Peter Hitchens: I’d dispute the use of the word ‘libertarian’. No liberation is taking place. [...] All the enslavements of modern society, which offers nothing but work and money as we dwell in hutches amid an undifferentiated landscape of concrete, plastic and neon, are presented to their victims as liberation. Amidst all this, that is why drugs and drink may come to look like liberation too.
http://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-laura-perrins-interview-peter-hitchens-on-why-it-is-time-to-emigrate/
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Thursday, March 10, 2016
Monday, March 07, 2016
Child labour in the Potteries
Sometimes even old cups and saucers have a slice of social history to relate. The above cup and saucer dates from round about 1840 and although unmarked is typical of wares made by the Hilditch and Hopwood pottery at Longton. It was made in part by child labour.
In Scriven's Report on Child Labour in the pottery industry in 1840, Richard Moreton – then aged 9 and working at Hilditch and Hopwood reported.
‘I am a figure maker for William Moreton [Richard’s father], I work by the piece and can make 40 dozen (480) small figures a day: I get 1d for ten dozen, that is about two shillings [10 pence] a week.’
So little Richard Moreton did not work for Hilditch and Hopwood, but for his father William who subcontracted figure making to his 9 year old son.
The 'figures' little Richard made in such vast quantities may have been something like the lilac coloured sprig mouldings on the above cup and saucer. The sprig mouldings were made from soft coloured clay rather like Plasticine. Richard would press them out of the clay using moulds, carefully remove them, then either he or someone else would stick them to the cup or saucer with liquid clay before firing.
These are not high class items of bone china; they were intended for middle class markets to be brought out the china cabinet for genteel afternoon tea parties.
Also from Scriven's report
employments of families
13) The processes being such as to admit of the employment of whole families father, mother, and some two, three, or more children - their united earnings are sometimes £3. or £4. per week: but, proverbially improvident, and adopting the adage,- "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof", they squander the proceeds of their labour in gaudy dress, or at the skittle-ground and ale-house; so that, when overtaken by illness or other casualty, and thrown for a few days out of work, they resort to their masters for a loan, or to the parish workhouse for relief.
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Saturday, March 05, 2016
Tahiti: new biohazard laboratory opened
Friday, 4 March 2016: Tahiti News announces the opening of a new high-biosafety laboratory at the Malardé Institute in Pape'ete.(1)
This is to help deal with the increased risk of infectious diseases that have spread to and from the Pacific region, such as Chikungunya (2), Zika (3) - which was first discovered in Uganda in 1947 (4), dengue (5), H1N1 influenza (6).
An earlier article from FranceTV (7) explains that highly dangerous diseases need to be handled in very safe facilities, which up till now did not exist in French Polynesia. Previously samples would have had to be sent to other laboratories abroad, which cost precious time.
The new lab on Tahiti is equipped to NSB3 containment standard. This is not the highest category - level 4 is for very high risk pathogens such Ebola, Lassa, Marburg etc and "other agents with unknown risks of pathogenicity and transmission" (8).
The top biosafety rating includes germ warfare research facilities such as the UK's Porton Down, listed on Wikipedia (9). One obvious reason why the "space suit" level 4 isn't appropriate for Tahiti is the risk of destructive tropical storms like the Category 5 Cyclone Winston that crashed into Fiji last month, killing 43 people (10).
French Polynesia is 2,100 miles further east but is still not immune: in 2010 Cyclone Oli hit Tahiti with gusts up to 120 mph (11), and in 1997 Cyclone Osea wrecked 95% of the infrastructure of Maupiti, 200 miles NW of the main island (12). So we needn't worry about an Andromeda Strain-type (13) accidental plague weapon release: it's not that kind of operation.
___________________________________
(1) http://www.tahitinews.co/inauguration-dun-laboratoire-de-haute-securite-biologique/
(2) http://www.cdc.gov/chikungunya/geo/ - very widespread globally
(3) http://www.cdc.gov/zika/geo/ - also spreading via mosquito in Samoa and Tonga, for example
(4) https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2016/03/03/zika-connection-microcephaly-guillain-barre-hard-prove/
(5) http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/yellowbook/2016/infectious-diseases-related-to-travel/dengue - throughout S E Asia and the western Pacific
(6) http://www.gleamviz.org/2009/09/ - spread around the world by air travel in months
(7) http://la1ere.francetvinfo.fr/polynesie/tahiti/installation-d-un-laboratoire-de-haute-securite-biologique-l-institut-malarde-197064.html - dateline 9 Oct 2014, updated 25 Feb 2016
(8) http://www.labmanager.com/lab-health-and-safety/2010/12/biosafety-levels-1-2-3-4?fw1pk=2#.VtrtvX2LSt9
(9) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosafety_level#Biosafety_level_4
(10) http://fijione.tv/43-dead-after-tc-winston/
(11) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone_Oli#Tahiti_2
(13) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Andromeda_Strain
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Friday, March 04, 2016
Ancient Rome and modern Liberty
A connected set of stories from Roman history shows that freedom means nothing
without economic independence and civil rights.
Professor Mary Beard's “SPQR”[i] takes as its starting-point the failed Catiline Conspiracy in 63 B.C. Cicero, then one of the two Consuls, ordered the immediate execution without trial of a group of co-conspirators, and was hailed as Father of the Fatherland for saving the city from bloody revolution.
But this action helped him to his own downfall. On his last day in office, two of his rivals prevented him from giving the customary valedictory speech on the grounds that he himself had not allowed the accused Catalinarians to speak before condemning them. Some years later (58 B.C.) the Roman people voted to exile anyone who executed without trial and Cicero left Rome ahead of another vote specifically naming him.
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Professor Mary Beard's “SPQR”[i] takes as its starting-point the failed Catiline Conspiracy in 63 B.C. Cicero, then one of the two Consuls, ordered the immediate execution without trial of a group of co-conspirators, and was hailed as Father of the Fatherland for saving the city from bloody revolution.
But this action helped him to his own downfall. On his last day in office, two of his rivals prevented him from giving the customary valedictory speech on the grounds that he himself had not allowed the accused Catalinarians to speak before condemning them. Some years later (58 B.C.) the Roman people voted to exile anyone who executed without trial and Cicero left Rome ahead of another vote specifically naming him.
When he came back, he found that his house had been razed to the
ground and a temple to Liberty meaningfully set up in its place, blocking a rebuild:
“By building and consecrating the temple on the former house of
then-exiled Cicero, Clodius ensured that the land was legally uninhabitable.
Upon his return, Cicero successfully argued that the consecration was invalid
and thus managed to reclaim the land and destroy the temple.”[ii]
The politics then was as murky as now: Cicero had accused Clodius
of being involved in the conspiracy, even though the latter had sided with him
during the crisis; and a thirty-something Julius Caesar had suggested the
unusual step of imprisoning the suspected rebels instead of killing them - was
this a matter of legal principle, or a ploy to keep alive secret allies?
Cicero died in 43 B.C. at the behest of someone else he came to oppose, Mark Antony, and his head and hands were set up in the Forum as another visual political statement.
But when and why was “Libertas” made a goddess?
Her first temple in Rome was built long before, in 238 B.C.[iii] – not the “Iuppiter Libertas”[iv] of which the Emperor Augustus boasted[v], but instead (it is said[vi]) by Tiberius Gracchus. The “tiny”[vii] edifice stood somewhere on the Aventine Hill by the River Tiber, perhaps next to the temple of Juno Queen (and near those of Flora, Ceres and the Moon)[viii], as shown in the images below (please ignore the yellow indicator on the latter):
Cicero died in 43 B.C. at the behest of someone else he came to oppose, Mark Antony, and his head and hands were set up in the Forum as another visual political statement.
But when and why was “Libertas” made a goddess?
Her first temple in Rome was built long before, in 238 B.C.[iii] – not the “Iuppiter Libertas”[iv] of which the Emperor Augustus boasted[v], but instead (it is said[vi]) by Tiberius Gracchus. The “tiny”[vii] edifice stood somewhere on the Aventine Hill by the River Tiber, perhaps next to the temple of Juno Queen (and near those of Flora, Ceres and the Moon)[viii], as shown in the images below (please ignore the yellow indicator on the latter):
 |
| Temple of Juno (large); Temple of Libertas said to be nearby Image: http://www.maquettes-historiques.net/page18aa7.html |
 |
| Map, showing temples in the neighbourhood http://www.rome.wiebekoo.nl/ROMA%20ANTICA/Muren%20van%20Rome/images/portaTrigemina02.jpg |
 |
Roman coin, said to be of "Jupiter and Libertas" - possibly not the first temple Image: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/356699232963738814/ |
This building, too, had a point. Tiberius Gracchus
had given Italian agricultural labourers rights to land and hence an
entitlement to military service. He was hated by the rich land owners, who saw
the reforms as a threat to their wealth and power and as undermining their use
of slave labour on their estates. On the other hand he was understandably very
popular with the plebs, and the Liberty temple nailed his colours to the mast.
He, too, was killed:
“The senate failed in an attempt to bar him from
standing again, but a group of enraged senators, led by his hostile cousin
Scipio Nasica, charged into an election rally of Tiberius', broke it up and,
alas, clubbed him to death.”(ix)
Perhaps “enraged” is not the right word here: it sounds like a sort of mitigation on the grounds of passion. A better term should be found for the coldly organised violence of plutocrats.
Professor Beard says that Rome’s history is relevant to us today, and surely it is. A powerful elite outsourcing work to cheaper labour , depriving their fellow citizens of access to the means of production and so eating away at their personal independence; the leader of the moment using public panic to ride roughshod over the due process of law; belated calls for the former “saviour of the nation” to be held to account, but coming from political enemies who may have their own shadowy agendas; show-democracy giving way to a succession of tyrants.
Perhaps “enraged” is not the right word here: it sounds like a sort of mitigation on the grounds of passion. A better term should be found for the coldly organised violence of plutocrats.
Professor Beard says that Rome’s history is relevant to us today, and surely it is. A powerful elite outsourcing work to cheaper labour , depriving their fellow citizens of access to the means of production and so eating away at their personal independence; the leader of the moment using public panic to ride roughshod over the due process of law; belated calls for the former “saviour of the nation” to be held to account, but coming from political enemies who may have their own shadowy agendas; show-democracy giving way to a succession of tyrants.
“Nihil sub sole novum”: there is nothing new under
the sun.
CODA:
There is another resemblance between Catiline and Tiberius Gracchus: both enlisted the support of peasant farmers:
CODA:
There is another resemblance between Catiline and Tiberius Gracchus: both enlisted the support of peasant farmers:
"Promoting his policy of debt relief, Catiline initially also rallied many of the poor to his banner along with a large portion of Sulla’s veterans. Debt had never been greater than in 63 BC since the previous decades of war had led to an era of economic downturn across the Italian countryside. Numerous plebeian farmers lost their farms and were forced to move to the city, where they swelled the numbers of the urban poor. Sulla's veterans were in bad economic straits as well. Desiring to regain their fortunes, they were prepared to march to war under the banner of the "next" Sulla. Thus, many of the plebs eagerly flocked to Catiline and supported him in the hope of the absolution of their debts."
Debt, recession, discontent among the lower orders, populist politicians, reactionary fat-cats backed by the Establishment, calls for debt relief... Very modern.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Catilinarian_conspiracy
Debt, recession, discontent among the lower orders, populist politicians, reactionary fat-cats backed by the Establishment, calls for debt relief... Very modern.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Catilinarian_conspiracy
[i] “SPQR:
A history of Ancient Rome”, Profile Books (2016)
[ii] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertas
[iii] http://www.britannica.com/topic/Libertas-Roman-religion
[iv] http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Places/Europe/Italy/Lazio/Roma/Rome/_Texts/PLATOP*/Jupiter_Libertas.html
[v] http://www.loebclassics.com/view/augustus-res_gestae/1924/pb_LCL152.375.xml
[vi] See
note [ii]
[vii] http://www.maquettes-historiques.net/P18A.html
[viii]
http://www.rome.wiebekoo.nl/ROMA%20ANTICA/Muren%20van%20Rome/images/portaTrigemina02.jpg
[ix] http://www.roman-empire.net/republic/tib-gracchus.html
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Railway News
JD writes:
Have you heard of the EU's Fourth Railway Package?
http://www.euractiv.com/
If you search Google News for "EU's Fourth Railway Package" the first item on the list is from The Morning Star -
In the 20 years since John Major privatised our industry — a privatisation, incidentally, which even Margaret Thatcher described as “a privatisation too far” — we have seen rolling stock get older, trains get more crowded and fares go through the roof. We now have the highest fares in Western Europe, because of privatisation.
But the European Commission is determined to impose this flawed model on the rest of Europe. And, if it succeeds, it will prevent us from ever bringing the railways back into public ownership.
https://www.morningstaronline.
It is one of the reasons why the rail union ASLEF is backing Brexit.
I know from experience that Germany, France and Spain have very good and very cheap State run rail services.The EU wants to privatise all of Europe's railways. Well, why not. It has worked so well in the UK :)
As our pragmatically minded American cousins are fond of saying "if it ain't broke, don't fix it!"
The EU leaders are insane, but we knew that anyway! :)
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All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.
Have you heard of the EU's Fourth Railway Package?
http://www.euractiv.com/
If you search Google News for "EU's Fourth Railway Package" the first item on the list is from The Morning Star -
In the 20 years since John Major privatised our industry — a privatisation, incidentally, which even Margaret Thatcher described as “a privatisation too far” — we have seen rolling stock get older, trains get more crowded and fares go through the roof. We now have the highest fares in Western Europe, because of privatisation.
But the European Commission is determined to impose this flawed model on the rest of Europe. And, if it succeeds, it will prevent us from ever bringing the railways back into public ownership.
https://www.morningstaronline.
It is one of the reasons why the rail union ASLEF is backing Brexit.
I know from experience that Germany, France and Spain have very good and very cheap State run rail services.The EU wants to privatise all of Europe's railways. Well, why not. It has worked so well in the UK :)
As our pragmatically minded American cousins are fond of saying "if it ain't broke, don't fix it!"
The EU leaders are insane, but we knew that anyway! :)
READER: PLEASE CLICK THE REACTION BELOW - THANKS!
All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.
Tuesday, March 01, 2016
Justice for the Chagos Islanders
 |
| Pic source: Google |
Guardian newspaper, 1 Feb 2016
Daily Mirror, 27 Feb 2016
Craig Murray, 1 March 2016
Wikipedia on the dirty "green" trick to keep the ousted islanders off their homeland:
"According to Wikileaks CableGate documents,[26] the UK proposed in 2009 that the BIOT become a "marine reserve". The summary paragraph of the referenced diplomatic cable follows:
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Sunday, February 28, 2016
Orwell's "Keep The Aspidistra Flying"
I've just finished it. It's very real, and you're wrung by the wretchedness of the lower-middle-class challenge to cling on to respectability by one's fingernails, and the hero's equally desperate attempt to hold to his socialist principles and manly independence. He wants, as my friend said, to be a Renaissance man, without enjoying the Renaissance man's income; and when his contradictions are broken by Life - literally, as his girlfriend has fallen pregnant - it comes as a relief: "He was thirty and he had grey in his hair, yet he had a queer feeling that he had only just grown up."
A Guardian review from 2003 says: "Orwell refused to allow either Keep the Aspidistra Flying or his first novel, the considerably weaker A Clergyman's Daughter, to be reprinted in his lifetime. His dislike of his early novels arose from his incredibly strong sense that he would always be a literary failure, which enabled him to empathise so strongly with his creations like Comstock."
That haunting self-distrust and obstinacy; was it like that for J K Rowling, fighting her dementors while writing her novel in the Elephant House tea shop?
"If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’"
- said Kipling, to whom Orwell the Empire-hater was nevertheless fair, for disillusioned though he was, Orwell always remained decent - that virtue sneered at by social superiors, the powerful and the politically subversive. Not for him the outright moral criminality of Donleavy's postwar Ginger Man.
Nor ironic, Genet-boosting existentialist, he; surely he would have resigned rather than step into the shoes of a deported Jewish professor, which is what Sartre did; and he really did shoot at Fascists, rather than fantasize about it in a philosophical-fiction tetralogy.
Orwell kept steering by his star. He remained authentic.
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All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.
A Guardian review from 2003 says: "Orwell refused to allow either Keep the Aspidistra Flying or his first novel, the considerably weaker A Clergyman's Daughter, to be reprinted in his lifetime. His dislike of his early novels arose from his incredibly strong sense that he would always be a literary failure, which enabled him to empathise so strongly with his creations like Comstock."
That haunting self-distrust and obstinacy; was it like that for J K Rowling, fighting her dementors while writing her novel in the Elephant House tea shop?
"If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’"
- said Kipling, to whom Orwell the Empire-hater was nevertheless fair, for disillusioned though he was, Orwell always remained decent - that virtue sneered at by social superiors, the powerful and the politically subversive. Not for him the outright moral criminality of Donleavy's postwar Ginger Man.
Nor ironic, Genet-boosting existentialist, he; surely he would have resigned rather than step into the shoes of a deported Jewish professor, which is what Sartre did; and he really did shoot at Fascists, rather than fantasize about it in a philosophical-fiction tetralogy.
Orwell kept steering by his star. He remained authentic.
READER: PLEASE CLICK THE REACTION BELOW - THANKS!
All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.
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