10 shocking truths about gun violence

May 19th, 2015 by Roger Darlington

In a special feature in today’s “Guardian” newspaper, it is suggested that there are almost one billions guns around the world and that over a million around the globe are injured by guns each year.

The most shocking situation is that in the United States:

“The US has more guns per person than any other country in the world. Stemming from a constitutional right to bear arms, it has given birth to an industry that in 2013 helped sustain a quarter of a million jobs, directly or indirectly, creating $38bn in annual economic activity.

Today, at almost 140,000, there are about 10 times more federally licensed sellers in the US than there are McDonald’s. They have plenty to sell – more than 10.8m guns were manufactured in the US in 2013, a 220% rise from a decade before. This does not include the 5.5m guns imported into the US that year.

Where there are more guns, there are more gun deaths. The US has the highest per capita rate of firearm murders of all developed countries. While figures are hard to come by, data from the Center for Disease Control shows that in 2013 there were as many as 100,598 non-fatal intentional shootings in the US (the lowest estimate was 23,842). That year saw 33,636 fatal shootings (including suicides).

The data offers stark reading. In 2013, FBI figures show 1,075 people under the age of 19 killed by guns in the US, 37 of them under five years old. More American teenagers and children were killed that year by gunfire than US military in any given year in Iraq or Afghanistan.”

Posted in American current affairs, World current affairs | Comments (0)

Why the Battle of Waterloo is wrongly named

May 18th, 2015 by Roger Darlington

In about a month’s time, on 18 June 2015, we shall be celebrating the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo when the Duke of of Wellington, leading a mixed force of British, Prussian and other nationalities, defeated the French army of Napoleon.

I am currently reading a biography of Wellington written by Richard Holmes and published in 2002. Holmes points out that battles are named by the victor and Wellington chose to call the site of his victory Waterloo when in fact the conflict took place at Mont Saint Jean further south of Brusssels in Belgium.

Wellington’s thinking was that the British public would find it easier to pronounce Waterloo than Mont Saint Jean. I guess he was right. Imagine a London railway station and tube stop named Mont Saint Jean.

Wellington and Napoleon were both fascinating characters and sometime ago I read a book which compared and contrasted the two. You can read my review here.

Posted in History | Comments (2)

My Thought For The Week reaches No 800 – would you like to join the circulation list?

May 17th, 2015 by Roger Darlington

Around 16 years ago, I sent out an e-mail to the 12 members of the Research Department of the Communications Workers Union which I then headed. It was a quote from a newspaper article which I found interesting and I jokingly titled the e-mail Thought For The Week.

Over a decade and a half later, that Thought For The Week missive goes out every Sunday to over 2,100 people all around the globe and today I have reached the new landmark number of 800. You can check them all out here.

If you would like to receive it, e-mail me.

Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (0)

Remembering Syria’s suffering people and threatened heritage

May 17th, 2015 by Roger Darlington

In the spring of 2011, Vee and I had a holiday in Syria and Lebanon [for account of our visit, see here]. We crossed the border from one country to the other on 9 March 2011. Mass protests erupted on 15 March in Damascus and Aleppo, and spread in the following days to more cities, while growing in size. The week of 15–21 March is considered by news media as the beginning of the Syrian uprising.

Since then, something like a quarter of a million Syrians have been killed and the deaths, injuries, displacement and destruction is not over. Every time I read or hear a news report from the region, I shiver and I remember our time in the Levant.

Although one cannot compare lives to structures, another terrible feature of the Syrian civil war – accentuated now by the emergence of ISIS – is the destruction of the country’s heritage which includes remnants of the world’s earlier civilisations.

Already major parts of Damascus and Aleppo – both with a claim to be the oldest continuously inhabited cities in history – have been destroyed. Now ISIS threatens the obliteration of the ancient ruins of Palmyra [for account of our visit, see here].

As an article in today’s “Observer” newspaper puts it:

“Palmyra is an ancient Roman site whose significance and value is exceeded by very few others: those in Rome itself, Pompeii, possibly Petra in Jordan. Its temples, colonnades and tombs, its theatre and streets are extensive, exquisite, distinctive, rich. The loss of Palmyra would be a cultural atrocity greater than the destruction of the Buddhas in Bamiyan. It is hard to think of deliberate vandalism to equal it, despite the grim examples offered by the last hundred years.”

Rowan Moore writes:

“If Isis raze Palmyra, it would be a new demonstration of the evil and stupidity they have already abundantly displayed in their slaughters and enslavements, and in their videos of beheadings and burnings. It would also confirm Isis’s littleness: how could anyone be so threatened by ancient ruins, unless they lacked belief in their ability to create something themselves? It would make manifest Isis’s nihilism, their vision of the world as a desert populated only by themselves and their slaves. It is, of course, precisely the diversity of Syria’s heritage that Isis hate.”

Posted in History, My life & thoughts, World current affairs | Comments (2)

A review of the new blockbuster movie “Mad Max: Fury Road”

May 16th, 2015 by Roger Darlington

If you like action movies, then George Miller’s fourth “Mad Max” movie is a must-see. You can read my review here.

Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)

Should the North of England become part of Scotland?

May 16th, 2015 by Roger Darlington

Of course, it’s a crazy idea – but tens of thousands apparently support the bizarre notion as you can see here. I have relatives in Scotland, I was brought up in Manchester, and I live in London. I want to see a United Kingdom.

Around the world, people think that redrawing boundaries solves political and economic problems. It rarely does. Instead of changing boundaries, we need to change attitudes as I have argued in this essay.

Posted in British current affairs, World current affairs | Comments (5)

My 10th short story: “A Face At The Window”

May 15th, 2015 by Roger Darlington

It’s Friday; it’s almost the weekend; time to sit down and relax and read a short story. My piece this week is called “A Face At The Window” and you can read it here.

Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (0)

Has the new Cold War already begun?

May 14th, 2015 by Roger Darlington

It seems that, for the Russians, it already has. In the West, we see the Russians as the aggressors: intervening militarily in Georgia and Ukraine, constantly testing the security defences of other European nations, and backing a president who seems to want to isolate his country more and more from international norms.

Of course, the Russians see it totally different as this article in today’s “Guardian” newspaper makes clear:

“Rather than disbanding our cold war defence arrangement, Nato, we reinvented it as an alliance that could be construed only as being arrayed against Russia. We kept expanding it ever eastward, closer to Russia’s borders.”

Whichever interpretation we endorse, it is essential that we maintain a dialogue and seek to understand the intentions of the other side. Susan Richards makes the telling point:

“In America and Britain, government support for research on old Soviet bloc countries was slashed. The State Department and Foreign Office disbanded research units that kept politicians informed. Embassies focused on opening up commercial opportunities. Meanwhile, the press, facing its own economic crisis, also cut back on foreign correspondents. The west simply stopped thinking seriously, and in depth, about Russia and its neighbours.”

Posted in World current affairs | Comments (1)

Do you enjoy a good blockbuster movie?

May 13th, 2015 by Roger Darlington

I do. Indeed I enjoy most types of films, all the way from the blockbuster to the art house, and all genres except musicals and horror (although even there I can make exceptions).

So at the weekend, in an effort to forget about the terrible General Election result, I went to the City Lit, a further education college in central London, to attend a one-day course on blockbuster movies run by John Wisbey.

We started with a discussion of what constitutes a blockbuster. The straightforward definition is one that has taken a really large amount of money at the box office. But other factors also come into play. Blockbusters usually have big budgets as well as big box office. They are usually grand affairs in the sense of having big sets or big themes or deploying big effects or big stunts. And they tend to be event movies with lots of pre-release speculation, grand openings, and substantial media interest.

So, what have been the biggest blockbusters in cinema history? Well, there are different ways of measuring box office. One method, used by the web site Box Office Mojo, ranks films by worldwide and domestic (US theatrical releases) grosses. You can see the top 100 here.

On this measure, the top ten are in order: “Avatar” [my review here], “Titanic” [my review here], “Marvel’s The Avengers” [my review here], “Fast & Furious 7” [my review here], “Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 2″, ‘Frozen” [my review here], “Iron Man 3” [my review here], “Transformers: Dark Side Of The Moon”, “The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King” [my review here], and “Skyfall” [my review here]. I have seen eight of these 10.

But, over the years, very different films have dominated the box office. In the course of the day, John Wisbey showed us clips from the following blockbusters: “Gone With The Wind”, “Ben Hur”, “The Sound Of Music”, “The Graduate”, “Love Story”, “The Godfather”, “Jaws”, “Star Wars: A New Hope”, “E.T. – The Extra-terrestrial”, “Titantic” and “Avatar”. I have seen all but one of these 11 movies, the exception being “The Sound Of Music”.

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