Filed under: Health, Justice, Parenting, personal development, Politics, Scotland, social media, Writing | Tags: anti Semitism, Bevin Boys, Chilcott Enquiry, Churchill, Fenner Brockway, Great War, Hitler, Jeremy Corbyn, Ken Livingstone, Labour Party, Manny Shinwell, Michael Foster, Phillip Noel Baker, Second World War
WRNS, RNVR, & me
Today a friend on Facebook posted a tribute to her newly deceased uncle. In it she referenced his time as a ‘Bevin Boy’ called up to serve during the Second World War not in the Armed Forces, but as a coal miner. We sometimes forget that the whole armed struggle would have been in vain had not the infrastructure existed to support it. The post reminded me of a recently shared picture fron a veterans parade showing a weeping man, alone, carrying a wreath, marching as the last member of his battle group. It occurs to me that very soon there will be none of that generation who endured the Second World War left to remember it. It is not something that should be forgot.
Our politicians and captains of industry are of a generation whose eldest were but children in the war. For many the dark years of World War Two are nothing more than a source of cheap insults to score political points. It is sad to see the sacrifices of so many millions cheapened by a generation so fixed on their own gain that they treat the deaths of millions whether in mid Twentieth Century Europe or Twenty-First Century Syria with utter disregard. I was appalled when Ken Livingstone referenced Hitler’s support for a policy of forced settlement of Jews in Palestine is a cheap criticism of a particular political lobby. I was even more appalled when Michael Foster attacked those who supported Jeremy Corbyn as Nazi Stormtroopers. I was angry not just because of the dishonesty, but because it cheapened the sacrifices of a generation.
I don’t know much about my father’s war except that he spent most of it on a minesweeper keeping open the Mediterranean sea lanes and that he didn’t like Stukas. My mother was in the WRNS when she met him, she drove a lorry. I remember her telling me of how she drove the young men down to their ships and how when the ships returned to port she drove the bodies of those same young men back for burial because sea burials might have provided washed up bodies for Nazi propaganda. My uncle retreated across North Africa before Rommel and then fought his way through Europe from France to Germany. He told stories about his war, but only ever the funny anecdotes, he didn’t like dive bombers either. Every time a politician uses the war to score a debating point he pours contempt on the deaths and the scars seen and unseen of those who were there, that is why it is important that we keep their memories alive. The truth should not be buried along with the dead.
The Chilcott Enquiry stressed the importance of learning the lessons of the Iraq War. The truth is we are very bad at learning the lessons of any war, that’s why we keep fighting them. We dwell on the victories and acts of heroism and conveniently hide the truth of the profiteers who made money from the war, the treachery and cowardice that are also part of any conflict. As long as we glorify war we will breed new generations eager to fight them, of course we also continue to provide a good income for those who make and sell the weapons. Just as fortunes were established by slave owners and still enjoyed by their descendants today, so were the profits of war enjoyed by an elite whose children continue to occupy the upper echelons of society.
There have been commemorations of the battles of the Great War, but much less about the domestic history of that war. We remember Churchill sending tanks into France, but tend to ignore him sending them to crush demonstrations against intolerable labour practices in Glasgow. We are inclined to forget Mary Barbour and the brave women of the rent strikes exploited by profiteer landlords while their husbands were fighting and dying in Flanders. Ironically during all the commemorations of the Great War and the ignoring of the Rent Strike Conservative MPs, many of whom are landlords themselves refused to pass legislation compelling landlords to make the properties they let fit for human habitation. Finally as I think about the Clydesiders and the labour struggles of the earlier Twentieth Century my attention was drawn to a remark in yet another article about anti-Semitism in the Labour Party that quite rightly pointed out the valuable part played by the Jewish community in building the Party one of the writer’s examples was Manny Shinwell. I remembered a conversation I once had with Fenner Brockway about the need to capture the memories of the early campaigners while they were still with us. Of Manny Shinwell he said, “Manny was one of us, but he turned!” Not an anti-semitic comment merely an expression of Brockway’s lifelong refusal to compromise his socialist principles. Not long after that conversation I shared a taxi with Phillip Noel Baker and he talked non stop about Eleanor Roosevelt, I wished I could have recorded him. We allow too many of our past generations to go without leaving a record of their life, times and personal memories and opinions, we need to remember and learn from the lessons of our history.
Filed under: Health, Justice, Parenting, personal development, Politics, Religion, Writing | Tags: agnosticism, Bible, Christianity, Corinthians, Ecclesiates, Job, Judaism, Owen Smith, rat race, Richard Dawkins, St Paul, Taoism
The one problem with going to Lincoln for the Asylum is that I got behind on some of my targets. One of my goals for this year is to read the whole Bible again, To save weight I didn’t take my ‘One Year Bible’ with me because I expected to catch up by reading several days at once when I got home.
My return exposed a flaw in my plan, I was going to be playing ‘catch-up’ on the barrel of laughs that is the Book of Job while the New Testament readings were from Two Corinthians. I have elsewhere described this set of Bible readings as Misery and Mysogeny. In terms of tedium…well let’s just say I didn’t rattle through the readings as quickly as I had hoped If Job was miserable Paul was self serving and avaricious, One Corinthians actually had some good arguments (assuming one accepted the premises on which they were based), however the sequel is pitifully sanctimonious and self justifying. I can’t help closing the Bible each day with a strong feeling that Paul invented Christianity as a means of manipulating people into providing him with income and status. Of course he lived so long ago it is impossible for anyone to really know his mind, but this second letter to Corinth leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth and the stink of rotten fish in my nose.
Fortunately things picked up when Job gave way to the wonderful Ecclesiastes. The writer, the Philosopher, is so beautifully cynical I just revel in every word. Had he lived these days he would have probably been agnostic and rejected both the quasi religion of Dawkinism as well as Judaism and all the rest. He couldn’t express the cynicism of religion he obviously felt as fully as he would have liked, it would have got him killed, Jews didn’t tolerate any belief other than their own in those days. One thing the writer of Ecclesiastes demonstrates is that human nature remains largely unchanged with the rich and powerful exploiting the weak and foolish. Humans were as gullible than as now, as inclined to be led by their appetites rather than logic, and society was no less corrupt.
I don’t know what the writer of Ecclesiastes would have made of Jesus, but I suspect he would have had nothing but contempt for Paul. Actually I’m sure he would have been equally contemptuous of Richard Dawkins, Owen Smith, and all the politicians, preachers, aristocrats, businessmen, and celebrities who are deluded enough to think they are better than others. The fools who think that somehow their ability to walk on two feet makes them better than the animals they kill and eat. Those who toil in misery for wealth which never occurs as adequate. In the end all our endeavours are meaningless, all our beliefs are folly. There is only one thing of which any one of us can be certain and that is the inevitability of death, no matter how hard we try to prolong our lives the end is inevitable and inescapable. The best any of us can do is to enjoy ourselves now, while we can. On that note I may delay playing ‘catch-up’ and read Ecclesiastes again, in a somewhat dull set of scriptures it is a gem of humour and good sense. There’s something very much of the Taoist about the writer of Ecclesiastes, I like him!
Filed under: disability, Health, Parenting, personal development | Tags: CFIDS, chronic fatigue, chronic illness, ME
Recently a friend posted about her continuing health difficulties. She overexerted herself while suffering from influenza, now a year later she is still unwell and it is being explained as post-viral debility. That is a road down which I too have walked.
When I was a manager and training officer as well as being the Managers’ Association Branch Chairman I was busy. I had been busy in the Union Of Communication Workers negotiating around Operator Grades Restructuring and then I was promoted. As well as being in charge of night staff training I was travelling all around the country training people in Customer Care and I loved it. I also deputised for the Night Manager when he was away for any period. I also managed both a team of Operators and Senior Operators as well as the Exchange training Team, in one year I had to appraise thirty people. I enjoyed the responsibility of management, the satisfaction of running successful trainings, negotiating as am Association official, speaking at conference. I used to get the occasional cold and flu, but they didn’t stop me, I worked through them. Iworked through them until my body just gave up on me. During one bout of flu I became too ill to work and was forced to take a little time off. I rushed back to work as soon as I could, but was hit by bout after bout of illness. I was exhausted, tired all the time. At first I was diagnosed as being ‘post-viral’. Eventually my Doctor diagnosed me as having Chronic Fatigue and Immuno Dysfunction Syndrome. I spent months in bed , but gradually built up my levels of activity. However I was off for a year before after a phased return of several months I started working full time again. Sadly it was felt that the irregular shifts of the night staff would no longer suit me, nor the rushing around the country and so I worked for some years a a day staff team manager.
After a while I was so much better I began getting busy again, taking on all sorts of extra activities. What I had not realised was that the illness was dormant rather than gone. It was not long before I found my body rebelling again. I fell prey to every passing virus and the muscle pain and exhaustion returned. However I gradually learned to recognise when my CFIDS was getting ready to hit me again, and I learned to reign back my activity and rest. Didn’t always manage it and I paid, but I discovered that there was a particular physical sensation heaviness which when accompanied by a distinctive sore throat generally meant an attack was coming. Sometimes I still do too much especially when after weeks of rain I get a couple of good days to get on with the work in my garden. Several times I have paid heavily for excessive enthusiasm. This year I have been struggling with discomfort for much of the summer, but I haven’t hit the point of shut down because I have finally been self disciplined about pacing my activity. I have used a timer to measure my physical labour and made sure I rested. When I have been tired I have forced myself to accept that some tasks had to be postponed. What I have learned is that it is always possible to substitute a lighter physical activity for a heavy one. Sometimes I have to spend a day resting, some days I have been unable to stay on my feet for any period of time. However when I take the rest I need instead of just forcing myself to continue, the sooner I am able to get up and get on with living.
One of the greatest lessons I have learned is that my duty is to myself first and if I cannot function I cannot effectively serve others either. The frustration of my CFIDS when it was at its height aggravated my periodic depressions. Now I have learned that my happiness matters and restores my health and energy. I have found that being ill does not mean I have to be miserable. I have long used the Marx Brothers as a counter for an incipient depression, now I try to always do something pleasurable when unwell because it seems to promote recovery. I read, I watch DVDs, if I am up to it I go to the cinema or even use my over Sixties bus pass to take a day out (sadly I’ve only managed it once so far this year). It is important to have fun and it promotes recovery. Feeling good makes me feel better. Feeling good about myself makes me feel better and feeling good about myself means accepting what is so and being good to myself instead of wallowing in regrets or resenting what I can’t do. And sometimes I reflect on how lucky I am to be able to do all that I can when so many people are compelled by circumstance to do so much less. My illness was a blow, it was inconvenient, I believed for a while it was ruining my life, but what I now know is that it was teaching me the lessons about living sensible and looking after myself that I was too stupid or too busy to learn for myself.
As those who know me know, every day I practice gratitude as I journal. I cannot honestly yet say I am grateful for my CFIDS, but I am grateful for the lessons I have learned from it, and I am glad I have learned to be kind to myself. People say, “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” I think it’s probably better for everyone if you do unto yourself what you would have others do unto you. After all why should others treat you well if you aren’t aren’t willing to?
Filed under: asperger's syndrome, autism, Health, Justice, Parenting, personal development, Poetry, Politics, Religion, social media, success, Writing | Tags: Bible, Corinthians, est training, friendship, Landmark Education, love, St Paul
Taj Mahal: Love Endures
While much of the time I find Facebook intensely irritating I do find its reminders of what I posted last year or three or four years ago very enjoyable. I suspect others do too. Today a friend of mine posted a photo taken of him, his wife and two friends outside a bar in Corfu several years ago. I wasn’t there, I don’t know the bar, but I do know all the four people in it. I haven’t seen three of them for many years, although I encounter them on Facebook, and it reminded me of how much I enjoyed their company when we moved in the same circles.
This weekend my wife and I had been hoping to get to a celebration of the life of a friend who died recently. I knew him when I was a student, my wife knew him through his daughter. It would have been nice to meet her again, we haven’t seen her since she stayed with her two young children. Then the younger was in nappies now he’s recently become engaged.
Sometimes it amazes me how quickly time flies by. At a family gathering recently I found myself reflecting on how recently the adults around the table had been the children served first so they could play while their parents enjoyed their own dinner. Now they sat with us as their children played.
However love pays no heed to the passage of time and the people we let into our hearts tend to remain there while many others we meet fail to find a lodgement and pass out of memory. The photograph of my friends showed me that I feel as warmly about them now as I did when we were all involved with the work of Landmark Education. My happy memories of skiing with them in Italy when my daughter was small are undiminished. It is funny how they remain so alive in my memory while so many others have faded. Of course one of the joys of that photograph is that it unlocked all my memories of them. “The mind is a complete multi-sensory record of successive moments of Now.” I learned in my Est training and it stuck with me. My friends faces allowed me access to every memory I have connected with them and it brightened up my whole day.
It is a shame that it is impractical to get to the memorial event at the weekend. However merely knowing about it and thinking about the people involved, just as my friends’ photograph did, brings up a feast of memories and in this case valuable lessons learned. Lessons that go back over forty years. A good lesson is as valuable now as even a couple of thousand years ago. One of those lessons of which the photo and the celebration I will miss remind me is that love never ends.
I generally dislike St. Paul for all the usual reasons: misogeny, twisting Jesus to fit a dodgy theology etc., but sometimes he wrote something good, sometimes beautiful. I had thought to quote one verse of 1 Corinthians 13, but the whole piece is too beautiful to cherry pick. (I personally would usually use the KJV, but the RSV is probably easier to grasp so here it is.)
“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
Filed under: NLP, Parenting, personal development, Saivism, social media, Writing | Tags: Brianna: A Life Between Lives, Full Nelson, Hotel Caledonia, NLP World, Raging Twilight, Rory Patton, The Ferry
Regular readers (its nice to be able to write that, thank you. You may not be many, but you are precious!) will know the great store I put on gratitude and that everyday I note things for which to be grateful in my journal. It is good to be grateful, but it is truly wonderful to be appreciated.
When people share my blog posts on social media they will sometimes make a positive comment. I get far fewer comments actually on my posts, probably because I tend not to be controversial and prefer not to hurt people unnecessarily. I have some regular commentators which is nice. However the last couple of days have been really good. While I was writing my as yet unpublished post about seeing ‘Raging Twilight‘ and ‘Full Nelson‘ at the Ferry my mind took me off on a tangent and the post I published was ‘Don’t Turn Up Your Nose At Tribute Bands‘. It was just an expression of appreciation for the demanding job they do entertaining someone else’s fans. I put it out into cyberspace like my other blogs and expected to hear no more about it.
I was absolutely gob smacked when I got comments from members of two tribute bands, ‘Hotel Caledonia‘ the Eagles tribute band (who are coming to the Ferry on the seventeenth of September) and the afore mentioned ‘Full Nelson’ (They’ll be back on the twenty-ninth of April). It is nice to actually know you’ve managed to reach the people who needed to be reached and that they feel appreciated, it is doubly nice when they express their appreciation of your appreciation.
As a writer no matter how pleased I am with a piece I have no way of knowing whether it is any good unless I get feedback from readers. All feedback is good, but good feedback is better. Actually in all honesty well reasoned negative feed back is probably more useful, but I like to feel appreciated. Today has been a good day,first there were the positive comments on my blog, but then I was tagged into a post on the NLP World Practitioners Facebook page, I visited to see what was being said. I was delighted to find it was a very appreciative comment from someone who is reading my book ‘Brianna: A Life between Lives‘ and enjoying it. As I said to her it made my day…yes I do feel lucky!
Filed under: asperger's syndrome, disability, Justice, Parenting, Politics, Religion, Scotland, Yes Scotland | Tags: Better Together, Brexit, Jeremy Corbyn, Labour hustings, Labour leadership, Labour Party, New Labour, NHS, Owen Smith, PLP, Red Flag, Scottish Labour, Tony Blair, Welfare Bill
I watched the live stream of today’s Labour leadership hustings from Gateshead. Afterwards I posted a couple of comments from Hootsuite, but I deliberately didn’t go into Twitter because I didn’t want my thoughts to be influenced by anyone until after I had captures them in the raw.
To give credit where credit is due, Owen Smith performed well for the most part. I liked the policies he was putting forward, most of them appear to have originated from the Corbyn left wing of the party, but all the time I had the nagging thought that he is a very recent convert to socialism. I don’t get that there is any consistency in Smith’s position whereas with Corbyn his whole life is in alignment with his policies and stated beliefs. I want to believe Smith, but on his record I find myself suspicious of his conversion to socialism.
Owen Smith and the right claim Corbyn is unelectable, however if –as they claim – the country didn’t elect Labour because their policies were too left wing, why would they vote for Owen Smith who is putting forward the same left wing policies as Jeremy Corbyn? The only difference is that we know Jeremy Corbyn is standing for what he believes, whereas there is a strong suspicion that Owen Smith will quickly ditch his newly adopted socialist policies again in order to make himself electable.
I was a little disappointed at one point by Jeremy Corbyn. When Smith was talking about the importance of opposing the Tories I think Jeremy should have asked him why he just sat on his hands and watched as the Tories passed their Welfare Bill. Corbyn and the left actually did oppose the Bill and voted against it. Sometimes I wonder if Jeremy isn’t too decent and too noble, but he has a strong moral code and he doesn’t hit below the belt.
I have to confess I gave up voting for the Labour Party a long time ago and my last few votes were because I respected the candidate as a person despite them representing Labour. I used to love the Labour Party, I was a very active member, but the day came when it dawned on me that it was pointless to support them because they had become just another party of business. It is small surprise they never sing the Red Flag beyond the first verse and chorus because they might choke on the words of the fourth verse:
“It suits today the weak and base
Whose minds are fixed on self and place;
To cringe before the rich man’s frown,
And haul the sacred emblem down.”
Whenever I sing it I see before me Tony Blair’s New Labour and his acolytes in the Parliamentary Party as they try to cling to control of the Party whose values they perverted. I am not saying labour should be some sort of revolutionary Marxist party, But it should be the peoples party, the workers’ party. Labour was built by the trades Unions and their members, its roots lie more in nonconformist Christianity than in Marxist theory and its founding fathers travelled the country with all the zeal of Weslyan preachers. When I look at Jeremy Corbyn I see that zeal, when I look at his supporters I see the vision that brought the labour Party into being and gave us the National Health Service, council housing, education accessible to all. I look and listen to Owen Smith, I want to believe he shares the vision, but I’m not convinced. I see how the establishment has launched a war on Jeremy Corbyn and all he stands for and I see Owen Smith on the wrong side of that war. I want to like him, but I cannot bring myself to trust him.
However much Owen Smith impressed me, and he did impress me, he’s a very good performer, he totally destroyed that on the last question when in his answer he made it clear that regardless of how the party votes in the leadership election, rather than work with Jeremy Corbyn to unite the part and take the fight to the Tories, he would prefer to continue to stay out of the shadow cabinet and undermine Jeremy Corbyn from the back benches. However much I had been willing to see Owen Smith as a possible leader, at that point all his words suddenly rang hollow. It was as if after everything he said he ended with “Oh and by the way I’ve been lying to you all the time and I think you’re stupid enough to let me get away with it!” I have always been inclined to prefer Corbyn, I must admit, but now I am actually opposed to Owen Smith. I don’t want to be, I want to believe he’s a good man, but I have sincere doubts about him. I could well vote for Corbyn’s Labour Party, but it would depend on their position on Scottish Independence.
However I will watch the other debates before I make a final judgement, I hope they will clarify whether they could accept Scottish Independence should the Scots call for it. I can’t help but feel that the final nail in Scottish Labour’s coffin was sharing a platform with the Tories in Better Together, a trap Corbyn didn’t fall into over the EU Referendum. I would also like to hear how they will handle a post Brexit Britain. Owen Smith tonight made it very clear that he will block Brexit if he gets the opportunity whereas Corbyn respects the democratic will of the people, but seems intent on mitigating the damage it might do. Id like to hear their proposals for protecting human rights post Brexit.
This is going to be an interesting summer!
Filed under: Film Reviews, Justice, Parenting, Politics, Religion, Technology | Tags: Black lives Matter, democracy, justice, Labour Party, Law, media, order, social justice, terrorism, Turkey, values
I enjoy the occasional television drama. One favourite is ‘Person Of Interest’. However watching it today I found myself reflecting on how we are being fed a constant stream of dramas designed to undermine the moral values of society. In many of these stories the heroes are vigilantes like Arrow or the ‘man in the suit’ taking the law into their own hands because of failures in the justice system or deliberate perversions of justice.
Worse than the vigilante is the almost casual acceptance that law enforcers will bend the rules to ‘maintain order’, ‘keep America safe’, ‘wage war on terrorism’. We are fed a constant stream of tales where justice is only served because intrepid law officers spied on personal communications, provoked dissidents into terrorist actions for which they could actually be arrested. We are constantly told by our heroes on television and film that we need the eye in the sky, the CCTV, the phone tap, the DNA library, the electronic ID card. And when our politicians try to impose these things upon us we are told, “If you are doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear!” If that were true then why are ‘Black Lives Matter’ protesting? Why are journalists being locked up without trial in Turkey?
We cannot be complacent it is in the West that our favourite shows are set. It is we who are being told day in and day out that the price of our safety is the loss of our freedom. That sometimes an innocent man may be shot in the Underground and that’s unfortunate, but worth it if we are to be safe. How do we address these mistakes? More surveillance, more surveillance and less oversight of those who are watching us. We are being told that public order is more important than natural justice. That democracy is too important to be entrusted to the voters.
You may not believe me but just look at the efforts of the establishment to deny democratic freedoms. A Labour Party establishment that wants to deny its members the right to choose their leader, their representatives even the issues on which they will campaign; the other parties are no better. A press that denies coverage or a voice to all whose opinions and beliefs run counter to those who own the levers of power. Effectively the establishment compels direct action by those who wish their voices to be heard and then quashes them in the name of public order. When the limits on freedom are increasingly restricted it is inevitable that decent people will have to fall foul of the law sometimes. Sometimes people have to choose to break the law to protest injustice, there is an ethical argument for doing so.
What is not acceptable, but what our television dramas are telling us is not only acceptable, but necessary is for those charged with upholding the law to bend and break the rules to preserve order. When order is preserved at the expense of the law, when already draconian laws are bent by the establishment we do not have rule of law, we have dictatorship. Dictatorship, not by one person, but a class, but dictatorship none the less.
Filed under: food, Parenting, Steampunk, Technology | Tags: Blue Peter, Glasgow Ubiquitous E Steampunk Society, Lassi, Lidl, recycling, Steampunk Goggles, Valerie Singleton
Dedicated to Valerie Singleton!
This is a piece I wrote for the Newsletter of the Glasgow Ubiquitous E Steampunk Society. It seems a shame not to get the maximum mileage out of it!
In Lidl recently they had various flavours of Lassi on sale. As I took off the lid with its circular see through top I thought ‘Goggles’ as you do. Although Lassi is only on sale periodically, their iced coffee drinks come in similar pots.
Materials: 2 Lassi drinks.
1 sheet A4 card
3 paper fasteners
glue (I used a hot glue gun)
paint (I used Humbrol Enamel 62 Leather and Revell Email Color 93 Copper)
1. The first step was to drink the Lassi (Yum) remove the cardboard outer, the wash and dry the pots.
2. Using a pen (Sharpie) O marked out the shape of the body of the goggles. I copied it from my usual goggles. However as these goggles are designed for decorating a hat and not serious use I dare say you could be more fanciful if you wished.
3. Cut out the goggle cups. I used scissors, if you cut outside the line you can trim them later.
4. Mark lines where you will cut the plastic for the straps and nose piece. 
5. Because the plastic is flimsy I taped inside the goggle cup to reinforce the slit I was about to make.
6. Using a modelling knife, very carefully cut slits for the straps and the nose piece.
7. I had an elastic strap left over from when I replaced it with a leather one. However I thought it would be more in keeping with the build to use something cheaper so I cut two lengths of paper card the width of the slit from the long side of a sheet of A4 paper.
8. I cut a strip of plastic the width of the nose slit from the remaining piece of one of the Lassi pots.
9. I folded the plastic strip in half and the folded it towards either end the provide a tab for gluing. (See picture next to 5.)
10. I painted the straps and goggle cups with leather coloured enamel paint. The straps being absorbent only really need one coat. The cups are translucent and so need a second coat after the first is dry. You could alternatively cover the cups with ‘sticky-back plastic’ as the great Valerie Singleton used to say.
11. I painted the ‘lens housings’ with copper paint. Again you can use what you like, I’m just using what I have available and need to use up anyway.
12. When the second coat of paint was dry I glued together the two sides of the nose piece.
13. Push the nose piece through the slits (carefully) and glue.
14. Gently push eye cups into the lens housings.
15. Push one strap through a slit and fold back on itself. Remove again.
16. Fold both straps together so fold is in the same place.
17. With straps folded, pierce a hole through all four sections so holes are in the same place on both straps.
18. Push both straps through the slits in either cup with shorter end on inside.
19. Join each strap to cup with a paper fastener.
20. Sit the goggles on a hat to test strap length. (My straps were okay, but if you have a larger head you may need to cut your straps diagonally from the card.)
21. Now its time to fasten the straps. I cheated and took an adjusting buckle from an elastic strap, but you could simply fasten with a paper fastener. I folded the end of one strap around the middle of the buckle and pierced a hole for the paper fastener. I pushed one leg through the buckle to make a tongue and bent the other leg back to secure the strap.
22. Pass the other strap GENTLY through the buckle and until the goggles are snug against the hat, then mark where the tongue will pierce the strap and shape the end of the strap with scissors.
23. Remove the strap. Pierce the hole for the tongue.
24. Pass the strap back into the buckle, pass the tongue through the hole, and pass the end of the strap out through the other side of the buckle.
25. Add cogs or whatever to taste…or lack of it!
NOTE: These are made of plastic and paper and not designed for rough use. Having said that, they are sturdier than I expected and it would be possible to make them considerably stronger by covering the cups with sticky-back plastic and using a double thickness of card for the straps.
Filed under: disability, food, Health, Justice, Parenting, Politics, Religion, Scotland, Technology | Tags: Bible, Christianity, ethics, god, Jeremy Corbyn, Jesus, Jews, Judah, just war, Matthew's Gospel, Muslims, nuclear weapons, Parliament, Romans, St Paul, Trident
I was watching on the Parliament Channel a re-showing of the debate on trident renewal that took place on the 18th of July and what became clearer to me than anything was the incredible dishonesty of many MPs on both sides of the house. It is ironic that while MPs try to smear Jeremy Corbyn with being anti semitic the majority of the House of Commons including many of those who pretend to be Jews, Christians and Muslims voted to replace Trident. A move that at best displays no faith in God, by whatever name and at worst displays an utter contempt for God. Any one who supports Trident and professes to be a Christian or a Jew is a hypocrite, possibly a liar. I wont comment on Muslims as I don’t know their scripture well enough. However anyone who voted to replace Trident is demonstrating a faith in the works of man rather than God, effectively everyone who in the face of a dangerous world puts their trust in weapons of mass destruction is an idolater.
The only people who support the use of nuclear weapons are those who reject the power and promises of God and it occurred to me that the story of King Asa of Judah who had on God’s promise defeated a vastly superior Sudanese army but later instead of faith turned to paid allies to defeat the Syrians (Do they never stop fighting in that part of the world?).
‘At that time Hana′ni the seer came to Asa king of Judah, and said to him, “Because you relied on the king of Syria, and did not rely on the Lord your God, the army of the king of Syria has escaped you. 8 Were not the Ethiopians and the Libyans a huge army with exceedingly many chariots and horsemen? Yet because you relied on the Lord, he gave them into your hand. 9 For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show his might in behalf of those whose heart is blameless toward him. You have done foolishly in this; for from now on you will have wars.” 10 Then Asa was angry with the seer, and put him in the stocks, in prison, for he was in a rage with him because of this.’
Those without faith trust in man made solutions and like Asa attack those who stand up for the truth like Hana’ni, who point out the flaws in depending on nuclear weapons.
I don’t profess to be a Christian, I have far too much respect for Jesus to support the hypocrisy of the churches. However I was reading, the other day, that theological tour de force the ‘Letter to the Romans’ even for those of us who don’t accept Paul’s theological premises it is a magnificent argument. Christians are bound to believe it and so I might remind them of Paul’s observations on Abraham,
‘Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”[d] 19 Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. 20 Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthenedin his faith and gave glory to God, 21 being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. 22 This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.‘
If someone prefers to put their trust in Nuclear weapons rather than in the promises of the God they pretend to follow they can protest their faith as much as they like but as Jesus says you know the truth about them by their deeds,
“Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.” And Trident is a weapon for faithless cowards. I can say that as someone who has in the face of physical attack turned the other cheek…okay that didn’t actually go too well, if I’m honest, but at least having lost I didn’t go and murder not only my aggressor, but his family, everyone he knew and burn all his possessions. Trident is not a weapon of deterrence, but of revenge and only someone without courage or any moral decency would consider using it. Jesus was awfy hard when it came to morality, he’d say that anyone who is prepared to use nuclear weapons is a murderer; if you don’t believe me read the fifth chapter of Matthew’s Gospel.
There is a somewhat suspect idea that wars can be just and there are criteria for a Just War. Anyone who accepts the possibility of using nuclear weapons is committing themselves to injustice. We should expect that of the Conservatives who think nothing of condemning millions of hard working people to lives of grinding poverty, but we should expect better of the Labour Party.
There are six conditions must be satisfied for a war to be considered just:
- The war must be for a just cause.
- The war must be lawfully declared by a lawful authority.
- The intention behind the war must be good.
- All other ways of resolving the problem should have been tried first.
- There must be a reasonable chance of success.
- The means used must be in proportion to the end that the war seeks to achieve.
A war that starts as a Just War may stop being a Just War if the means used to wage it are inappropriate.
- Innocent people and non-combatants should not be harmed.
- Only appropriate force should be used.
- This applies to both the sort of force, and how much force is used.
- Internationally agreed conventions regulating war must be obeyed.
(What is a Just War? http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/war/just/what.shtml)
It is impossible to use nuclear weapons without killing innocent people. Anyone who is prepared to accept the deaths of millions of innocents is someone who effectively considers the lives and rights of human beings as immaterial compared to the achievement of their own ends. They are exactly the sort of people who accept that it is acceptable to throw people out of work to protect profits, that it is appropriate to exploit those who are powerless to resist and to legislate to remove the power to resist. Anyone who claims to support socialism, yet would squander billions on Trident is a liar. There is no socialist nuclear weapon and no one who has supported nuclear weapons has a right to be called a socialist. Quite apart from the waste of resources nuclear weapons represent, they display an utter contempt for humanity, they generally lead to repression in the name of security and an undermining of democratic rights. If someone who truly believes
in God cannot accept nuclear weapons how much more of an abomination are they to anyone who professes to love humanity!
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