Skip to content

April 2019

Weasel words

So far this year, the United States, which eliminated measles in 2000, has seen 465 measles cases across 19 states. The majority have occurred in ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighbourhoods in Brooklyn and Rockland county, New York, where parents have shunned the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, seemingly influenced by claims that the vaccine is not “kosher” because it contains “pig DNA”. In fact, the final product is highly purified and most rabbis accept that vaccines are not prohibited by religious laws.

Most rabbis is not all rabbis. And who are the most likely to be out of step with most? The ultra-Orthodox, that’s rather what it means.

Nope, not saying that they’re right, not saying that vaccine dodging is a good thing. Only that that argument, as given, is a particularly weasel one.

Ghastly bastards

Now that Virgin Trains is out of the running on west coast after refusing to back a multibillion- pound deficit in the rail staff pension fund,

That’s the Observer.

The actual thing being that there are pension deficits. And how much should the franchisee be responsible, the franchisee running the trains today and tomorrow, for the deficit run up yesterday?

Roughly, the government’s position is that we’ll let you know. The potential franchisee’s is that we need to know today so as to be able to bid the right amount – the right amount obviously including whatever past pension costs we’re going to be asked to cover.

That not being the way The Observer covers it – the bastards.

This lack of consistency has, largely, benefited the private sector, while simultaneously undermining the rationale of the franchising system. Virgin and Stagecoach were stripped of the east coast franchise last year after admitting they could not meet the promised £3.3bn in contract payments, but were under no obligation to meet that forgone financial promise. It was the third time in 12 years that a private operator had been removed from Britain’s most prestigious rail route after failing to deliver the billions of pounds they had promised to the taxpayer.

Neither of these cases sparked much of a public outcry because, in reflection of what matters most to passengers, safety and punctuality records on east coast have not been disastrous. This is thanks to a UK-wide, multibillion-pound investment programme underwritten by the state and carried out by Network Rail, the government-owned operator of tracks and stations.

The reason they wouldn’t meet the payments? Network Rail was late – again – on that promised upgrade of the line.

Bastards is too mild, isn’t it?

Well, how many should there be?

Stephen Poliakoff says it is ‘striking’ how few Jewish characters are portrayed in British TV dramas

Some 250,000 or so in the population. One in 200. Do we hit that sort of level of representation? In anything where the religion of the character is either im- or ex-plicit?

Actually, the real explanation is this:

Launching his new BBC drama Summer of Rockets,

Gotta say something to get the PR going….

Bully for social and economic rights then

Enhancing the status of economic and social rights in the UK legal system would lead to important changes. For example, English law currently unfairly permits landlords to evict tenants without giving a reason, but to comply with the right to adequate housing no-fault evictions would have to be abolished.

If someone wishes to change the use of their own property then why shouldn’t they? Isn’t the right to property a social and economic right?

There’s a reason for this

French rap superstar Niska: ‘American rappers don’t respect our art’

It’s because you’re doing it in French. No, not a comment upon American ignorance of everything non-American. But, dammit, you’re doing it in sodding French!

How interesting

Gregory Craig, a former White House counsel to Barack Obama, has been charged with lying to US authorities about his work alongside Paul Manafort for pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine.

So it’s not just Trump’s Republithugs then?

Silly business

Rupert Murdoch has been told he must overhaul independent oversight of The Times and The Sunday Times to win government approval for newsroom cuts.

Jeremy Wright, the Culture Secretary, said he was “minded to” approve an application from News UK, the media mogul’s British operation, to lift a ban on staff journalists working across both titles.

However, he said he was “unable to accept the proposed undertakings in their current form” due to concerns about “lack [of] clarity and certainty over roles and responsibilities” under a special governance regime meant to curb Mr Murdoch’s influence over UK media.

The rules were agreed with the Government when he bought both newspapers in 1981 amid fears…

The newspaper business has rather changed since 1981, no? But the bureaucracy carries on as if it hasn’t. Huzzah for regulatory control of the economy then, eh?

Amusingly wrong

Someone complains on an old comments thread:

Interesting this Tim Worstall character lives in the past, when by far away life was exceedingly easier back then. As somebody reasonably young I read his work as a remnant of a different era and not realistic. Maybe back in the 1960s back when you did not have to have years of experience to begin with. And you could live in the countryside for months on end with the money you had earned but it is not like this anymore. Realistic for somebody whose life experience is from the past to completely out of touch with the realities of the younger generation. My reality of life is nearer to the depression mate minus starvation to death, that perhaps that may be the reality. Tim Worstall forgets how easy life was after the Depression and Second World War up until the 1980’s and then there was the 1990’s when the inflationary realities changed the world substantially in the time.

Eh?

Once the economy had been gutted it was far easier to buy a hotel. Tim Worstall let me guess lives in a big fine house, with lots and lots of money whose has got where he has gotten where he is through being a realist and seeing the world through rose coloured glasses. Has forgotten his childhood in the depression or the second wall through his remarkable success in life probably unlike the luck of his parents perhaps and their generation la la la.

To be a child in the War/Depression you need to be in your 80s now. Over estimating me by a generation that is. And rather one of my consistent points is how much richer we are all now than even the 80s, let alone 60s.

Still, anon commenters and all that….

How do you get someone like this to see sense?

Traditional neoclassical economics was developed in an era when all knowledge systems essentially ignored ecological concerns. In conventional economics, value – which is created by generating profit and accumulating capital for owners and investors – is systematically extracted from the systems in which economic systems are embedded: the social and the ecological systems.

Profit and capital – they’re not the basis of neoclassical economics. Adding value is, sure. Profit being that portion of it that flows to capital owners. But every economic system is concerned with adding value because that’s the subject under discussion. How do we add value?

Owen Jones

I was never taught about LGBTQ issues, except when a teacher told a class that anal sex was bad for your health.

Well, arguably and in part it is. So are a lot of other things some people enjoy and others don’t.

The usual answer to such being that we tolerate those who wish to indulge yet don’t quite teach 5 year olds how to do it.

Or at least that’s how liberals approach such issues.

So why you paying out £800,000?

It is understood the striker has now agreed to settle the matter out of court and will receive a payment in the region of £800,000.

A spokesman for Brabners said: “We are glad that Ched Evans has agreed not to pursue this case, which we believe was entirely without merit. Brabners put forward a strong defence of Mr Evans claim following a thorough process and we were prepared to vigorously defend our handling of the case.”

Presumably your insurers thought you were bang to rights and 800 large was cheap to get out of it.

Hotel California

Brexit is set to be delayed until Hallowe’en after EU leaders imposed a six-month Article 50 extension on Theresa May.

Can they even do that?

Anyway, fuck ’em.

Finally, what do they hope the deal will be after delay? There’s still no agreement om what we’ll put up with, is there?

This is most fun

It looks like the EU will deliver their verdict on the UK today. It is that we are unable to decide. And because we can’t they’ll give us the time we need to go away and make up our minds.

It’s damning. What they can see is what we know: that we have a political class bereft of ability that is unable to think logically about an issue. Worse, tribalism matters so much that it’s not just compromise that is impossible for them; they are also beyond considering the national interest.

OK. So, the solution?

But most of all I wish for the essential reform that will permit real change in our society, which is electoral reform. We cannot suffer the incapacity that these parties have created for much longer. And that requires fundamental change.

So, we move to a system where the will of the people really is both expressed and enacted? A referendory (referendatory?) democracy perhaps, like Switzerland? Meaning that we’d already be out of the EU?

I may have mentioned this before

Back of my mind there was a writer at Rolling Stone. Foreign Affairs Desk before PJ O’Rourke. Maybe several peeps before PJ.

Same gonzo journalism. The writer was I think Oz. Used to have a paperback of the columns, decades back. One piece particularly recall was about Papua New Guinea. Started with a Kennedy(?) or a Rockefeller (more likely) being eaten by headhunters or something.

I occasionally try to find that collection of pieces but am rather limited by not being able to recall the blokes name.

Anyone got any idea?

Update – I wrote to Rolling Stone asking them. The editor’s inbox is full….

Super, well done to Robert.

Okker Chic, Michael Thomas, that’s the one.

Typical Frog idiocy

France has been an outspoken critic of allowing the UK to extend its EU membership without a clear plan, suggesting that Britain’s crisis should not be allowed to take the bloc “hostage”.

If we had a clear plan all agreed upon then why would we be asking for a bloody delay?

Twats.

Apologies, I just find this very funny

A prominent awards show for Indigenous music in Canada has been plunged into turmoil after a group of Inuit performers accused a Cree folk singer of cultural appropriation.

Several well-known Inuit singers have cut ties with the Indigenous Music awards (IMA), an annual show due to held in Winnipeg on 17 May, over the nomination of Connie LeGrande, who they accuse of improperly using Inuit throat singing.

In recent years, Canada has started to grapple with the issue of cultural appropriation as Indigenous people publicly challenge white artists for the use of Indigenous iconography and stories in their own work.

The current row, however, centres on an Indigenous artist, and raises questions over cultural borrowings between separate aboriginal groups.

“This is new ground – this is not ground we’ve walked on before,” said Kelly Fraser, an Inuk singer who has withdrawn from the award show in protest, along with throat singer Tanya Tagaq and the duo Piqsiq.

LeGrande, a singer from Alberta who performs under the name Cikwes, was nominated for best folk album for her album Isko, but Inuit performers said that the work uses a specific throat-singing style with deep cultural and historical ties to the Arctic. Nearly two months of talks between between the artists failed to produce an acceptable outcome, said Fraser.

LeGrande’s biography on the IMA website describes her singing as a “style of throat singing and chanting [which] celebrates the Matriarch, with a raw powerful and sexual presence”.

LeGrande did not respond to a request for comment, but has previously dismissed claim she is appropriating another culture, telling the Edmonton Star: “What I do is not Inuit throat singing. I went on and put my own expression and my own sounds because I don’t know their sounds.”

Much of the Inuit artists’ frustration centres on what they say is LeGrande’s failure to acknowledge the history and importance of throat singing in Inuit culture.

Throat singing, or katajjaq, was originally as a traditional game played between two women or girls. Guttural vocalizations are volleyed between the partners until one person breaks the rhythm and laughs – an exchange requiring intense concentration and focus.

Other times, it was used to help put small children to sleep.

Why are they all discussing this in English?

Elsewhere

What is it that the new millennial movement insists we should all have? Government planning the economy, government running healthcare: the two very things that we know it cannot in fact do. Simply because, as with even being able to identify children, government just doesn’t, and cannot, have the information necessary to do these tasks — and that’s before we even start to talk about the “Green New Deal,” which appears to be based upon the idea that giving Ocasio-Cortez a $93 trillion checkbook will work out well.

Reality tends to differ with these dreams, and reality is the bit that’s left over after you wake up. Government is necessary; yes, it is. It’s also really bad at doing things, so let us use it where we must and carry that load of everything else ourselves.

It’s quite impossible to understand why she can’t get a date

going on Tinder as a queer, dark-skinned black woman

Really not sure what queer means in this context. Aggressively lesbian? Politically and loudly lesbian? Dunno. But at a guess it means not hetero.

OK. It’s going to be a fairly small dating pool. Lesbians are some 1 to 2% of the population.

I am reminded with every swipe that my body is an irregularity in the world. I have somehow managed to be not just black, but darker than most people here in the Bay Area.

Could be. Would never say that race isn’t a factor in human relationships.

I have managed to ignore the trending master cleanses, the Atkins diets and all other manifestations of the thin-crazed California culture which paints my 300lb body into an oddity.

Ah. 21 stone is going to be, umm, a fairly specialised taste, isn’t it?

But as I got older it became exhausting to navigate relationships in my dark black body. It has become my job to remind the people in my life that the burden of their anti-black conditioning falls on me. If anti-blackness denies a black person their humanity, then the primary function of colorism is to normalize a world in which people are offered less dignity, empathy and, yes, desirability, the deeper their complexion is.

We sure it’s all about skin colour?

Our practice of a “queered monogamy” – my girlfriend and I welcome and encourage sexual and intimate exploration, both together and separately – allows me to witness all types of interactions between my body and the world.

Umm.

OK, 21 stone woman with nose ring looking for extra relationship quickie presumably with fellow lesbian. And the reason she can’t get a date is her skin colour?

Although I will give her one thing. California is markedly more racist than some other parts of the US. Yeah, I know, not how we normally think of it but…