A la volonté du peuple
Et à la santé du progrès,
Remplis ton cœur d'un vin rebelle
Et à demain, ami fidèle.
Nous voulons faire la lumière
Malgré le masque de la nuit
Pour illuminer notre terre
Et changer la vie.
Il faut gagner à la guerre
Notre sillon à labourer,
Déblayer la misère
Pour les blonds épis de la paix
Qui danseront de joie
Au grand vent de la liberté.
A la volonté du peuple
Et à la santé du progrès,
Remplis ton cœur d'un vin rebelle
Et à demain, ami fidèle.
Nous voulons faire la lumière
Malgré le masque de la nuit
Pour illuminer notre terre
Et changer la vie.
A la volonté du peuple,
Je fais don de ma volonté.
S'il faut mourir pour elle,
Moi je veux être le premier,
Le premier nom gravé
Au marbre du monument d'espoir.
A la volonté du peuple
Et à la santé du progrès,
Remplis ton cœur d'un vin rebelle
Et à demain, ami fidèle.
Nous voulons faire la lumière
Malgré le masque de la nuit
Pour illuminer notre terre
Et changer la vie.
18 You shall appoint magistrates and officials for your tribes, in all the settlements that the Lord your God is giving you, and they shall govern the people with due justice. 19 You shall not judge unfairly: you shall show no partiality; you shall not take bribes, for bribes blind the eyes of the discerning and upset the plea of the just. 20Justice, justice shall you pursue, that you may thrive and occupy the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
Reading the early morning news, we hear of the current economic crisis of Turkey and the plunging Lira. While much of Turkey's problems are home grown there is one glaring external factor that I doubt will be a mention. That's the "unintended" effect of quantitative easing by the major central banks of the world in America, Europe , UK , Japan.
What's happening in Turkey will happen in south America, Asia and any other country effected by QE. In fact it already happened in Argentina and is not far off in Brazil.
What do I mean by unintended consequences?
QE isn't just money printing as it is more sophisticated than outright monetization of a government's debts , because under QE central banks buy debt on the open market in massive quantities. What it is supposed to do is to reduce the yield on government debt , often seen as safe heaven assets during financial crises , in order to force asset holders to invest cash in the domestic economy. By nature mortgages and loans are more risky than government debt supported by domestic fiat currency. That's the theory. In practice because we have a global banking industry and free flow of capital, much of this money chased larger returns outside of the domestic economy. Thus places like Turkey, Argentina and Brazil were showered with trillions in loans .
These countries are often prone to corruption , political risk and even if run by saints simply couldn't cope with the influx of what is called "hot money".( Short term investors looking for a large, quick return).
Unfortunately the current Turkish government is lead by any one other than a saint. The upcoming capital controls, maybe IMF bailout and economic catastrophe will see this playing out in the streets , more authoritarianism and the further weakening of the western alliance. Meanwhile the contagion of this crisis will be the focus of pundits and the world.
During the political Blair era ,which I say latest from 1997 to 2015 , all of the main political parties - at least the elite echelons and leadership centred around forms of liberalism :
1. Labour Liberalism :
" personal " freedoms endorsed by the state and given to them individual (gay civil partnerships ,equality law , alongside older chestnuts such as abortion, feminism , immigrarion) alongside welfare liberalism via tax credits. You could have gay sex at 16, but not light up a cigarette afterwards.
Government : toleration and endorsement of free market , subject go creating a regulatory body for every conceivable aspect of business. Pro EU. Stealth taxes. Pro multinational businesses.
2. Conservative liberalism
" personal " freedoms endorsed by the state and given to them individual (gay civil partnerships ,equality law , alongside older chestnuts such as abortion, feminism , immigrarion) alongside welfare liberalism via cutting of benefits and council houses. Hugging huskies, but making ill people go to a health benefits assessment, which they inevitably were deemed okay to work as they had a pulse.
Government : toleration and endorsement of free market , subject to creating a regulatory body for every conceivable aspect of business. Pro EU. Pro big multinational businesses.
During this time there was a growing insurgency within and without . The Euro sceptics, the far left internally and externally UKIPs surge and the Scottish nationalist surge.
After 2015 these insurgents began to set the political agenda. With the first majority conservative government in 30 years David Cameron could no longer rely on another centralist liberal party for cover. We then a the Brexit referendum..the brexit insurgents didn't implement policy, but it was clear that the direction of travel would be their own. Likewise the left of Labour insurgents took over the party and we have Corbyn.
What is happening now in both main parties is a low level civil war. For neither insurgencies were powerful enough to gain total power and now the old liberal guard in both parties are conducting counter insurgencies. In short Britain no longer has two major parties, but four . The parties are just franchises and brands. Husks for whatever a politician wants to put into them.
Jewish Martians . Well Jews who settled on a Mars wherein the planet maintained a habitable biosphere. What food and beverage, though , would be kosher?
1). Nothing as it isn't Earth and as Jews we can only eat specific stuff that's on or from Earth ( so kosher food would need to be imported or be reared on Mars).
2). Livestock and agricultural products that are analogous to Torah / Chazal e.g. an animal that was physically like chicken?
3). Anything because it's not Earth, the flip of 1.
4). Any other suggestion.
Incidentally I've found one science fiction reference to this dilemma on baby on 5, when Rabbi Kosolov goes to the space station & visits his niece Susan Ivaonava ( to get her to sit Shiva) . They go to an alien restaurant :
What did you say this was again?"
"It's treel. It's .. sort of fish, Centauri-raisen."
"Treel? It's kosher?"
"That I can't say."
"Well, I don't recall treel being mentioned in Torah, so.. Ah, wonderful!"
Bizarre email (well I have lots of bizarre emails! )
From a "Mark" (with picture) in Lancashire :
"Hi there Hannah I'm mark tall slim build genuine fun loving guy from burnley in Lancashire I so ur ad and just had to mail u thanks love mark xxxx"
LOL . Poor lonely guy that he's trying to flirt with a lesbian in a civil partnership....
I have been watching '55 days at Peking' which was a 1960s film starring David Niven and Charlton Heston ,who portrayed the British Envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary and US Marine Corps Officer respectively. The plot and story is about the 1900 Chinese 'Boxer' rebellion. In short the Legations of the European Powers , Japan and America, along with Chinese Christian converts were forced to endure a 55 day siege /attack against the boxers , Chinese Nationalists, who were furious over the de facto partition of China via 'spheres of influence among said great powers.
The boxers had the lukewarm to tacit support from the official, but crumbling government, of the Chinese Empire . Needless to say that an eventually an international coalition crushed the Boxers.
I found a song that describes these events :
This got me thinking:
what would happen if the Earth were China , we were the boxers and there was a mixture of alien great powers treating us in a similar fashion?
Would there be a boxer rebellion?
What if the Capital of Earth was Birmingham ?
55 day siege of Birmingham ?
To Parody the above song :
The year was Twenty One Hundred T'is worth remembering The men who lived through Fifty-five days at Peking T'was called the Brummie Insurrection A bloody, Human war Against all civilised nations Of the Diplomatic Corps
The flags of Gorf and Mars
How they fluttered in the breeze
The Leopoldie and the Onconvar And the flag of the Jovians
Then came the sound of bugles The rolling drums of fury
And the streets of Birmingham Were as empty as a tomb
The President of The Earth Union Gave the signal to begin Let the foreign devils Be driven from Earth. They stormed the Gorf Legation .They attacked with shot and shell
And they came in blood red trousers Screaming "Fuck YOU" as they fell
The drums have long been muffled The bugles cease to ring But through the ages You can hear them echoing
As it is me and my sister's birthday today... 32 years of age. Phew, we're well old now !
Tradition is that we say the Psalm for the next birthday to look forward to, which in our case is Psalm 33 : "Sing joyfully to the L-rd"
PS - here's some stuff on Martian food menus
To humans reading - if they can get a Martian menu translated into a human language - a menu in a Martian restaurant is highly confusing. This is because Martians do not have a concept of basic stuff like starters, mains or deserts. Instead Martian tradition lists foods and beverages by flavours and fragrances, but in terms of nouns, rather than verbs. Look at the list of 'salts' and it will include Fish and Chips or alternatively if you look at 'Roasts' and it will include chocolate, peanuts , nuts , coffees; plus beers or wines which have a roasted flavour. The food comes out as a sort of sharing Tapas, because a) Martian culture doesn't believe people should be alone and b) They are very communal. I guess it is like having, on the one table plates of pate , apple pie, custard, gravy , fish and chips , curry , chilli beef, spag bol, beef burgers and strawberries. The sort of thing a pregnant woman with cravings might order.
Added to this Martian culture is heavily religious and Martian religion is very ritual and practical centric, both in private and in public. Thus even when dining out the waiting staff will give you prayer scrolls specific to the day , time of day, season, food and who you are with , which you have to say before, during and after a meal. The chefs and cooking staff also engage in ritual prayer before and after they cook food: their cooking books are half prayer and half instruction.
Non Martians are not expected to participate in such prayers, but it is said somewhere in one of their holy texts that 'Angels sing in Heaven when foreigners praise from their lips, gratefulness to God for their food from that which they no not, but can come to know through dining' . Added to this, like religions on Earth, Martians have a specific set of religious criteria as to what can and cannot be eaten; foreign foods aren't forbidden, depending on the clerical interpretation of adapting these food laws to non Martian produce. Although some humans do get confused with Daileys, an alcoholic beverage from Martian chickens milk . Then there is roasted fish shanks with viscous gravy.....
