Category Archives: COMMENTARY

THE GREAT IRISH FAMINE – was it Genocide?

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My wife and I visited Dublin in September 2000. At that time, as a  participant in the  economic Celtic Tiger  Boom our son and his wife were living and working in Dublin and it was a convenient excuse to visit the land of my forefathers, take in sights and soak up the music. In 1870 members of the McGrath family (my ancestors) emigrated from Dublin (or was it Cork?) to Australia. My wife Mae also had a family connection to Belfast. So while we were not “Irish Irish” we have a connection Ireland. While we were there I remember a newspaper article commenting on the the just released population census that pegged the Irish population as the highest since the great famine of the mid-1800s. The article noted that the population of Ireland before the famine was around eight million. Over a relatively short period of time famine and mass emigration cut that number almost in half. At the time of our visit the population of Ireland was still only around five million.  The famine was caused by a fungal infection that destroyed the potato crop. For those who are unaware of the Irish Famine here is the Wikipedia entry ……..

“The Great Famine, also known within Ireland as the Great Hunger or simply the Famine and outside Ireland as the Irish Potato Famine, was a period of  starvation and disease in Ireland lasting from 1845 to 1852 that constituted a historical social crisis and subsequently had a major impact on Irish society and history as a whole. The most severely affected areas were in the western and southern parts of Ireland—where the Irish language was dominant—and hence the period was contemporaneously known in Irish as an Drochshaol, which literally translates to “the bad life” and loosely translates to “the hard times”. The worst year of the famine was 1847, which became known as “Black ’47”. During the Great Hunger, roughly 1 million people died and more than 1 million more fled the country causing the country’s population to fall by 20–25% (in some towns, populations fell as much as 67%) between 1841 and 1871. Between 1845 and 1855, at least 2.1 million people left Ireland, primarily on packet ships but also on steamboats and barques —one of the greatest exoduses from a single island in history.”

“The famine was a defining moment in the history of Ireland which was part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 1801 to 1922. The famine and its effects permanently changed the island’s demographic, political, and cultural landscape, producing an estimated 2 million refugees and spurring a century-long population decline For both the native Irish and those in the resulting diaspora, the famine entered folk memory. The strained relations between many Irish and their ruling British government worsened further because of the famine, heightening ethnic and sectarian tensions and boosting nationalism and republicanism both in Ireland and among Irish emigrants around the world. English documentary maker John Percival said that the famine “became part of the long story of betrayal and exploitation which led to the growing movement in Ireland for independence.” Scholar Kirby Miller makes the same point. Debate exists regarding nomenclature for the event, whether to use the term “Famine”, “Potato Famine” or “Great Hunger”, the last of which some believe most accurately captures the complicated history of the period.”

The potato blight returned to Europe in 1879 but, by this time, the Land War (one of the largest agrarian movements to take place in 19th-century Europe) had begun in Ireland The movement, organized by the Land League, continued the political campaign for the Three Fs  (Free Sale, Fixity of Tenure, Fair Rent) which was issued in 1850 by the Tenant Right League during the Great Famine. When the potato blight returned to Ireland in the 1879 famine, the League boycotted “notorious landlords” and its members physically blocked the evictions of farmers; the consequent reduction in homelessness and house demolitions resulted in a drastic reduction in the number of death.”

Historical population

Year Population[8] %Change Av % per year
2022 7.1m Increase6.6 Increase1.1
2016 6.66m Increase4.2 Increase0.84
2011 6.39m Increase6.86 Increase1.37
2006 5.98m Increase6.6 Increase1.32
2001 5.6m Increase6.1 Increase1.21
1996 5.29m Increase3.5 Increase0.7
1991 5.1m Steady Steady
1986 5.1m Increase2.2 Increase0.44
1981 5m Increase10.86 Increase1.09
1971 4.51m Increase3.44 Increase0.69
1966 4.36m Increase2.59 Increase0.52
1961 4.25m Decrease0.93 Decrease0.19
1956 4.29m Decrease0.19 Decrease0.1
1951 4.33m Increase0.93 Increase1.86
1946 4.29m Increase1.9 Increase0.1
1931 4.21m Decrease0.47 Decrease0.09
1926 4.23m Decrease3.42 Decrease0.23
1911 4.38m Decrease1.79 Decrease0.18
1901 4.46m Decrease5.11 Decrease0.51
1891 4.7m Decrease9.27 Decrease0.93
1881 5.18m Decrease4.07 Decrease0.4
1871 5.4m Decrease6.9 Decrease0.69
1861 5.8m Decrease11.45 Decrease1.15
1851 6.55m Decrease19.93 Decrease1.99
1841 8.18m Increase2.89 Increase0.41
1834 7.95m Increase2.32 Increase0.77
1831 7.77m Increase14.26 Increase1.43
1821 6.8m Increase22.08 Increase1.47
1806[12] 5.57m Increase17.26 Increase1.15
1791 4.75m Increase17.28 Increase1.73
1781 4.05m Increase26.56 Increase0.98
1754 3.2m Increase10.3 Increase0.29
1718 2.9m Increase107 Increase0.907
1600 1.4m

In 2016, the population of Ireland for the first time exceeded the population recorded in the Census of 1851, the first census immediately after the Great Famine, when the population of the island was recorded at 6,575,000.

The response of the British Parliament of the day was inadequate and, some say callous, and even possibly Genocide. Here is a YouTube video that explores the Great Famine and the British response to the crisis.

Some of the twisted logic of the politicians of that era is still in use today. How often do we echoes of racial superiority and hear the cry “let the free markets rule” .

Irish refugees from the famine scattered across the world creating huge Irish diasporas in Canada, the USA and Australia. Here is a song written by the Irish guitarist John Doyle that captures some of the despair of the time.

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A Touch of Reality (as I see It)

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This is in response to a number of issues, that in my opinion, seem to have become a little distorted.

  • There is Runaway inflation and ” a skyrocketing rise in the cost of living”. This seems to be the constant chant and rant in the media. Stop and think about it for a minute. Where are we at this moment? We have just endured over three years of a global pandemic with 697,897,180 COVID cases and 6,938,524 deaths world wide. In Canada there were 4,786, 258 COVID cases and 54,902 deaths. Naturally this has been accompanied by major economic and social disruptions that obviously continue to play out as the world attempts to get back to “normal”. There has been  inflation in Canada but it is a stretch to characterize it as “runaway”. For comparison here are some Canadian numbers………… 2021 the rate was 3.4%; 2022 (the peak) 6.8%; 2023 (September) 3.8%;  2024 (projected) 2.43%. In looking at world wide figures there are some obvious catastrophic numbers – Argentina 143%; Turkey at 61.36%  but Canada is no where in that league.
Country Last Previous Reference Unit
Argentina 143 138 Oct/23 %
Australia 5.4 6 Sep/23 %
Brazil 4.82 5.19 Oct/23 %
Canada 3.8 4 Sep/23 %
China -0.2 0 Oct/23 %
Euro Area 2.9 4.3 Oct/23 %
France 4 4.9 Oct/23 %
Germany 3.8 4.5 Oct/23 %
India 4.87 5.02 Oct/23 %
Indonesia 2.56 2.28 Oct/23 %
Italy 1.7 5.34 Oct/23 %
Japan 3 3.2 Sep/23 %
Mexico 4.26 4.45 Oct/23 %
Netherlands -0.4 0.2 Oct/23 %
Russia 6.7 6 Oct/23 %
Saudi Arabia 1.6 1.7 Oct/23 %
Singapore 4.1 4 Sep/23 %
South Africa 5.4 4.8 Sep/23 %
South Korea 3.8 3.7 Oct/23 %
Spain 3.5 3.5 Oct/23 %
Switzerland 1.7 1.7 Oct/23 %
Turkey 61.36 61.53 Oct/23 %
United Kingdom 4.6 6.7 Oct/23 %
United States 3.2 3.7 Oct/23 %

I suggest, based on these numbers, the Canadian situation is looking pretty good. I agree that the cost of goods and services have gone up but, I suggest, all things considered, the increases are not as dramatic as what has been implied by by fiscally conservative observers. The situation is stabilizing and inflation numbers are slowly coming down. The biggest component in the Canadian figures is probably the high cost of accommodation and that is largely driven by increases in interest rates.

  • COVID-19 Mandates. The BC government has chosen to retain the COVID-19 vaccine mandates for workers in Health Care, Long-Term Care and Assisted Living facilities. This has prompted some reaction that implies that the mandates are a draconian policy that exacerbates  the shortage of skilled health care workers. I suspect the objections are based on political considerations and have no merit. The mandates are prudent health care policy and any objections are based on political agendas or a lack of knowledge of Infectious Diseases and how Public Health policies work. Generally speaking, the vaccination rates for Health Care workers in British Columbia are in the 90+ percentiles. In some instances they are as high as 98%. I suspect the number of Health Care workers excluded from being able to work are very, very low and are not responsible for any shortage of skilled workers . For those few that resist vaccination I suggest they need to examine their professional ethics and, if they still consider mandatory vaccinations are an infringement  then  I further suggest perhaps they are working in the wrong profession. Vaccinations are a corner stone of modern medical practice and to think and act  otherwise is unprofessional, foolish and dangerous.

 

  • The Israeli – Palestinian Conflict. I think almost every one can agree that the  Hamas attacks on Israel and the loss of Israeli lives is horrific. The resulting conflagration and the further loss of Palestinian lives is also horrific. While the military operations continue there is another battle going and that is the battle for the hearts and minds of world opinion. The history of the region over the past 70 years has been batted back and forth with blame being laid at the doors of both protagonists. The resulting sympathies depend on the latest news reports and can be switch back and forth at a moment notice. Some things do need to be kept in mind. The charges of some horrific atrocities perpetrated by Hamas at this stage of the conflict are, at best, hear say. Every one is lead to believe they are all true but, as near as I can tell concrete evidence has yet to be produced and verified. In every war, particularly at the opening stages, the charges of horrific atrocities are always  levelled against all protagonists. In World War I German soldiers were accused of bayoneting Belgium babies. Was that really true? I don’t know it but it was part and parcel of the propaganda war and  is all part of “the game”. So lets wait for the verifiable evidence before we pass judgment. At the same time Jewish settlers have been accused of the murder and harassment of Palestinians in the West Bank. And so it goes on. The Israelis have accused Hamas of using civilians as humans shields and placing civilians at risk by embedding themselves in the civilian population. A little dose of reality is needed here. The Gaza Strip is narrow piece of land 41 kilometres long and 13 kilometres wide. Think about it. The area is smaller than most  Canadian municipalities. Into that small piece of land are crammed over 2 million people and around 500 kilometres of tunnels. Dig a hole in any direction and the chances are you will hit a tunnel. At the same time it is simply impossible for Hamas to separate itself from the civilian population. There is just not enough room to do otherwise. The Israelis know that and that is why there is such widespread civilian devastation. It is just not possible to be able to separate military and civilian targets.  The Israeli demands for over a million citizens to relocate from North Gaza  to the south to accommodate their battle plans is neither feasible or possible. Even with sufficient infrastructure (vehicles, gasoline, etc) of which their isn’t, it cannot be done. The Israeli Defence Force is finding weapons in and around the Palestinian hospitals and will probably offer that up as evidence of nefarious acts perpetrated by Hamas. That may or may not be true but lets face it the finding of arms is hardly unexpected.

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aaahhh….. MARIMBA

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Back in my youth teenagers  performing music was not a common phenomena. In Sydney, Australia, while in  my  late teens AM top forty radio was the big mover on the local music scene. Of course there were local cover bands of mostly older professional musicians but none of my teen age friends  ever gave a thought to actually playing music. I was probably the only one in my peer group who owned an instrument. It was early days and I was at that horrible stumbling stage of  trying to figure out how to actually play a guitar. It wasn’t until classic rock became “a thing” that things began to change. When I started to pay serious attention to music the late night radio broadcasts  were on the tail end of the swing era with big band tributes and crooners like Frank Sinatra ruling the late night air waves. When Bob Dylan, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, etc   kicked off the  modern singer/songwriter rock era Modern Jazz and folk music were on the fringe of the local music scene and “Classic Rock” wasn’t even a concept at that stage. By the mid sixties that had changed and every young guy on the planet picked up a guitar and started churning out the new music. For a young guy an electric guitar was an instant “chick magnet”. The era of the guitar god became the order of the day and that is the way it has been ever since. Now, maybe that is changing. Rick Beato, the YouTube music critic and promoter, commented in a recent YouTube video that  when young people socialize  these days they no longer seem to be interested in playing music. They are more interested in playing video games. So maybe the Electric Guitar era has just about run its course. The legendary performers are dropping like flies and the bands left over from the classic rock era are populated by really, really old men. It is probably time to move on.
 
For me, the new thing, and don’t laugh, is the marimba. I know it maybe only be because the YouTube algorithms are selecting from my playlists and that only re-enforces my current interests in Marimba performances by young nerdy guys or cute Asian ladies. That seems to be their instrument of choice. For me there is something very appealing about a huge five octave marimba played by two handed musicians with four mallets. The resulting sounds are magical. There seems to be masses of musicians and new composers churning out musically spectacular performances on Marimbas. I was first turned onto marimba music way back in the mid-1980s when I first heard Steve Reich’s Six Marimbas. For some audiences  the music is an advanced  form of sonic Chinese water torture. As a comment I think that is a little unkind. I admit it is very repetitious but if you really, really listen there is a lot going on in the music. I have been listening to that piece for over thirty years and I still find it enthralling. It was originally written for six Grand Pianos but I guess getting six grand pianos into a room  was a logistical nightmare. For six Marimbas that is still a physical challenge but getting them into  a concert space it is doable. Steve Reich is a modern classical composer who, along with Phillip Glass, Terry Riley and others has re-invented modern classical music. So while pop/rock music seems to have gone down the rabbit hole of massive arena performances, modern classical musicians seem to have stripped away the excesses of modern pop music  to produce performances that are both sonically and visually interesting.
So here is a recent performance of Steve Reich’s magical Six Marimbas performed by HAMIRUGE – THE LOUSIANA STATE UNIVERSITY  GROUP under the direction of Brett Dietz.

 It doesn’t end there. The piece has been re-arranged for Indonesian Gamelan. I think that works almost as well. The Indonesian Gamelan Orchestras were a major influence on Reich’s music.

 For a more traditional Classical approach to music check out the magnificent arrangement of the Chaconne from  Johann Sebastian Bach’s Partita No. 2 in D minor for solo violin, BWV 1004. It was composed in between 1717-1720. The  Chaconne reflects Bach’s thorough appreciation for the violin as an instrument of musical expression. At one level it is a simple piece of music  – the 256-measure-long work consists of 64 variants on the four-measure phrase heard at the beginning. Check out the dynamics in the performance of this piece.

On a jazzier note check out Mika Stoltzman’s Marimba Madness with a  combo that included the great drummer Steve Gadd who appears to be faultlessly sight reading the drum parts. Enjoy……

Ivan Trevino is one of a number of composers churning out new music for Marimba and Vibraphone. This is one of his pieces called Catching Shadows. The inclusion of the drum kit is a nice touch.

Another version scored  for Percussion Sextet. How do high school kids get this good?

Here is a performance of Velocities compose by Joseph Schwantner (born March 22, 1943) an American compose and educator. He is prolific, with many works to his credit. His style is coloristic and eclectic, drawing on such diverse elements as French impressionism, African drumming, and minimalism. His orchestral work  Aftertones of Infinity received the 1979 Pulitzer Prize for Music (Wikipedia).

That is just a few performances available on YouTube.

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Read Any Good Books Lately? (#26) – “Wild Things”

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Living surrounded by the snow capped mountains of the East Kootenays in British Columbia, the concept of “wild” is not an unfamiliar notion. After all, on an almost daily basis, it is not unusual to see deer in our yard, herds of elk in adjacent fields, wild turkeys wandering down the street and the occasional moose and black bear. So when Alice Henderson’s environmentally themed novels hit my desk they were avidly devoured.

A Solitude of Wolverines: A Novel of Suspense (Alex Carter Series Book 1)

“The first book in a thrilling series featuring a wildlife biologist who courts trouble as she saves endangered species . . . and a mysterious killer who buries his dead in the land she helps preserve—a fast-paced, action-driven tale of suspense with the atmosphere and propulsive tension of works by Jane Harper, C. J. Box, William Kent Krueger, and Nevada Barr. While studying wolverines on a wildlife sanctuary in Montana, biologist Alex Carter is run off the road and threatened by locals determined to force her off the land. Undeterred in her mission to help save this threatened species, Alex tracks wolverines on foot and by cameras positioned in remote regions of the preserve. But when she reviews the photos, she discovers disturbing images of an animal of a different kind: a severely injured man seemingly lost and wandering in the wilds. After searches for the unknown man come up empty, local law enforcement is strangely set on dismissing the case altogether, raising Alex’s suspicions. Then another invasive predator trespasses onto the preserve. The hunter turns out to be another human—and the prey is the wildlife biologist herself. Alex realizes too late that she has seen too much—she’s stumbled onto a far-reaching illegal operation and now has become the biggest threat. In this wild and dangerous landscape, Alex’s life depends on staying one step ahead—using all she knows about the animal world and what it takes to win the brutal battle for survival.”   ……. Amazon Books

A Blizzard of Polar Bears: A Novel of Suspense (Alex Carter Series Book 2)

Wildlife biologist Alex Carter is back, fighting for endangered species in the Canadian Arctic and battling for her life in this action-packed follow-up to A Solitude of Wolverines, “a true stunner of a thriller debut” (James Rollins) and “a great read” (Nevada Barr). Fresh off her wolverine study in Montana, wildlife biologist Alex Carter lands a job studying a threatened population of polar bears in the Canadian Arctic. Embedded with a small team of Arctic researchers, she tracks the majestic bears by air, following them over vast, snowy terrain, spending days leaning precariously out of a helicopter with a tranquilizer gun, until she can get down on the ice to examine them up close. But as her study progresses, and she gathers data on the health of individual bears, things start to go awry. Her helicopter pilot quits unexpectedly, equipment goes missing, and a late-night intruder breaks into her lab and steals the samples she’s collected. She realizes that someone doesn’t want her to complete her study, but Alex is not easily deterred. Managing to find a replacement pilot, she returns to the icy expanses of Hudson Bay. But the helicopter catches fire in mid-flight, forcing the team to land on a vast sheet of white far from civilization. Surviving on the frozen landscape is difficult enough, but as armed assailants close in on snowmobiles, Alex must rely on her skills and tenacity to survive this onslaught and carry out her mission….. Amazon Books

A Ghost of Caribou: A Novel of Suspense (Alex Carter Series Book 3)

There are many threads in this third book in the Alex Carter series. This time our intrepid biologist is living in the forests of the northern U.S., on the borders of Idaho, Washington, and Canada. She is tasked with documenting a possible sighting of the elusive caribou, thought to be absent from the U.S. Alex encounters an ongoing feud between loggers and environmentalists, including a woman who has been living in a tree for months. In addition, a woman is missing, and another’s body has been discovered, leading to FBI and local police involvement. The writing here is as excellent as ever, and all the characters are believable and interesting………. Amazon Books. Some readers may find the issues of environmentalists versus every one else a little to black and white. The location of the novel is just immediately south of the East Kootenays and as such has an immediate appeal.
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Gordon Pinsent (July 12, 1930 – February 25, 2023)

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For me 1971 was a good year. It was the year I arrived in Canada and met my future wife.  1972 was an even a better year. It was the year I got married and, co-incidently, it was the year that the Canadian film The Rowdyman starring Gordon Pinsent hit the big screen. It was also marked the year I first heard Ian Tyson’s  Summer Wages and the music of Gordon Lightfoot. There you have it, three major Canadian icons in such a short time. I thought I had hit the mother load of Canadian culture. In the space of a little over a year I had slipped into the mainstream of Canadian life and found a Canadian soundtrack for the characters I met every day. I was just like in the movies. The people I was meeting could have stepped straight out of the Rowdyman. It was art imitating life.

So to hear of Gordon Pinsent’s death it was a reminder of those early days of my immersion and integration into Canadian society and culture. Thank you Gordon.

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Read Any Good Books Lately (#25) – Victoria Clark

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Victoria Clark is a writer of non-fiction who has has worked for The Observer in Romania, the former Yugoslavia and Russia from 1990 to 1996, reporting the Croatian, Bosnian and first Chechen wars. I first stumbled onto her book Why Angels Fall in an Australian second hand book shop over 25 years ago. I have read the book twice and. given enough time, I will probably read it again. To have any understanding of the Eastern European mind set this book is an essential read.

Why Angels Fall: A Journey Through Orthodox Europe from Byzantium to Kosovo  – Nov. 28 2000

Victoria Clark traveled across most of Eastern Europe to write Why Angels Fall. Having worked for six years as a journalist in Romania, the former Yugoslavia, and Russia, Clark was fascinated by the Eastern Orthodox churches and keen to unravel their histories and beliefs. To do so, she journeyed from Mount Athos, to Serbia, Macedonia, Greece, Romania, Russia, Cyprus, and finally Istanbul, interviewing clergy and other believers. We’re treated to a series of vivid cameos, a few of whose subjects glow almost visibly with holiness, a few terrify, and many show qualities rare and needed in the West. As Clark puts it, after the ancient split between eastern and western Christianity, “each side lost something it could not happily do without … at the risk of oversimplifying for the sake of clarity, western Christendom can be said to have lost its heart, eastern Christendom its mind.” Her keenness to explain Orthodoxy to Westerners stems from a fear that the continent is in the process of fracturing along a 1,000-year-old fault line, between the Catholic and Protestant west and the Orthodox east. The book combines high-quality, highly readable travel writing with a powerful mix of politics and religion. Most of all, perhaps, it demonstrates the power of history, and of different peoples’ conflicting versions of history. Again and again, Clark finds the present in the grip of the past. In Serbia, for example, she cannot escape the legends surrounding the destruction of the Serbs’ medieval empire in 1389, and the death of the venerated Prince Lazar: “the battle of Kosovo’s interruption of Serbia’s golden greatness has become a cataclysm to rival man’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden in the minds of Serbs…. Prince Lazar is the key to understanding the Serbs’ deep conviction that, however many wars they initiate, they remain a nation of victims and martyrs.” –David Pickering, Amazon.co.uk

Far-Farers Hardcover – Dec 31 2004

Just before the year 1000, a young Viking named Thorvald turned his back on the pagan gods of his fathers to preach the Christian gospel. But his Icelandic countrymen mocked and outlawed him. Abandoning his homeland, Thorvald embarked on an epic journey to the heart of all medieval world maps, Jerusalem. A thousand years later, Victoria Clark embarked on the same journey to discover to what extent the dramatic changes and conflicts sweeping Western Europe a millennium ago still resonate today. The Far-Farers is both the story of this twenty-first-century journey and a history of eleventh-century western Christendom.

In this remarkable book Clark illuminates a group of influential eleventh-century characters Thorvald, emperors of eastern and western Christendom, abbots, saints, princesses, Crusaders who form links in a historical chain extending down the century and all the way from Iceland to the Holy Land. Western Europe was struggling to unite then, expanding rapidly and changing utterly. Warfare, peacekeeping, multinational monasticism, institutional power struggles, mass pilgrim travel, and rising religious fundamentalism were a few salient characteristics of this world more like our own than we might imagine. The twenty-first-century people Clark encountered as she traveled through Iceland, central and Western Europe, the Balkans, Turkey, and the Middle East cast fresh light on both worlds. In the ancient capital of Poland, a young Catholic priest scorns the idea of Europe uniting in the name of human rights instead of Christ. At the Crusader stronghold of Krak les Chevaliers, a Syrian playboy highlights the deep and widening gulf between the West and Islam. A richly evocative and beautifully written work, The Far-Farers is neither conventional history nor travel, but a powerful and authoritative demonstration of our enduring connection with the distant past.

Allies for Armageddon: The Rise of Christian Zionism Hardcover – Illustrated, Nov. 28 2007

Millions of Christian Zionists in America believe that God requires them to offer Israel unconditional support—moral, financial, political, and military. Guided by a literal reading of the prophetic sections of the Bible, Christian Zionists are convinced that the world is hurtling toward a final Battle of Armageddon. They believe that war in the Middle East is God’s will for the region. In this timely book, Victoria Clark first explores the 400-year history of this powerful political ideology, laying to rest the idea that Christian Zionism is a passing craze or the province of a lunatic fringe. Then Clark surveys the contemporary Christian Zionist scene in Israel and in the United States, where the influence of the religious fundamentalists has never been greater.

Clark engages with Christian Zionism directly, interviewing leaders, attending events, and traveling with Christian Zionists in the Holy Land. She also investigates the Christian Zionist presence in Israel. She finds that the view through the Christian Zionist lens is dangerously simple: President Bush’s War on Terror is a mythic battle between good and evil, and Syria and Iran represent the powers of darkness. Such views are far from rare—an estimated fifteen to twenty million Americans share them. Almost one in three Americans believes Israel was given to the Jews by God as a prelude to the Battle of Armageddon and Jesus’ Second Coming. Clark concludes with an assessment of Christian Zionists’ impact on American foreign policy in the Middle East and on America’s relationships with European allies since the attacks of 9/11.

I currently have this book on my wish list.

Yemen: Dancing on the Heads of Snakes Kindle Edition (2010)

Although raised Catholic, Victoria Clark is a self-confessed agnostic who, in four non-fiction works, Why Angels Fall, Far-Farers, Allies for Armageddon, and Holy Fire       explores the Christian religious mind set and its impact on history.  Yemen: Dancing on the Heads of Snakes is a departure from the Christian themes explored in her previous works.

“Yemen is the dark horse of the Middle East. Every so often it enters the headlines for one alarming reason or another—links with al-Qaeda, kidnapped Westerners, explosive population growth—then sinks into obscurity again. But, as Victoria Clark argues in this riveting book, we ignore Yemen at our peril. The poorest state in the Arab world, it is still dominated by its tribal makeup and has become a perfect breeding ground for insurgent and terrorist movements. Clark returns to the country where she was born to discover a perilously fragile state that deserves more of our understanding and attention. On a series of visits to Yemen between 2004 and 2009, she meets politicians, influential tribesmen, oil workers and jihadists as well as ordinary Yemenis. Untangling Yemen’s history before examining the country’s role in both al-Qaeda and the wider jihadist movement today, Clark presents a lively, clear, and up-to-date account of a little-known state whose chronic instability is increasingly engaging the general reader.” ………..Amazon Books

I currently have this book on my wish list.

Holy Fire: The Battle for Christ’s Tomb (2011)

“Holy Fire invades the church, a fast-breeding light transfiguring faces, transforming the dark stone space. I hear gasps and cheers and sobs and tears. The emotion is overwhelming, the heat suffocating . . .’
Every Easter the ‘miracle’ of the Holy Fire is enacted in front of hundreds of the faithful in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. For centuries, Orthodox Christian pilgrims have made the arduous journey to witness it: the proof they need that God favors them far above all other Christians, as well as Jews and Moslems. Holy Fire presents the unending battle waged by various denominations of Christian churchmen for their savior’s empty tomb as the microcosm of centuries of wider Christian power struggles. Victoria Clark deftly weaves history, reportage and religion into a fluid and fascinating account that includes the aggressive campaigns of medieval Crusaders, the empire-building of the nineteenth-century European powers, Britain’s decision to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine in 1917, and today’s zealous, though unlikely, champions of Israel’s cause, the Christian Zionists. She explores the contribution that the Christian world has made to the unfolding tragedy of the Holy Land – at a time when it has never been more urgent for the West to see itself as others see it.

In Innocents Abroad (1869) Mark Twain wrote of the various Christian groups who had chapels in Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre: “It has been proven conclusively that they can not worship together around the grave of the Saviour of the World in peace.” Little has changed, and journalist Clark traces the historical reasons why this is so. Skillfully weaving narrative about contemporary Jerusalem and Israel with a history of the political and religious wrangling over the places deemed holy by Christians, Jews and Muslims, Clark’s book reads like a thriller. She follows the various Christian claims to the land (Orthodox and Roman Catholic) as well as the international ones (the Ottoman Empire and the more contemporary interests of England, France, Russia and the United States) from the time of Constantine up to the creation of the state of Israel. Though her personal dislike for evangelicals mars the book slightly, readers will come to understand why small incidents, such as an Egyptian Copt sitting in the Ethiopian section of the rooftop patio of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, can erupt in violence, and why so many nations today continue to take sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts. ………. Amazon Books

I currently have this book on my wish list.

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Post-script: After reading Victoria Clark’s books the temptation to go further down the Christian “rabbit hole” was just too overwhelming. So much so that I had to re-read some recent Irish history ….

A New Ireland: How Europe’s Most Conservative Country Became Its Most Liberal  …… (2020)

by Niall O’Dowd
Theocracies are never a good idea. Just look at the recent news coming out of Iran. The amalgamation of Church and state seems to be a recipe for pain and violence.  It was in Ireland and it continues to be so in Iran. This is an important book about the Irish theocracy of the last 100 years. It is slightly off topic from Victoria Clark’s books but not by much. The historical threads of 2,000 years of Christianity have been played out in the history of the Irish Republic. The very recent demise of the Irish theocracy  demonstrates that  even in the most entrenched circumstances there is possibilities for progressive change.
“It’s not your father’s Ireland. Not anymore. This is a story of a modern revolution in Ireland told by the founder of Irish Central, Irish America magazine, and The Irish Voice newspaper.
In a May 2019 countrywide referendum, Ireland voted overwhelmingly to make abortion legal; three years earlier, it had done the same with same-sex marriage, becoming the only country in the world to pass such a law by universal suffrage. In 2018 the visit by Pope Francis  to Ireland saw protests and a fraction of the emphatic welcome that Pope John Paul had seen forty years earlier. There have been two female heads of state since 1990, the first two in Ireland’s history. Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, an openly gay man of Indian heritage, declared that “a quiet revolution had taken place.” It had. For nearly all of its modern history, Ireland was Europe’s most conservative country. The Catholic Church was its most powerful institution and held power over all facets of Irish life. But as scandal eroded the Church’s hold on Irish life, a new Ireland has flourished. War in the North has ended. EU membership and an influx of American multinational corporations have helped Ireland weather economic depression and transform into Europe’s headquarters for Apple, Facebook, and Google. With help from prominent Irish and Irish American voices like historian and bestselling author Tim Pat Coogan and the New York Times’s Maureen Dowd, A New Ireland tells the story of a modern revolution against all odds.”
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The Magdalen Girls Kindle Edition (2016)

by V.S. Alexander. This is a novel that explores one of the unsavory facets of the Catholic Church’s grip on Irish politics, culture and mentality.

“Dublin, 1962. Within the gated grounds of the convent of The Sisters of the Holy Redemption lies one of the city’s Magdalen Laundries. Once places of refuge, the laundries have evolved into grim workhouses. Some inmates are “fallen” women—unwed mothers, prostitutes, or petty criminals. Most are ordinary girls whose only sin lies in being too pretty, too independent, or tempting the wrong man. Among them is sixteen-year-old Teagan Tiernan, sent by her family when her beauty provokes a lustful revelation from a young priest.

Teagan soon befriends Nora Craven, a new arrival who thought nothing could be worse than living in a squalid tenement flat. Stripped of their freedom and dignity, the girls are given new names and denied contact with the outside world. The Mother Superior, Sister Anne, who has secrets of her own, inflicts cruel, dehumanizing punishments—but always in the name of love. Finally, Nora and Teagan find an ally in the reclusive Lea, who helps them endure—and plot an escape. But as they will discover, the outside world has dangers too, especially for young women with soiled reputations.

Told with candor, compassion, and vivid historical detail, The Magdalen Girls is a masterfully written novel of life within the era’s notorious institutions—and an inspiring story of friendship, hope, and unyielding courage.  ”    Amazon Books

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Joni Mitchell’s “The Magdalene Laundries”

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Banjo Pickers – Listen Up

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Full disclosure – I play banjo but I am not ” A Banjo Player”…… Understand? I know enough to pick up a banjo and have some understanding of a few of the tuning systems and playing styles, but I am not prepared to play one in public. I have a bit of a love / hate relationship with the instrument. After years of playing guitar I find the banjo heavy and the strings too soft. I love clawhammer, folk music, old times styles and Celtic tunes on tenor banjo but do not care for rapid-fire blue grass. It was once described to me as “heavy metal” played on banjo. I love Bela Fleck’s non-bluegrass performances and the Chris Coole’s clawhammer tunes I regard as gifts from God.

The banjo is a uniquely American instrument with roots that can be traced back to pre- civil war days, the slave trade and further back to Africa. In the film Throw Down Your Heart Bela Fleck tried to do exactly that. It is a full length movie that probably says more about African music and culture than about the modern banjo. However, it is well worth spending 90 minutes to watch.

There are many YouTube tutorials and video performances out there. Most are about the more common aspects of the instrument. However, as people explore the history of the banjo some unusual aspects of the instrument are becoming available. Interest is growing in the Gourd and Civil War Minstrel banjos and several master musicians are now  playing the instruments in public. The first clip is by Laurel Premo, a Michigan based multi-instrumentalist with strong academic credentials  and folk music roots. She is playing a Gourd banjo. She is accompanied by Anna Gustavsson on the Swedish Nyckelharpa.

The second clip is Rhiannon Giddens, a conservatory trained musician with deep folkloric roots,  performing on a reproduction of a Minstrel Banjo.

Both instruments are recognizable as banjos but not the usual music store models that we would readily recognize. Both instruments have fretless necks, nylon strings and sound like they are tuned lower than a conventional banjo. Modern banjos are usually strung with metal strings while the older instruments would have been strung with “gut” strings. In this day and age that is neither practical or even environmentally sensible. There are a number of nylon substitutes now available.

To effectively play a fretless instrument is probably beyond my capabilities.  I have an 100 year old Washburn banjo that is a little fragile but maybe could be a suitable candidate for nylon strings. It is an option that I am in the process of exploring. I have done my home work, read the reviews and have decided to try the Aquila Classic Banjo – Red Series. The product information describes “A unique feeling and a strong, consistent sound. Until now, it was necessary to increase the gauge of a string for it to produce a lower-pitched note. But increasing the string’s diameter also increases internal dampening. That makes the string less bright, less responsive and more muffled; the thicker the string, the duller the sound. Our revolutionary new approach — unique to us — changes the specific weight of the material, increasing it progressively to leave the gauge almost unchanged.” Depending on the basic note required for the individual string the composition (density) of the string is designed at the point of manufacture. “The result is amazing: instruments sound brighter, more powerful and more responsive through the entire range of the fret board. The strings also maintain their intonation better, because thicker strings need to be fretted harder, pulling them further out of tune. ” At least that is the claim.

Fresh out of the packet the first thing to notice is that the plastic envelopes for the individual strings are color coded. For a banjo tuned in the traditional G tuning (gDGBD) the coding is (g) yellow, D white, G green, B blue and D red.

The second thing to notice is that the strings do not have the usual loops for attachment at the bottom end. At first sight that is a little disconcerting. However, here is a video demonstrating how to overcome that problem. The solution is pretty simple and straight forward.

Attaching the string at the top end requires threading the string through the tuning peg and cinching as described below.

Here is another video on Nylon Strings.

As an after thought I might try tuning the nylon set down at least a tone to either (fCFAC) a tone down from standard G; or (f Bb F Bb C) a tone down from Double C. The fingering you are used to will be the same. Only the Key will change.

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Postscript: Just because of the huge variety of instruments and string sets available it may be difficult to purchase some speciality sets locally so I tend to buy strings on line from https://www.stringsandbeyond.com/ . I have been purchasing strings from this site for years without problems.

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Read Any Good Books Lately (#24) – Down the Rabbit Hole

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There are masses of literature out there devoted to politicians and geopolitics and it is a realm that one enters with some risk. Many preconceived notions go there to die or be forever altered. In the search for what is true or real, one book always leads to another and another and the whole effort ends up being a trip down “a rabbit hole”. Here are some books I encountered in a recent trip down “the rabbit hole”.

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ASSASSINATION ON EMBASSY ROW  by John Dinges

“Edgar Award Finalist: The gripping account of an assassination on US soil and the violent foreign conspiracy that stretched from Pinochet’s Chile to the streets of Washington, DC, with a new introduction by Ariel Dorfman.

On September 10, 1976, exiled Chilean leader Orlando Letelier delivered a blistering rebuke of Augusto Pinochet’s brutal right-wing regime in a speech at Madison Square Garden. Eleven days later, while Letelier was on Embassy Row in Washington, DC, a bomb affixed to the bottom of his car exploded, killing him and his coworker Ronni Moffitt. The slaying, staggering in its own right, exposed an international conspiracy that reached well into US territory. Pinochet had targeted Letelier, a former Chilean foreign minister and ambassador to the United States, and carried out the attack with the help of Operation Condor, the secret alliance of South America’s military dictatorships dedicated to wiping out their most influential opponents.

This gripping account tells the story not only of a political plot that ended in murder, but also of the FBI’s inquiry into the affair. Definitive in its examination both of Letelier’s murder and of the subsequent investigations carried out by American intelligence, Assassination on Embassy Row is equal parts keen analysis and true-life spy thriller……… Amazon Books”

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Of course it can’t end there one must investigate what actually happened in Chile back in the 1970s and there is no better guide than –

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

by Naomi Klein (Author)

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I read this book many years ago and I am in the process of a re-read. Second time around the book is just as gripping and disturbing as the first time.

“The shock doctrine is the unofficial story of how the “free market” came to dominate the world, from Chile to Russia, China to Iraq, South Africa to Canada. But it is a story radically different from the one usually told. It is a story about violence and shock perpetrated on people, on countries, on economies. About a program of social and economic engineering that Naomi Klein calls “disaster capitalism.”

Based on breakthrough historical research and 4 years of reporting in disaster zones, Klein explodes the myth that the global free market triumphed democratically, and that unfettered capitalism goes hand-in-hand with democracy. Instead, she argues it has consistently relied on violence and shock, and reveals the puppet strings behind the critical events of the last 40 years.

“The shock doctrine” is the influential but little understood theory that in order to push through profoundly unpopular policies that enrich the few and impoverish the many, there must be a collective crisis or disaster—real or manufactured. Klein vividly traces the origins of modern shock tactics to the economic lab of the University of Chicago under Milton Friedman in the 60s, and beyond to the CIA-funded electroshock experiments at McGill in the 50s which helped write the torture manuals used today at Guantanamo Bay. She details the events of the recent past that have been deliberate theatres for the shock doctrine: among them, Pinochet’s coup in Chile in 1973, the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991; and, more recently, the September 11 attacks, the invasion of Iraq, the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina. And she shows how—in the hands of the Bush Administration—the “war on terror” is a thin cover for a thriving destruction/reconstruction complex, with disasters, wars and homeland security fuelling a booming new economy. Naomi Klein has once again written a book that will change the way we see the world.” ………. Amazon Books

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I have always had a belief that as a nation or a culture we are trapped by our mythologies that some times bears no relationship to what actually happened way back when. Americans are trapped by myths surrounding the Founding Fathers, the Wild West and so on. Australians  and Canadians are trapped “Birth of Nation” myths spawned by the ANZAC Tradition and involvements in The Great War.

The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America 

by Greg Grandin (Author)

A new and eye-opening interpretation of the meaning of the frontier, from early westward expansion to Trump’s border wall.

Ever since this nation’s inception, the idea of an open and ever-expanding frontier has been central to American identity. Symbolizing a future of endless promise, it was the foundation of the United States’ belief in itself as an exceptional nation – democratic, individualistic, forward-looking. Today, though, America has a new symbol: the border wall.

In The End of the Myth, acclaimed historian Greg Grandin explores the meaning of the frontier throughout the full sweep of U.S. history – from the American Revolution to the War of 1898, the New Deal to the election of 2016. For centuries, he shows, America’s constant expansion – fighting wars and opening markets – served as a “gate of escape,” helping to deflect domestic political and economic conflicts outward. But this deflection meant that the country’s problems, from racism to inequality, were never confronted directly. And now, the combined catastrophe of the 2008 financial meltdown and our unwinnable wars in the Middle East have slammed this gate shut, bringing political passions that had long been directed elsewhere back home.

It is this new reality, Grandin says, that explains the rise of reactionary populism and racist nationalism, the extreme anger and polarization that catapulted Trump to the presidency. The border wall may or may not be built, but it will survive as a rallying point, an allegorical tombstone marking the end of American exceptionalism.” …… Amazon Books

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Here is another myth that has little or no basis in fact. It didn’t happen the way it has been portrayed in earlier books and films. There was no last stand and Mexico prohibited the owning of slaves and was actually on the side of freedom. This is one of a number of recent books that has exploded the myth. One wonders how the Texas tourist industry will address the demise of the myth.

Exodus from the Alamo: The Anatomy of the Last Stand Myth

by Phillip Thomas Tucker(Author)
“A startling new analysis of one of America’s most glorious battles . . . Contrary to movie and legend, we now know that the defenders of the Alamo in the war for Texan independence—including Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie and William B. Travis—did not die under brilliant sunlight, defending their positions against hordes of Mexican infantry. Instead the Mexicans launched a predawn attack, surmounting the walls in darkness, forcing a wild melee inside the fort before many of its defenders had even awoken. In this book, Dr. Tucker, after deep research into recently discovered Mexican accounts and the forensic evidence, informs us that the traditional myth of the Alamo is even more off-base: most of the Alamo’s defenders died in breakouts from the fort, cut down by Santa Anna’s cavalry that had been pre-positioned to intercept the escapees. To be clear, a number of the Alamo’s defenders hung on inside the fort, fighting back every way they could. Captain Dickinson, with cannon atop the chapel (in which his wife hid), fired repeatedly into the Mexican throng of enemy cavalry until he was finally cut down. The controversy on Crockett still remains, though the recently authenticated diary of the Mexican de la Pena offers evidence that he surrendered. The most startling aspect of this book is that most of the Texans, in two gallantly led groups, broke out of the fort after the enemy had broken in, and the primary fights took place on the plain outside. Still fighting desperately, the Texans’ retreat was halted by cavalry, and afterward Mexican lancers plied their trade with bloodcurdling charges into the midst of the remaining resisters. Notoriously, Santa Anna burned the bodies of the Texans who had dared stand against him. As this book proves in thorough detail, the funeral pyres were well outside the fort—that is, where the two separate groups of escapers fell on the plain, rather than in the Alamo itself. PHILLIP THOMAS TUCKER earned his Ph.D. in American History from St. Louis University in 1990. The author or editor of more than 20 books on military history, several of which have won national and state awards for scholarship, he has worked as a U.S. Air Force Historian for nearly two decades in Washington, DC.”  ….. Amazon Books
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This recent rewriting of history is having  almost explosive consequences for our perception of race and racism in the USA. I found there was a lot of poetry and padding in the book that I tended to skip over. However, the essence of the premise is compelling.

The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story

by Nikole Hannah-Jones (Author), The New York Times Magazine, Caitlin Ropder (editor), Ilena Silverman (editor) and others 

“ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, NPR, Esquire, Marie Claire, Electric Lit, Ms. magazine, Kirkus Reviews, Booklist

In late August 1619, a ship arrived in the British colony of Virginia bearing a cargo of twenty to thirty enslaved people from Africa. Their arrival led to the barbaric and unprecedented system of American chattel slavery that would last for the next 250 years. This is sometimes referred to as the country’s original sin, but it is more than that: It is the source of so much that still defines the United States.

The New York Times Magazine’s award-winning “1619 Project” issue reframed our understanding of American history by placing slavery and its continuing legacy at the center of our national narrative. This new book substantially expands on that work, weaving together eighteen essays that explore the legacy of slavery in present-day America with thirty-six poems and works of fiction that illuminate key moments of oppression, struggle, and resistance. The essays show how the inheritance of 1619 reaches into every part of contemporary American society, from politics, music, diet, traffic, and citizenship to capitalism, religion, and our democracy itself.

This is a book that speaks directly to our current moment, contextualizing the systems of race and caste within which we operate today. It reveals long-glossed-over truths around our nation’s founding and construction—and the way that the legacy of slavery did not end with emancipation, but continues to shape contemporary American life.

Featuring contributions from: Leslie Alexander • Michelle Alexander • Carol Anderson • Joshua Bennett • Reginald Dwayne Betts • Jamelle Bouie • Anthea Butler • Matthew Desmond • Rita Dove • Camille T. Dungy • Cornelius Eady • Eve L. Ewing • Nikky Finney • Vievee Francis • Yaa Gyasi • Forrest Hamer • Terrance Hayes • Kimberly Annece Henderson • Jeneen Interlandi • Honorée Fanonne Jeffers • Barry Jenkins • Tyehimba Jess • Martha S. Jones • Robert Jones, Jr. • A. Van Jordan • Ibram X. Kendi • Eddie Kendricks • Yusef Komunyakaa • Kevin M. Kruse • Kiese Laymon • Trymaine Lee • Jasmine Mans • Terry McMillan • Tiya Miles • Wesley Morris • Khalil Gibran Muhammad • Lynn Nottage • ZZ Packer • Gregory Pardlo • Darryl Pinckney • Claudia Rankine • Jason Reynolds • Dorothy Roberts • Sonia Sanchez • Tim Seibles • Evie Shockley • Clint Smith • Danez Smith • Patricia Smith • Tracy K. Smith • Bryan Stevenson • Nafissa Thompson-Spires • Natasha Trethewey • Linda Villarosa • Jesmyn Ward ” ….. Amazon Books

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Although I haven’t finished reading this book it did seem appropriate to add it to the list.

Hidden Terrors: The Truth About U.S. Police Operations in Latin America

by A.J. Langguth(Author), Mark Crispin Miller (Introduction)

A “devastating” exposé of the United States’ Latin American policy and the infamous career and assassination of agent Dan Mitrione (Kirkus Reviews).

In 1960, former Richmond, Indiana, police chief Dan Mitrione moved to Brazil to begin a new career with the United States Agency for International Development. During his ten years with the USAID, Mitrione trained and oversaw foreign police forces in extreme counterinsurgency tactics—including torture—aimed at stomping out communism across South America. Though he was only a foot soldier in a larger secret campaign, he became a symbol of America’s brutal interventionism when he was kidnapped and executed by Tupamaro rebels in Montevideo, Uruguay.

In Hidden Terrors, former New York Times Saigon bureau chief A. J. Langguth chronicles with chilling detail Mitrione’s work for the USAID on the ground in South America and Washington, DC, where he shared his expertise. Along the way, Langguth provides an authoritative overview of America’s efforts to destabilize communist movements and prop up military dictators in South America, presenting a “powerful indictment of what the United States helped to bring about in this hemisphere” (The New York Times). Even today, the tactics Mitrione helped develop continue to influence operations in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and black sites around the globe.”……… Amazon Books

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Last, but not least, this book is a recent addition to my reading list. It was prompted by a reader’s comment “That this book exists at all is a small miracle. When it was published in 1950, to one good review and one mixed, it disappeared from store shelves overnight. It wasn’t a hit; the CIA bought up every copy it could for destruction. That’s the workaround for a country that does not ban books per se.” How could one not want to read it?

All Honorable Men: The Story of the Men on Both Sides of the Atlantic Who Successfully Thwarted Plans to Dismantle the Nazi Cartel System

by James Stewart Martin (Author), Mark Crispin Miller (Editor), Hank Albarelli (Foreword), Christopher Simpson (Introduction).

“A scathing attack on Wall Street’s illegal ties to Nazi Germany before WWII—and the postwar whitewashing of Nazi business leaders by the US government

Prior to World War II, German industry was controlled by an elite group who had used their money and influence to help bring the Nazi Party to power. After the Allies had successfully occupied Germany and removed the Third Reich, the process of reconstructing the devastated nation’s economy began under supervision of the US government. James Stewart Martin, who had assisted the Allied forces in targeting key areas of German industry for aerial bombardment, returned to Germany as the director of the Division for Investigation of Cartels and External Assets in American Military Government, a position he held until 1947. Martin was to break up the industrial machine these cartels controlled and investigate their ties to Wall Street. What he discovered was shocking.

Many American corporations had done business with German corporations who helped fund the Nazi Party, despite knowing what their money was supporting. Effectively, Wall Street’s greed had led them to aid Hitler and hinder the Allied effort. Martin’s efforts at decartelization were unsuccessful though, largely due to hindrance from his superior officer, an investment banker in peacetime. In conclusion, he said, “We had not been stopped in Germany by German business. We had been stopped in Germany by American business.”

This exposé on economic warfare, Wall Street, and America’s military industrial complex includes a new introduction by Christopher Simpson, author of Blowback:America’s Recruitment of Nazis and Its Destructive Impact on Our Domestic and Foreign Policy, and a new foreword from investigative journalist Hank Albarelli.” ……. Amazon Books

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There you have it. Welcome to the “rabbit hole”
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Red Dirt Skinners at Studio 64

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Studio 64 (Kimberley) Spring 2022 Jazz and Blues Concert Series – Red Dirt Skinners.    – 2022/05/13,8pm

This was the original poster for the Red Dirt Skinners concert  but as we all know the pandemic has ruined many a plan of mice and men and here we are two years further down the road………..

Music is a performance art that, at its best exists at the moment of creation. It requires performers (obviously) and an audience in a physical environment that promotes the interaction between the two. Given the right mix the experience can be transcendental. During the pandemic there has been no shortage of downloadable digital music. Music is just about every where, but live performances have virtually disappeared. This has been extremely hard on performers. Incomes have disappeared and the emotional feed back required for the self actualization of the artist is non-existent. That has been the situation for over two years but now appears to be becoming to an end. The Pandemic is not over but restrictions on social and cultural gatherings are easing to the point where live music is emerging from its enforced hibernation. The Kimberly Arts Council Spring Jazz and Blues Concert Series is part of the renewal of the live music scene in Kimberley. The Melody Diachun Quartet concert in April was the very first in the 2022 Spring Jazz and Blues Concert Series. It was a very tentative step with only about 40 patrons in the audience. In this, the second concert in the series, the audience has been  increased to around 75. It is anticipated that for the third and final concert in the series the audience numbers will be back up to full capacity.

Keith Nicolas, on behalf of the Kimberley Arts Council, has been negotiating with The Red Dirt Skinners for over two years and after numerous cancellations and postponements, The Red Dirt Skinners (Rob Skinner – guitar, vocals and foot percussion; Sarah Skinner – back up vocals and soprano sax) finally made it to Kimberley for a much-anticipated concert. “The Red Dirt Skinners are an Anglo-Canadian multi-genre duo, who formed in 2011”. They had been very active in Britain and Europe before their “accidental” relocation to Canada about five years ago. As the duo explains it, they were contacted by the Stratford Festival for an engagement. It wasn’t until the festival organizers sent them airline tickets that they realized that it was Stratford Ontario and not Stratford, England. Driving to the gig would not be an option. They ended up doing 12 shows over 17 days. During that time they were exposed to some Canadian cultural norms such as Bear Spray and a whole new understanding of distances between gigs.  The engagement was so successful that the duo started looking at the possibility and final relocation to Canada.

Patrons may have a hard time categorizing their music. Based on the Kimberley performance I suggest they have a very unique blend of a “classic rock” vibe, singer/song writer sensibilities with jazzy melodic enhancements provided by the soprano sax. Their acknowledged musical influences include Supertramp, Pink Floyd, David Bowie and Queen.  Their repertoire is mostly original material with the occasional cover songs. As with the best of song writers their songs and stories have come out of a wealth of personal encounters and experiences. Currently their use of soprano sax in a rock environment is unusual. The only other similar use of the soprano sax that I can recall is Branford Marsalis performing with Sting in the mid 80s and 90s.

The evening kicked off with an original song advising young performers to follow their muse (“Why Don’t you listen to your own dreams?”). What followed was a number of songs that included an ode to the pandemic A Life on Pause; Hey Crawford – a nod to a long-time teacher they met in Ontario; Your Hearts Not Here – a song lamenting dementia; Bad Apple; Brighter Days Ahead; Blossoms and Rain (a day in Brussels); Lay Me Down; Day Break and a cover of David Bowie’s Space Oddity (“Ground Control to Major Tom”). For me the best story of the evening was “Frank’s” persistent request for Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb. The final song of the evening, Feet of Clay, celebrated Fionna Campbell’s eleven-year 20,000 mile walk around the world.

Here are some images from the evening ……..

    

     

Once again thanks must go to the Kimberley Arts Council,  the organizing Committee and the volunteers who made the evening possible. In keeping live music, well “Live”, they have stepped up to the plate in these difficult times. Thank you, Thank you, Thank You.

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POSTSCRIPT:

Here is a Youtube video that I think captures the essence of the Red Dirt Skinners in performance. It is a cover version of Dave Bowie’s Space Oddity. The vocals are spot on, the guitar is nice and crisp and the soprano sax intro and solo has a nice wailing aura. I have never been a fan of Dave Bowie’s music but after hearing this version perhaps I will have to reevaluate my opinion of his music.

Here is another couple of clips:

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COVID 19 – An ill-wind that blew some good.

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In late December 2019, a previous unidentified coronavirus, currently named as the 2019 novel coronavirus, emerged from Wuhan, China, and resulted in a formidable outbreak in many cities in China and expanded to every country on the globe. Millions of people have become infected and many millions have died. It is the greatest pandemic since the “Spanish Flu”  of 1919.  We have all experienced enough death, disruption and economic hardship to agree with the notion that the Covid-19 pandemic is an ill wind.

However, there is one impact of the pandemic that cannot be denied. The Covid-19 pandemic ended Donald Trump’s dream of a second term as the President of the United States. Despite a record number of lies, political fumbles and gross incompetence he had every chance of winning a second term but his mishandling of the pandemic brought that possibility crashing down. Personally I think that was a good thing. Consider the political events in the Ukraine over the last six months. Donald Trump had managed to muddle through most of his first term, by lying, firing staff, ignoring sound advice, shifting blame and, as I said muddling through. But Putin’s invasion of Ukraine imposed a whole new set of realities. Ones that could not be dismissed with unthinking random off the top of the head solutions. It required a realistic measured response based on good advice, knowledge of the issues, sound judgement and an ability to work with allies. So as terrible as it has been just imagine how much worse it could have been if Donald Trump was still in the White House with his finger on the “Nuclear button”

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Postscript: UNFIT – A trailer of an Anti-Trump documentary

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