Owsblog...: Easter

Showing posts with label Easter. Show all posts

Thursday, April 18, 2019

Ostara's opera...

[edited 19th April, a.m.]...more than one opus to enjoy reading (along with the comments) this celebration of Ēostre (or Ostara), by complete coincidence now also Easter.

"Eosturmonath has a name which is now translated "Paschal month", and which was once called after a goddess of theirs named Eostre, in whose honour feasts were celebrated in that month. Now they designate that Paschal season by her name, calling the joys of the new rite by the time-honoured name of the old observance." [from De mensibus Anglorum, De temporum ratione. Bede]

Anyway, the reading, firstly: Pieter Cleppe's "The long road to Brexit" on 1828. Margaret Thatcher's momentous 'Bruges Speech' ignored...a potted history from the 1960's to German reunification, ("The euro's creation was mainly the result of longstanding French frustration with the supremacy of Germany’s Bundesbank...") and up to present day and Brexit.

"Referendums were held on the Nice treaty, rejected by the Irish in 2001, the European constitution, rejected by the French and the Dutch in 2005, and its reworked version, the Lisbon treaty, rejected again by the Irish in 2008, who were asked to vote a second time on both."
"The treaty of Maastricht, signed in February 1992…, the UK secured an opt-out. This was the first major British deviation from the European project... "[1992] the Danish population rejected the Maastricht treaty in a referendum, resulting in a Danish opt-out from the euro..."

"Referendums decidedly rejected the EU's preferred outcome in Denmark, Greece, the Netherlands, and Hungary. And Britain's Eurosceptics had been craving a referendum on the EU for decades. So in order to stem the rise of Ukip, Cameron offered a public vote on EU membership in January 2013. The rest is history." [sic]

A very Interesting read.

Secondly, and somewhat related, "Entrenched: Fifteen years of BBC bias over Europe"; David

Key: pro = pro EU etc.

Keighley's piece on The Conservative Woman. Details from News-watch, or very full details HERE (PDF). Spoiler, it's about a show with Mark Mardell, yes, he of Obamamessiah complex, cringingly tainting BBC's US coverage for several years. Anyhoo, this show was about Brexit; basically, for an example of the bias, 58 speakers (48%) offered a positive opinion on the EU (or former EEC) or a negative opinion on Brexit, whilst 50 speakers (41%) offered a negative opinion on the EU (or former EEC) or a positive opinion on Brexit...doesn't sound too bad you say, but of those speakers a total of 64-71% of speech was pro EU, a 9:4 ratio bias.

The PDF is only 143 pages long...enjoy :-)

Thirdly but by NO means third in importance: The Donald just keeps on winning:

Ostara's opera...

[edited 19th April, a.m.]...more than one opus to enjoy reading (along with the comments) this celebration of Ēostre (or Ostara), by complete coincidence now also Easter.

"Eosturmonath has a name which is now translated "Paschal month", and which was once called after a goddess of theirs named Eostre, in whose honour feasts were celebrated in that month. Now they designate that Paschal season by her name, calling the joys of the new rite by the time-honoured name of the old observance." [from De mensibus Anglorum, De temporum ratione. Bede]

Anyway, the reading, firstly: Pieter Cleppe's "The long road to Brexit" on 1828. Margaret Thatcher's momentous 'Bruges Speech' ignored...a potted history from the 1960's to German reunification, ("The euro's creation was mainly the result of longstanding French frustration with the supremacy of Germany’s Bundesbank...") and up to present day and Brexit.
"Referendums were held on the Nice treaty, rejected by the Irish in 2001, the European constitution, rejected by the French and the Dutch in 2005, and its reworked version, the Lisbon treaty, rejected again by the Irish in 2008, who were asked to vote a second time on both." "The treaty of Maastricht, signed in February 1992…, the UK secured an opt-out. This was the first major British deviation from the European project... "[1992] the Danish population rejected the Maastricht treaty in a referendum, resulting in a Danish opt-out from the euro..."

"Referendums decidedly rejected the EU's preferred outcome in Denmark, Greece, the Netherlands, and Hungary. And Britain's Eurosceptics had been craving a referendum on the EU for decades. So in order to stem the rise of Ukip, Cameron offered a public vote on EU membership in January 2013. The rest is history." [sic]

A very Interesting read.

Monday, April 01, 2013

Oestre opus...

Easter weekend, what better time than to have a Christian guy say something that you really want everyone to know: in this case it really is a Christian Guy, Managing Director of the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), writing in the Spectator..."The number of households where no one had ever worked doubled under the previous Government." Christian rightly asks where was the righteous anger of the 'poverty lobby' (and their "ongoing shock-and-awe strategy") during this time?

IDS, in this massive welfare reform initiative, is attempting to address the causes, trying to rein-in the dependency culture and to "see beyond the facile argument that compassion can be defined by the size of a welfare cheque".

The meme that 'Beveridge has been betrayed' is, as it should be, cross party (but not nearly enough, political shenanigans will always trump what is right) as surely it is clear as day that the welfare state is now causing - and has been for many years the - more than one of the five 'Giant Evils' (Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness) that it was developed to abate.

And for those that will immediately say that the CSJ is a just an IDS right-wing think tank then think again: "One of our key problems has been a political obsession with the idea that throwing money at a problem will solve it, regardless of how entrenched its root causes may be... ...Busting the myth that poverty is tackled solely by chasing a mainly income inequality line is a major task for the 21st century. If the government seizes this opportunity we might just get there.")

Update: Fraser has just added this piece: "Why are the left so angry about today’s welfare reform? Because its popular – and right."

Oestre opus...

Easter weekend, what better time than to have a Christian guy say something that you really want everyone to know: in this case it really is a Christian Guy, Managing Director of the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), writing in the Spectator..."The number of households where no one had ever worked doubled under the previous Government." Christian rightly asks where was the righteous anger of the 'poverty lobby' (and their "ongoing shock-and-awe strategy") during this time?

IDS, in this massive welfare reform initiative, is attempting to address the causes, trying to rein-in the dependency culture and to "see beyond the facile argument that compassion can be defined by the size of a welfare cheque". The meme that 'Beveridge has been betrayed' is, as it should be, cross party (but not nearly enough, political shenanigans will always trump what is right) as surely it is clear as day that the welfare state is now causing - and has been for many years the - more than one of the five 'Giant Evils' (Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness) that it was developed to abate.

And for those that will immediately say that the CSJ is a just an IDS right-wing think tank then think again: "One of our key problems has been a political obsession with the idea that throwing money at a problem will solve it, regardless of how entrenched its root causes may be... ...Busting the myth that poverty is tackled solely by chasing a mainly income inequality line is a major task for the 21st century. If the government seizes this opportunity we might just get there.")

Update: Fraser has just added this piece: "Why are the left so angry about today’s welfare reform? Because its popular – and right."