Gone, but not forgotten ...

Today would have been my mother's 89th birthday. She died in 1999. Our relationship was never an easy one, she'd had a rough life and endured a bad marriage 'for the sake of the children' - a decision which has certainly left its scars on my brother and I. She believed that 'family' should stick together, no matter what, and she was a fierce defender of us, of my children and of her own father and mother - though more than five minutes in her father's company would produce an argument ...

Rest in Peace, Grace Eleanor Frances Cox, nee´Heron. 11 Feb 1925 - 21 Oct 1999.

Jewish Presence in Israel

Every so often one stumbles across something unexpected and interesting on the blogosphere. One such is a blog I found yesterday which had a fascinating article about a necropolis in the Jezreel valley which was the burial place of the wealthy and famous families of Jews following the Roman destruction of the Temple in 70 AD. Bet She'arim was developed as a burial place following the Roman ban on the continuance of Jewish worship and burial in Jerusalem. It continued in use under the Byzantine regime which continued the ban on Jews in Jerusalem and only gradually fell into disuse after the Muslim conquest of the area.

In the last couple of centuries, the site was seriously damaged by grave robbers, but the Israeli government has placed it under strict control. Today archaeologists are able to examine each of the several huge man-made caves and their associated tunnels and burial chambers properly. One does have to wonder why it is not listed under the UNs Heritage protection programmes - but then none of the important Jewish shrines, tombs and archaeological sites are. There is a great fuss over Jews attempting to visit those still under Muslim control. There is also rampant vandalism of those and some major Christian sites by Muslim vandals, but not a word of criticism from the UN about that. There is considerable evidence to suggest that there has been a very concerted effort in East Jerusalem, during the time it was under Muslim control, to erase all trace of Jewish history, and that is ongoing as the Waqf that controls (by international and Israeli agreement) the Al Aqsa Mosque and the platform surmounting the Temple Mount has 'enlarged' a number of underground structures and, contrary to the same international agreements, carried out a systematic programme of destroying anything and everything that might be Jewish or Christian in origin in the areas they control.

Bet Sha'arim is important, since it demonstrates the continuous presence of Jewish leaders, thinkers and merchants - plus, of course, the ordinary folk who worked for and supported them - in Israel from at least the time of the Roman occupation. Bet Sha'arim, the town, was the seat of the 'exiled' Sanhedrin, and the seat of the School of scholars that shaped and formed the post Temple form of Judaism. Why, therefore, do we hear nothing whatsoever about it in our media? Or, for that matter, in our histories of the area?

Probably because it would show that the arguments that Israel is an 'illegitimate' Nation are false. That would, presumably, not suit the narrative of the history of the region our current crop of so-called leaders wish to present.

Capitalism or Communism?

The polarisation of this question generally provides only the answer the particular protagonist wants and that is an absolute. Sadly this always masks several important points, one being that neither is actually 'perfect' for everyone or for every economy. Both have serious flaws in practice. So I was recently very pleased to see the following answer to an online debate.

118

 

Eivind Kjørstad, 

Communism and Capitalism are abstract ideas. None of them can function in a hypothethical "pure" form, because both of them carry in them the seed to their own destruction: "pure" capitalism unhampered by restrictions or government oversight would lead to crises and excesses that makes the current financial crisis seem like peanuts; you'd have people starving on the streets, and a handful of people owning everything. We already live in a world where the wealthiest 85 people on the planet own more than the poorest 3.5 billion. A world where it instead was the wealithest 10 people on the planet owning 99% of everything would not be desirable. 

But pure communism is also unworkable: attempting to remove the profit-motive never works, and if it did, the result would be a catastrophic fall in productivity and a world of poverty as a result.

Real economies are a mixture of ideas from many different inspirations, including communism and capitalism. Good governance is not about finding the ONE TRUE ANSWER and then implement it in it's purest form. Good governance is about finding a reasonably good balance between the many competing priorities.

Enough capitalism to make people productive. Enough communism to avoid having people starve on the streets. Enough capitalism to make it worthwhile to start businesses, yet also enough of a social security-net that even if the business fails, you'll still not need fear for your basic nessecities.  

It's not always a conflict, sometimes there's synergies: A good social security-net makes it easier to start a business, because that's always going to be a risky thing to do (most businesses fail in their first 5 years), and knowing that you'll still be fed even if you fail, makes it easier to accept that risk. 

So the question should not be: What is better, capitalism or communism ? 

The question should be: What is the right balance of ideas ? What are the good parts of communism, and how can we incorporate them, while minimizing the downsides ? What are the good parts of capitalism, and how can we benefit from them while reducing the downsides as much as possible?

I find this writer has summed up my own feelings on this question perfectly, the only problem is that, at present, both the 'capitalist' and 'socialist' political party types are too close to, if not in thrall too, the absolutist proponents of both philosophies.

Resurgence of killer bugs ...

Congratulations are, I think, in order to the mass media and to the anti-vaccination hysterics. Diseases that should be a thing of the past are making a lethal comeback in Europe, the UK and the North American areas - not to mention everywhere else. The reason? Those hysterics who still maintain that vaccination against measles, mumps, chicken pox, rubella, polio and so on are the cause of autism, allergies and bad behaviour in their offspring.

In the last five years according to these maps, all of the above diseases have seen a massive surge in the numbers being reported. Having been almost killed myself by a bout of chicken pox - a reportable and quarantine requiring disease - one of my children brought home after being infected by a child sent to school with it, I feel very strongly about this. Measles is a killer, many people in Africa do not have any resistance to it and cannot develop it thanks to their genetic make-up. Even where it doesn't kill, it can lead to deafness, blindness and a number of other 'congenital' problems. Passed to a pregnant woman it can result in miscarriage and where that is avoided, to birth defects. Rubella can cause blindness and deafness in the unborn child, and I hope we don't have to spell out how much of a killer poliomyelitis is.

So to all those 'caring' mothers who refuse to have their children vaccinated - GET A LIFE! GROW UP AND GET SOME DAMNED COMMON SENSE! Your stupidity is allowing preventable and very dangerous diseases to make a serious comeback. YOU are killing people, harming babies and endangering your own children.

This anti-vaccination campaign started because a doctor, totally without medical or scientific proof, talked up a link between MMR vaccines and autism. It turns out HE had a pecuniary interest in killing the triple vaccine, because HE held the patent for a single Measles vaccine which was losing sales to the triple vaccine.

Do we really want to see a return of small pox? Do we want to see a resurgence of TB? Or Polio? We will if this anti-vaccine stupidity is allowed to continue. I suppose we can but hope that the first victims of such an outbreak are the morons who refuse to vaccinate.

Fatherhood

I recently read an article by David Lammy, a Labour MP, entitled "We all need more help to become a better man". I may not agree with his political ideology, but I can and do agree with what he says in this very thoughful article. It is very true that men in general are reluctant to discuss issues of masculinity. It is also true that today there are any number of female role models - but very few worthwhile male ones in the public eye. Yes, I know there are the footballers and rock-stars - but are they really the best role models we can find for young boys and men?

Many men of my generation grew up with father's who had been through the war, just as they grew up with father's traumatised by the 'Great' War and I suspect that affected their ideas of masculinity and parenting to a very large extent. It certainly did in my case. My father suffered endless nightmares and drank heavily to drown them out. He'd served in the RN, seen men die in battles, seen men drown trapped below decks, burned in cordite fires - and finally fought in the Cheong War in the Burmese Arakan peninsula campaign. He had good reason for his nightmares - but he was hardly equipped to raise my brother and I - or to provide us with a good role model of fatherhood.

My 'father substitute' was my maternal grandfather, but like my father, he'd seen the slaughter, the lunacy and the inhumanity of war at first hand. He'd served in the Royal Inniskillen Fusiliers and went over the top on the first day of the Somme. After six months of recuperation from his wounds, and now deemed unfit to continue as an infantryman, he was reposted to the Royal Garrison Artillery and spent the rest of the war delivering 7.2 inch howitzer shells onto the German trenches while they returned the favour. He too had his demons that sometimes disturbed our sleep, and he too had problems with being a 'father' model.

So when it came to my turn to be a husband and father - what did I know about it? Well, I certainly didn't want to emulate either the 'don't argue with me - do as you're told' approach of my grandfather, or my father's way of always managing to detract from any achievement. He had a special line in always managing to make anything I did sound like failure, and I certainly didn't want to go down that route with my own children. So I tried to be the perfect father/husband a la romantic novels. Fail. Big time.

My eldest was 14 when my marriage finally broke down, my son just 11 and my youngest just turning 8. It was, without any doubt at all, the hardest moment in my life. In fact, in the months leading up to it I had found myself considering stepping onto the track as the Canterbury East to Victoria train approached my station. I've never been quite sure whether I simply lacked the courage, or whether, having as a fire fighter, dealt with the aftermath and seen the trauma such actions cause, I couldn't bring myself to inflict it on my family, the train driver or the other folk on the platform. Either way, at 43 years of age, I had to find my own feet again, find a new home, and build a new life - one I was determined would include as much time with my children I could manage.

David Lammy makes the point that his father 'walked out' of his life at the age of 12, and that struck a cord with me, because I'd more or less done the same to my kids. OK, I didn't really have much choice. Remaining in London on the salary I was then earning wasn't an option. I simply could not afford to pay the maintenance necessary to keep my family afloat and housed (the house we owned was in very negative equity to put it mildly) pay my bank loans (taken out to bridge the equity gap) and rent a room. A cardboard box beneath Waterloo Bridge was hardly an option my employers would be happy about, so I accepted that I would have to change career and location. That took me to Gloucestershire. Now reality really bit. I could afford a drive to London (ironic - going by car was cheaper than the train fare!) once a month, and spend around six hours with my children. Yes, that was the reality, and that is the reality for many 'absent' fathers who make the effort to stay in touch.

It isn't funny, and it isn't nice - but who, besides you and your children, gives a damn?

To my mind, many 'modern' fathers face this problem. We are completely unprepared for the responsibilities and we often have no real role model around which to shape our ideas of what a father does or how one behaves. Some, obviously, are lucky and do have great fathers, others, like me, have had to look beyond our own families to find a role model, with varying degrees of success. Now add in the complication of the demands of modern employment.

As I said earlier, my career was with the fire service. When I joined in South Africa, the job was a 'live in' situation with us being 'on call' 24/5 and having two days off in seven. With your family (if you were married) living at the fire station you had plenty of time with them, but the downside was also that they saw and heard plenty of things you might have wished they didn't. When we moved to a shorter working week, my wife and I were the first to take advantage of being able to 'live off' the station. But, with a shift based on an 84 hour week, I didn't see nearly as much of the children as I had. When we moved to London that was compounded by the commuting conditions one encounters in London - while my employment was 9 to 5, there was a one hour (if I was lucky) journey at each end of that, plus to time to get to the stations and wait for the train. So I was leaving home at the time the children were just getting up and getting home again about an hour before they went to bed.

We had the weekends, of course, but it's funny how those fill up with grocery shopping, DIY around the house, the garden, sorting out things for your own parents ...

Yes, Mr Lammy, I could certainly have used some good role models, and some decent guidance as I grew up in how a real man responds to things. Yes, I have also seen all the 'New Man', the 'Metrosexual', the New Age Man and all the rest. I don't think that making 'Paternity Leave' payments larger, or the arrangements for parental shared leave easier will cure this, primarily because the root of the problem lies in how our own fathers behaved and how they taught us to respond. Faced with a problem, my father dived into a bottle, I didn't, but I certainly found my own ways to try to skate around it, or to not deal with something. Neither approach was a good one.

What we really need is a new approach to raising boys in our society - not a 'social engineering' one, but a common sense approach. One that provides boys with good role models, not damaged and broken ones, not ones that are self glorifying and self absorbed. At present I suspect that the majority of boys in our society find their role models among their peers, which is why we are seeing gang cultures and 'laddish' behaviours. We need to educate parents - and perhaps politicians and social engineers - in the fact that boys do need as much nurture, guidance and care as the girls. But I rather suspect I'm not going to see it change in my lifetime or even in the next generations.

We have to start somewhere though, and at least it is now being talked about.

The Pensions Debacle ...

I used to have a quote on my office 'action board'. I can't recall who said it originally, but it summed up the constant state of financial difficulties over a wide range of issues. It said simply: Don't expect me to drop everything to deal with some crisis caused by your lack of planning.

As I follow the dispute between the serving fire fighters, the government, and the employers over their current pension age and pension provisions, I am constantly struck by how the pensions crisis is now the fault of the fire fighters, pensioners and everyone else. It is a crisis created by the abysmal planning and practices of the politicians and civil servants (who have looked after themselves very nicely - thank you), and it could have been foreseen - in fact some did - more than sixty years ago. The Fire Fighters Pension Fund should have been revised in 1974 when the service underwent a massive re-organisation and expansion, but then, as now, all the politicians and civil servants involved saw, was a nice source of 'revenue' from all those extra contributions.

The root of the problem actually goes back, in the UK, to 1908, when a Parliament dominated by middle class and aristocrats with a paternalistic mindset, voted to create a State Pension to be paid to all working class men reaching the age of 70. It seemed safe enough at the time perhaps, as the average age at death of 'working men' then was a mere 45 years of age. Note the pension was only for men at the time, but post WW1, it was expanded to include women and the retirement age was lowered - but what everyone failed to notice was that the introduction of the first generation antibiotics, better working conditions, healthier food and access to better medical care also increased the life expectancy of the people it covered. Suddenly many more people were qualifying for a pension - and drawing it for longer. Did Parliament, the civil service or anyone else make any change to the way they were funding it? No. They continued to collect the small contribution each worker paid into it, and treated it as 'revenue' to be spent on any and every pet project and expansion of the State.

This is a particularly sore point for the fire and rescue service personnel. There were, and still are, very good reasons why they retired at 50 or 55. Only officers above the rank of Senior Divisional Officer could continue to 60, and it all has to do with your reflexes, your bodies ability to recover from heat and cold stress, injury and general health and fitness. The vast majority of people cannot achieve the levels of fitness now being demanded of fire fighters at age 50, let alone 55 and as for at age 59 - forget it. Worse is that the Minister concerned and his civil servants are being decidedly 'economical with the truth' when they say that only a small number of fire fighters will be affected. Their own report states that as many as 90% of fire fighters could fail to maintain the fitness level at age 55. They are also failing to be honest about how much the fire fighters are contributing to their pensions. Where the majority of Pension Funds have taken between 4 and 9% of salary from their members, the Fire Fighters are contributing 14 -17% of income.

It doesn't take a genius to realise that our local and national politicians have squandered the money (we won't mention Gordon Brown's raid of 8 billion on private pensions that destroyed the majority), treating the contributions as a nice way to subsidise the local and national tax pot. Of course, it would all have been fine and dandy as long as the workforce continued to grow. As long as more people were 'in work' and paying into the pot, everything is hunky-dory and we can get away with this sort of economic sleight of hand. Unfortunately, the 1930-40s dream of 'full employment' and state run industrial and commercial activity fell apart - and the politicians and civil servants can't bring themselves to admit that it was not only never achievable, but is a direct cause of their present crisis.

Not one penny of the money they have collected for the last 106 years was ever invested to cover the promises they made year after year, election after election. As for the Treasury's 'economists' - I wouldn't trust them to invest the small amount of money I once had in an ISA! Frankly, if anyone ran a business the way they run the national economy, the Serious Fraud Squad would be considering a major prosecution. The fire fighters have a right to be up in arms, and their current Chief Fire Officers are as much to blame as the politicians they serve. The various Local Authorities have taken the contributions from the men and women in their service for years and used it to subsidise the Rates and now the Community Charge.

Now that the revenue is shrinking as they cut down the service side (while expanding the paper shufflers and 'non-operational' side), they want to cut their losses by blaming the fire fighters. There are claims that a fire fighter that is fired at 51 because he can't maintain the fitness level or has been injured, can be 'redeployed', but this is false. Until ten years ago, he or she could have been, but since Labour' modernised the service, all the posts they could have been redeployed to have been stuffed with 'non-operational' and non-fire fighting staff. It was claimed then that this was 'cheaper' - so the fact that these folk are now, on average, earning the same as or more than the fire fighters they replaced is possibly another small problem the politicians are being 'economical with the truth' about. The truth is - and the reality - is that someone being 'let go' for health or fitness reasons at 51 is highly unlikely to find employment at anything like the income he or she enjoyed at that point. Nor will they be able to claim their full pension, or any pension until they reach 60 and then the new threshold of 67 for the State Pension.

Tough one, and I'm sure all the lovely and caring politicians and civil servants will pat him or her kindly on the back, and tell them the usual platitude that it's a tough deal, but you could have made provision for this contingency yourself ... Then they'll take their gold plated tax payer funded pensions and their knighthoods and laugh all the way to the bank and the bistro.

I have used the fire fighters as an example here, but the truth is that all pension funds are in the same state, and all pensioners and contributors to pension funds are being put under similar pressure. Suddenly it is their fault that the Treasury, the politicians and the civil servants have, down the years, squandered the money they have taken from us. If an insurance company did the same with its policy holders premiums the courts would deal with it very quickly indeed. Perhaps that is what we should now be doing, bringing prosecutions for fraud against the various public bodies that have taken our money on false pretences and now want to change the rules to shift the blame.

Now there's a thought for those of a legal mind and ability ...

Energy Demand and Freezing Weather ...

The 'Big Freeze' in the US could have been made a great deal worse by massive power outages. The surprise is what 'saved' the system. It certainly wasn't all those windmills and solar cells, nor was it the coal and gas generating stations, and even the diesel emergency generating stations had problems. The probably unpalatable fact for the 'Green' lobbyists is that it was the nuclear stations that kept going while natural gas lines suffered massive drops in pressure (the gas 'liquified' in the low temperatures and Charles Law took over and did the rest), the diesel generators suffered fuel problems (diesel fuel tends to 'jellify' at very low temperatures) and the coal trains couldn't get enough to the power stations in the snow - and the snow hindered its movement from the storage bunkers to the furnaces where there was enough.

The much maligned and hated nuclear power stations alone had no problem. Need more power in the grid? Run up some more of the turbines and bring them on line. The only thing that could have bothered them was the collapse of the overhead power grid. From Smart Planet, I got the following data in an article entitled The Score After the Deep Freeze: Nuclear Power 1: Polar Vortex 0. When Solar and Wind were shutting down because the extreme weather rendered them unusable, nuclear took the strain. Output figures for New England for the period show:

• Nuclear 29%
• Gas 27%
• Oil 15%
• Coal 14%

It is reported that coal stacks froze solid, and both oil and gas had problems, and diesel generators don't function well in extreme low temperatures (ask the U-boat commanders ordered to operate above the Arctic Circle in the 1940s ...). The remaining 15% of the energy used came from a mix of other sources, though wind provided the bulk of it - when the wind conditions allowed it. Now, remember this is for ONE part of the US, and the freezing weather actually affected the whole of the North and West and extended almost as far South as Florida. Admittedly the New England area is possibly one of the more densely populated areas and therefore has a very high demand for power, but it highlights one of the biggest problems we face in the pursuit of 'clean' energy.

It is true that there are a number of problems associated with nuclear power, but the fear that has been whipped up against it is largely based on general ignorance. The ignorance of the majority of people is ruthlessly exploited by the anti-nuclear lobby who are probably almost as ignorant as those they claim to 'inform' on it. One of the biggest problems is the lack of understanding regarding radioactivity, radiation and the dangers. As a good friend and former colleague who specialised in radiation once remarked, it's a radioactive universe. Yes, the current Uranium based reactor systems do produce some nasty by-products with long 'half-lives' of decay, but the question most folk don't understand is the difference between exposure to Alpha, Beta and Gamma radiation sources. The first two are fairly easy to shield, the third is not and is the really nasty one. Ironically, almost every anti-nuclear campaigner I've ever encountered doesn't know this and doesn't realise that the gold rings, ear rings and pendants they wear also emits radiation. So do the rocks used to build houses in places like Scotland or Cornwall.

Had an x-ray recently? You've probably had about half the allowable radiation dose permitted in a nuclear facility. I discovered some years ago talking to a man (then in his late 80s) who had been part of the Manhattan Project team, that their 'safe exposure limits' had been set by halving the exposure limits allowed for x-rays ... No one seems to have ever questioned them since.

Radiation in one form or another is present everywhere, most sources things we take for granted and don't even consider to be 'radioactive'. Until fairly recently if you'd held a Geiger counter near the face of a 'luminous' watch it would have gone crazy. In fact it isn't that long ago a watchmakers premises in London were found to be sufficiently radioactive as to need a massive (and expensive) decontamination process.

The real problem with Nuclear generation is the waste, and here again, there is as much misinformation as there is waste. The truth is that very little of the waste is actually 'high level' waste such as Plutonium, Polonium, Caesium and so on. Most of it is irradiated clothing, tools and other materials which do not have a long 'half-life'. It is this stuff that Greenpeace and CND activists love to find 'improperly stored', and whip up hysteria with often staged and retouched photographs. Of course the stuff is dangerous, but to claim it will 'poison' the ground water, or irradiate anyone walking past is is nonsense. The high level waste is a different matter, but again, there is actually very little of it. The fuel rods themselves are generally recovered and can be reprocessed so that around 80% of the original material is recovered. The nasty stuff can be removed and is first cooled, compressed into cakes, then sealed into solid glass slugs before being encased in concrete and a steel jacket. This is the stuff the anti-nuclear lobby would have the gullible believe is being mishandled and improperly stored - and ignorance is their tool.

The fact is that nuclear is the best alternative to wind, solar, coal and oil electricity generating plants. For one thing there is no CO2 output. Nor do we have to stay with the current Uranium fuelled reactors. The truth is that Uranium was chosen for the simple reason that it does 'breed' Plutonium and that was required to make the atomic bombs. The alternative is to use Thorium which has almost no seriously bad decay products. No Plutonium, no Polonium and no Caesium. In other words, you don't have the incredibly long 'half-lives' of the radioactive wastes we are currently dealing with. There is still waste, and there is still a 'risk' but then the waste from a coal burning power station is seriously nasty - and radioactive.

To those who would rather see a further spread of windmills I would point to the fact that during the recent storms in the UK the National Grid was receiving very little from all the hundreds of turbines around Britain. Most of them were shut down because the winds were too strong - so the power was being produced by all the 'dirty' technologies they are campaigning to have shut down permanently. If you would rather see hydro-electricity increased, there are problems there as well. Building a dam large enough to generate the sort of capacity required causes massive ecological disruption to wild-life and the river systems - take a look at the Aral Sea since the Soviets dammed all the rivers that once fed it. Take a look at the Snowy River in Australia below the dam built on that, or the Murray-Darling Basin once the waters feeding that were diverted to provide water to other uses.Take a look at what is happening now on the Yellow River in China and then take a look at how the Severn eco-system will be affected by a barrage spanning the estuary. Why not dam the Thames at Dartford? Sure, the river upstream will be stable (it currently has an 18 - 21 foot tide) and the outflow/inflow can be used to generate power, navigation will be affected of course, but think of the benefit ... 

Nuclear power generation doesn't impact rivers, landscapes or ecological systems in anything like the same way. Incidents such as Windscale, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and Fukushima are rare - far rarer than incidents involving other power generating plants, and each one of those involved circumstances that were unique. There are no nuclear plants in Europe or the UK that incorporate the features of Fukushima, much less are built in earthquake and tsunami zones. Nor is it so easy to deliberately crash an aircraft into the reactor building. In fact I would bet that most people couldn't actually identify the reactor building at most such sites. Changing the type of fuel to Thorium would, in fact, change the ball game as well. OK, it isn't as easy as simply pulling one type of fuel rod and replacing it with another, but this is where the current "No Nuclear" attitude is actually holding us back. 

So far all the efforts to cut power use, to reduce reliance on 'fossil fuel' (and there is a huge debate on whether 'oil' is in fact a 'fossil' product) have failed. And they will continue to fail. Our society needs electricity - lots of it - to survive. Those who think we can revert to subsistence farming, are living in Lalaland, and those who think we can maintain our current standard of living and levels of civilisation while reducing our use of electricity and transport are fooling themselves. "Renewable" energy will never replace normal generating plants since they are not reliable, and the fact that ever single one of us is actually subsidising the owners of these things is a disgrace. Data from the National Grid shows that though wind has the capacity to supply 17% of demand, it rarely produces more than 5% of what is required. 

Nuclear is clearly far more reliable, and if the hysterical, misinformed, campaigning mob is faced with reality - as in the removal of all their electric gadgetry whenever their wind turbines drop out of the gird - we might see some real progress. Progress which doesn't mean defacing the countryside and destroying the ecology with their windmills, dams and acres of solar panels. It is time for a major rethink, and for some serious education of the ignorant.