Who is the most powerful man in the United States?
April 17th, 2021 by Roger Darlington
This is not a trick question, but a serious one. Let’s start with the answer: Joe Manchin, Democratic senator for West Virginia.
You could have been forgiven for thinking that the answer to the question is President Joe Biden. But Biden can achieve nothing substantial without getting legislation through Congress.
That requires a majority in the House of Representatives (which the Democrats have) and a majority in the Senate (which is much more problematic).
Most non-Americans know that the Democrats now have 50 seats in the 100-seat Senate and that the Vice-President (Democrat Kamala Harris) has the casting vote. What most non-Americans do not appreciate is that not all of those 50 Democrats can be relied upon to support Biden’s agenda in a vote.
The most conservative and independent of the Democrat senators is Joe Manchin. He represents West Virginia which is usually seen as a Republican state (it voted for Trump in the presidential election). So currently Manchin is hesitating to support Biden’s infrastructure investment bill and there will be other legislation in which his support will be uncertain but decisive.
Hence my suggestion that currently he could be seen as the most powerful man in America. Want to know more about Manchin? Click here.
Posted in American current affairs | Comments (0)
Word of the day: ecocide
April 16th, 2021 by Roger Darlington
International lawyers are drafting plans for a legally enforceable crime of ecocide – criminalising destruction of the world’s ecosystems – that is already attracting support from European countries and island nations at risk from rising sea levels. The panel coordinating the initiative is chaired by Professor Philippe Sands QC, of University College London, and Florence Mumba, a former judge at the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The aim is to draw up a legal definition of “ecocide” that would complement other existing international offences such as crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide.
The project, convened by the Stop Ecocide Foundation at the request of Swedish parliamentarians, was launched in November 2020 to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the opening of the Nuremberg war crimes trials of Nazi leaders in 1945.
Already, citizens, scientists and youth activists including Greta Thunberg are calling on global leaders to introduce ecocide at the ICC. Following the lead of climate-vulnerable ocean states Vanuatu and the Maldives in December 2019, President Emmanuel Macron of France vowed to champion it on the international stage and has proposed a version of it in French law.
Finland and Belgium both expressed interest during the ICC’s annual assembly, and Spain’s parliamentary foreign affairs committee has issued recommendations to consider it. The EU has also voted to encourage its recognition by member states.
The Stop Ecocide Foundation has recently convened a panel of heavyweight international lawyers to draft a robust legal definition of ecocide which this growing list of states can seriously consider proposing as an amendment to the ICC’s Rome Statute.
Posted in Environment | Comments (0)
Word of the day: Anthropocene
April 15th, 2021 by Roger Darlington
The ‘Anthropocene’ is a term increasingly used to define a new planetary era: one in which humans have become the dominant force shaping Earth’s bio-geophysical composition and processes.
Initially emerging in the earth sciences as the name for a proposed new geological epoch, the Anthropocene has been widely adopted across academia as a catch-all description of the overwhelming impact of human activity on the planet.
Key markers of human effects on the global planet eco-system are:
- Increasing average temperature
- Rise in the sea level
- Unprecedented rates of biodiversity loss and extinction
- Changing chemical composition of soils, oceans and atmosphere
- Effects of plastic pollution on marine and terrestrial processes
Posted in Environment | Comments (0)
A review of the new biography “Walter Citrine” by Dr Jim Moher
April 14th, 2021 by Roger Darlington
The subtitle of this book is “Forgotten Statesman of the Trades Union Congress”. Now most books and programmes that use the words ‘forgotten’ or ‘unknown’ in their title are usually something of an exaggeration, but not this one. In spite of over 50 years of Labour movement activism (including half of that time as a national trade union official), I confess that I knew little about Citrine other than his authorship of an “ABC Of Chairmanship” (1939). Moher is, therefore to be congratulated on producing a fascinating and highly-readable account of a remarkable life.
Walter Citrine (1887-1983) was born in Liverpool, a working class man who left school at 12 and became a local and then national official with the Electrical Trades Union (ETU), before spending two decades (1926-1946) as the General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC). What might have been retirement years for many men were, in Citrine’s case, occupied as Director of Welfare & Training at the National Coal Board, Chair of the British Electricity Authority, and member of the House of Lords. He died aged 95.
The heart of this narrative is his time at the TUC which encompassed the first Labour Government of 1924, the General Strike of 1926, the second Labour Government of 1929-31, and his role at home and abroad in support of the wartime Coalition Government of 1940-45. We learn a lot about his professionalisation of the TUC and his role in making the trade union movement a genuine partner in the war effort. He never wanted to be wartime minister but, in 1940, Churchill made him a Privy Councillor so that he could easily approach Ministers including the PM himself. I would have liked rather more on the General Strike and a bit less on international trade union affairs, but balancing a biography of such a rich life has ultimately to be a personal choice.
In the 1930s and 1940s, there was only one other trade union figure who rivalled Citrine in stature and influence and that is Ernest Bevin who was General Secretary of the Transport & General Workers’ Union and then wartime Minister of Labour & National Service. A major theme of this biography is the relationship between Citrine and Bevin which was initially close and increasingly became strained.
Moher writes of “the extraordinary emerging ‘involuntary partnership’ between two remarkable union leaders”. He explains that “Inevitably, they were rivals as well as partners and never close but … they complemented each other’s strengths”. As far as the crucial wartime years are concerned, he writes: “”While it is the case that Bevin had the more public role in raising the labour supply, it was Citrine’s work behind the scenes which was pivotal in the complex and delicate task of persuading unions to suspend hard-won rights”.
It is clear that Moher believes that Citrine has been underrated by historians and that in contrast Bevin’s role has been somewhat overstated. Moher even suggests that, in part at least, Citrine’s record was deliberately undermined by Bevin. He writes of Bevin’s “cumulative list of moves to undermine Citrine” and suggests that this “shows a ruthless, devious character, which in others would be condemned, not praised”.
While there have been several biographies of Bevin, this is the first of Citrine, although Citrine did produce two volumes of biography (1964 & 1967). Most biographers – including me – are very fond of their subjects and Moher does not disguise his great admiration for Citrine. He highlights “his brilliant intellect, imaginative administrative flair and highly effective forensic skills” and concludes that “Walter Citrine was probably the most powerful figure to have graced the Labour movement in the twentieth century”.
Posted in History | Comments (0)
Word of the day: fungibility
April 12th, 2021 by Roger Darlington
In economics, fungibility is the property of a good or a commodity whose individual units are essentially interchangeable, and each of its parts is indistinguishable from another part.
For example, gold is fungible since a specified amount of pure gold is equivalent to that same amount of pure gold, whether in the form of coins, ingots, or in other states. Other fungible commodities include sweet crude oil, company shares, bonds, other precious metals, and currencies.
Fungibility refers only to the equivalence and indistinguishability of each unit of a commodity with other units of the same commodity, and not to the exchange of one commodity for another.
OK, now that you understand fungibility, how about the current excitement over non-fungible tokens? Know all about those?
A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unit of data stored on a digital ledger, called a blockchain, that certifies a digital asset to be unique and therefore not interchangeable. NFTs can be used to represent items such as photographs, videos, audio and other types of digital files.
Access to any copy of the original file, however, is not restricted to the buyer of the NFT. While copies of these digital items are available for anyone to obtain, NFTs are tracked on blockchains to provide the owner with a proof of ownership that is separate from copyright.
So, now you know …
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
The Duke of Edinburgh and I
April 9th, 2021 by Roger Darlington
I understand that the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme has invited particants to share their stories on social media. I achieved the Bronze Award in the early 1960s but never took it further.
As a bright lad, I found most of the stages of the award something of a doddle. The problem was the requirement to spend a night camping.
As a Manchester lad, I’d never spent a night under canvas (and, since then, I’ve never spent another night in the open). I went on the trip with a school friend from Derbyshire in the hills around his town of Glossop and we were massively underprepared.
We had no tent poles but used a snooker cue instead. While trying to plant the cue in the hard ground, it snapped, so we stood the end on a rock.
I spent all of that bitterly cold night wrapped around that cue trying to keep it upright as the wind had other ideas. I still remember seeing the moon rise, move slowly across the sky, and finally fall – as I pledged “Never again”.
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (1)
Has physics found a fifth force?
April 8th, 2021 by Roger Darlington
In physics today, there is something called “the core theory” which asserts that everything consists of particles (such as electrons, protons and neutrons) and forces (namely, the strong and weak nuclear forces, electromagnetism and gravity) that arise out of fields (such as the Higgs field).
Now, for decades, scientists have sought to reconcile the general theory of relativity (which explains the cosmos) and quantum mechanics (which explains the sub-atomic world), that are known to be inconsistent with one another, into a grand unified theory (GUT) or theory of everything (ToE).
Different ideas have been proposed. Loop quantum gravity – a theory of which Carlo Rovelli is both a leading advocate and developer – has now replaced string theory – which Stephen Hawking used to propose – as the best contender for a Theory of Everything (a term used by Hawking and others but not Rovelli).
Now there is an experiment, based at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Illinois, USA, which searches for signs of new phenomena in physics by studying the behaviour of sub-atomic particles called muons. The latest stage of this experiment has come up with the proposition – yet to be conclusively confirmed – that there is a fifth force in physics which could radically transform how we understand, well, everything.
More information here.
Posted in Science & technology | Comments (0)
A review of the 2018 film “BacKkKlansman”
April 6th, 2021 by Roger Darlington
Nobody makes movies like African-American director Spike Lee who has chronicled much of the black experience in the USA. This film was actually nominated for Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture although the one of the six nominations that the work received went to Best Adapted Screenplay.
The adaptation is from the memoir by Ron Stallworth, so – incredibly – this is a true story, although some major plot features are dramatic inventions. In the early 1970s, Stallworth – convincingly played by John David Washington – was the first black officer on the Colorado Springs Police Department and, while working in the intelligence division, manages to make telephone contact with the local division of the ultra-racist Klu Klux Klan (hence the clever title of the film) because he is fluent in both the King’s English and jive.
When Stallworth is invited to meet KKK members, he has to enlist a white colleague to impersonate him. In the book, the identity of his partner remains secret but, in the film, he is ‘Flip’ Zimmerman and ably portrayed by Adam Driver. Zimmerman is Jewish which was not the case with Stallworth’s actual colleague but adds to the dramatic tension.
Real life characters with important roles are Stokely Carmichael aka Kwame Ture (Corey Hawkins) and KKK Grand Wizard David Duke (Topher Grace).
In this powerful work, Spike Lee connects the dots of historical racism in America with clips of films “The Birth Of A Nation” (1915) and “Gone With The Wind” (1939) and newsreel from the Charlotteville rallies (2017).
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
Word of the day: irenic
April 2nd, 2021 by Roger Darlington
It means “tending to create peace”.
The word comes from Eirene, the Greek goddess of peace, who also gives us the name Irene.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
A review of the film “The Hitman’s Bodyguard”
April 1st, 2021 by Roger Darlington
This intriguing title put me in mind of the 1967 action comedy “The President’s Analyst” – what happens when the counsellor to POTUS has his own mental issues? In this 2017 movie, what happens when one of the world’s most accomplished hitmen (Samuel L Jackson) needs to be protected by one of the world’s top bodyguards (Ryan Reynolds)? There’s a good deal of profanity, an enormous amount of shooting, driving, and exploding, and some humour.
The hitman’s wife (Salma Hayek) and the bodyguard’s ex-girlfriend (Élodie Yung) are both very capable of looking after themselves as well (in real life Yung is a black belt in karate), but this is a buddy movie so we see too little of them and Gary Oldman too is underused as the baddie with an endless of supply of heavies lining up to be disposed of by the hitman and the bodyguard. But I was pleased to see location shooting in Amsterdam which I’ve visited several times.
This is what i would call a popcorn movie and did well enough at the box office to spawn a sequel.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)