Silly mood - by Richard... Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Silly mood - by Richard... Wednesday, July 21, 2010

When you "read" the newspapers – hard copy and online - go through Google news and then trawl the main blogs, and still nothing registers as interesting or important (for Chrissakes, who gives a toss about PMQs?), then you know there is a problem.

It may be me, in a silly mood (it happens now and again) or it may be something more profound. I sort of get the feeling that some must have felt during the phoney war in 1939-40, a sense of impending doom coupled with the idea that nothing of any significance is being reported. It is as if the world is holding its breath, waiting for "it" to happen, whatever "it" actually is.

My mood is reinforced by the work I have been doing on the Battle of Britain narrative. This is turning out to be a serious mistake. I feel an obsession taking hold, and when that happens, I am lost to humanity – and membership always was a bit tenuous.

But what is significant and very relevant to today is the fate of Dover in the second half of 1940 and the years up to mid-1944, when it was a town under siege. But it was also a restricted area. Entry to and from was rigorously controlled, all news out of the area was heavily censored and non-official photography was prohibited.

As a result, for the best part of four years, very little came out of the town, and this continues to have an effect. Because there are so few images and the few that are available cost a fortune – see here with Pathe News - historians, broadcasters and others pay very little attention to it. As a result – or so I believe – the record has become seriously distorted, right up to today.

What is chilling is the propaganda film (at the top) made on 15 September 1940, and the contrast with the film made in 1944 (see the Pathe News link). It is quite worrying that the authorities – i.e., government – could have such control over news and information that even seventy years ago the story is not properly being told. Listen to the narrator tell us: "The damage is amazingly small". Then look at the pics when the censorship was relaxed.

Of course, that was wartime, but what is betrayed here is a mindset – the tendency of government to control information even when it no longer matters, and even when it did not matter in the first place. And while the government currently does not have the same degree of control as it did during the war – over here – a state of war exists over in Afghanistan. How much do we really know of what is going on?

Given that we know what governments are capable of, and how ineffective (and compliant) is the media, can we now – or ever – be confident that we have the first idea of what is going on, that we can trust a fraction of what we are told, or that we are being told a fraction of the news? And that is even without the lies, prevarications, distortions and falsehoods.

Seen in that sense – the current news is just another source of fiction. You might just as well read a novel, as many of them are more interesting and better written. But the one thing that must not be done is to accord any more credibility to either. Truth is a vanishingly rare commodity.

COMMENT THREAD

Print ready

I come not to praise Schneider - by Richard...

A commentary on the death of an unrepentant hypocrite.

COMMENT THREAD

Print ready

Delusion or deception? - by Richard...

Once again we are thrust into that all-embracing dilemma as we learn of The Great Leader's exudations in the Wall Street Journal, where he tells us that he is hard-headed and realistic about US-UK relations.

"I understand that we are the junior partner - just as we were in the 1940s and, indeed, in the 1980s," says TGL. "But we are a strong, self-confident country clear in our views and values, and we should behave that way."

As it stands, we're not even a country, or barely so, as the EU increasingly usurps our roleon the world stage. And as long as we have to play handmaiden to our masters in Brussels, there is not a chance of us being strong, self-confident, or clear in our views and values.

So the question is, is he deluding himself, or deceiving us? Could it even be both?

COMMENT: "stupid" thread

Print ready

It don't mean nuffink - by Richard... Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Mongolia, the dzud and not a mention of global warming – that's The Guardian for you, telling us that temperatures fell to -50°C and thick snow buried the grass.

This was the story we covered earlier in the year. By the time it finally melted in May, nearly 9,000 families had seen their entire herds freeze or starve to death. Another 33,000 lost half their livestock. Almost 10m cattle, sheep, goats, horses, yaks and camels have died, a fifth of the country's total, at a cost of £250m.

Now it is the turn of South America to suffer unusual cold, if by no means as severe. But, according to recent reports, at least 175 people have died in the coldest winter in recent years, officials in six affected countries are saying.

The cold has been worst in southern Peru, where temperatures in higher altitudes of the Andes dropped to -23°C. Since the beginning of last week there, 112 people have died of hypothermia and flu. Argentina recorded the coldest temperatures in ten years. Sixteen people froze to death and 11 died of carbon monoxide poisoning due to faulty heaters.

In Bolivia, 18 people died, in Paraguay five and two each in Chile – where heavy snow has been seen (pictured) - and Uruguay. Nine people died of the cold in southern Brazil. Thousands of cattle also froze to death on their pastures in Paraguay and Brazil. There are no stables for the animals as temperatures usually do not drop that low.

Several regions in Bolivia and Peru closed schools until the end of the week and larger cities opened emergency shelters for homeless people.

Electricity and gas networks are operating at capacity limits in many of the affected regions. Argentina reported natural gas shortages in several provinces. The poorest population groups are worst affected by the cold spell with their homes poorly equipped to deal with the cold, lack of heating and access to health care.

While Britain is set to suffer a shortage of green vegetables because of the dry summer (although not here in Yorkshire), in central and southern Chile it is the intensely cold weather that has hit fruit and vegetable farms. Production is expected to drop sharply and there has already been a 20 percent rise in fruit and vegetable prices.

The problem is a polar air mass which is settling over the region, now causing rare snowfall in the Buenos Aires province. People in downtown Buenos Aires City bundled up against the cold as temperatures ducked down near freezing.

Essentially, the whole of the Southern Cone is trapped, and now thousands of livestock have died.

Meanwhile, there is a heatwave in parts of Russia, and the worst drought in more than a century. In Moscow, it's hotter than in European and African resorts. The heat has caused asphalt to melt, boosted sales of air conditioners, ventilators, ice cream and beverages, and pushed grain prices up.

Environmentalists, silent about Mongolia, silent about the cold in South America and silent about the record cold and snow in Russia over the winter, are blaming the abnormally dry spell on climate change.

"So what was it down to 130 years ago?" asks one of my readers. Well, then it was weather. Now it is weather. It don't mean nuffink. I really am getting tired and terribly bored with these tea-leaf readers who seem to be making up temperatures as they go along in order to discern trends out of random noise. We really should not take them seriously.