MEANWHILE AT THE BBC ...

Yesterday I was trawling round the charity shops. The haul was one map and two books. Now one of the books was a hardback in mint condition, £2.50, original price £20.00. The author is Natalie Zemon Davis, a name new to me; the title is "Trickster Travels: in search of Leo Africanus sixteenth century Muslim between two worlds".
The name Leo Africanus was recognisable, some kind of Renaissance historian. That was it. I checked the inside back cover for information on the author, "one of the most influential historians alive". Get away! And I'd ever heard of her, but I had heard of one of her works, "The Return of Martin Guerre", which I thought had been written by a French academic. Wrong, James!
Looking inside I found a work very much to my taste; 270 pages of text, 102 pages of notes, a four-page glossary of Arabic terms, and a 27 page bibliography. That's a real scholarly work. The list of acknowledgements was longer than the Litany of the Saints, so many wise heads had helped in the period of incubation and creation, so many had pored over the finished text and nodded approval. This historical work comes with a guarantee (insofar as such is possible in the reconstruction of a life lived so long ago).
One acknowledgement - more, a dedication - engaged my curiosity and led me to search for an explanation.
I quote it.

"This book is dedicated to Chandler Davis in appreciation for his innumerable discussions with me about its themes and his tireless reading of drafts, and even more in tribute to all he has done over the decades to help our earth become a place where peoples can live together in peace. Whether travelling the globe or locked in a prison cell, he has never lost faith in a future in which, greed, violence and political repression might give ground to justice, negotiation and an unhindered quest for the truth."

Amen to that. I am lost in admiration for author and dedicatee, and I'm only on page 19.

Natalie Zemon Davis

Chandler Davis

That sector of the US Stasi known as Hotmail has shut me out of my email account. I sign in and am asked to type in my codeword. I haven't got a codeword, or maybe I have. It seems that Hotmail has sent a codeword to my email account, so all I have to do is log in and learn what it is.
I wonder what overpaid cretin thought that one up.
So I go for help. It's your password I'm told. Change your password and the problem's solved. So I change my password and sign in. Type in your codeword, I'm told.
Baszom az anyát! I reply (in English, of course, but I don't wish to offend those who haven't offended me).

Before I ever had a computer or email I'd heard bad stuff about Hotmail and other Stasi linked IT outfits. I didn't choose Hotmail, a librarian set up an email account for me so I could reply to some messages passed on to me by fellow workers in dispute with their employer. Naturally he chose the best known facility, and I didn't bother to change it. To lose the account would be no great loss, except for a couple of folders of correspondence on historical and biographical subjects. Also, my grandchildren send me photographs attached to emails. Have I made copies them all?

Maybe getting out of Hotmail/NSA is no bad thing. But I'd like to salvage a few items before I bow out.

Thirty years on, the cover-up continues.

"The Panama invasion, and the overthrow and arrest and removal to the US of Panama’s elected President Manuel Noriega, is particularly instructive, as it involved protecting a strategic US overseas base — the US Canal Zone — much as Russia is protecting its naval bases in Crimea, operated under a long-term lease from Ukraine but threatened by the recent Ukrainian coup. The US, headed at the time by President George H.W. Bush, invaded Panama under the pretext of protecting Americans in that country, but the attack (which had been planned well in advance of any threats to Americans) quickly morphed into an overthrow of the Panamanian government, the arrest of its leader, and the installation of a US puppet leader."

(Counterpunch)

I note that the BBC is calling the kleptocrat Yulia Tymoshenko a "dissident". As with the gangster-kleptocrat-dissident Berezovsky, now departed from our midst.

Here's a great website, local history, 19th and 20th centuries in pictorial form (with a few notes).
I particularly like the section on the dockers, but also the one on barges and bargemen.
My old grandad was docker and a strong union man after being invalided out of the army. My old man used to unload those barges on the River Hull. We had a fine collection of docker's hooks at home when I was a kid.
Me, I did a bit of deal carrying in a timber yard - lasted a fortnight.

I should give credit to William Braquemard's blog, "Hull and Hereabouts" (listed among the links on this page), which led me to the site.

Ukraine, Venezuela, Syria, et al., et al.

(from Disclosure News Magazine)

COME TO SUNNY GAZA says the BBC hack, and it isn't satire.

"Somehow he manages not to see, as he admires the view, the Israeli gunboats that are ever present on the horizon, waiting to shoot at Gaza’s fishermen as they struggle to make a living for their families.
Nor, at any point during his visit, does he spot the Israeli warships which patrol the waters. And he fails to see or even hear the drones which constantly buzz in the skies above Gaza, causing fear and uncertainty in those below."

Amena Saleem

(photo by Sarah Hemingway)
Bloke on the right with hands in pockets. Can't even pick up a placard or banner. Looks like he's in the wrong place.

Between 60 and 70 cheerful, friendly people turned out for yesterday's protest against the ATOS killing machine in Hull. Listening to their stories one wondered how they managed to keep so upbeat, the targets and victims of ATOS, that is.
There was also support from unions; GMB, Unison, Unite, banners flying. I also saw CWU members present (and one IWW).
How it went in other towns is still something of a mystery. I can't find any mention on the national news. But, as one of yesterday's speakers pointed out, 40,000 people protested against the bedroom tax in London and the BBC didn't even notice. I wait for reports from out citizen journalists.

Addendum: film of some of the demos here

Addendum plus: I forgot to mention the presence of Karl Turner, MP for East Hull. Only fair as I predicted that none of Hull's three parliamentary representatives would show.

Not everyone has written Hull off. I came to this article via "Hull and Hereabouts".

REVERSE! REVERSE! There's a headscarf blocking the route.

What do you know? The BBC commissioned an academic to prepare a report on its record as an impartial reporter. He found that it was biased to the right. The report didn't suit so was shelved.
Now the professor has decided to let the public know what the BBC and its government paymasters don't want us to know. So the voice of reaction has had to react. It has done so in the manner those of us who complain about its bias are used to -

“BBC News aims to provide clear, impartial and balanced coverage across all output to represent a range of views. Inevitably, there may be disagreements over the level of prominence given to any story. We are editorially independent and do not bow to pressure from political parties.”

And that's that.
Still the truth will out in time.

"The serious criticism by a distinguished media professor suggests that the BBC has compromised its impartiality by depending too heavily on sources from business, the media, law and order and politics.
By contrast, ITV and Channel 4 make much greater use of sources from academia, medicine, science and non-governmental organisations"

"Cardiff research found that 50 per cent of BBC sources came from politics, business, law and order and media, compared to 10 per cent from the knowledge-based professions and civic groups. Business sources accounted for 11.1 per cent of the total on the BBC, but only 3.8 per cent on ITV and 2.2 on Channel 4."

More here

My favourite song in the whole world of music. The delivery's a little corny, but it usually is whoever sings it, apart from Pietra Montecorvino. But being a traditionalist I prefer to hear love songs addressed to women sung by men.
Ricordi di una bionda Genovese chi ha cercato a insegnarmi le parole.

HULL JOINS NATIONAL DEMO AGAINST ATOS
more here
Wednesday, February 19th from 11am, Stanley Street, Spring Bank, Hull, HU3 1JP

William Roache, television star with high-powered legal team, not guilty of multiple rapes and sexual assaults. So all those women lied. How could they? Our Bill's a national treasure (I'm sure someone will have called him that at some stage). He'll soon be back onscreen, big legal bills you know.
Remember when he said that youngsters who are sexually abused are being punished for something they've done in a past life? Can't call him a rapist; can call him a nutter.

A couple of chapters from the "Kiltartan History Book" of Lady Gregory. I suspect that she was transcribing a version of history from the mouths of Irish peasants. There is a story told of Yeats and Augusta Gregory going round the cottages of the Gaelic speaking peasantry. The gentle lady entered the cottages of the poor, sat among them, listening to their tales, and writing them down. The middle class Yeats thought himself too good to mingle with the lower orders and waited outside.
He was, in his own mind, the rightful Duke of Ormond.

KING HENRY VIII
"Henry the Eighth was crying and roaring and leaping out of the bed for three days and nights before his death. And he died cursing his children, and he that had eight millions when he came to the Throne, coining leather money at the end."

ELIZABETH
"Queen Elizabeth was awful. Beyond everything she was. When she came to the turn she dyed her hair red, and whatever man she had to do with, she sent him to the block in the morning, that he would be able to tell nothing. She had an awful temper. She would throw a knife from the table at the waiting ladies, and if anything vexed her she would maybe work upon the floor. A thousand dresses she left after her. Very superstitious she was. Sure after her death they found a card, the ace of hearts, nailed to her chair under the seat. She thought she would never die while she had it there. And she bought a bracelet from an old woman out in Wales that was over a hundred years. It was superstition made her do that, and they found it after her death tied about her neck."

I often try to listen to the 'Today' programme on BBC4. I usually change stations within fifteen minutes, disgusted by the blatant right-wing bias, and presentation of the government line on any topic as the reasonable option.
One of Today's gimmicks is to have the programme produced and presented occasionally by non-journalist guests. This is in line with what Marina Hyde has dubbed 'celebocracy', the line that anything can be improved by the towering presence of someone famous in another field, entertainment being favoured. No doubt the BBC ascertains that the guest producer is "a safe pair of hands", i.e., a right-winger or a political naïf.
However, something went awry earlier this month. The guest was the recording artist P.J.Harvey who introduced taboo subjects and people on the BBC's blacklist. Thus my prediction that John Pilger would never be allowed to broadcast from a BBC studio has had to be discarded
So, Ms. Harvey, your relationship with the BBC is subject to revision. I hope someone keeps a check on how often Ms. Harvey's recordings are aired on the corporation's music programme's following her act of subversion.

Predictably, reactionary voices bewailed afterwards that the BBC had broadcast 'left-wing tosh' and 'liberal drivel'. Nick Robinson, the BBC's 'impartial' political editor, took particular exception to the contribution by John Pilger, while the pro-war Murdoch employee David Aaronovitch, a Times columnist with a penchant for wagging a warning finger at Glenn Greenwald, objected to being 'lectured at in a news programme'

That's Nick Robinson the out and proud Conservative Party member, and Aaronovitch, the self-proclaimed socialist who is well paid for spewing out anti-left propaganda.

'For the 21st-century British Right, though – used to seeing their sense of what is important go largely unchallenged in day-to-day political broadcasting – the programme was an outrage. [...] Since this year's group of guest editors also included such establishment figures as Dame Eliza Manningham Buller, former head of MI5, and Anthony Jenkins, CEO of Barclays Bank, there are clearly no grounds for complaint from the Right about the overall balance of this year's holiday editions.'

(Medialens)

"Got you, you mini-terrorist*!"

*'Terrorist' is Israeli-speak for 'Palestinian'.

OK - THE QUENELLE

because I'm tired of all the bullshit.
Nicolas Anelka, not the brightest star in the firmament, made a certain gesture in a goal celebration. He has since been accused of anti-semitism and making "an inverted Hitler salute".
This is a lie. Anelka says that he made the gesture in solidarity with his friend Dieudonné Mbala Mbala, who, we hear, is to have his children seized by the French state because the French ruling élite don't like him. DMM is a controversial figure in France, and has been accused of anti-semitism. He is fond of making the so-called quenelle in the direction of his many enemies and critics. So the "anti-Semite" makes a gesture of defiance, of dismissal, and it becomes an anti-Semitic gesture.
Is DMM an anti-Semite? He may well be. He is a friend of Jean-Marie le Pen, and that neo-Nazi can't have many black friends.
However, that doesn't make the quenelle (silly name) anti-semitic. It is a gesture much older than DMM. I quote Desmond Morris, from his book "Gestures" (1979) -

The cryptic forearm jerk
In some regions, the full-blooded gesture is considered so obscene that it is possible to be arrested for employing it in a public place. This has led to a cryptic version of it, understood by both the gesturer and his victim, but not sufficiently conspicuous to attract attention from outside the group in which it is being used. on the island of Malta, where there is a strong taboo against the full gesture, the cryptic form is no more than a mild rubbing of the left hand on the right upper arm. In other regions two fingers of the left hand are slapped on to the right upper arm. These are gestural equivalents of spoken phrases such as 'eff off', or written phrases such as 'f...off', which transmit an obscene message without actually saying or writing down the obscene word.

It seems that the Hitlerian association was invented by the ever reliable British press. To the French establishment the quenelle, or lesser bras d'honneur, was anti-Semitic. It had to cross the chamnnel to become a Nazi salute, though nothing like the kind favoured by racist football fans and the English (sic) Defence League -

Fin décembre 2013, Nicolas Anelka effectue une quenelle après un but dans le championnat anglais. Il est félicité par Dieudonné mais condamné par la ministre des Sports Valérie Fourneyron et par l'ancienne ministre des Sports Chantal Jouanno. À cette occasion la presse anglaise parle pour la première fois de cette affaire en France en désignant le geste comme un « Nazi Salute », ou « Nazi Gesture »

(Wikipedia, French language, s.v. "Dieudonné")

Jacob Cohen writes,
and speaks.

"... there is a thing that ye would never do, and that is to offer your dirty money to a Hieland shentleman."
(R.L.Stevenson, "Kidnapped")

I just like the Gaelic speaker's pronunciation of 'gentleman'.

The following article is the work of my friend Mary Scully, whose trenchant opinions I'm always happy to reproduce.

Politicians from around the world gathered in Israel today to lay wreaths at the grave of Ariel Sharon & eulogize him for virtues he did not possess. Even his allies knew he was bereft of any saving grace. Eulogies for lowlife criminals of high status don’t really challenge the art of invention since they just keep recycling the same old eulogy about what a great leader the deceased was. What else do you do when a guy’s biography reads more like a criminal rap sheet!? It’s Sharon’s policies toward Gaza that most typify his political character & those are worth taking a look at before the Zionist myth-making machine moves into action & he comes out fumigated from the stench of his crimes.

Eulogists herald his removal of about 10,000 Zionist settlers from Gaza in 2005 as a peace policy. They’re not just grasping at straws to praise him; selling that narrative is an important part of Israel’s war strategy against Gaza. Despite the political opposition by settlers who felt entitled to move onto Palestinian lands & expropriate them & the hysterical chorus of right-wing Israelis who want all-out war with Palestinians, Sharon did not intend the disengagement from Gaza to be a gesture of peace. It’s purpose was to remove Israelis from harm’s way so the economic blockade & aerial bombardments of Gaza could proceed with impunity. The settlers simply moved to Zionist settlements in the West Bank to continue their plunder.

The chief justification Israel uses for its murderous bombing sieges which target civilians & destroy infrastructure (like power plants, hospitals, schools, housing) is that Palestinian armed groups in Gaza under the political leadership of Hamas are bombarding southern Israel with thousands of rockets & mortars. Since Israel has embargoed so many materials (everything from pharmaceuticals to cement) these missiles are necessarily homemade & cannot be aimed with any reliability; nor are they a match for Israel’s vaunted Iron Dome system which can pick them off midair.

Israel claims thousands of these things are detonated in Gaza every year but there is scarcely a shred of evidence of any kind. Allegations galore but scarcely any hard evidence. Meanwhile there is an avalanche of photojournalistic documentation for Israel’s destruction in Gaza. To get around the glaring discrepancy, media sources like Fox News claim Hamas choreographs gory scenes, stages fake deaths & scenes of severely injured people “right in front of international TV crews,” & releases images from other conflicts (like in Iraq & Syria) to pass off as Gazan civilians killed by Israeli bombs. (It’s getting harder to distinguish Fox from the National Inquirer & Globe except that the latter two are more reliable.) That still doesn’t answer why Israel can’t produce any proof of rocket bombardment.

Israel puts on a great spectacle of red alert sirens to warn Israelis of pending rockets but these do more to psychologically traumatize the population than any fatalities or property damage from rockets coming in from Gaza. Over the past several years, there are about 25 deaths attributed (without proof) to rockets from Gaza; there have been hundreds of documentable deaths in Gaza from the blockade & repeated carpet bombings.

The Goldstone Report, authorized in 2009 by the UN, said outright it was unable to document rocket attacks from Gaza since Israel refused to cooperate with the investigation & would not provide access to the Israeli sites & victims. The primary sources used in the Goldstone Report for their allegations were Human Rights Watch (HRW) & Amnesty International, along with some Israeli groups.

If those sources seem unimpeachable, think again. HRW pulls the political stunt of “a plague on both your houses” in chastising both Hamas & Israel for violations of international laws governing war--as if there was military parity between a homemade arsenal & the most advanced weaponry systems in the world. Contrary to UN & HRW mythology there is no courteous or genteel way to conduct war. War crimes are the hallmark of modern war. And when one of the combatants is waging a war of ethnic cleansing, those being erased from human history have a right to fight with whatever means necessary to defend themselves, with or without the imprimatur of HRW or the UN.

There may be a few rockets coming in from Gaza. Maybe even undoubtedly. Rocket fire that cannot be directed at military facilities & may strike civilians is a damn foolish military method & even more foolish political method when it’s the equivalent of slingshots against drone aircraft. Hamas has long-since recognized that & claims it Americans didn’t stop with Hiroshima; the Japanese weren’t surrendering fast enough so they hit Nagasaki too.” He went on to say Israel should force Gaza to capitulate by cutting off all supplies. “There should be no electricity in Gaza, no gasoline or moving vehicles, nothing. Then they’d really call for a ceasefire. Were this to happen, the images from Gaza might be unpleasant – but victory would be swift, & the lives of our soldiers & civilians spared.” And that is the legacy of Ariel Sharon: genocide & ethnic cleansing reduced to ‘unpleasant images’.

Photo is Ahmed Zayed, an 18-year-old fisherman standing in the rubble of what used to be his home in Gaza which was destroyed in Israel’s 8-day bombing siege (November 2012) called Operation Pillar of Defense. Young Zayed’s dream is “to live in peace & go to college.”

Support the Boycott, Divestment, & Sanctions movement against Israeli products (barcode beginning 729); support the academic & cultural boycott, demand “No US aid to Israel.” Stand with justice.

(Photo from Make a Wish-Gaza by Loulou D’Aki)

Qibya 1953, Mitla 1956, Sabra , Shatila 1982. What was the secret of your success in the military and in politics, Abu madhabih? Oh yes, your enthusiasm for massacring prisoners of war and innocent civilians. They called you the King of Israel - you must have modelled yourself on King Herod. They called you the Lion of God, a title you shared with Usama bin Ladin.

Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye, Rosalita,
Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria;
You won't have your names when you ride the big airplane,
All they will call you will be "deportees".

This from a Woody Guthrie song which I used to know as "Plane Crash at Los Gatos", but which I've learned to call "Deportees".
Woody's words "You won't have your names ..." has held true for almost 65 years, but now the names of those who lost their lives are known.

"Other names blocked by government agencies include: Metallica, Superman, Veranda, Ikea, and Elvis (all blocked in Sweden); Matti, Osama bin Laden and Adolf Hitler (Germany); Akuma or devil (Japan); @ (China); V8, *, 5th, Anal and Christ (New Zealand); and famously, before winning a national legal fight to use her name, Blaer (Iceland)."

I was wondering a couple of days ago how the Scottish author of the diatribe against English self-regard would have thought of his own people's origins. Perhaps the following, from the Declaration of Arbroath, might have influenced his thinking -

"Most Holy Father, we know and from the chronicles and books of the ancients we find that among other famous nations our own, the Scots, has been graced with widespread renown. It journeyed from Greater Scythia by way of the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Pillars of Hercules, and dwelt for a long course of time in Spain among the most savage peoples, but nowhere could it be subdued by any people, however barbarous. Thence it came, twelve hundred years after the people of Israel crossed the Red Sea, to its home in the west where it still lives today. The Britons it first drove out, the Picts it utterly destroyed, and, even though very often assailed by the Norwegians, the Danes and the English, it took possession of that home with many victories and untold efforts; and, as the histories of old time bear witness, they have held it free of all servitude ever since. In their kingdom there have reigned one hundred and thirteen kings of their own royal stock, the line unbroken by a single foreigner."

This is close to the ancestry myth of the Irish, those at least who considered themselves "Milesian", descendants of Miled, a mythical Spanish ruler. This is from a poem ascribed to Mael Muru of Fahan, a ninth century Irish monk -

Faenius came from Scythia
On an expedition;
A man illustrious, wise, learned'
Ardent, warlike.

A son was born to Faenius Farsaid
His rightful heir,
On the building of the tower by the peoples,
Niall, whom he loved.

Niall was carried southward to Egypt
By the Fenians of the blue weapons.
Scotta, daughter of the Pharaoh
Was given him as wife later on.

Lovely Scotta bore a son to Niall
After his coming to Egypt.
Hero of a hundred fights, Gaeeal Glas,
A princely upright man.

We are called Fenians from Faenius
Of unclouded fame;
We are called Gaedil from Gaedeal Glas,
Scots from Scotta's name.

No mention of Spain here but elsewhere in the poem this account is described as "the history of the sons of Miled". All nonsense of course, though recent research into the DNA of various population groups has found a close relationship between the peoples of Spain and Ireland, and the Irish and the Scots.

Joe Corrie again, the Fife miner turned poet and playwright.

I AM THE COMMON MAN
(Joe Corrie)

I am the Common Man
I am the brute and the slave
I am the fool, the despised
From the cradle to the grave.

I am the hewer of coal
I am the tiller of soil
I am serf of the seas
Born to bear and to toil.

I am the builder of halls
I am the dweller of slums
I am the filth and the scourge
When winter's depression comes.

I am the fighter of wars
I am the killer of men
Not for a day or an age
But again and again and again

I am the Common Man
But Masters of mine take heed
For you have put into my head
Oh! many a wicked deed.

Another of his poems here

"Hull, birthplace of the 18th-century abolitionist William Wilberforce and the rock band the Housemartins, once had a thriving fishing industry and bustling harbor. Successive waves of New York-bound Eastern European emigrants stopped through on their way to Liverpool and some stayed. Today, in per capita terms, it has the greatest number of jobless benefit claimants in the country. More than one in three children here live under the poverty line."

(New York Times)

Welcome to Hull, known internationally for its hungry citizens.

This year the Scots will vote on leaving the Union or remaining yoked to England and Wales. The Scots have their own languages, one of them developing from the language of the Northumbrian Angles. This poem of the early 16th century is an example of the old Scots tongue, and holds up English ancestry claims to mockery. It would be interesting to know what the author believed his origins to be. I'll try to find William Dunbar's version of the Highlanders' creation story for comparison.
Incidentally, the Scots' own name for the language of this poem was 'Inglis', while the Gaelic of the Highlanders was call 'Erse' or Irish. There was, before the Union, no language called 'Scots'.

ANE ANSER TO ANE INGLIS RAILAR PRAYSING HIS AWIN GENALOGY
(An Anonymous Scot)

Ye Inglische hursone suntyme wil avant
Your progeny frome Brutus to haif tane
And sumtyme frome ane angell or ane sanct
As Angelus and Anglus bayth war ane.

Angellis in erth yit hard I few or nane
Except the feyndis with Lucifer that fell
Avant yow villane of that Lord allane
Tak thy progeny frome Pluto prence of Hell

Becauss ye use in hoillis to hyd your sell
Anglus is cum frome Angulus in deid
Aboive all uderis Brutus bure the bell
Quha slew his fader howping to succeed

Than chus you ane of thais I rek not ader
Tak Beelzebub or Brutus to your fader.

Just thinking (as one does) -
After watching "The Big Bang Theory" the last night I was wondering if the character Sheldon Cooper's behaviour was indicative of autism. I assumed that others would have considered this question, so I did a search via the net.
Apparently those who know about these matters think that Sheldon has Asperger's Syndrome, which is a particular form of autism (I'm learning). The writers claim that Sheldon is not autistic, just a narcissistic nerd, but Jim Parsons, the actor, says that he had read a book on Asperger's Syndrome and made use of what he learned in developing the Sheldon character.

Another thought: it occurred to me yesterday that all Jim Jarmusch's films have characters who don't speak English, and there is often a failure of communication in the story as a result. The opposite is true in "Ghost Dog, the Way of the Samurai". There two of the the characters, played by Forest Whitaker and Isaac de Bankolé, hold conversations with each speaking his own language but managing to instinctively know what the other is saying. M. de Bankolé is a Jarmusch regular, and always speaks French, in the films I've seen anyway.
I got to thinking about this language business when reminded of the film "Stranger Than Paradise". The main character goes to visit an aunt who insists on speaking Hungarian. All the time this fellow is saying "Speak English, Auntie". Finally he is ready to leave. As he is getting into his car his last words are "Speak English, Auntie". She continues to babble on in her own language, but as the car drives off she says "You son of a bitch!" (Fadeout).
"Down by Law", an Italian jailbreaker who can't converse with his fellow escapees.
"Mystery Train", a Japanese couple on a pilgrimage to Graceland, and an Italian widow collecting her late husband's body.
"Night on Earth", a German Taxi driver in New York, who not only can't speak English, he can't drive!
I now remember one film that may not have had any foreign languages in it, but I can't remember its name. Then again, I didn't watch it through as I found it pointless, so I may have missed something. On the whole though I am a fan of Jarmusch and his stories.

Afterthought: just looked Jim J. up on IMDb. The last film I mentioned is called "Permanent Vacation. Also I saw another film which doesn't fall into the multilingual category, unless I've forgotten something - "Broken Flowers". I also noticed "Dead Man", but there may have been some Native American speech in that.

A true story - but, you know, the jobless figures are falling.

THE RED FEAST
(Ralph Chaplin)

Go fight, you fools! Tear up the earth with strife
And spill each other's guts upon the field;
Serve unto death the men you served in life
So that their wide dominions may not yield.

Stand by the flag, the lie that still allures;
Lay down your lives for land you do not own,
And give unto a war that is not yours
Your gory tithe of mangled flesh and bone.

But whether in the fray to fall or kill
You must not pause to question why nor where.
You see the tiny crosses on that hill?
It took all those to make one millionaire.

It was for him the seas of blood were shed,
That fields were razed and cities lit the sky;
That he might come to chortle o'er the dead;
The condor thing for whom the millions die!

The bugle screams, the cannons cease to roar,
Enough! enough! God give us peace again.
The rats, the maggots and the Lords of War
Are fat to bursting from their meal of men.

So stagger back, you stupid dupes, back to
Your stricken towns to toil anew,
For there your dismal tasks are still undone
And grim starvation gropes again for you.

What matters now your flag, your race, the skill
Of scattered legions - what has been the gain?
Once more beneath the lash you must distil
Your lives to glut a glory wrought of pain.

In peace they starve you to your loathsome toil,
In war they drive you to the teeth of Death;
And when your life-blood soaks into their soil
They give you lies to choke your dying breath.

So they will smite your blind eyes till you see
And lash your naked backs until you know
That wasted blood can never set you free
From fettered thrall unto the Common Foe.

Then you will find that nation is a name
And boundaries are things that don't exist
That labor's bondage, worldwide, is the same
And ONE the enemy it must resist.

Comment from David C., of Hull -

On Christmas eve I think it was, two headlines caught my eye. The first one was:

"Hull Council axes hundreds of jobs"

This means nearly 400 people are to lose their jobs at Hull Council as part of wider
efforts to reduce spending. Services across the board face cuts, including everything from adult social care to Streetscene and children's services. The mobile library service also faces the axe, while opening times are under review at libraries, leisure services and museums across the city.

The second headline was:

"Hull ‘among worst places to find work‘"

Employment website Adzuna.co.uk's UK Job Market Report found there were 31.57 jobseekers for each vacancy, which meant the city was with Salford, Sunderland and Wirral as among the worst places on both lists. Not much hope then for the nearly 400 people sacked by Hull City Council. But Adzuna co-founder Andrew Hunter said Hull had a "great opportunity" to become the next UK City of Culture and this could see large benefits.
His predictions don't make much sense when it has been known for weeks that Hull has already been awarded UK City of Culture status. Methinks however that this dubious honour is something of a poisoned chalice, as this fanciful extravagance is going to cost the citizens of Hull £15,000,000.
The bunch of Scrooges which comprises Hull's business fraternity has offered a
miserly £17,000 each to the pot. While Hull City Council has donated £3million. Now
it tells 400 of its workers that it cannot afford to employ them. Will they, now facing a miserable future of long term unemployment, be happy in the knowledge that their jobs were sacrificed so that the city fathers can bask in the glow of this dubious honour, the status of city of culture?
And where is the remainder of the £15 million to come from? Increased council tax
no doubt. I hope all those who where whooping and partying when the result was
announced will now take stock because they, along with the rest of us, will be
paying through their noses.

"Zionist propaganda may be the very mother of invention but it cannot plug up the massive holes in its own narrative. The holes are big enough to drive one of their bombers through but before the Boycott, Divestment, & Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israeli apartheid policies most people couldn’t make sense of Israel’s conflict with Palestinians & believed Palestinians were all terrorists. That propaganda coup led to decades of unspeakable crimes, treacheries, & the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

"Some who oppose the BDS movement do so precisely because it is proving so effective against Zionist lies. Others who oppose BDS claim it would put undue pressure on Israeli citizens rather than the government. Is there a problem with that!? If Israelis do not face the facts & consequences of their government’s apartheid policies & stand up to resist them, they become accomplices--whether they know it or not. And they pay a price for it whether they know it or not since money needed for housing within Israel goes for building settlements in the West Bank & for maintaining Israel’s bloated military arsenal.

"In one short piece you can’t deconstruct every damn Zionist lie but there are some too egregious to ignore. This photo is a Gazan man holding the body of his 3-year-old niece, Hala Abu Sebakha who was killed by shrapnel from one of several Israeli air strikes on Christmas Eve & Christmas Day. The Israeli military claimed the bombing across Gaza targeted a weapons manufacturing facility, a concealed rocket launcher, & Gaza’s “terror infrastructure” & were retaliation for the fatal shooting by a Palestinian sniper of an Israeli civilian doing maintenance on the barrier wall. Of course Israel & media neglect to mention that the shooting of the maintenance man on December 24th followed the murder of Gazan, Odeh Hamad by Israeli soldiers on December 20th. More importantly, doesn't it constitute criminal insanity when you bomb an entire population for the alleged act of one rogue sniper?

"A whole host of Israeli spokespersons defended the barbaric attacks by pointing to an alleged spate of Palestinian attacks on Israel. Israel’s Shin Bet security service reported a rise in incidents of Palestinian violence in Jerusalem & the West Bank. Are they speaking of Palestinian resistance to Israeli land expropriations by Zionist settlers? Because there is considerable photojournalist documentation of Israeli crimes against Palestinians but there isn’t a shred of proof for Israel’s allegations of increased violence by Palestinians--either by Hamas or individual operatives. Netanyahu’s spokesperson, the national police chief, & a cabinet minister all said the increased violence was to derail current peace negotiations between Israel & the Palestinian Authority. Are they for real!? Only Zionists could treat such sarcasms with respect.

"The good news is that BDS is indeed beginning to have an impact on Israeli citizens. A group of Israeli actors who oppose Israel’s settlement policy refused to perform in a play at the state-funded performance center in the West Bank settlement of Ariel. Previously, when the center opened in 2010, 60 Israeli actors boycotted the inaugural performances. Ariel was founded as a Zionist settlement in 1978 when Israel handed over land expropriated from Palestinians for Israeli military purposes (a confiscation method still used today); it now has 20,000 residents."

(Photo by Adel Hana/AP)

To make honoring BDS easier, these links list products & companies to be boycotted:
http://www.inminds.com/boycott-brands.html
http://vtjpbds.org/products/
http://sacbds.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/all-i-want-for-christmas-is-an-end-to-apartheid3.pdf

(Copyleft, Mary Scully)

BALLAD OF HARRY MOORE
(Killed at Mims, Florida, on Christmas night, 1951)

(Langston Hughes)

Florida means land of flowers.
It was on Christmas night
In the state named for the flowers
Men came bearing dynamite.

Men came stealing through the orange groves
Bearing hate instead of love,
While the Star of Bethlehem
Was in the sky above.

Oh, memories of a Christmas evening
When Wise Men traveled from afar
Seeking out a lowly manger
Guided by a Holy Star!

Oh, memories of a Christmas evening
When to Bethlehem there came
"Peace on earth, good will to men"--
Jesus was His name.

But they must've forgotten Jesus
Down in Florida that night
Stealing through the orange groves
Bearing hate and dynamite.

It was a little cottage,
A family, name of Moore.
In the windows wreaths of holly,
And a pine wreath on the door.

Christmas, 1951,
The family prayers were said
When father, mother, daughter,
And grandmother went to bed.

The father's name was Harry Moore.
The N.A.A.C.P.
Told him to carry out its work
That Negroes might be free.

So it was that Harry Moore
(So deeply did he care)
Sought the right for men to live
With their heads up everywhere.

Because of that, white killers,
Who like Negroes "in their place,"
Came stealing through the orange groves
On that night of dark disgrace.

It could not be in Jesus' name,
Beneath the bedroom floor,
On Christmas night the killers
Hid the bomb for Harry Moore.

It could not be in Jesus' name
The killers took his life,
Blew his home to pieces
And killed his faithful wife.

It could not be for the sake of love
They did this awful thing--
For when the bomb exploded
No hearts were heard to sing.

And certainly no angels cried,
"Peace on earth, good will to men"--
But around the world an echo hurled
A question: When?...When?....When?

When will men for sake of peace
And for democracy
Learn no bombs a man can make
Keep men from being free?

It seems that I hear Harry Moore.
From the earth his voice cries,
No bomb can kill the dreams I hold--
For freedom never dies!

I will not stop! I will not stop--
For freedom never dies!
I will not stop! I will not stop!
Freedom never dies!

So should you see our Harry Moore
Walking on a Christmas night,
Don't run and hide, you killers,
He has no dynamite.

In his heart is only love
For all the human race,
And all he wants is for every man
To have his rightful place.

And this he says, our Harry Moore,
As from the grave he cries:
No bomb can kill the dreams I hold
For freedom never dies!

Freedom never dies, I say!
Freedom never dies!

Dylan Jeavons again.

L'AFFICHE ROUGE
(Louis Aragon)

Vous n'avez réclamé la gloire ni les larmes
Ni l'orgue, ni la prière aux agonisants
Onze ans déjà, que cela passe vite onze ans
Vous vous étiez servi simplement de vos armes
La mort n'éblouit pas les yeux des partisans.

Vous aviez vos portraits sur les murs de nos villes
Noirs de barbe et de nuit, hirsutes, menaçants
L'affiche qui semblait une tache de sang
Parce qu'à prononcer vos noms sont difficiles
Y cherchait un effet de peur sur les passants.

Nul ne semblait vous voir Français de préférence
Les gens allaient sans yeux pour vous le jour durant
Mais à l'heure du couvre-feu des doigts errants
Avaient écrit sous vos photos " Morts pour la France "
Et les mornes matins en étaient différents.

Tout avait la couleur uniforme du givre
À la fin février pour vos derniers moments
Et c'est alors que l'un de vous dit calmement :
"Bonheur à tous, bonheur à ceux qui vont survivre
Je meurs sans haine en moi pour le peuple allemand."

"Adieu la peine et le plaisir. Adieu les roses
Adieu la vie. Adieu la lumière et le vent
Marie-toi, sois heureuse et pense à moi souvent
Toi qui vas demeurer dans la beauté des choses
Quand tout sera fini plus tard en Erevan."

"Un grand soleil d'hiver éclaire la colline
Que la nature est belle et que le coeur me fend
La justice viendra sur nos pas triomphants
Ma Mélinée, ô mon amour, mon orpheline
Et je te dis de vivre et d'avoir un enfant."

Ils étaient vingt et trois quand les fusils fleurirent
Vingt et trois qui donnaient le coeur avant le temps
Vingt et trois étrangers et nos frères pourtant
Vingt et trois amoureux de vivre à en mourir
Vingt et trois qui criaient "la France!" en s'abattant.

THE RED POSTER

You demanded neither glory nor tears
Nor organ music, nor last rites
Eleven years already, how quickly eleven years go by,
You made use simply of your weapons
Death does not dazzle the eyes of partisans.

You had your pictures on the walls of our cities
Black with beard and night, hirsute, threatening
The poster, that seemed like a bloodstain,
Using your names that are hard to pronounce,
Sought to sow fear in the passers-by.

No one seemed to see you French by choice
People went by all day without eyes for you,
But at curfew wandering fingers
Wrote under your photos "Fallen for France"
And it made the dismal mornings different.

Everything had the unvarying colour of frost
In late February for your last moments
And that's when one of you said calmly:
"Happiness to all, happiness to those who survive,
I die with no hate in me for the German people.

"Goodbye to pain, goodbye to pleasure. Farewell the roses,
Farewell life, the light and the wind.
Marry, be happy and think of me often
You who will remain in the beauty of things
When it's all over one day in Erevan.

"A broad winter sun lights up the hill
How nature is beautiful and how my heart breaks
Justice will come on our triumphant footsteps,
My Mélinée, o my love, my orphan girl,
And I tell you to live and to have a child."

There were twenty-three of them when the guns flowered
Twenty-three who gave their hearts before it was time,
Twenty-three foreigners and yet our brothers
Twenty-three in love with life to the point of losing it
Twenty-three who cried "France!" as they fell.


Memorial to the executed partisans of the Manouchian Network, men who fought and died for the country that gave them refuge from the Nazis, Mussolini's Fascists, Franco's murderers and torturers. Their killers sought to make propaganda from their alien identities, and failed.

Copyleft FW D.J. Alperowitz

"Previously undisclosed evidence held by the US intelligence authorities backs up long-held suspicions that a Palestinian militant group, rather than a single Libyan national, masterminded the Lockerbie bombing, according to a new investigation broadcast by Channel 4."

"Undisclosed", not "fresh", as described elsewhere.

Many years ago I saw a photograph of a painting by Jack Yeats entitled "My Beautiful, My Beautiful", which I thought a strange title. It was sometime later in a copy of "Ireland's Own" (my mother's favourite read) I read the poem by Caroline Norton which gave the painting its name (and its subject?). The author was the daughter of Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Apparently a much wronged woman in her marriage she became a radical campaigner for reform of marriage law. She appears also to have used her talents to highlight to treatment of children in the workplace.
The poem is not really one I'd find to my taste. It's just that painting and its title that drew my attention.
Jack Butler Yeats has a poetic connection through his brother, William B., and I remember reading that he encouraged the English poet John Masefield to pen verse of an Irish Nationalist sentiment under the pseudonym "Wolfe Tone MacGowan" (or was it "O'Gowan"? Memory fails).

THE ARAB’S FAREWELL TO HIS HORSE
(Caroline Norton)

MY beautiful! my beautiful! that standest meekly by
With thy proudly arched and glossy neck, and dark and fiery eye;
Fret not to roam the desert now, with all thy winged speed—
I may not mount on thee again—thou’rt sold, my Arab steed!
Fret not with that impatient hoof—snuff not the breezy wind—
The further that thou fliest now, so far am I behind;
The stranger hath thy bridle rein—thy master hath his gold—
Fleet‐limbed and beautiful! farewell!—thou’rt sold, my steed—thou’rt sold!

Farewell! those free untired limbs, full many a mile must roam,
To reach the chill and wintry sky, which clouds the stranger’s home;
Some other hand, less fond, must now thy corn and bed prepare;
The silky mane I braided once, must be another’s care!
The morning sun shall dawn again, but never more with thee
Shall I gallop through the desert paths, where we were wont to be:
Evening shall darken on the earth; and o’er the sandy plain
Some other steed, with slower step, shall bear me home again.

Yes, thou must go! the wild free breeze, the brilliant sun and sky,
Thy master’s home—from all of these, my exiled one must fly.
Thy proud dark eye will grow less proud, thy step become less fleet,
And vainly shalt thou arch thy neck, thy master’s hand to meet.
Only in sleep shall I behold that dark eye, glancing bright
Only in sleep shall hear again that step so firm and light:
And when I raise my dreaming arm to check or cheer thy speed,
Then must I starting wake, to feel—thou’rt sold, my Arab steed!

Ah! rudely then, unseen by me, some cruel hand may chide,
Till foam‐wreaths lie, like crested waves, along thy panting side:
And the rich blood, that is in thee swells, in thy indignant pain,
Till careless eyes, which rest on thee, may count each started vein.
Will they ill‐use thee? If I thought—but no, it cannot be—
Thou art so swift, yet easy curbed; so gentle, yet so free.
And yet, if haply when thou’rt gone, my lonely heart should yearn—
Can the hand which casts thee from it now, command thee to return?

Return!—alas! my Arab steed! what shall thy master do,
When thou who wert his all of joy, hast vanished from his view?
When the dim distance cheats mine eye, and through the gath’ring tears
Thy bright form, for a moment, like the false mirâge appears.
Slow and unmounted will I roam, with weary foot alone,
Where with fleet step, and joyous bound, thou oft hast borne me on;
And, sitting down by that green well, I‘ll pause and sadly think,
“It was here he bowed his glossy neck, when last I saw him drink!”

When last I saw thee drink!—away! the fevered dream is o’er—
I could not live a day, and know, that we should meet no more!
They tempted me, my beautiful! for hunger’s power is strong—
They tempted me, my beautiful! but I have loved too long.
Who said that I had given thee up? Who said that thou wert sold?
’Tis false—’tis false, my Arab steed! I fling them back their gold!
Thus, thus, I leap upon thy back, and scour the distant plains;
Away! who overtakes us now, shall claim thee for his pains!

Season's greetings from UK City of Culture 2017

Also called 'Ull, John Bull (rhyming slang), Cod City, Bridgetown (CB radio), Kingston upon Hull, Villa Regia (Latin version).

Wayhay! The Cameronian desperadoes have publish an "educational aid" to be distributed to schools. It's probably illegal, but so is slavery, and the Tories are reintroducing that under a variety of euphemistic titles. A few quotes -

“Regardless of our political affiliation, almost all teenagers of the 80′s are Margaret Thatcher’s children. By applying Conservative principles and values, she was able to achieve a real, lasting legacy for this country.”

“The Conservative Party is the party of fairness. Under the last Labour Government, people got paid more to stay out of work, top pay got out of control and bankers’ bonuses ballooned.”

“What is the most important thing the Conservative Party has accomplished whilst in government?” [Asked four times with responses from different MPs]

“The modern Conservative Party is on the side of those who want to work hard and get on in life.”

"Who are the winners in the new situation? One is Assad because the opposition to him – which started as a popular uprising against a cruel, corrupt and oppressive dictatorship in 2011 – has become a fragmented movement dominated by al-Qa’ida umbrella organisation the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil); the other al-Qa’ida franchisee, the al-Nusra Front; and the Islamic Front, consisting of six or seven large rebel military formations numbering an estimated 50,000 fighters, whose uniting factor is Saudi money and an extreme Sunni ideology similar to Saudi Arabia’s version of Islam.
The Saudis see this alliance as capable of fighting pro-Assad forces as well as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, but Riyadh’s objections to the latter appears to be based on its independence of Saudi control rather than revulsion at its record of slaughtering Shia, Alawi, Christians, Armenians, Kurds, Turkomans or any dissenting Sunni."

Patrick Cockburn

There is a degree of logic in Allam’s plan. Overspending linked to Hull’s last flirtation with the Premier League, 2008-10, ended with bankruptcy looming before Allam rescued them. Through Allamhouse Ltd he has since loaned (not given) £72m (at five per cent interest), bankrolling losses of £20m, £9m and £26m in successive seasons. Allam, notes the current Private Eye, can use these losses to reduce tax on profits by Allam Marine, but would rather turn a profit and cut that debt. Premier League TV income will help, but there may not be much left with a mushrooming wage bill to meet.
It is not just the club that is in the red. There is a reason Hull’s shirt sponsors are a company specialising in pawnbroking and payday loans. Last month the government’s Money Advice Service identified Hull as Britain’s most heavily indebted area, with 43 per cent of the population enduring serious financial problems. Clearly there is a limit to how much money, either individual or corporate, can be leveraged from this supporter base, especially as the KC Stadium is council-owned (another source of contention with Allam).

(Glenn Moore, The Independent)

THE LAMENTATION OF THE OLD PENSIONER
(William Butler Yeats)

Although I shelter from the rain
Under a broken tree
My chair was nearest to the fire
In every company
That talked of love or politics,
Ere Time transfigured me.

Though lads are making pikes again
For some conspiracy,
And crazy rascals rage their fill
At human tyranny,
My contemplations are of Time
That has transfigured me.

There’s not a woman turns her face
Upon a broken tree,
And yet the beauties that I loved
Are in my memory;
I spit into the face of Time
That has transfigured me.

Well, I don't spit in Time's face, but I do pull faces behind its back.

"The Alzheimer's Society has called for a sevenfold increase in research funding into dementia as health bosses gather for Wednesday's G8 summit in London on the issue.
David Cameron, who is hosting the summit has pledged to double funding for dementia research from between 2015 and 2025 to £122m"
(The Guardian)
Which reminds me -

"Brazilian physician Drauzio Varella has calculated that the world invests five times as much in male sex stimulants and female silicone implants as in finding a cure for Alzheimer's.
"' In a few years', he prophesied, 'we will have old women with huge tits and old men with stiff cocks, but none of them will remember what they are for.'"

Eduardo Galeano (tr. Mark Fried)

A POETRY SEASON I think this is my fourth. Nothing planned, I'll set the blog to random.
Here's a gent whose work has featured before, Idris Davies, and here's another poem about striking miners, also about their enemies in their own communities.

MRS.EVANS, FACH, YOU WANT BUTTER AGAIN

Mrs. Evans fach, you want butter again.
How will you pay for it now, little woman
With your husband out on strike, and full
Of the fiery language? Ay, I know him,
His head is full of fire and brimstone
And a lot of palaver about communism,
And me, little Dan the Grocer
Depending so much on private enterprise.

What, depending on the miners and their
Money too? O yes, in a way, Mrs. Evans,
Come tomorrow, little woman, and I'll tell you then
What I have decided overnight.
Go home now and tell that rash red husband of yours
That your grocer cannot afford to go on strike
Or what would happen to the butter from Carmarthen?
Good day for now, Mrs. Evans fach.

'Fach', in case it's not clear, is a Welsh form of address, literally meaning 'little'. It might be taken as a term of affection. But here it could be interpreted as an intimation of superiority, from the big man to the little woman.

No, you can't have the stadium. The banks want their money. Will you be declaring bankruptcy? When you are gone the City of Hull will still be here, and its football club will be called Hull City.

Yesterday marked three years since our old comrade and drinking crony, John T., alias Homebrew, died. The poem below was read out at his funeral mass and created an emotional moment. The gaps represent the names of John's friends mentioned in the poem, who I would not name here without their permission. Other proper names are mostly pubs.

HOMEBREW
(for John Tempest)

FRANCIS D.

In the Trades Council Club, Beverley Road,
sucking stout from his Shavian yellow beard,
a sparkling mischievousness made me welcome in
Humberside, Land of Green Ginger, Polar Bear,
and picketing anti-union Wilberforce.

Down a dark passage in Saint Hilda Street,
opened a world of sulphurous parrots, giant
poodles and backyard rotationally stacked with
home-brewed India Pale, a brown, muddy stout
parlour ay brimming with step dance and song.

The Station, Sandringham, Star and Garter -
weekend paper rounds with United Irishman
and Rosc Catha, pricking consciences, organising
action by those who folded their politics neatly into
jacket pockets, building a gentle subversion.

After I left, from corner hides, outcasts from Kerry
Reek and Black Sod, ---------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------
built a piece of home with you as Architect, Site Agent
and Steward who would never evict for lacking rent.

------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------- Dick Whittington,
Airlie Birds and Hessle Bank, smell of smoked cod
on hot summer days mowing grass in Pearson Park'
but most of all, decades later on Howth Hill, when

I think of Hull, I think of Home-Brew -
laughing company, generous friend, courageous comrade,
ever youthful, minding me of great, fearless days when -
no matter how high the wall we ran along - we never
ever glanced down, our eyes set firmly on the stars.

Portrait by Xavier Ghazi

"We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians"

"The Palestinian state cannot be the by-product of the Jewish state, just in order to keep the Jewish purity of Israel. Israel’s racial discrimination is daily life of most Palestinians. Since Israel is a Jewish state, Israeli Jews are able to accrue special rights which non-Jews cannot do. Palestinian Arabs have no place in a “Jewish” state.
Apartheid is a crime against humanity. Israel has deprived millions of Palestinians of their liberty and property. It has perpetuated a system of gross racial discrimination and inequality. It has systematically incarcerated and tortured thousands of Palestinians, contrary to the rules of international law. It has, in particular, waged a war against a civilian population, in particular children."

"Israel should withdraw from all the areas which it won from the Arabs in 1967, and in particular Israel should withdraw completely from the Golan Heights, from south Lebanon and from the West Bank."

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela

Farewell, Madiba, the fight against apartheid will go on.

Dershowitz v. Chomsky

"Dershowitz is presented, again accurately and on the basis of abundant documentation, as a dirty fighter with a readiness to twist the truth to serve his Zionist predilections, which include support for the post-9/11 drift toward authoritarian governance, and an outrageous willingness to play the anti-Semitic card even against someone of Chomsky’s extraordinary academic achievements in the field of linguistics and of global stature as the world’s leading public intellectual, who has an impeccable lifelong record of moral courage and fidelity to the truth. Dershowitz has devoted his destructive energies to derailing tenure appointments for critics of Israel and for using his leverage to badger publishers to refrain from taking on books, however meritorious, if they present either himself or Israel in what he views to be a negative light.

(Richard Falk reviews Howard Friel's "Chomsky and Dershowitz: on endless war and the end of civil liberties"

The bad old days will end: Why Oh why can't we be more Korean?

"Fewer teenage pregnancies and more teenage suicides is clearly the way to go ..."

The bad old days will end: Why Oh why can't we be more Korean?: Why are we so crap? Our national football team is a waste of space, cricket wise we are being shafted by the Aussies and now we find that ou...

(Continues here, link at the end of the post does not work)

Brace yourselves men - incoming headscarf!

Author of bookie-wookie sticks it to the Dirty Digger and all who sail in him.
I used to dislike Russell Brand intensely (cf. "bookie-wookie"), but no more. The scum he's offended will even now be raking through his dustbins, waving cheques at his ex-girlfriends, and perhaps, hacking into his phone. After all, as he points out, they appear to have learned nothing from the revelations of their criminal activities.

"More importantly these corporations, whether they're selling information or consumer goods, collude in a pervasive myth and toil to keep us uninformed on important matters such as the environment, economic inequality, and distracted by vapid celebrity claptrap. The Sun don't want an informed populace rejecting their bigoted dogma and daily objectification of women. Tescos don't want engaged and educated consumers recognising the damage that their corporate marauding does to communities, agriculture and local businesses. Their agenda is the same."

Hull is ranked number one debt hot spot in country
(Hull daily Mail)

Welcome to Hull - city of culture 2017; city of poverty 2013 (or any year you choose). The town that gets its priorities right.
And please! None of that cobblers about creating thousands of jobs; or hundreds of jobs; or jobs.

Some confused thinking here -
Domestic slavery is wrong, perhaps even a crime. Commercial and industrial slavery, however, are not only acceptable, they are to be encouraged. So we have zero hour contracts and workfare.
Where, I wonder, does the trafficking of sex slaves lie in this contradictory situation. It is, after all, a business. Perhaps Mrs. Thatcher's tutor, Sir Keith Joseph, could our guide: "We must teach the young that there is nothing immoral in making a profit". Or Milton Friedman: "a corporation cannot be ethical; its only responsibility is to turn a profit". These gentlemen would surely have approved of slavery in all its forms if it was profitable.

Someone whose appearance is almost as cadaverous as mine, but a great singer and songwriter. This is called "Avec le temps", about love that doesn't last. "Avec le temps ... vraiment ... on n'aime plus." I just bought a CD with this song on, and I'm playing it all the time.


I almost forgot to name the gent, the great Léo Ferré.
If the video isn't working, and it isn't for me, then here's the link.

This is Clancy Sigal's tribute to his old friend Doris Lessing. She took him in when he was an illegal immigrant in this country, a fugitive from the McCarthy bloodhounds in the USA.

Thanks to all of you who offered condolences. The New Republic magazine asked me for this.

The Doris Lessing I Knew: Young, Passionate, and Struggling to Keep It Together

BY CLANCY SIGAL

From her obituaries, and the serious critical assessments of her work, I hardly recognize the Doris Lessing I knew. I don’t fault the obit writers (I used to be one) or critics and admirers for attempting the tricky job of collating into a coherent narrative the Bunyanesque episodes and human contradictions in Lessing’s life and work. Indeed, it was not the later “Great Author” who I knew, but a young, romantic, passionate, fiercely ambitious single mother pounding away at a portable typewriter trying—as we all did—to keep it together. For her, that meant raising an adolescent son on her own, coping with England’s male-dominated literary establishment, and splitting her loyalties between an old-fashioned, collapsing communism and taking in the gritty gray sooty messy life in post-Blitz London.
Lest we get too solemn, she also had a wonderful sense of humor. Nothing pleased her more than to be dragged unwillingly to the local Odeon cinema showing the latest double-entendre “Carry On” low-class comedy (try Carry On Up The Khyber in cockney slang and you’ll get it) and then fall about laughing. Her famous waspishness and judgmentalism I’ll leave to others; we just had a lot of fun.
The “other” Doris I knew was a fabulous improvisational cook, a good friend, wryly skeptical comrade, temperamental lover (she had lots to be temperamental about!), a sturdy anti-racialist (without illusions about the black nationalist comrades), a fighter against the Left’s inherited philistinism and its fear of deviating artists. And—like me—a born protester.
I came to England not yet a writer. She tried to calm my fears, sternly telling me it was all “writing pains.” At the time, she claimed to be blocked on the novel that would become The Golden Notebook; I was struggling with a first book. We may have helped each other through a log jam.
It was fascinating at first to see my new, adopted country through her eyes: wary, open, generous, unillusioned, at all points sexual even more than political. What a pity The New York Times and some other newspapers, no doubt out of misguided respect, chose to illustrate their obituaries with those ghastly photos of Doris in her late “Mother Earth” incarnation! Last time we met, for a semi-date, I said I’d supervise a makeover—a new haircut for starters—which once she would have agreed to. But, sadly, she confessed she was “through with all that”, meaning sex, it was so much trouble and for what? As always, we argued. She won.
Others are more competent to deal with her work. Let me quote a friend who read Lessing in his last semester in college. “I read The Golden Notebook at age 20 & it had some huge & eerie effect on me…Out there was a writer who understood far better than I what a political life was like & what it was like to be overwhelmed by doubt & fear, but more, what grown-ups were like when they loved & hated each other. The Golden Notebook was full of the dirt & mess & craziness of everyday life, the back-&-forth of working out politics & lostness & honor on the run…the passion & wildness of it.”

Not much on the civil war in Libya in the UK media, even though the oil supply has virtually dried up.

Yet another example of Israeli heroism in the face of fearful odds.

At the beginning of the month I quoted the Wobbly slogan, "In November we remember", and the current edition of the 'Industrial Worker' has a list of Wobs who lost their lives in the class struggle. Also remembered are some non-members killed by trigger-happy cops and deputies as they fired on our Comrades.
The list starts with an unidentified IWW picket killed in explosion in 1907, and ends with FW Frank Gould who disappeared in the Philippines in 1974. There are certainly some names missing from the list, and others were unidentified. Then there were those who couldn't even be numbered as no records were kept. There were Wobblies who died at Kronstadt, men who had returned to Russia to play their part in the revolution. Likewise the Wobbly miners who worked in the Kuzbass mines until their independence became a nuisance to the Soviet authorities. Officially some stayed on in the "workers' state" and others returned to the USA. The IWW claims that an unknown number were liquidated.
How many died in the militias in Spain is also unknown, not all died fighting the Fascists. Stalin's hit squads were at work on the Republican side. A particularly chilling example of their methods is reported in the list -
September 1938, Ivan Silverman and two unknown IWWs were "forced by commies onto a bare field to face fascist machine guns".
Wobblies were killed in Canada, Mexico, the USA, and Australia. December 1916, Frank Franz and Nicholas Roland Kennedy, "framed for murder and executed during a time of IWW hysteria, New South Wales."

Tom Courtenay, son of Hessle Road, grandson of Killaloe, County Limerick, introduces us to a would-be City of Culture.
His dad was a good dancer, according to my old lady.
According to my missus this is not representative of Hull because nobody uttered the f-word.

Lifted from Martin Deane.

Who knew - eh?

Untitled poem by Ms. Margaret Rooney -

A woman in here just shouted on her son.
Jay-Z.
That's his name.
I thought I misheard, but she shouted again.
Still Jay-Z.
She's talking to him.
Still Jay-Z.
This wean is called Jay-Z.
She called her wean Jay-Z.
Even Jay-Z's maw didn't do that.

The meaning of 'wean' should be obvious from the context - right?

Addendum: I've been informed by the author that this is not a poem. Well it reads like a poem to me.

Another offense to add to the BBC's rap sheet - theft.
Once more they are caught misusing film for propaganda purposes, but this time with stolen property.

Poor old BBC - a worldwide Million Mask March on the 5th November. Cops "kettling" marchers in London; Buckingham Palace a protesters' target. And the poor old Beeb knew nothing about it. Or did it suppress all news of the event?

I just checked the BBC News website; it gets a mention there. But the thousands who blocked Parliament Square have been whittled down to a "few hundred", and no mention of the march being a worldwide event. Well done, thou good and faithful servant of the ruling class.

Then he stopped wearing his poppy. I asked him why, and he said that he didn't want to see "so many damn fools" wearing it – he was a provocative man and, sadly, I fell out with him in his old age. What he meant was that all kinds of people who had no idea of the suffering of the Great War – or the Second, for that matter – were now ostentatiously wearing a poppy for social or work-related reasons, to look patriotic and British when it suited them, to keep in with their friends and betters and employers. These people, he said to me once, had no idea what the trenches of France were like, what it felt like to have your friends die beside you and then to confront their brothers and wives and lovers and parents. At home, I still have a box of photographs of his mates, all of them killed in 1918.

(Robert Fisk)

The poppy crop was early this year. Usually it's the 1st November that the BBC orders its well-trained employees to sport the symbol of dead soldiery, and none dare disobey. But this year the last week of October was the starting point for unthinking and uncaring commemoration. Sky News too heard the bugle call to go over the top and adorn suits and dresses with the free handout. If only one individual demurred and appeared onscreen without a poppy we might believe that some thought had gone into the wearing. But no, verboten
I walked round town today and saw not one person sporting a poppy, only some old geezers in berets, medals on chests, manning a stall full of poppies and collecting boxes, but devoid of customers.
The hard sell isn't working in this burg.

"In November we remember" is a saying of the Wobblies. Here's a poem by FW Ralph Chaplin, best known for the anthem of organised labour, "Solidarity Forever". I hadn't seen or heard it before FW Viola posted it online -


Red November, black November,
Bleak November, black and red.
Hallowed month of labour’s martyrs,
Labour’s heroes, labour’s dead.

Labour’s wrath and hope and sorrow,
Red the promise, black the threat,
Who are we not to remember?
Who are we to dare forget?

Black and red the colors blended,
Black and red the pledge we made,
Red until the fight is ended,
Black until the debt is paid.