this out, as Romeo's savagery is quite obvious.
Like this reviewer Dennis Grunes I do not share the dominant view that Zeffirelli portrayed his youngsters as in rebellion against "the establisment" or "the system." Certainly they were horrified at the arranged marriage proposal, but Juliet before falling in love with Romeo is not averse to it in her family’s plans for her future. It is not the adults' arrangement as a custom the lovers’ reject, but simply Juliet's marriage to anyone else but Romeo.
In this they stand centrally in the tradition of Romance which opposes arranged marriage in the individual case of a heroine and hero, but not necessarily as an institution. (If an arrangement is carefully made and allows the pair to meet and be attracted, Romance would not object.)
But there is nonetheless some exploitation in the film. Lawrence Whiting has spoken on record as objecting to the dawn bed scene. I recall Olivia Hussay at the time speaking unhappily about it too which sounded to me as if Zeffirelli pushed them into it. Certainly the quick flash of Olivia's nipples seems crude and unnecessary, actually startling and distracting; as does the camera focus on Leonard's bottom. But if these items had been left out I think a scene of sexuality and nakedness, enfolded in a soft linen draped sanctuary bed, fits very well with the passionate innocence of the lovers.
As a detail I liked the Capulet parental marriage strain. It was a deft use of cinema imagery to amplify the text. It enriched the drama without overloading it with subplot.
Another detail I liked was the excellent costumes together with the actors' seeming habitual comfort in them. That is quite rare in a historical film where actors often look most uncomfortable! Olivia Hussay has mentioned that she was tightly laced and very hot in the Italian summer.
Yet another praiseworthy item was a graceful and believable interpretation of mediaeval dances. Thee whole atmosphere of the ball was well realised with very human anxiety by Lady Capulet as organiser, the excitement of the marraccas handed out etc.
The reviewer says things "just happen" such as the Friar's message arriving too slowly to tell Romeo what is going on so he will know Juliet is not really dead. But the written play, preferred by the reviewer, has a plague intervene to prevent the message arriving. I do not see how a plague is less random than a slow donkey. Both act as the accidental but natural agencies of a merciless Fate.
Mercutio curses "both your houses" - with plague and the link to what pivots the tragedy is therefore lost. It was Zeffirelli's choice to leave out any supernatural consequences but I think this works well. Mercutio's curse is a distraction and a muddling of the doom that develops from the violence of those dangerously feuding, idle young men. This is the dire warning of the play which a curse would obscure, as if the ultimate tragedy of the lovers’ death happened only because Mercutio drew down magic on them. Instead Zeffirelly leaves the purity of violence as the cause of doom.
Over all I found the key theme to be a beautification AND a strong warning against passionate impulse. Again and again the young people react without thoughtfulness, with abandon and passion.
Boys set up a fight for the hell of it then feel, significantly, horrified to see that they have caused a death. They play, and playtime turns lethal, still a theme today.
The lovers yearn together, embracing as they explicitly throw aside the danger they run if found together.
Romeo bounds off to hunt Thibault down in an excess of fury, never thinking what this might do to his chances with Juliet.
Juliet, though slightly more controlled than Romeo as she holds out for marriage, pushes him to arrange a secret marriage with no thought for how this could work out.
Later when the Friar offers her a dangerous drug she instantly reaches for it in urgent passion for an impulsive solution.
I did like the reviewer’s point very much that the Friar too is impulsively childlike. He takes almost no time to reflect: he glances at his herbs and in seconds plunges the child Juliet into a harebrained scheme. Later when it has gione wrong he runs away like a small child, wailing.
Shakespeare was perhaps plugging into the Elizabethan ideology of Catholics as no fit priestly guides.
In sum Zeffirelli offers us both the beauty of passion and its ugliness.
The film is lush, vivid with throbbing reds and golds within and luxuriant gardens without. Olivia's sweeping hair and rich curves beside Leonard's winsome body evoke the beauty of passionate sexuality. The young men fight in the streets with faces alight with excited playfulness, alive in the moment, and nothing else.
But young men die of their delight. Sso do the lovers. Agony as the price of passion is shown as a warning. The Prince, symbolic as the head/ Head of State, is weak, unable to control the passions at war in the body politic.
Nonetheless although this is all there, where Romeo and Juliet is flawed is in the absence of a rational voice to contrast a cooler point of view. The portrait of passion is too finely balanced in its light and dark, so much so that it is easy to be swept up, as I once was, in the glory of it, and even include the death scenes in that glory. They died young but lived fully is a poisonous creed. Why not live longer and live even more fully?
Shakespeare might have written within the Greek tradition that honoured restraint and self control. The Symposium, examining Love, held romantic love up to ridicule.
But if so, if passion is to be seen as the exquisitely bottled poison it can be, the play, and the much later film, needed a commentary or cautionary character to put the other point of view: that caution, sober judgement, is as necessary to the good life as waves of passion.
Living without either reduces us to being less than human.
Sunday, 14 February 2010
Bronze Age shipwreck (Salcombe Devon)
A Bronze Age shipwreck has been discovered near Salcombe, Devon. It appears to have been carrying tin and copper as part of an international trading network. Dated to 900BCE this is a key archaeological discovery by the SW Maritime Archaeological Group, now being assessed at Oxford.
Fascinating - but yet again the dominant influence of sea and rivers in the shaping of early cultures is distorted. In this case we have experts saying wow! we need to recognise that people were boating around really quite early.
Doh!
From what I've read the structure of the ship is based on generalised guesswork as nothing has yet been brought up of the actual ship.
The guesswork suggests a prehistoric canoe or curragh, of lightweight wooden construction. Paddles are mentioned but not sails. But even quite a narrow boat (estimated at 40ft long and 6ft wide) would have had at least small sails. There's no way it could have crossed from France purely on musclepower: well it could have but it would have needed a lot more than 15 sailors to provide power. Why do it with wind to help?
The issue that really annoys me is how experts speak of a maritime or water based trade network as if this is such a weird idea.
Land based travel networks are an anachronism when looking at ancient or indeed early history. Until the invention of railways only properly in use about 160 yrs ago, land travel was slow, expensive and risky. Narrow lumpy tracks, with trees on each side to conceal robbers were extremely inefficient. A few empires with great effort kept roads open cutting back on undergrowth to each side. But this was in recorded history, and even then exceptional.
The travel of choice would have been water, which was fast (under sail) and in skilled hands relatively risk free.
Our whole idea of geography is skewed by modern land travel. Cultures spread along coasts and river banks, with other cultures of a very different type clustered inland. A powerful example of water based culture is the Celtic Crescent which stretches from the Hebrides across Ireland and Wales, Cornwall, north west France, around the coast of Spain and into north Africa and southern France.
In these regions we find common language roots, common legends, similar music/ instruments, and shared philosophy e.g. not representing the gods in art.
Curraghs/ coracles were tough boats and coastal peoples would have early got skilled at navigation. Start thinking of the sea and large rivers as like modern motorways and cultural boundaries start to look very different.
Fascinating - but yet again the dominant influence of sea and rivers in the shaping of early cultures is distorted. In this case we have experts saying wow! we need to recognise that people were boating around really quite early.
Doh!
From what I've read the structure of the ship is based on generalised guesswork as nothing has yet been brought up of the actual ship.
The guesswork suggests a prehistoric canoe or curragh, of lightweight wooden construction. Paddles are mentioned but not sails. But even quite a narrow boat (estimated at 40ft long and 6ft wide) would have had at least small sails. There's no way it could have crossed from France purely on musclepower: well it could have but it would have needed a lot more than 15 sailors to provide power. Why do it with wind to help?
The issue that really annoys me is how experts speak of a maritime or water based trade network as if this is such a weird idea.
Land based travel networks are an anachronism when looking at ancient or indeed early history. Until the invention of railways only properly in use about 160 yrs ago, land travel was slow, expensive and risky. Narrow lumpy tracks, with trees on each side to conceal robbers were extremely inefficient. A few empires with great effort kept roads open cutting back on undergrowth to each side. But this was in recorded history, and even then exceptional.
The travel of choice would have been water, which was fast (under sail) and in skilled hands relatively risk free.
Our whole idea of geography is skewed by modern land travel. Cultures spread along coasts and river banks, with other cultures of a very different type clustered inland. A powerful example of water based culture is the Celtic Crescent which stretches from the Hebrides across Ireland and Wales, Cornwall, north west France, around the coast of Spain and into north Africa and southern France.
In these regions we find common language roots, common legends, similar music/ instruments, and shared philosophy e.g. not representing the gods in art.
Curraghs/ coracles were tough boats and coastal peoples would have early got skilled at navigation. Start thinking of the sea and large rivers as like modern motorways and cultural boundaries start to look very different.
Wednesday, 18 November 2009
Kipling: assessing someone in another time
It is right and proper to use the values of our own time to assess someone in another time. That is natural, and it is also essential.
However we must ALSO try to understand the person in the context of their times.
It is right and proper to use the values of our own time to assess someone in another time. That is natural, and it is also essential.
If we did not do it how could we condemn our Celtic ancestors for head hunting? child sacrifice by Aztecs? Victorian values of slave blacks and women? the beating of children in the 50s?
However we must ALSO try to understand the person in the context of their times. Is their attitude to another class or race standard in their times? Then they are just normal at that time. the exceptional person who did challenge what we now see as injustice might be particularly honoured.
But the person who did not should not be condemned. They should simply be noted as passively part of their times, on that issue.
They might be admirable on other issues. Kipling had a very independent, intelligent response to Church narrowmindedness for example.
Let's accept that we do not live in a timeless zone. People should be judged by the standards of BOTH our time, and their own.
However we must ALSO try to understand the person in the context of their times.
It is right and proper to use the values of our own time to assess someone in another time. That is natural, and it is also essential.
If we did not do it how could we condemn our Celtic ancestors for head hunting? child sacrifice by Aztecs? Victorian values of slave blacks and women? the beating of children in the 50s?
However we must ALSO try to understand the person in the context of their times. Is their attitude to another class or race standard in their times? Then they are just normal at that time. the exceptional person who did challenge what we now see as injustice might be particularly honoured.
But the person who did not should not be condemned. They should simply be noted as passively part of their times, on that issue.
They might be admirable on other issues. Kipling had a very independent, intelligent response to Church narrowmindedness for example.
Let's accept that we do not live in a timeless zone. People should be judged by the standards of BOTH our time, and their own.
Friday, 2 October 2009
Ardi our Grandmother
Ardi has emerged as the much older ancestress than Lucy of Africa.
See here.
I don't understand why (some) Christians can't hold their beliefs alongside the theory of evolution.
Nor do I see why evolution excludes the Goddess (and/or God if you prefer.)
Evolution is a theory. It's not fact. It's not "true."
It IS a good theory that holds up pretty well matching the facts we know.
It does however have some problems but then no theory is perfect.
Any theory shatters in contact with realities - they are so complex.
Goddess or God is not a matter of logic. She is a deep meaning in our lives. She is great and powerful enough to BE the force of evolution. No problem.
It's sad (to me) if people can't feel that deep meaning. Being a tiny pointless scrap of a machine universe os horrible and it certainly doesn't match my experience. The Goddess finds it a big joke!
Our latest ancestor looks beautiful. Blessed be.
[No further text ignore link to read more]
See here.
I don't understand why (some) Christians can't hold their beliefs alongside the theory of evolution.
Nor do I see why evolution excludes the Goddess (and/or God if you prefer.)
Evolution is a theory. It's not fact. It's not "true."
It IS a good theory that holds up pretty well matching the facts we know.
It does however have some problems but then no theory is perfect.
Any theory shatters in contact with realities - they are so complex.
Goddess or God is not a matter of logic. She is a deep meaning in our lives. She is great and powerful enough to BE the force of evolution. No problem.
It's sad (to me) if people can't feel that deep meaning. Being a tiny pointless scrap of a machine universe os horrible and it certainly doesn't match my experience. The Goddess finds it a big joke!
Our latest ancestor looks beautiful. Blessed be.
[No further text ignore link to read more]
Sunday, 30 August 2009
Anne, the Most Happy
No post for a while because I've been setting up "Pagan Britain" email community.
Also lots of Y Mabinogi reading: "Rhiannon" by Gruffydd arrived from the library, and "Celts and Aryans." Oh and a busy day getting Tal enrolled at college.
ANNE BOLEYN
Thoroughly enjoying the Anne Boleyn Files - one of my greatest heroines together with her daughter Bess. I hate it that Anne is usually shown as a sexy vamp, ignoring her fine mind, especially her significant religious influence, and her acute political acumen.
I am surprised though that Claire on the Anne Boleyn Files doesn't explore the overriding issue of Anne's maternity. It deserves a blog section on its own Claire. I will outline the plot here, including the staggering effect this issue had on Britain's future! and the sexual politics that contributed to Anne's downfall.
I agree with Claire that Henry wanted the impossible. He wanted the independent intellectual Anne: he absolutely adored her ability to companion his mind and soul as well as his body. But, once they MARRIED she was his WIFE and QUEEN.
This was a relatively impersonal role to play. Anne herself was not bred to be a royal wife, and she failed to adapt from high hearted mistress, to dignified queen.
It is worth noting that Anne and Henry are by no means unusual. Through the ages men with a bit going for them have yearned after the independent woman. But once won, the story shifts abruptly especially if she submits to marriage. Suddenly she is a WIFE, and she is judged very differently. What is MINE should be reassuring, supportive, not unsettling and challenging.
Many an independent couple has fallen foul of this stereotype I think.
But more than any other reason, more than making an enmity of Cromwell, more than opening up a precedent for other ambitious women (or their families) was Anne's maternity. She did not bear a living son, any more than Katherine had before her. Both women were rejected for this, although both had been greatly loved and honoured for a time.
I believe that if Anne had borne a son she could pretty easily have seen Cromwell off and other aspirant women too. Henry would have adored her not anly as his fiery companion of heart and soul and mind, but as his Madonna, Mother of the Royal Prince. This was the crux of her power, her magic, more than any other source.
Anne DID conceive a son. By birthing Elizabeth she disappointed Henry but he rallied and "forgave" her. He still came to her bed and she conceived again, this time a son. Of course they did not know that for certain, but she would have strongly assured the King of it.
What went wrong was one of those strange, almost eerie turning points of history. Henry was a strong virile man of 44. On 24 January 1536 he had a fall during a joust. He was unconscious and carried into the palace. Seeing him as if dead, and told he would die, Anne reacted with deep shock. She miscarried their boy child.
Had Henry not fallen as he did, Anne was likely to have had a healthy boy, for she had borne a healthy child before.
The tragic incident also changed Henry forever. From being active and manly he was forced to live as a semi-invalid for the rest of his life. Any active older man finds this tough, but this was a man used to getting his own way, a powerful King. His body was broken, a failure – and so was hers.
He became increasingly tyrannical, partly to demonstrate his power still, but quite possibly because he had suffered a brain injury in the fall.
This was no longer the tender lover, the jovial friend, Anne and others had known. Henry became spiteful, a petty bully, and unlovable. A proud woman such as Anne would have found him hard to bear in his unpredictable rages and self pity.
Whether or not his brain was damaged, and this does seem likely, we do know that Henry lived with a wound in his leg that would not heal, and caused him frequent pain. A persistent hurt that will not improve drains energy and optimism; and this pampered prince had little experience of coping with lengthy or permanent physical limitation.
Anne had loss to bear, but a miscarriage for her was not the end of the world - for her on her own. She could look to try again. But the king was older, and he had gone through all this before with Catherine, dead baby after dead baby after dead baby over two decades.
For Henry his tragedy in 1536 was immense. He had lost his manhood in two huge ways.
His baby son gone, the hope of England reduced to a bloody flux. We know he was a tender father to all his children, so this was not only his fear and loss as a sovereign. No doubt he felt the death of the little boy too. But more than anything he had failed his dynasty, failed his colossal father, the shrewd conqueror Henry VII.
It was still part of being a sacred king that he should be "fit", whole, healthy and fertile. Henry was none of that now. In ancient times he would have been sacrificed, or forced into exile for a king must be a perfect specimen.
Possibly Henry was always at heart insecure. Brought up as the younger indulged brother to Arthur the serious Prince groomed to rule, Henry had not expected, nor been expected, to become a King. His childhood was to be treated as less important, a playboy.
Brother Arthur’s death as a young man thrust Henry unprepared into the direct royal lineage. Significantly he was the one who insisted on being Your Majesty, to reinforce on his grandeur. His great father had never needed that. But now His Majesty was failing – yet again – at this most sensitive and intimate task: to provide a son for his realm. What the meanest peasant or potboy could do, he could not. (He had had illegitimate sons, but that meant little.)
Secondly his own personal strength had gone too. His world had closed down, shrunk to an indoor, limited, observer life, seeing other men hunting and jousting and dancing - the things he had so loved and so excelled. To sit about, to hobble with a stick, when once he leaped ran and rode - this was bitterly cruel. He did not help himself by overeating for comfort, becoming bulky, putting yet more strain on his leg. Henry did not face old age gracefully.
His double loss, with the horror and frustration of long years behind him with Catherine's many dead babies, the prospect of yet more of the same misery with Anne, plus the agony of his unhealed leg wound, pain in his head, and raging emotions out of control; Henry was in a bad way. Certainly he was in no state to rise up smiling, comfort his Lady Anne, bounce into bed and try again. Her comparative youth and health would also be hard to bear as a contrast to his weakness.
In the grip of great loss, depression and fear, many people even today consider whether they are “cursed”, jinxed, dogged with “bad luck.” It is so much easier to think that some outside target for our pain and anger is to blame, instead of a huge daunting complex of events we cannot control.
If we are cursed then we can get the curse lifted, and regain control. But to solve a complex situation of misfortune requires long gruelling effort and courage to work through. Even then there is no guarantee of success.
No wonder the market for protection magic, removing curses, is as brisk as it ever was. Henry did not live in an age of science with technology all about him as its result. That age was just beginning, still on a shaky basis. He was surrounded by priests, prayers – and he lived with suppressed fear that his great rebellion against the Pope had set off divine retribution. The God of the Bible had after all always targeted sons: Abraham's Isaac, the Egyptians' first born, and his own Jesus. Henry had good reason to fear the hand of God.
But in his extremity there was a way out. The priesthood was clear that the cause of sin was always female. Had he not been tempted just as Adam had been tempted? By a beautiful women who had spoken to him of freedom, and offered it to him with her body?
Hurt, grieving, afraid, desperate for escape, the King had a sweet young girl placed upon his knee. Quiet Jane, who did not argue, who was so young, so gently healthy, so suited to motherhood.
Once a lover turns against his love, his hatred can be as intense, as deep as his love once was. It can be aggravated by the haunting of former times. Henry knew he was still vulnerable to Anne so he refused to see her, in case she reached his heart again. She had to die to cleanse him of his curse.
If Henry had not fallen, if Anne had borne her boy and he lived, there would have been no Bloody Mary, and no Elizabeth. There would have been a glorious Edwardian Age perhaps, and a very different history with no Stuart kings, no German Georges.
Perhaps there would have been no witch craze for one thing. The fear of a powerful woman might not have been invoked by a king's pained nightmare about Anne, his determined Queen and Great Whore. Nor would her mighty daughter have killed Mary Stuart, and left her son the Stuart king motherless, in terror of strong women. A world without the Malleus Maleficarum would nave been better off.
Also lots of Y Mabinogi reading: "Rhiannon" by Gruffydd arrived from the library, and "Celts and Aryans." Oh and a busy day getting Tal enrolled at college.
ANNE BOLEYN
Thoroughly enjoying the Anne Boleyn Files - one of my greatest heroines together with her daughter Bess. I hate it that Anne is usually shown as a sexy vamp, ignoring her fine mind, especially her significant religious influence, and her acute political acumen.
I am surprised though that Claire on the Anne Boleyn Files doesn't explore the overriding issue of Anne's maternity. It deserves a blog section on its own Claire. I will outline the plot here, including the staggering effect this issue had on Britain's future! and the sexual politics that contributed to Anne's downfall.
I agree with Claire that Henry wanted the impossible. He wanted the independent intellectual Anne: he absolutely adored her ability to companion his mind and soul as well as his body. But, once they MARRIED she was his WIFE and QUEEN.
This was a relatively impersonal role to play. Anne herself was not bred to be a royal wife, and she failed to adapt from high hearted mistress, to dignified queen.
It is worth noting that Anne and Henry are by no means unusual. Through the ages men with a bit going for them have yearned after the independent woman. But once won, the story shifts abruptly especially if she submits to marriage. Suddenly she is a WIFE, and she is judged very differently. What is MINE should be reassuring, supportive, not unsettling and challenging.
Many an independent couple has fallen foul of this stereotype I think.
But more than any other reason, more than making an enmity of Cromwell, more than opening up a precedent for other ambitious women (or their families) was Anne's maternity. She did not bear a living son, any more than Katherine had before her. Both women were rejected for this, although both had been greatly loved and honoured for a time.
I believe that if Anne had borne a son she could pretty easily have seen Cromwell off and other aspirant women too. Henry would have adored her not anly as his fiery companion of heart and soul and mind, but as his Madonna, Mother of the Royal Prince. This was the crux of her power, her magic, more than any other source.
Anne DID conceive a son. By birthing Elizabeth she disappointed Henry but he rallied and "forgave" her. He still came to her bed and she conceived again, this time a son. Of course they did not know that for certain, but she would have strongly assured the King of it.
What went wrong was one of those strange, almost eerie turning points of history. Henry was a strong virile man of 44. On 24 January 1536 he had a fall during a joust. He was unconscious and carried into the palace. Seeing him as if dead, and told he would die, Anne reacted with deep shock. She miscarried their boy child.
Had Henry not fallen as he did, Anne was likely to have had a healthy boy, for she had borne a healthy child before.
The tragic incident also changed Henry forever. From being active and manly he was forced to live as a semi-invalid for the rest of his life. Any active older man finds this tough, but this was a man used to getting his own way, a powerful King. His body was broken, a failure – and so was hers.
He became increasingly tyrannical, partly to demonstrate his power still, but quite possibly because he had suffered a brain injury in the fall.
This was no longer the tender lover, the jovial friend, Anne and others had known. Henry became spiteful, a petty bully, and unlovable. A proud woman such as Anne would have found him hard to bear in his unpredictable rages and self pity.
Whether or not his brain was damaged, and this does seem likely, we do know that Henry lived with a wound in his leg that would not heal, and caused him frequent pain. A persistent hurt that will not improve drains energy and optimism; and this pampered prince had little experience of coping with lengthy or permanent physical limitation.
Anne had loss to bear, but a miscarriage for her was not the end of the world - for her on her own. She could look to try again. But the king was older, and he had gone through all this before with Catherine, dead baby after dead baby after dead baby over two decades.
For Henry his tragedy in 1536 was immense. He had lost his manhood in two huge ways.
His baby son gone, the hope of England reduced to a bloody flux. We know he was a tender father to all his children, so this was not only his fear and loss as a sovereign. No doubt he felt the death of the little boy too. But more than anything he had failed his dynasty, failed his colossal father, the shrewd conqueror Henry VII.
It was still part of being a sacred king that he should be "fit", whole, healthy and fertile. Henry was none of that now. In ancient times he would have been sacrificed, or forced into exile for a king must be a perfect specimen.
Possibly Henry was always at heart insecure. Brought up as the younger indulged brother to Arthur the serious Prince groomed to rule, Henry had not expected, nor been expected, to become a King. His childhood was to be treated as less important, a playboy.
Brother Arthur’s death as a young man thrust Henry unprepared into the direct royal lineage. Significantly he was the one who insisted on being Your Majesty, to reinforce on his grandeur. His great father had never needed that. But now His Majesty was failing – yet again – at this most sensitive and intimate task: to provide a son for his realm. What the meanest peasant or potboy could do, he could not. (He had had illegitimate sons, but that meant little.)
Secondly his own personal strength had gone too. His world had closed down, shrunk to an indoor, limited, observer life, seeing other men hunting and jousting and dancing - the things he had so loved and so excelled. To sit about, to hobble with a stick, when once he leaped ran and rode - this was bitterly cruel. He did not help himself by overeating for comfort, becoming bulky, putting yet more strain on his leg. Henry did not face old age gracefully.
His double loss, with the horror and frustration of long years behind him with Catherine's many dead babies, the prospect of yet more of the same misery with Anne, plus the agony of his unhealed leg wound, pain in his head, and raging emotions out of control; Henry was in a bad way. Certainly he was in no state to rise up smiling, comfort his Lady Anne, bounce into bed and try again. Her comparative youth and health would also be hard to bear as a contrast to his weakness.
In the grip of great loss, depression and fear, many people even today consider whether they are “cursed”, jinxed, dogged with “bad luck.” It is so much easier to think that some outside target for our pain and anger is to blame, instead of a huge daunting complex of events we cannot control.
If we are cursed then we can get the curse lifted, and regain control. But to solve a complex situation of misfortune requires long gruelling effort and courage to work through. Even then there is no guarantee of success.
No wonder the market for protection magic, removing curses, is as brisk as it ever was. Henry did not live in an age of science with technology all about him as its result. That age was just beginning, still on a shaky basis. He was surrounded by priests, prayers – and he lived with suppressed fear that his great rebellion against the Pope had set off divine retribution. The God of the Bible had after all always targeted sons: Abraham's Isaac, the Egyptians' first born, and his own Jesus. Henry had good reason to fear the hand of God.
But in his extremity there was a way out. The priesthood was clear that the cause of sin was always female. Had he not been tempted just as Adam had been tempted? By a beautiful women who had spoken to him of freedom, and offered it to him with her body?
Hurt, grieving, afraid, desperate for escape, the King had a sweet young girl placed upon his knee. Quiet Jane, who did not argue, who was so young, so gently healthy, so suited to motherhood.
Once a lover turns against his love, his hatred can be as intense, as deep as his love once was. It can be aggravated by the haunting of former times. Henry knew he was still vulnerable to Anne so he refused to see her, in case she reached his heart again. She had to die to cleanse him of his curse.
If Henry had not fallen, if Anne had borne her boy and he lived, there would have been no Bloody Mary, and no Elizabeth. There would have been a glorious Edwardian Age perhaps, and a very different history with no Stuart kings, no German Georges.
Perhaps there would have been no witch craze for one thing. The fear of a powerful woman might not have been invoked by a king's pained nightmare about Anne, his determined Queen and Great Whore. Nor would her mighty daughter have killed Mary Stuart, and left her son the Stuart king motherless, in terror of strong women. A world without the Malleus Maleficarum would nave been better off.
Wednesday, 12 August 2009
Welfare scroungers
The indignation of those who want welfare mothers' money cut off, or their unnecessary children aborted, are understandable. They are also deeply ignorant of what social welfare is for. I say that without disrespect: few do know this.
Welfare is certainly in part idealistic, to ensure people and particularly children, do not starve, and do not die for lack of warmth and shelter. That is what would happen to these children if we did not pay welfare for them. It's not the feckless mother who matters, but the innocent child.
That's the idealistic part. The cold hard cash part, the much stronger reason for welfare is to consider what happens without it? Crime and riots.
You think crime is bad now? Look at history where no one could walk anywhere alone.
The middle and upper classes carried swordsticks as a matter of course; the lower clawss carried knives.
Trees had to be cut back 10ft from a road by law so robbers could not hide in them. Think of that when you pop over to visit the parents on Sundays. Travellers always went in groups for safety.
Dead bodies had to be removed daily from the gutters which had frozen to death in the night, or starved. Death by starvation is long drawn out and painful by the way.
To survive such harsh conditions the poor put their children to work at 5 or 7 years. Little kids doing dangerous dirty work. One big option was prostitution naturally.
But a lot of that didn't matter because the rich, the bankers of those days, still made their money. What really annoyed them was the damage to property if the poor rioted. Unfortunately that could mean warehouses, offices, even wealthy homes being burned down.
Another thing that made welfare attractive ws that dirty starving people get diseased, and many infectious diseases are stupidly unaware of clss differences. The beggar on the street could infect the respectable who came near them. Oh dear.
So welfare was developed to keep the poorest in moderate comfort so they wouldn't in desperation riot, burn, and otherwise damage the all important property. That welfare gradually led to a reduction in violent crime was also a positive as knifing did affect the middles and uppers, sadly. But it did work because ordinary people were able to stop carrying weapons everywhere.
If the recipients of welfare lie about stoned or drunk, so much the better. Addled heads don't organise riots and are ineffective at serious crime. There's burglary and mugging yes bit that really only affects the less well off who can't afford gated estates, chauffeurs and bodyguards. Poor things life is tough.
Given this kind of rational agenda, kieeping the very poor in a state of uneducated stupidity, drunk, drugged, messy, incapable, is all much better than having them out and about, starving and desperate causing trouble for their betters.
Baby P still might have survived this benevolent welfare state. Only the Social Workers were too busy tapping keyboards updating their reports for ContactPoint. This is a project which is now admitted to be a colossal failure. 80% of Social Workers' time was spent on feeding its machines. Not much time for looking after little boys.
Of course Social Workers are a dim lot, the dregs of the professions. Anyone who can get a real professional job wouldn't apply. But for badly educated products of state schools with few qualifications it's a well paid niche.
Once it was a not bad profession but it has gone down so badly the good older staff left years ago leaving young inexperienced (mostly) women who haven't had children and have no idea what good parenting is.
But oh how exciting to be able to bustle into people's lives, ask them lots of personal questions and write grown up reports about it! That this is done on the idea of "helping" is positively orgasmic though there is little understanding that helping = interference.
Most genuine families in need would benefit from a sensible home help to do some housework, get shopping, and teach how to do these things together with basic child discipline. Clipboards, meetings and reports are not what is required. But rolled up sleeves and washing up is a bit, well, shabby compared to toting a briefcase to meetings.
ContactPoint which drained what little intelligence and energy Social Workers had, was established following the Laming Report (after Victoria Climbie died of hunger and abuse in the bath). It's now being discontinued I believe hacving cost us billions of public money.
The word was at the time that Victoria really died because the SWs didn't want to visit her as her auhnt was scary and aggressive. So much nicer to visit nice families, who were cowed and polite, for a nice cup of tea. While Victoria died.
No doubt something similar happened to Peter, SWs eagerly investigating nice pleasant healthy families wrecking their lives with the spectre of the child stealers. While Peter died.
All right, if you still want to stop the Underclass from breeding because welfare is admittedly getting a bit expensive - about the same as spend on the military both are to protect us from violence. So let's look at how to stop ladies like Peter's mother from breeding.
Some suggest cutting benefits on the 3rd child. But that would still create a brood of 3 useless mouths and a useless mother.
So why not stop benefits after the first child?
That would cut the numbers of the Underclass in half in a generation. Neat.
All right what do we do when she has the 2nd child? Let her manage on the same money? Of course the children (both) would suffer but then they do anyway fed on junk food, TV and violence.
So perhaps we take away the second child so a deserving family can adopt it. Pretty soon we'd have shortage of adopting parents.
Never mind, China shows the way. Pregnant women are not difficult to control and can be easily taken to hospital and aborted. A little upsetting yes but so much better for everyone. Might as sterilise at the same time, so much more efficient.
Of course there will be quite a few cases of error where mothers making serious attempts to work are aborted and sterilised forcibly. But sacrifices have to be made for a sane society to exist.
After a while it becomes much tidier to collect up such mothers/ families, and put them in big compounds. Give them labout to keep them out of mischief. Dormitory accommodation is a LOT cheaper than flats and houses and catering on a mass basis much cheaper too.
In fact they don't really need money, and clothes can be issued in a plain type. As they will begin to look quite grey and different to ordinary people their guards will be rather prone to bullying them but that'll act as a deterrent for others to stay out of the Underclass.
It's a problem that their cheap labour, and their older children doing "work experience" undercuts other slightly less poor people trying to earn a living. More people end up faqlling in to the compound way of life but hey they'll be in out of the way places where WE don't have to think about them.
As for their disabled children probably best to painlessly end their sad little lives. Why prolong their useless existences? Tidy them up for heravens sake.
Now the rest of us can get on with our respectable tidy lives. We'd earn quite low wages with free State labour being used alongside us.
We'd live in terror of losing that badly paid work because that would mean ending up in the Compounds, or as some call them, camps. With forced labour, disabled kids killed off neatly, our other children candidates for adoption by the rich. Some of the camp children could be sent to war which would mop up some of their numbers.
But hey sacrifices have to be made. It would at least be a sane, rational society. The banks would make their huge profits. MPs and company directors would make their money too.
Wonderful. Hitler would be delighted.
Welfare is certainly in part idealistic, to ensure people and particularly children, do not starve, and do not die for lack of warmth and shelter. That is what would happen to these children if we did not pay welfare for them. It's not the feckless mother who matters, but the innocent child.
That's the idealistic part. The cold hard cash part, the much stronger reason for welfare is to consider what happens without it? Crime and riots.
You think crime is bad now? Look at history where no one could walk anywhere alone.
The middle and upper classes carried swordsticks as a matter of course; the lower clawss carried knives.
Trees had to be cut back 10ft from a road by law so robbers could not hide in them. Think of that when you pop over to visit the parents on Sundays. Travellers always went in groups for safety.
Dead bodies had to be removed daily from the gutters which had frozen to death in the night, or starved. Death by starvation is long drawn out and painful by the way.
To survive such harsh conditions the poor put their children to work at 5 or 7 years. Little kids doing dangerous dirty work. One big option was prostitution naturally.
But a lot of that didn't matter because the rich, the bankers of those days, still made their money. What really annoyed them was the damage to property if the poor rioted. Unfortunately that could mean warehouses, offices, even wealthy homes being burned down.
Another thing that made welfare attractive ws that dirty starving people get diseased, and many infectious diseases are stupidly unaware of clss differences. The beggar on the street could infect the respectable who came near them. Oh dear.
So welfare was developed to keep the poorest in moderate comfort so they wouldn't in desperation riot, burn, and otherwise damage the all important property. That welfare gradually led to a reduction in violent crime was also a positive as knifing did affect the middles and uppers, sadly. But it did work because ordinary people were able to stop carrying weapons everywhere.
If the recipients of welfare lie about stoned or drunk, so much the better. Addled heads don't organise riots and are ineffective at serious crime. There's burglary and mugging yes bit that really only affects the less well off who can't afford gated estates, chauffeurs and bodyguards. Poor things life is tough.
Given this kind of rational agenda, kieeping the very poor in a state of uneducated stupidity, drunk, drugged, messy, incapable, is all much better than having them out and about, starving and desperate causing trouble for their betters.
Baby P still might have survived this benevolent welfare state. Only the Social Workers were too busy tapping keyboards updating their reports for ContactPoint. This is a project which is now admitted to be a colossal failure. 80% of Social Workers' time was spent on feeding its machines. Not much time for looking after little boys.
Of course Social Workers are a dim lot, the dregs of the professions. Anyone who can get a real professional job wouldn't apply. But for badly educated products of state schools with few qualifications it's a well paid niche.
Once it was a not bad profession but it has gone down so badly the good older staff left years ago leaving young inexperienced (mostly) women who haven't had children and have no idea what good parenting is.
But oh how exciting to be able to bustle into people's lives, ask them lots of personal questions and write grown up reports about it! That this is done on the idea of "helping" is positively orgasmic though there is little understanding that helping = interference.
Most genuine families in need would benefit from a sensible home help to do some housework, get shopping, and teach how to do these things together with basic child discipline. Clipboards, meetings and reports are not what is required. But rolled up sleeves and washing up is a bit, well, shabby compared to toting a briefcase to meetings.
ContactPoint which drained what little intelligence and energy Social Workers had, was established following the Laming Report (after Victoria Climbie died of hunger and abuse in the bath). It's now being discontinued I believe hacving cost us billions of public money.
The word was at the time that Victoria really died because the SWs didn't want to visit her as her auhnt was scary and aggressive. So much nicer to visit nice families, who were cowed and polite, for a nice cup of tea. While Victoria died.
No doubt something similar happened to Peter, SWs eagerly investigating nice pleasant healthy families wrecking their lives with the spectre of the child stealers. While Peter died.
All right, if you still want to stop the Underclass from breeding because welfare is admittedly getting a bit expensive - about the same as spend on the military both are to protect us from violence. So let's look at how to stop ladies like Peter's mother from breeding.
Some suggest cutting benefits on the 3rd child. But that would still create a brood of 3 useless mouths and a useless mother.
So why not stop benefits after the first child?
That would cut the numbers of the Underclass in half in a generation. Neat.
All right what do we do when she has the 2nd child? Let her manage on the same money? Of course the children (both) would suffer but then they do anyway fed on junk food, TV and violence.
So perhaps we take away the second child so a deserving family can adopt it. Pretty soon we'd have shortage of adopting parents.
Never mind, China shows the way. Pregnant women are not difficult to control and can be easily taken to hospital and aborted. A little upsetting yes but so much better for everyone. Might as sterilise at the same time, so much more efficient.
Of course there will be quite a few cases of error where mothers making serious attempts to work are aborted and sterilised forcibly. But sacrifices have to be made for a sane society to exist.
After a while it becomes much tidier to collect up such mothers/ families, and put them in big compounds. Give them labout to keep them out of mischief. Dormitory accommodation is a LOT cheaper than flats and houses and catering on a mass basis much cheaper too.
In fact they don't really need money, and clothes can be issued in a plain type. As they will begin to look quite grey and different to ordinary people their guards will be rather prone to bullying them but that'll act as a deterrent for others to stay out of the Underclass.
It's a problem that their cheap labour, and their older children doing "work experience" undercuts other slightly less poor people trying to earn a living. More people end up faqlling in to the compound way of life but hey they'll be in out of the way places where WE don't have to think about them.
As for their disabled children probably best to painlessly end their sad little lives. Why prolong their useless existences? Tidy them up for heravens sake.
Now the rest of us can get on with our respectable tidy lives. We'd earn quite low wages with free State labour being used alongside us.
We'd live in terror of losing that badly paid work because that would mean ending up in the Compounds, or as some call them, camps. With forced labour, disabled kids killed off neatly, our other children candidates for adoption by the rich. Some of the camp children could be sent to war which would mop up some of their numbers.
But hey sacrifices have to be made. It would at least be a sane, rational society. The banks would make their huge profits. MPs and company directors would make their money too.
Wonderful. Hitler would be delighted.
Sunday, 2 August 2009
Should a man pay out for almost 20 years after a quick fling?
A young woman is chasing a wealthy male star to try and make him pay for her choice to mother, because they had a quick fling.
I find this both demeaning to women's independence and dignity, and seriously unfair on men.
There is absolutely no reason why a man should be expected to "be a gentleman" after a quick fling. Why on earth should he pay out substantial money over almost two decades because of a quickie?
Women who enter into quick sex for fun should take responsibility for their own biology. We are not the same as men, so sex can have far greater consequences.
The female choice is either to refuse fast sex, and insist on commitment in order to cover the possibility of a child; or use birth control efficiently and accept the small risk of getting caught out after a fling.
If you do get caught, that comes out of your choice. No one forces you into having a fling so grow up and deal with how your body is made.
The old Celtic laws by the way covered different types of marriage, seven in fact. These ranged from the life commitment we supposedly honour today, to the serial commitments we actually have; to short term contracts either publicly known or private.
It would be far better for us to stop this quasi Christian pretence that there is only one kind of marriage. The Celts worked out a good syste. Read Hywel Dda or the Brehon Laws. All very sensible.
Sadly the forces of so-called 'family values' are fanatic about going the other way: back to bonded women, patriarchy, the sexual double standard etc.
I find this both demeaning to women's independence and dignity, and seriously unfair on men.
There is absolutely no reason why a man should be expected to "be a gentleman" after a quick fling. Why on earth should he pay out substantial money over almost two decades because of a quickie?
Women who enter into quick sex for fun should take responsibility for their own biology. We are not the same as men, so sex can have far greater consequences.
The female choice is either to refuse fast sex, and insist on commitment in order to cover the possibility of a child; or use birth control efficiently and accept the small risk of getting caught out after a fling.
If you do get caught, that comes out of your choice. No one forces you into having a fling so grow up and deal with how your body is made.
The old Celtic laws by the way covered different types of marriage, seven in fact. These ranged from the life commitment we supposedly honour today, to the serial commitments we actually have; to short term contracts either publicly known or private.
It would be far better for us to stop this quasi Christian pretence that there is only one kind of marriage. The Celts worked out a good syste. Read Hywel Dda or the Brehon Laws. All very sensible.
Sadly the forces of so-called 'family values' are fanatic about going the other way: back to bonded women, patriarchy, the sexual double standard etc.
Saturday, 18 July 2009
The Genesis Enigma
A new book claims it is astounding that biblical Genesis describes the stages of "creation" in the right order, matching the theories by modern scientists.
This isn't so surprising as it appears. It only looks it if we assume Genesis was authored by the primitive early Israelites. Those tribal brigands who invaded and massacred peaceful Canaan were indeed not great thinkers.
However many Israelites were later taken into slavery to Babylon which DID have highly sophisticated scholars, where Israelites learned some knowledge. Many of these better educated Israelites then returned to Israel under Cyrus.
The Magi and other scholars of Babylon invented geometry we still use today - 60 seconds/ minutes, angles etc. They gave us our first recorded literature as well via their own ancestral culture, the Sumerians. In fact one of those books, by Enheduanna, told of a messiah who descended to hell for 3 days to hang dead on a tree - only that messiah was female.
Much of the early books of the Israelite Bible are based on Babylonian myths - Eden, Noah, Babel. Like the Greek philosophers we know better, the Magi well knew analytic logic so the order of the origin of the universe could have been worked out.
Impressive? yes. Mystery? no.
This new book also quite clearly distorts in order to fit facts to its argument. Day 4 for example has God creating the stars and the sun and the moon. As the author admits this is a facer as Light, day and night, already exist from Day 1.
An ingenious but unlikely theory is put forward that at this point evolution developed sight - so beings could SEE the sun and moon. Apparently this sequence does fit.
But I doubt if early science (deductive logic) could go that far and the argument here sounds artificially distorted. It's arguing back from what we know now - or rather what we theorise now.
We should not forget that evolution is only a theory, not a fact. A good theory, but just a theory. It doesn't fit all the facts. It just fits a lot more than other theories do.
This isn't so surprising as it appears. It only looks it if we assume Genesis was authored by the primitive early Israelites. Those tribal brigands who invaded and massacred peaceful Canaan were indeed not great thinkers.
However many Israelites were later taken into slavery to Babylon which DID have highly sophisticated scholars, where Israelites learned some knowledge. Many of these better educated Israelites then returned to Israel under Cyrus.
The Magi and other scholars of Babylon invented geometry we still use today - 60 seconds/ minutes, angles etc. They gave us our first recorded literature as well via their own ancestral culture, the Sumerians. In fact one of those books, by Enheduanna, told of a messiah who descended to hell for 3 days to hang dead on a tree - only that messiah was female.
Much of the early books of the Israelite Bible are based on Babylonian myths - Eden, Noah, Babel. Like the Greek philosophers we know better, the Magi well knew analytic logic so the order of the origin of the universe could have been worked out.
Impressive? yes. Mystery? no.
This new book also quite clearly distorts in order to fit facts to its argument. Day 4 for example has God creating the stars and the sun and the moon. As the author admits this is a facer as Light, day and night, already exist from Day 1.
An ingenious but unlikely theory is put forward that at this point evolution developed sight - so beings could SEE the sun and moon. Apparently this sequence does fit.
But I doubt if early science (deductive logic) could go that far and the argument here sounds artificially distorted. It's arguing back from what we know now - or rather what we theorise now.
We should not forget that evolution is only a theory, not a fact. A good theory, but just a theory. It doesn't fit all the facts. It just fits a lot more than other theories do.
Sunday, 31 May 2009
Sexual age of consent
I've just been reading about Bill Wyman and 13 year old Mandy. Interesting how attitudes have changed so enormously towards younger teenagers being sexual.
Historically 13 year old wives have been quite normal and still are across most of the world. We commonly admire Shakespeare's Juliet - we don't see her as sexually abused!
But young wives or girlfriends lived in large extended families, they weren't expected to run a home on their own. Perhaps the tremendous push to split families up into tiny units of no more than 2 or 3 people nowadays has more to do with the sexual age of consent than is usually realised.
Strange really. Tiny households mean we buy a lot more goods - 2 or 3 times as many washing machines, cookers, fridges, sets of carpets, cars etc Good news for the money men - add on making those older girls work in jobs, paying a higher mortgage and taxes and the money is whizzing!
Compare China where there is no sex or marriage under 25. Is this the future?
If so it bears consideration that China's law is not about protecting the young. It's about making sure they stay hard at it at work, as well as population control.
Historically 13 year old wives have been quite normal and still are across most of the world. We commonly admire Shakespeare's Juliet - we don't see her as sexually abused!
But young wives or girlfriends lived in large extended families, they weren't expected to run a home on their own. Perhaps the tremendous push to split families up into tiny units of no more than 2 or 3 people nowadays has more to do with the sexual age of consent than is usually realised.
Strange really. Tiny households mean we buy a lot more goods - 2 or 3 times as many washing machines, cookers, fridges, sets of carpets, cars etc Good news for the money men - add on making those older girls work in jobs, paying a higher mortgage and taxes and the money is whizzing!
Compare China where there is no sex or marriage under 25. Is this the future?
If so it bears consideration that China's law is not about protecting the young. It's about making sure they stay hard at it at work, as well as population control.
Tuesday, 26 May 2009
Rhiannon
My Rhiannon research is really fizzing!
Decided to check her father in the First Branch - found his name is Hyfaidd Hen.
Looked that up and YESSS! there was a Dyfed warlord king same name. A lot of the information fits my theory of how Dyfed used the Pwyll Rhiannon myth politically.
Exciting.
Oh and I've ordered the magnificent Will Parker "The Four Branches of the Mabinogi." a bit of a gulp at £40 but it's a big detailed book. Can't wait.
Also just seen Andrew Breeze has “The Origins of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi” coming out very soon - June 2009 - and only a tenner. Great! Breeze has a theory of a female writer for Y Mabinogi. I'd agree there is much female content that is unlikely from a male author, but of course I have my own ideas as to who the lady might be - not the same as Breeze who goes for Gwenllian.
Still I only know a description of his theory, not the actual detailed argument (it's in a journal paper or a totally expensive survey he wrote on Welsh medieval literature. We shall see.
Found a wonderful cat picture in the Book of Kells but not enough info on where to locate it. It's in Nora Chadwick “Celtic Britain.” 1963.
Bubbling BRAIN.
[Ignore the READ MORE link - this is the complete post.]
Decided to check her father in the First Branch - found his name is Hyfaidd Hen.
Looked that up and YESSS! there was a Dyfed warlord king same name. A lot of the information fits my theory of how Dyfed used the Pwyll Rhiannon myth politically.
Exciting.
Oh and I've ordered the magnificent Will Parker "The Four Branches of the Mabinogi." a bit of a gulp at £40 but it's a big detailed book. Can't wait.
Also just seen Andrew Breeze has “The Origins of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi” coming out very soon - June 2009 - and only a tenner. Great! Breeze has a theory of a female writer for Y Mabinogi. I'd agree there is much female content that is unlikely from a male author, but of course I have my own ideas as to who the lady might be - not the same as Breeze who goes for Gwenllian.
Still I only know a description of his theory, not the actual detailed argument (it's in a journal paper or a totally expensive survey he wrote on Welsh medieval literature. We shall see.
Found a wonderful cat picture in the Book of Kells but not enough info on where to locate it. It's in Nora Chadwick “Celtic Britain.” 1963.
Bubbling BRAIN.
[Ignore the READ MORE link - this is the complete post.]
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