The good news: your chance of a violent death has never been less in the whole course of human history
September 12th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
For all the tragedy in the world, we need to remind ourselves constantly that we live in the most peaceful period of human history in terms of the chance of facing a violent death. This was demonstrated by American psychologist Steven Pinker in his 2011 book “The Better Angels Of Our Nature” and he has continued to update the data each year.
In a short article this week, Pinker looks at the trends since the Second World War:
“From a high in the second world war of almost 300 battle deaths per 100,000 people per year, the rate rollercoasted downward, cresting at 22 during the Korean war, nine during Vietnam and five during the Iran-Iraq war before bobbing along the floor at fewer than 0.5 between 2001 and 2011.
In 2014 it crept up to 1.4; again, upsetting, but a fraction of the previous highs. Newsreaders might expect the Syrian carnage to have undone the historic progress, but they fail to notice the many recent civil wars that ended without fanfare (in Chad, Peru, Iran, India, Sri Lanka, India and Angola), and have forgotten earlier ones (Greece, Tibet, Algeria, Sudan, Indonesia, Uganda, Ethiopia and Mozambique) that had massive death tolls.”
You can read Steven Pinker’s article and see the relevant data here.
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
Two new film reviews: “Trainwreck” and “Whiplash”
September 11th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
My film viewing this week could not have involved more different works – but then I have wide tastes when it come to the movies.
“Trainwreck” [my review here] is a coarse romantic comedy, while “Whiplash” is a tough depiction of a young man suffering for his art [my review here].
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
My 27th short story: “A Shot In The Dark”
September 11th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
Each Friday, I highlight one of my collection of self-written short stories. If you’ve read a few of them, you’ll know that the subject matter and style vary a lot.
This week’s story, entitled “A Shot In The Dark”, is rooted in the Arab/Israeli conflict and raises some moral questions. You can read it here.
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (0)
Are we about to see the greatest voter disenfranchisement in British history?
September 10th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
In most democracies, voting rights were not freely given to all adults but had to be fought for over centuries. People around the world think Britain has an long-established democracy but, as Antonia Fraser set out so brilliantly in her book “Perilous Question: The Drama Of The Great Reform Bill 1832” [my review here], before the Act only around 400,000 out of a total population of 16 million – a mere 3% – had the vote (all male and all requiring a property qualification) and passing the Bill – which provided a modest extension to the franchise – took years and caused a constitutional crisis.
Once citizens have the vote, that’s not the end of the story. Often reactionary forces try to take it away or make it hard to be exercised. Currently in the UK there is a move by the Conservative Government to change the way that voters are registered that could disenfranchise almost 2 million voters. Ros Wynne-Jones states:
“With an estimated eight million people already missing from a shockingly incomplete electoral register, this would bring the total number of disenfranchised voters to almost 10 million.
In other words, in the year of the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta, which enshrined the roots of British democracy, the Government stands to preside over the biggest disenfranchisement ever seen in our nation’s history.”
You can read more about the threat in her article.
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (0)
10 reasons to love Autumn
September 9th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
I sometimes advise visitors to Britain that we have four seasons – but on occasions we have them on the same day. Certainly our weather is very variable because of our geographical location between the Atlantic Ocean and Continental Europe, but generally our seasons come and go on schedule.
So let’s enjoy the delights of Autumn – cooler days, shorter days, special colours. The BBC web site offers 10 reasons to love Autumn.
Posted in Environment | Comments (0)
My weekend viewing of films not the most cheerful
September 8th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
As regular visitors to NightHawk will know, I’m a big movie fan and enjoy a wide range of genres and styles.
This weekend. Vee and I – together for almost three and a half decades now – went to the cinema to see the new British film “45 Years” [my review here].
Then, next day, we watched on a rented Blu-ray from Lovefilm the American movie released earlier this year called ‘Still Alice” [my review here].
Both works feature outstanding acting performances but both are deeply depressing. I think I’ll go for a rom-com tonight …
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
U.S. presidential election (11): who can trump Trump?
September 6th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
To the astonishment of many observers, motor-mouth Donald Trump has taken the lead – and kept it so far – in the Republican primary race to chose a presidential candidate. Now the media loves political upsets and is looking for evidence that Trump is under challenge. The current unlikely candidate is an African-American neurosurgeon called Ben Carson.
What’s the evidence? So far, a poll showing him with similar support to Trump in the first primary race in Iowa which will be the first state to vote.
But, as this profile points out:
“He has never run for elected office and never had to meet the demands of a constituency. He can be soft-spoken to the point of inaudibility. He has no foreign policy experience. He has no party support.”
Of courses, if somehow Carson won the Republican nomination and then the following general election, America would have elected two black presidents in succession. But, it ain’t gonna happen. The odds are still on the nation’s first female president.
Posted in American current affairs | Comments (1)
10 ways to manage the migration crisis
September 5th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
1) Establish a standard asylum procedure across Europe
2) Provide a safe and swift alternative to a meaningful number of refugees
3) End the war in Syria
4) Give Syrians employment rights in Turkey
5) Persuade Gulf countries to take in more Syrians
6) Provide economic alternatives in smuggling communities
7) End the war in Libya
8) End repression and extremism in Eritrea and Afghanistan
9) Increase development in west Africa
10) Learn from precedent
A complex problem like the current crisis of refugees and migrants requires a multifaceted and sustained response. These 10 suggestions are spelled out in an article by Patrick Kingsley, the migration correspondent of the “Guardian” newspaper. None is simple but all have merit.
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
My 26th short story: “The Heart Of The Matter”
September 4th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
This week’s short story is really short, so give it a go. You’ll find it here.
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (0)
The position of China in World War Two
September 3rd, 2015 by Roger Darlington
In China today, the Communist Party mounted a massive military parade through Beijing’s Tiananmen Square (the name means ‘The Square of Heavenly Peace’) to mark the 70th anniversary of the defeat of Japan and the end of the Second World War. Except, of course, that the Japanese were not defeated in China (they capitulated after the Americans dropped two atomic bombs on Japan itself) and the Communists played a minor role in combating the Japanese invaders (most of the resistance came from the Nationalists).
The book I am currently reading – “The Storm Of War”, an account of the Second World War by Andrew Roberts – notes:
“Western accounts of the war often minimise, to the point of sometimes ignoring it altogether, the experience of China, despite the fact that fifteen million of those who died in the conflict – a full 30 per cent – were Chinese. It was the Chinese who held down half of Japan’s fighting strength throughout the war, and around 70 per cent of the effort was undertaken by the Kuomintang (Nationalist) forces under their generalissimo, Chiang Kai-shek, based at Chunking. By contrast the Communists under Mao Zedong were, as Max Hastings has put it, at best merely ‘an irritant’ to Japan.”
Remember those figures: 15 million Chinese dead and almost a third of all the victims of the war. They don’t teach that in British or American schools, do they?
Posted in History | Comments (2)