Taking “Pride” in that some films actually show the struggles for workers’ rights
September 13th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
This weekend, I went to see the brilliant film “Pride” which proudly proclaims both the need for equal treatment for the gay community and solidarity with strikers in a industrial dispute. You can read my review here.
There are not many films that show trade unions at work and people fighting for rights at work, but I’ve collected information on most of them here.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
Violence at home costs $8 trillion a year – worse than war
September 12th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
Domestic violence, mainly against women and children, kills far more people than wars and is an often overlooked scourge that costs the world economy more than $8 trillion a year, experts working on a study for the Copenhagen Consensus Centre said this week.
The study, which its authors said was a first attempt to estimate global costs of violence, urged the United Nations to pay more attention to abuse at home that gets less attention than armed conflicts from Syria to Ukraine.
“For every civil war battlefield death, roughly nine people … are killed in inter-personal disputes,” Anke Hoeffler of Oxford University and James Fearon of Stanford University wrote in the report.
From domestic disputes to wars, they estimated that all violence worldwide cost $9.5 trillion a year, mainly in lost economic output and equivalent to 11.2 percent of world gross domestic product.
In recent years, about 20-25 nations suffered civil wars, devastating many local economies and costing about $170 billion a year. Homicides, mainly of men unrelated to domestic disputes, cost $650 billion.
But those figures were dwarfed by the $8 trillion annual cost of domestic violence, mostly against women and children.
More information here.
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
You just never know what’s going on in people’s lives – and we should make allowances
September 11th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
I was recently talking to a colleague who explained that he had just been diagnosed with something called celiac disease – a condition of which I had never previously heard.
It reminded me that so often I have found that people have a physical or psychological issue with which they are coping privately and colleagues and even friends frequently know nothing about this.
If we did know, perhaps we would be willing to make more allowances to people and perhaps we should anyway.
This is the theme of one of my short stories called “The Away Day” which you can read here.
Posted in Miscellaneous | Comments (0)
Whatever the Scots decide in the referendum on independence, the United Kingdom will never be the same
September 10th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
In my lifetime, I have never known a period of such political high drama as we approach the referendum on Scottish independence next Thursday and the polls show the ‘yes’ vote and the ‘no’ vote neck and neck. It has been inspiring to see serious issues debated seriously (although not always honestly or respectfully) and it looks as if the turnout will be very high – which is good for democracy. Whatever the decision, the consequences will be enormous and long-lasting and, in many cases, unpredictable and even unintended..
If the ‘yes’ vote wins, we will probably have immediate uncertainty on the currency and financial markets and 18 months of intense negotiation between the Scottish and UK governments and parliaments. The nature of the UK General Election in June 2015 would be totally transformed. Then, once the Labour Party loses its substantial share of the Scottish seats in the Westminster Parliament, it would find it hard to form a majority government. The “Guardian” today has attempted to answer some of the many questions that are being asked about impact of independence.
But the consequences could well go beyond the United Kingdom. An independent Scotland with currency problems and an application to join the European Union could unsettle the Eurozone, encourage European recession, and even encourage some other parts of other countries to renew their pressure for their own independence.
If, on the other hand, the ‘no’ vote wins, there will still be considerable and unpredictable change. The three major political parties have promised that a ‘no’ to independence would be followed by an early increase in the powers of the Scottish Parliament. If the ‘no’ vote wins, it is likely to be by a small margin and the debate around full independence for Scotland will continue, as the debate on independence for Quebec continued after the failure of the first referendum there.
With more power to Scotland and a continuation of the Scottish independence debate, the people of Wales and Northern Ireland would certainly want additional powers themselves. Then, inevitably, the major cities – and possibly some regions – of England would put a strong case for more powers.
If further powers are to be devolved to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and possibly some English cities, this would require a significant reallocation of seats in the UK Parliaments as between the different parts of the UK. This would have a major impact on the capacity of the Labour Party to win a majority of seats in the new UK House of Commons. We might even have a rethink about the composition and role of the currently absurd body known as the House of Lords.
Whatever happens (and I hope the Scots vote ‘no’), the consequences will take generations to work through …
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (2)
If you thought Obamacare had failed, think again
September 8th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
The official name for Barack Obama’s reform of the American healthcare system is the Affordable Care Act but it has been dubbed – usually by his opponents – as Obamacare. Reports on the implementation of the legislation have concentrated – at least outside the US – on the initial IT problems and on continued legal challenges, but quietly the Act is transforming health care for the better for millions and millions of Americans.
The details in this news report may only be of interest to Americans, but the clear messages for us all come from these quotes:
“President Barack Obama has not had a good couple of weeks. His foreign policy is going badly, his legislative agenda is stalled, and his party looks likely to lose the Senate. He’s entering the traditional lame-duck years of a presidency and further accomplishments appear increasingly remote.
But less than 10 months after major media outlets were hosting debates with headlines like “Is the Affordable Care Act Beyond Repair?”, Obama’s signature accomplishment is succeeding beyond all reasonable expectation.
A new report from the Kaiser Family Foundation finds that in seven major cities that have released data on 2015 premiums, the price of the benchmark Obamacare plan — the second-cheapest silver plan, which the federal government uses to calculate subsidies — is falling. Yes, falling.
…
Obamacare has been a political failure for the Democrats — and, frankly, a political failure period. Its passage was a bitter, polarizing war; its launch was multi-month catastrophe; and the law remains unpopular even today. But the law is quietly losing its toxicity: fewer members of Congress are running against it, and Republican policy elites are actively trying to persuade their party to give up on repeal and instead “transcend” Obamacare — which is to say, use it as a platform for their own health-care ideas. This is in part because voters seems to be moving on: Aaron Blake notes that Obamacare now ranks behind “other” in polls asking Americans why the country is off-track.
The electorate moving on means Obamacare’s mounting achievements don’t get nearly the attention of its early failures. But the law, at this point, is doing more than simply defying the doomsayers; it’s proving to be a real policy success.”
Posted in American current affairs | Comments (0)
My two movies this week
September 7th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
As regular readers of NightHawk will know well, I’m a big film fan and try to see at least one movie a week.
This week, I’ve seen two:
- one at the cinema: “Magic In The Moonlight” [my review here]
- the other on DVD: “All Is Lost” [my review here]
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
Word of the day: quotidian
September 6th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
This word is normally used as an adjective.
In the first sense, it means daily. So I recently ate breakfast in a branch of a French chain called “Le Pain Quotidien” (“The Daily Bread”).
In a more literary sense, however, quotidian means usual or every day or commonplace.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
How many of these tech terms do you understand?
September 5th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
As a publicity device to draw attention to its Techy Tea Party events on Tuesday, the mobile operator EE has published the results of a survey which shows that many over 65s do not understand – and are very off-put by – a variety of technical terms that are in commonplace use by many younger comms users.
I’m over 65 but understand all of the terms tested more or less. What about you? You’ll find the terms here.
Posted in Internet | Comments (0)
Belgian break (4) : Brussels
September 4th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
On the last day of our Belgium break, we had to travel back from Antwerp to Brussels for the Eurostar and we decided to do so straight after breakfast so that we could see a little of Brussels and make the holiday a tale of three cities: Antwerp, Ghent and Brussels. I have been to Brussels many times through my work in the trade union movement but it was the first visit for Vee. This is, of course, the capital of Belgium and the European Union – a city of some 1.1 million.
At Brussels Midi station, we deposited our case at left luggage and walked into the city centre. We took the Avenue de Stalingrad, a reminder that – in spite of the current adventurism of Putin’s Russia – the West was once allied with the Soviet Union.
Our first stop was to observe the Mannekin-Pis, the world famous statue of the little boy urinating. It is much smaller than people think and today was wearing one of the many costumes which have been designed for him. A little further on, we admired the Grand Place surrounded by splendid Gothic and Renaissance buildings including the Hotel de Ville (Town Hall), still topped with the original spire, and the Maison du Roi (King’s House), which houses the city museum of Brussels.
We spent quite a while in the museum. It always displays a selection of the 700+ costumes designed for the Mannekin-Pis which this time included a John Bull outfit and an Elvis Presley outfit.
The museum currently hosts a special exhibition to mark the commencement of the First World War. Of course, every nation sees the war differently and, for the Belgians, it was a time of German occupation and food shortages, all graphically illustrated in the museum. There was a reminder that in 1914 the Germans managed to blame the British for their disregard of Belgium’s neutrality by claiming that they had to invade Belgium in order to prevent the British using the country to invade Germany.
The rest of our time in Brussels was spend eating, drinking, strolling and window shopping.
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (0)
Belgian break (3) : Ghent
September 3rd, 2014 by Roger Darlington
For our third day in Belgium, we made a trip from Antwerp to Ghent. As a schoolchild, Vee studied a poem by Robert Browning titled “How they brought the good news from Ghent to Aix” (actually this was a fictional incident and one never learns the nature of the good news). Little did she think that half a century or so later, she would actually visit the city – now with a population of 250,000. It was an easy journey of about 40 minutes on a local train and we had excellent weather all day.
We headed first for St Bavo’s Cathedral because this is home to what is said to be one of the greatest cultural treasures of Northern Europe – a huge painted polyptych by the brothers Hubrecht and Jan van Eyck. The religious work is called “The adoration of the mystic lamb” and consists of 12 brightly coloured panels. It is currently in the process of restoration so two panels were absent and replaced by black and white reproductions.
Next we visited the Belfort or befry which was built in 1380-1381 and towers up 299 feet (91 metres). We went up as high as we could for good views of the city as well as access to the large drum with 17,600 square holes which activates the 54 bell carillon.
Ghent claims to have the most extensive pedestrianised zone of any city in Europe so, after a light lunch, we strolled around the city centre, admiring the medieval buildings, many with stepped gables, overlooking cobbled squares and streets. Like Bruges, Ghent has a network of canals and we enjoyed a pleasant 40 minute canal ride to conclude our day in the city.
Back in Antwerp, we were able to eat dinner outside and I concluded the meal with a seriously good banana split – one of the best I have ever had.
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (2)