My review of “La La Land”
January 28th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
You’ve heard so much already about the new musical which is storming the awards ceremonies and you’ll hear a lot more, but does it deserve the hype? Time for you to read my review here.
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Holocaust Memorial Day – and why we have to keep denying the deniers
January 27th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
Here in the UK, it is Holocaust Memorial Day as we remember the six million Jews and other persecuted groups who died in the Nazi concentration camps and killing fields in Europe during the Second World War. Today also sees the release of the new film “Denial” about the 1996 court case in London when Holocaust denier David Irving unsuccessfully sued for libel the American historian Deborah Lipstadt.
I remember the 1996 case and, like many, hoped that Irving’s defeat would lay to rest much of the Holocaust denial industry. But the Internet, and especially social media, has given a whole new lease of life to those – often young people – who are not prepared to accept the reality of the Holocaust and look for spurious facts to support their prejudiced view of history. So we still need – and probably always will – Holocaust Memorial Day.
The Holocaust was an event in human history without direct precedent and almost impossible to comprehend – but we have to remember, think about the victims and the lessons, and try to build a better world.
One way of trying to understand the Holocaust is to visit a concentration camp and I have been to Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland and Theresienstadt in the Czech Republic. Another way is to visit a relevant museum and I have been to several including Yad Vashem in Jerusalem and the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC. Still another way is to heard the testimony of survivors and I have been privileged to hear several such talks.
One more way of thinking about the Holocaust is to read a book. An account which I found particularly powerful is “The Nazi Holocaust: Its History And Meaning” by Ronnie Landau. On today of all days, I would urge you to take a few minutes to read my review of the work here.
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Reviews of the book and the film “The Girl On The Train”
January 26th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
Seven months ago, I read the novel “The Girl On The Train” by Paula Hawkins and reviewed it here.
I have now seen the film adaptation starring Emily Blunt and reviewed it here.
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Are some people never ill? And 9 ways to keep well
January 25th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
There’s an interesting article in today’s G2 supplement of the “Guardian” headlined “The secrets of eternal health”. Not surprisingly. the broad conclusions of the piece are that the notion that some people are never ill is unproven and the idea of supercharging one’s immunity is pretty meaningless. But the article does conclude with nine pieces of sensible advice on how to keep well. Check it out here.
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The brain is a truly wondrous thing
January 23rd, 2017 by Roger Darlington
Today, I made another hospital visit to a friend who had a serious stroke almost four months ago. He has lost the use of his right arm and right leg and struggles to put together a coherent sentence although, with physical therapy and speech therapy, he is slowly improving and hopes to be allowed home in three weeks time.
His family have gained knowledge and inspiration from the experience of American neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor. She had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: one morning, she realised she was having a massive stroke. As it happened – as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding – she studied and remembered every moment.
This is a powerful story about how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another. You can see her 20 minute TED talk here:
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Word of the day: Selah
January 22nd, 2017 by Roger Darlington
According to the relevant Wikipedia page, Selah is a word used 74 times in the Hebrew Bible – 71 times in the Psalms and three times in Habakkuk. The meaning of the word is not known, but it is probably either a liturgico-musical mark or an instruction on the reading of the text, something like “stop and listen.” It can also be interpreted as a form of underlining in preparation for the next paragraph.
At least some of the Psalms were sung accompanied by musical instruments and there are references to this in many chapters. Thirty-one of the thirty-nine psalms with the caption “To the choir-master” include the word selah. So Selah may indicate a break in the song whose purpose is similar to that of Amen (Hebrew: “so be it”) in that it stresses the truth and importance of the preceding passage. Alternatively, selah may mean “forever,” as it does in some places in the liturgy (notably the second to last blessing of the Amidah. Still another interpretation claims that selah comes from the primary Hebrew root word salah which means “to hang,” and by implication to measure (weigh).
I came across this word for the first time when I bought the new CD by Emili Sande called “Long Live The Angels” and found that the opening track is called ‘Selah’. You can read the words here.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (3)
I don’t want to be pedantic about the presidency of Donald J Trump but …
January 21st, 2017 by Roger Darlington
… the media is wrong when it describes him as the 45th President of the United States.
The first United States President was George Washington, who served from 1789-1797, so that the current President Donald Trump is the 44th to hold the office. However, there have been 45 presidencies. Grover Cleveland was the 22nd and 24th President and therefore was the only US president to serve two non-consecutive terms (1885-1889 and 1893-1897) and to be counted twice in the numbering of the presidents.
If you want to know more about the election, duties and powers of the US president, check out my guide here.
Posted in American current affairs | Comments (0)
On the day of President Trump’s inauguration, let’s remind ourselves how many votes he and Clinton won
January 20th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
Ii stayed up all night on the day of the US presidential election. By the morning, it was clear that Donald Trump had won a clear majority in the Electoral College, while Hillary Clinton had narrowly won more actual votes nationwide.
Over the days and weeks that follwed, the difference in the votes polled by the two candidates grew and grew. What are the final, official figures?
Trump took 62,979,636 636 votes, while Clinton secured 65,844,610 votes – a difference of 2,864,974 votes. So, in the end, almost 3 million more Americans supported Clinton rather than Trump.
Trump has declared that, if there had not been the Electoral College, he would have campaigned in a different way, allocating more resources to states with larger populations. But, of course, exactly the same is true for Clinton.
We cannot know the result of an election which from the start would have been determined by a simple nationwide majority and anyway this is not going to happen because there is inadequate support for the necessary constitutional change. What we do know is Trump and his agenda do not command the support of a majority of the American electorate and he would be wise to govern with that in mind, trying to craft some common ground between his supporters and opponents.
Some chance …
Posted in American current affairs | Comments (0)
What is the greatest threat to the world from a Trump Presidency? It might just be his denial of climate change
January 19th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
“Trump is the president that corporate luddites have dreamed of: the man who will let them squeeze every last cent from their oil and coal reserves before they become worthless.
They need him because science, technology and people’s demands for a safe and stable world have left them stranded. There is no fair fight that they can win, so their last hope lies with a government that will rig the competition.
To this end, Trump has appointed to his cabinet some of those responsible for a universal crime: inflicted not on particular nations or groups, but on everyone.”
Posted in Environment | Comments (0)
Word of the day: xenodochial
January 17th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
Somebody has just used this word in a communication to me. Apparently, xenodochial is an adjective describing something – such as a person, place or software application — that is friendly to strangers. “Xenos” is a Greek word for “strangers” and, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, xenodochial means “hospitable.”
All this makes me wonder whether the use of the word xenodochial is in itself, anti-xenodochial. Maybe Donald Trump will tweet about this one day. But, then again, maybe not. However, I would rather he tweeted about the English language than on the intelligence community or nuclear weapons or the Russians or immigration – or almost anything else.
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